New Road-Air Goods Services
Page 45
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I T is now possible to send consign ments from any part of Britain to any part of France and almost com pletely avoid packaging costs. Road and air transport have in common the attribute of requiring less packaging than rail or sea transport for the goods that they carry. Silver City Airways, Ltd., II, Great Cumberland Place, London, WA, now offers facilities for the collection of loads by road from any part of this country for delivery to Lympne, for conveyance from there by Bristol Freighter to Le Touquet and thence again by road to any part of France.
The company does not deny that air goods rates are higher than those for.
sea, but points out that total costs for many types of traffic, particularly the more expensive, are lower by the roadair method than by rail-sea, because little or no packaging is required.
A Freighter may be chartered to fly from Lympne to Le Touquet for £55.
The capacity of this aircraft is 5 tons. Individual loads may also be sent for carriage by the regular services.
Loads of 45 kilogs. or less are charged at the rate of 15 francs per kilog. This is the standard rate. A charge of 11 francs per kilog. applies to heavier consignments and is roughly equal to £11 a ton. A charge of I franc per kilo& is made for transferring loads into an aircraft from a lorry and vice versa and for Customs clearance.
A typical load of I ton to be carried from London to Paris would bear a transport charge of approximately £24, built up as follows: London-Lympne by road, £3; handling charge at Lympne, £3; air carriage, £11; handling at Le Touquet, £1; Le Touquet-Paris by road, £8. The total is about 20 per cent, greater than the comparative cost for rail-sea conveyance.
Another favourable consideration is that insurance premiums for road-air carriage are only a little over half those for rail-sea transport, because of the absence of marine-war and dockeranage risks. Actual rates are 5s. 6d. per £100 value for road-air transport and us. 6d. for rail-sea. . .
The company is gaining an increasing amount of goods traffic apart from the car ferry with which its name is greatly associated. Some of this has been on account of the speed possible with air transport, but it is now seeking traffic where the advantages will not so much be a saving in time but those already recounted.
Links with Hauliers
It has arrangements with British Road Services for road transport in this country (incidentally, reporting most satisfactory service) and Erb Freres for distribution in the industrial area of north-east France. Deliveries throughout the remainder of that country are undertaken by Paris Transport Routiers.
Services are also flown from Lympne to Ostend and from Southampton to Cherbourg. Among the goods carried from this country to France are vehicles, domestic appliances, radio equipment, aircraft components and publications. Return loads comprise machinery, textiles and foodstuffs of great variety, including Gervais cream cheese.
.This product is brought overnight to Le Touquet in refrigerated lorries and flown across to Lympne in 20 minutes. B.R.S. vehicles carry the cheese away and it is on sale in shops all over Britain 48 hours after production.