Airt Transport News
Page 79
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IMPERIAL MAIL AGREEMENT REACHED.
THE Air Ministry and the General Post Office have made a joint announcement that the Governments interested in the proposed scheme for sending by air all first-class mails along the route between London and the Union of South Africa have now reached agreement. Whilst this move does not directly concern air transport within Great Britain, the project is too large to be passed by without mention.
The big Imperial flying-boats now being built will weigh 171 tons and will carry 31-5 tons of pay-load. They will fly the whole distance between London and the Cape twice weekly each way in four days, going up the Nile Valley to Kisumu and then out to Mombasa. The letter rate will be Id. per foz.
The agreement between all the Governments concerned with the line to Australia. and New Zealand is naturally taking longer to Complete, hut a similar scheme, bringing Sydney within seven days of London, with a twice-weekly flying-boat service, which will carry all the mails, as well as passengers, is proposed.
HESTON COMMERCIAL TRAFFIC MUCH INCREASED.
TRAFFIC figures for London's chief i airports, such as Croydon and Heston, are practically a barometer of activity on the air lines. Last August, for the first time in Heston history, the number of commercial-aircraft movements equalled the number of private movements in and out of the airport. October figures show that this equality at present applies only to the summer season.
Commercial traffic in October has dropped by 53 per cent, compared with that for August. Private flying, on the other hand, has declined by only
7 per cent. The seasonal nature of the holiday traffic to and from Jersey, the Isle of Wight, etc., largely accounts for this condition. Compared with that of October, 1934, the general traffic at Heston shows a 48 'per cent. increase in October this year and a rise of 38 per cent, in the number of air-line passengers passing,through the airport.
AN ILFRACOMBE SITE.
AE SIT which is suggested as suitable for Ilfracombe airport has been found on the Ilfracombe-BamstapleLynton main road, and is to be inspected by an Air Ministry official.
A REVIEW OF THE BRITISH AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY.
THE issue of our associated paper, The Aeroplane, dated November 13, contains a compact and 'imposing review of the British aircraft industry. A table gives the principal figures of every British aeroplane, including all the air-transport types. The machines are also separately described.
AERODROME FOR NORTH WALES?
FOR a long time the North . Wales resorts of Rhyl, Colwyn Bay and Llandudno have been regarded as likely to provide air traffic. The local councils have now been asked to consider the possibility of establishing either separate aerodromes or a joint airport. The councils of F'restatyn and Conway have been in conference with other local authorities and a further meeting has been arranged.
A JOINT MUNICIPAL SURVEY.
ASPECIAL committee, consisting of the municipal, engineers and surveyors of Co. Durham, Sunderland, South Shields, Jarrow, Hebbum, Felling, and the Northeast Durham Joint Town Planning Committee, has been set up to seek a suitable site in Northeast Durham for a municipal airport. • NEW SERVICES-FROM BRITAIN TO SCANDINAVIA.
RECENTLY a company called British Scandinavian Airways, Ltd., was
registered. The Earl of Halsbury is one of the subscribers. Little may he published about its intentions, but among the stated objects of the company is mentioned the establishment of air lines between Great Britain and Scandinavia.
Already the National Swedish and Netherlands companies operate the Scandinavian Express between Amsterdam and Malmo, with connections to and from London. The Malmo—Stockholm link will be opened to passengers early next year. A British company is likely to be subsidized to take mails on this route.
ANOTHER MOVE AT SWANSEA.
SWANSEA Borough Council appears now to be going ahead with its scheme to provide a landing ground for air services in time for next slimmer, and later to develop it as an airport.
There seems to be some demand for an extension of the lines of Mr. Norman Edgar and Railway Air Services; Ltd.. from Cardiff to Swansea, and there are possibilities for lines to Minehead, Llandrindod Wells (or Builth Wells), also perhaps to North Wales centres. With an airport. Swansea might become' the air-mail centre for West Wales.
GUERNSEY AIRPORT SITE CHOSEN.
THE States of Guernsey (the local HE recently held a fourhour debate on the airport question and decided that the site at La Villiaze, in the centre of the island, shall be acquired and developed as an airport. The area is about 100 acres. The undesirability of allowing a company or private group to own the only airport in the island was urged in the debate.