AIR TRAYSPORT NEWS
Page 41
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SOUTHAMPTON-PORTSMOUTH. PARIS: NEW DAILY SERVICE.
W/IIEN we published the provisional VI( summer programme of Portsmouth, SoutIlse°, and Isle of Wight Aviation, Ltd., several weeks ago, we said that the company had plans for
"one new major route." Details of this have now been practically settled. It is to be a daily service between Southampton, Portsmouth and Paris, and will probably start late this month.
Whether it will be run on Sundays is not yet decided. The machines will be Airspeed Envoys, cruising at nearly 150 m.p.h., and they will carry a pilot, a radio operator, and five passengers. They should make the crossing between Portsmouth and Le Bourge't in hour. For navigation, the company intends to use wireless telegraphy—not telephony. The Paris agent will be Hillman's Airways, Ltd. The Portsmouth-Paris fares will be £4 15s. single, £6 15s. week-end return, 27 1.5s. 15-day and 28 10s. 60-day return.
Through fares and bookings will be available not only over the P.S.I.o.W.A. system, but by Western Airways, Ltd (Cardiff and Bristol), Provincial Airways, Ltd. (PenzanceCroydon and Southampton-Hull lines), and Cobham Air Routes, Ltd. (Guernsey).
MOVE AMONG TRAFFIC MANAGERS.
ON May 30, at Heston Airport, there was a move to get together traffic managers of independent air-line operators. Mr. T. IL Chamberlain, of North Eastern Airways, Ltd. (LondonEdinburgh service), called the meeting, but as notice was short, few representatives attended. Another meeting will shortly be arranged through the Air Transport Section of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors, and
this should be better attended.
Traffic managers have many problems in common, and, of course, the chief trouble at the moment is the inability to sell their tickets through booking agencies which hold railway tickets. To some extent this difficulty has been overcome by booking through London Coastal Coaches, Ltd.. which has about 1,000 agents in London, also through the ordinary travel agencies which do not hold railway tickets.
There is a possibility that a proposition for the settlement of this difficulty will, before long, be put before the railway companies.
AVIATION SPIRIT FROM COAL.
AN estimate of the possible production of aviation spirit from British coal was made by Colonel W. A. Bristow, chairman of Low Temperature Carbonization, Ltd., when speaking, recently, at the annual general meeting of the Scottish branch of the National Smoke Abatement Society, at Stirling.
He said that, before long, lowtemperature smokeless fuel might be expected to provide 10 per cent. of British domestic requirements, and to replace this quantity of 4,000,000 tons of raw coal, about 6,000,000 tons would have to be supplied to the carbonizing plants. From this would be produced about 96,000,000 gallons of crude oil and 18,000,000 gallons of crude spirit suitable for the production of aviation spirit for the R.A.F.
He added : "If petrol were wanted, the whole of the 96,000,000 gallons of the crude oil could by hydrogenation be converted into 96,000,000 gallons of petrol, which, added to the 18,000,000 gallons produced from the gas, would give a total of 114,000,000 gallons of petrol."
ANOTHER NEW CHARTER CO.
ANEW company has been formed at Croydon to run air services to the Continent, and hopes to start its first service by July 1. This is British Continental Airways, Ltd., and the managing director is Mr. F. W. Farey Jones.
The first service will be from Croydon to Ostend, Le Zoute and Brussels, with four services each way on week-days, also one journey to Brussels and three to Ostend and Le Zoute on Sundays. Fares to Ostend and Le Zoute will be E3 Sc. single and £5 return, and to Brussels 24 single and £6 return.
The company recently took over its first Dtagon Rapide at the de Havilland works, and is expecting two more of these machines by the end of June. INTENSIFIED L.M.S. SERVICES TO THE ISLE OF MAN.
STATEMENTS in The Commercial Motor, this year, predicting heavy air traffic over the Irish Channel, are now being realized to the full. Besides the several daily services of Blackpool and West Coast Air Services, Ltd., and United Airways, Ltd., connecting the Isle of Man with Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool, Carlisle and Belfast. the operations of Railway Air Services, Ltd. (on behalf of the L.M.S. Railway Co. and the Isle of Man Steam Packet Co. Ltd.), have been much augmented.
There were previously two services daily each way between Manchester, Blackpool and the Isle of Man, but there are now five departures. The machines leave Manchester at 8.30 a.m., 9.15 a.m., noon, 1.50 p.m. sand 4.50
p.m., and Ronaldsway (at the south end of the island) at 10 a.m., 11.50 a.m., 3.20 p.m., 6 p.m. and 6.30 p.m.
A new service has also been started between Liverpool, Blackpool and the Isle of Man with three flights daily each way (Sundays included), leaving Liverpool Airport at 9.40 a.m., 12.25 p.m. and 4.30 p.m., and Ronaldsway at 11.50 a.m., 2.50 p.m. and (1 p.m.
Aeroplanes which leave fully loaded will not call at Blackpool, and will do the whole journey in an hour.
The Liverpool-Blackpool fares are 10s, single and 15s. return, whilst the Liverpool-Isle of Man fares are 130s. single and 50s. return.
The 12.25 p.m. machine from Liverpool and the 2.50 p.m. aeroplane from Ronaldsway connect at Liverpool with Railway Air Services from and to the south and west of England (Sundays excepted).
A BIG MACHINE FOR PASSENGERS AND FREIGHT.
!THE Avro 642 which Mr. John 1 Sword bought when his company. Midland and Scottish Air Ferries, Ltd., was running services from Glasgow, last year, and which has been virtually out of commission since then, has now been purchased by Commercial Air Hire, Ltd., the Croydon company which, since last summer, has run a newspaper service to Paris daily.