AIR TRANSPORT NEWS
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A NATIONAL PLAN FOR INTERNAL AIR TRANSPORT.
. The London Chamber of Commerce has submitted through the Air Ministry its views on certain aspects of the development of British civil aviation for the consideration of the Government. The memorandum put forward is in two parts.
The first reiterates the views on imperial air-mail services which were put before the Postmaster-General in June. The second deals with internal air services and submits that a national plan is called for. The Chamber suggests that ground equipment and traffic control of British air routes should be vested in a statutory body.
The recommendations of the Chamber agree with those made in an article on June 20 in our associated paper, The Aeroplane, which urged the need for a national survey of the air-route map of Great Britain to avoid misplaced development and wasteful competition with road and rail services, also to embrace matters of defence, air • mails, private flying, etc.
The G.P.O. Air-Mail Panel.
The Postmaster-General has appointed Rear-Admiral Sir Murray Sueter, M.P., and Major-General Sir Frederick Sykes as members of the Post Office Advisory Council to act on the Air-Mail Panel of the Council, to which he referred in his recent statement on the subject of internal air
He has also appointed Group Captain W. H. Primrose, D.F,C., R.A.F. (retired), to be Air-Mail Adviser to the Post Office. These appointments have been made so as to give the PostmasterGeneral a closer liaison with the Air Ministry, the air-service operators and the air-mail needs of the public.
Plymouth-Liverpool Line Time-table.
An important change has been made in the time-table of the PlymouthLiverpool air service, which has been operated since May 1 by Railway Air Services, Ltd. The return journey, which is made every day except Sundays, now starts in the morning from Liverpool, instead of from Plymouth. The departure from 11, James's Street, is at 8.20 a.m., and from Speke Airport at 8.40 a.m., with arrival at Roborough aerodrome at 11.55 a.m. and at Plymouth (North Road Station) at 12.15 p.m.
Departure thence is at 4.10 p.m. and from Roborough aerodrome at 4.35 p.m., with arrival at Speke at 7.45 p.m., and in the centre of Liverpool by 8 p.m. The change has been made because a careful study of traffic showed that the demand for a morning service from Liverpool was more important than for a morning service in the opposite direction. Our representative made the return journey recently and formed the impression that the scanty traffic on this route in May, June and July (when compared with air lines between London and the south coast and Jersey) has been due to unwillingness of the well-to-do people of Lancashire, the Midlands and South Wales to look upon flying as a normal means for travel.
The new time-table will make a difference. Until the air service was 'started, a short holiday in Devon or Cornwall was hardly worth awhile for Lancashire people, but the air journey can be made in 3 hours 10 minutes, against about 8 hours by train.
This summer, an entirely new traffic in Cornish cream, amounting to nearly 100 lb. per day, has developed. Hitherto it has not been practicable to serve fresh Cornish cream in Liverpool, Birmingham or Cardiff.
Heston Traffic Increase.
In July, 4,268 departures and arrival§ of aeroplanes were registered at Heston Airport between 10.30 a.m. and dusk. This is an increase of 8 per. cent. on June's figures. Heston companies report the following passenger figures for July :— Banco, Ltd., 551 (increase, 170 per cent.).
P.S.I.o.W.A., Ltd., 704 (increase, 46 per cent.).
Jersey Airways, Ltd., 1,047 (increase, 14 per cent.).
Hillman's Traffic: In the week to August 9 Hillman's Airways, Ltd., carried 169 passengers on its London-Paris service, and the figures for sections of the London-Belfast line were :—London-Liverpool, 6; London-Isle of Man, 12; London-Belfast, 14; Liverpool-Isle of Man, 14; Isle of Man-Belfast, 6.
3,769 Isle of Wight Passengers.
In the. week to August 9, which included the Bank Holiday week-end, 3,769 passengers were carried by the P.S.I.o.W.A. services between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, and 193 between London and the island. On the best day 1,019 passengers flew between Portsenouth, Ryde and Shanklin, and on three days 85 per cent, of the seats available were booked. The figure of 3,769 compares with 977 in the week trided August 10, 1933.
Banco Extension, In July the British Air Navigation Co., Ltd., recorded 34,435 flying miles and 558 paying passengers carried. The company has had to purchase another Ford Trimotor *right Whirlwind engines) to cope With its work. The new machine has two-way radio. NEED FOR MORE AIR-MAIL SERVICES IN SCOTLAND.
The retirement of Mr. Join Sword from air transport and the recent statement by the Postmaster-General of his intention to link up certain cities in this country with air-mail services leave Scotland particularly devoid of air-mail facilities. A remarkable acceleration between Inverness .and the Orkneys has been made by using Mr. E. E. Fresson's service to carry mails, but the matter ends there, and Scotland is separated by an• eight-hour rail journey from the network of European air services which ends at Croydon.
Scottish business interests agree that, whilst the new Glasgow-London airmail service will provide connection with the Continent, there is still an urgent need for air services within Scotland. Inverness certainly should be linked with Glasgow byair, and Edinburgh should be brought into the picture as well as Aberdeen and Dundee.
Our associated paper, The Aeroplane, deals with this subject in some detail, and suggests that it is not too late for a conference to be called by the Postmaster-General, at which Scottish airservice pioneers and other interests could informally discuss the matter.
Fine Press Work by Birkett Co.
Mr. Leonard Stace, of Birkett Air Service,Ltd., did some fine flying in a Percival Gull for newspapers which required photographs of recent events in Austria and Germany. Leaving London at 4.30 a.m., Vienna was reached by lunch-time, and photographs were flown to Berlin by 9.30 p.m.
Mr. Stace returned to Vienna the next day, and three days later flew 600 miles through the Polish Corridor to Marienburg, 500 miles of the journey being accomplished without a map. Photographs were flown thence to Berlin, and Mr. Stace continued to Allenstein, back to Berlin and on to London, covering 1,400 miles in a day, of which the 640 miles from Berlin to London were flown in 4 hrs. 20 mine.
Good Thames Ferry Traffic.
On the Southend-Rochester ferry service, which has been run by Southendon-Sea flying Services, Ltd., in conjunction with Short Bros. (Rochester and Bedford), Ltd., and which started, on June 9, traffic has averaged 175 passengers per week in the two months. Both the Short Scion and the Fox Moth have maintained their schedule throughoq. There is a tendency for a considerable increase in business traffic.
Recently a number of people used the service to visit Canterbury for the county cricket match. • The Southend company is considering the use of bigger aeroplanes. •