OUR AIR MAIL CONNECTION

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 92, 12 January 1935, Page 6

OUR AIR MAIL CONNECTION

New Zealand to the extent of £5OOO a year is a partner in the Imperial Air Mail development scheme. This contribution is in token of both present and future benefits. It will no doubt have to be increased if and when the air mail service is extended across the lasman. In the meantime it is reasonable to expect that this coun ly should receive the maximum benefit of the present air service from England to Australia plus the steamship service from that terminal to New Zealand. An examination of the times recorded under the present schedule of air and sea transport suggests that there is room for improvement. , ’ It has been pointed out, from records in Auckland, that the hist New Zealand mails which left Croydon on December 8 reached that city in 18 days. Had it not been for misadventure on the Australian overland section they would have arrived two days earlier. Ihe next dispatch, on December 15, also took 18 days because the mails iai ec to connect with the steamer. The third again missed the steamer connection, and this time took 21 days to reach Auckland. A speeding up of the air-liners, especially on the Singapore-Darwin section, wotil no doubt overcome the difficulty, but, if that’is not possible, the steamer services might be so adjusted that the transit of the New Zealand mails could be expedited. Little is to be gained by hurrying beyond its natural pace the coming of the trans-Tasman air link. A wiser proceeding for New Zealand would be to investigate the prospects of accelerating the distribution of incoming mail, and the collection of that outgoing to connect with the Australian-England air service. Among the late Mr. Ulm’s pioneering flights in the Dominion was a one-dqy trip from Auckland to Invercargill, with mail. If a similat flight (ot similar flights when the mail arrives at or leaves from Wellington) could be organised on a regular footing, in conjunction, with a rearrangement of the Tasman steamer time-table to fit the air connection, we should be getting full value from the present stage of development of the Imperial sky route for the King’s mails.