AERIAL MAILS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20363, 21 July 1934, Page 21 (Supplement)

AERIAL MAILS.

50,000 Letters a Week for India. TIME-SAVINGS NOW POSSIBLE. (Special to the “ Star.”) LONDON, June 9. JN all the developments now taking place in civil aviation, none is more remarkable, or more important, than the growth which continues to be recorded in the volume of air-mails along our Empire routes to Africa, India and the East.

Each week, now, approximately 50,000 letters leave London by the India air-mail, while the total by the service to Africa has grown to more than 30,000 letters a week, and is increasing constantly. To Karachi in five days! To Calcutta in six! To Singapore in eight! To Cape Town in nine! That is what our Empire air-mails mean, now, to the world of commerce in the acceleration of its correspondence with business houses overseas. One of the greatest romances of modern transport has been the extension, link by link, of these trunk airlines which now stretch for thousands of miles across the Empire. In July last the India service was carried on to Calcutta. In September another section was opened to Rangoon. Three months later yet another link was forged to Singapore; and recently the Australian Government accepted the tender, of Qantas Empire Airways, an associated company of Imperial Airways, for the operation of the additional 4400 miles which—towards the end of this year—will carry this great - air-line on to Brisbane, thus enabling an air-mail covering a total distance of 13,000 miles to be operated regularly between England and Australia.

When, five years ago, the first airmail was started to India, the time between London and Karachi was 7* days. Soon after that, when sufficient experience had been gained, the schedule was reduced to six days. Now, with the summer timetables of 1934, India is within only five days of London; while faster services to Africa have shortened from ten to nine days the 8000 miles air journey from London to Cape Town. A great increase in time saving has become possible as a result of these accelerations, in the transport ot letters along the Africa, India and • Eastern routes. To Bagdad the saving oveer surface transport is now from three to four days. To Delhi it has become as much as nine days. To Calcutta the saving amounts to ten days, and to Singapore fourteen days.

On the Africa rcute, comparing air and surface times, the flying mail now saves from six to nine days to Khartoum, eight to Cape Town, ten to Johannesburg, and from ten to twentyone to Nairobi. And yet the cost of sending a half-ounce letter b>' air-mail to British East Africa, where it may arrive three weeks ahead of mails that go by sea, is not more than sevenpence !