TO AUSTRALIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 228, 26 September 1929, Page 7

TO AUSTRALIA.

IMPERIAL AIR ROUTE. Extensive Services Of British Company. INDIAN AND AFRICAN PLANS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received 11.30 a.m.) RUGBY, September 25. At the meeting of the Imperial Airways Company, which carries on the cross-Channel air services, Sii Eric Geddes, who presided, mentioned that their aircraft during the financial year had flown 1,000,032 miles and carried 34,757 paying passengers, and 873 tons of mails, freight and excess luggage. Dealing with the new England-to-India aeroplane service, for which Imperial Airways are responsible, the chairman said the traffic to which they looked to produce their most profitable source of revenue was mails. Passengei traffic was in its infancy on this route. Thev hoped to reduce the schedule time from London to Karachi from seven and a-quarter days to five days. It was the aim of the company to continue the service all the way to Australia, and in this connection they had been negotiating with the Government of India for the operation of" a sen ice between Karachi, Delhi and Calcutta. Sir Eric said that since the last ™eetin<* the company had negotiated to its concluding stages an agreement with tlie British Governments of South Afuca, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Sudan and Rhodesia for the operation of a service between Egypt and South Africa. 11ns now awaited final ratification. In this "venture they would have associated with them the Cobham-Black- ! burn Air Lines Company, and they would have the experience of Sir Alan Cobham, who would join the board ot the subsidiary company. It was planned that the northern half of this line, from Egypt to Lake Victoria Nyanza, would be commenced, all being well, about this time next year, c and the southern half as far as Gape- ; town was planned to commence about ? six months later.

WORLD'S RECORD. Frenchmen To Attempt Long Flight. PARIS TO MOZAMBIQUE. (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) (Received 11.30 a.m.) PARIS, September 25.: The aviators, Demarmier and Foureau. left Le Bourget in an attempt on the world's record for a long-distance flight, at present held by the Italians, for a non-stop flight from Rome to Brazil. The Frenchmen's monoplane has a 600-h.p. Hispano engine. Their is Mozambique, in Portuguese East Africa.