COMMERCIAL AVIATION.
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Some Topical Notes and Comments.
Aerial Services and the Strike.
THE great railway strike undoubtedly afforded a fine opportunity for the demonstration of the real utility of aerial services. During the first few days of the strike quite a considerable demand for the carrying of passengers by air was evident. The cessation of the train services left business men Urgently requiring personal transport. Perhaps for the first time, the aeroplane was used by the medical profession and began to figure as saving, and not as destroying, life. Naturally enough, the attention of the Government was focussed mainly on the possibility of continuing to convey urgent mail matter with eufficient promptitude by resorting to the employment of aereplanes. Unfortunately, the British Post Office appears, to have been rather negligent in this matter. There is nothing new about the idea of an aerial post, but we have, of course, realized that this country, owing to its comparatively small dimensions and the adequacy of its usual railway services, is not an ideal experimental ground for the development of an aerial mail system. Aerial mails have already been carried, with complete success, in the United States, France, Germany and other countries.
Early Mail Services.
As Tong ago as 1911, an experimental service was run in this country between: Ileridon and Windsor. At about the same time, the first long-distance air post was established in Franee and a second similar experiment was successfully made during a big aviation meeting in America.. The establishment of a real serious service, however, only dates back to 1917. In that year, an aerial post was started between Rome and Turin and a seaplane service from Naples to Palermo. In the first case, the object was to relieve the work of the Italian State railways, and in the second to convey mails without danger from hostile submarines.
Early in 1918, the first regular daily air post was established between New York, Philadelphia and Washington. This service proved so popular that many others were subsequently developed. The charge for the conveyance of letters was gradually reduced from 24 cents until it is now, in some cases, the ordinary postal rate of 2 cents. The advantages of the air mail over the more usual methods are, of " course, mainly obtained when distances are great or when a direct train service is impossible.. One does not expect a general inland air service to develop rapidly in this country, but the aerial method should certainly be fully ,employed as the recognized means of conveyance for all foreign mails.
Why the G.P.O. Failed.
Reverting to the attempts made by the British Goverm-nent to use aeroplanes during the strike, we find an unfortunate lack of preparedness. While it is perfectly clear that the whole system of utilizing road transport had been thoroughly worked out in advance, the same cannot be said of the aerial mail,
What was done was done in a hurry and without proper consideration. Aeroplanes which were really doing very geed work in the carrying of passengers were commandeered and incorporated in an ill-considered postal system. A special fee of 2s. per oz. was charged forletters conveyed by air from London. These letters could only be posted at two or three offices. The towns served in the first instance were Bristol, Manchester Newcastle, Birmingham and Glasgow. With sueliAimited services run at such high
rates and involving so much trouble on the part of the sender to get the letters to one of the sele,cted offices, it is not surprising that the air mail was, at first, badly patronized and had not, in fact, been converted .'into a real business proposition by the time the strike terminated.
If it had been possible, during the strike, to post letters in any pillar box for the aerial mail, merely by marking the envelope and paying, say, a shilling on each letter, the thifig would have gone well from the start, and ought to have proved profitable as well as beneficial. The telegraph lines and telephone services were, of Course, congested, which was, in itself, an encouragement to use the alternative method.
Roughly speaking, somewhere about 40,000 to 50.000 letters go to'the ton. Taking the former conservative figure, the receipts in respect of the full load of an aeroplane carrying one ton of useful weight would be. £2,000. If we assume only a half load; it would etill be possible to reduce the .charge to 6{1. instead of a shilling an ounce, and to make the air mail a very profitable concern.
The possibilities as compared with the carrying of passengers are enormous. If we take it that 15 passengers constituted One ton load, ,we can ,readily prove for ourselves how high the fares would have to be to correspond with the receipts which can readily be obtained by the carriage of mails at what would appear to the sender a very moderate charge. One would imagine, for instance, that a. regular aerial mail between London and Paris at a charge of 6d. per oz. would soon become a very paying undertaking, especially if the letters could be posted at any office or pillar box.
Passenger Journeys and Insurances.
So far as I am aware nothing has yet been done to get over what I feel lo be a real drawback in the way of the general use of aeroplanes for the carrying of passengers. Enormous numbers of insurance policies have been taken out during the past ten years or so after signature by the applicant on a document embodying a number of questions, one of which was as to whether he proposed to indulge in aeronautics. The reply, as they say in Parliament, was in the negative, because, at the time the policy was taken out the average man did not take aeronautics seriously. • Suppose now that this man took to employing aero planes for his business journeys and suppose that, in due course, he was so unfortunate as to meet with a fatal accident or to die of some illness which could conceivably be attributed to the fact that he had flown. In either such case, how would he stand with the insurance company? He has deliberately acted in contradiction to his signed statement. His policy might perhaps be invalidated thereby. In such eircumstancee, any man who has made his main provision for his dependents by means of insurance policies taken out within the list ten years or so must think twice before making even the simplest journey by air: The risk is nothing exceptional but, if the risk is liable to invalidate his insurance policies lie cannot, in fairness to his dependents, take that risk.
Surely it is time that there should be a general understanding among the insurance companies arrived at and advertised to the effect that the mere use of aeroplanes as a means of transit will net be regarded as in any way invalidating any policy, whatever statement May have been made when it was taken out. I suggest that it would be well worth the while of the aeroplane transport concerns to take this matter up with the insurance companies. BsainumeE.