TO SCHOOL BY AIR

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 85, 4 January 1935, Page 4

TO SCHOOL BY AIR

Children Used to Flying If you go out to London’s great airport at Croydon you will be astonished to see how many children are flying nowadays. From babies to school girls and boys they arrive or depart without the least sign of fuss. And quite a number of them, the officials will tell you, are experienced travellers, to whom an aeroplane is no more of an adventure than a bus or train, writes the London correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald.” Little John T. Fowle, for example, is not yet six, but he has already made four flights between Loudon and Loweit, on the Persian Gulf. After greeting the captain of the airliner, the other day, and taking a casual glance at the control cabin, he sat down in one

of the saloons and concentrated on a jigsaw puzzle! The puzzle was apparently far more exciting an affair than the air journey. “The matter-of-fact attitude of this young gentleman,” remarked an official of Imperial Airways, “is typical of the majority of youngsters who now travel by air. They seem to be naturally ‘air-minded,’ and take to flying like ducks take to water. Not long age an American family, on alighting at Croydon from the Continent, declared that they had not used trains for several years, making all their trips by air except when crossing 'the Atlantic. Nevertheless, just for a change, they decided to go down to Southampton, by train to give their children the novel experience of a railway journey. “When the air-mail from Africa reached London, last week, one of the passengers was a child of three who had flown more than 6000 miles, from Salisbury, in Southern. Rhodesia. But many of the children who travel by air are really flying to and from their schools on the Continent. Except that they sometimes say they prefer an aeroplane to their school, the actual journey arouses no unusual emotion in them; and they do not show the slightest nervousness as so many ‘grown-ups’ do. Boys and girls who are sent to school in England from outlying posts of the Empire often fly home for the holidays—holidays which they would not otherwise be able to spend with their jjarents if they had to travel by sea and laud. In cases where a child has to travel alone, he or she is placed in the care of the airway staff, who do their best to ensure the comfort and safety of their little charge. It is quite a usual proceeding.”