TO SCHOOL BY AIR.

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19461, 28 December 1934, Page 10

TO SCHOOL BY AIR.

JUVENILE POINT OF VIEW EXPERIENCED AERIAL TRAVELLERS Among 'the interesting facts noted recently by officials at the London air-port is the growth which is taking place in the number of children who make journeys by airway. Some of these juveniles, despite the fact that they are still so young, are already becoming experienced aerial travellers. Take, for example, the case of little John T. Fowle, aged 5, who arrived at Croydon the other morning to make his fourth flight with his parents between London and Koweit, on the Persian Gulf. > After greeting the Captain of the air-liner, and taking a glance into the control-cabin, he sat down in one of the saloons and became engrossed at once with a jig-saw puzzle. An air journey was such a normal affair for him that he saw no reason at all to become excited. “The matter-of-fact attitude of this little boy,” remarked an official of Imperiol Airways. “Is 'typical of the majority of children avlio travel by air. No need to appeal to them to become ‘air-minded.’ They lake Ito flying like ducks to water. , “Just recently there was the case of a six weeks’ old baby boy whose parents took him for a. trip by air even before he had made a journey by train. “Not long'ago an American family, on alighting at Croydon from the Continent, declared that they had not used 'trains for several years, making all their journeys by air, except when •crossing the Atlantic by steamer. But they added that they had made up their minds to go down to Southampton by train, just because the children had said that they wanted to try the novelty of a railway journey. "When the air-mail from Africa reached the London air-port the other day, one of its passengffl’s was a child of three, who had flown more than 6000 miles to London from Salisbury, in Southern Rhodesia. “Quite often one sees boys and girls of not more than six or seven alighting from our air-liners arriving from the Continent. “Many of the children travelling by air are flying to and from their schools; and in addition to those who make such trips between London and the Continent, 'quite a number now fly for long distances on the Empire routes. Children who are at school in England, and whose parents may be living at points thousands of miles away, can now fly home for the holidays in a matter of-days; whereas if they travelled by land and sea such Journeys might take weeks and—remembering that the time of the trip both ways has to be taken into consideration —would often occupy so long that they would bo out of the question. “Frequently, nowadays, children travel alone by air, being placed in the care of the airway staff, and making their Journeys in perfect safety and comfort.”