EMPIRE AIRWAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 125, 28 May 1937, Page 9

EMPIRE AIRWAYS

.DETAILS OF SCHEME £9,000,000 IN SUBSIDIES (British Official Wireless.) * RUGBY, May 26. A 15-year scheme of Empire air mails is outlined in a White Paper which reveals that under the projected agreement between the Government and Imperial Airways the subsidies, payable on a decreasing scale, . will aggregate £9,000,000, but will be subjected to various adjustments. Provision is made for nine services weekly to and from Egypt, five to and from India, three each to and from East Africa and the Straits Settlements, and two each to and from South Africa and Australia. • It is confidently expected that the scheme will ensure the due maintenance of British prestige in world air transport. It will also represent a striking development in the form of long-distance carriage' of first-class mails by air—at a flat postage charge of l£d per half-ounce for letters and Id for postcards—which for cheapness has never been approached anywhere in the world. Both flying-boat and land-plane services will operate from.England. The aircraft will have a maximum speed of about 200 m.p.h. and a commercial pay load of roughly 3J tons. It is stipulated that they shall be replaced after not more than seven years by improved craft, and Imperial Airways will be required to undertake to carry all first-class mail between the participating countries— which in the provisional list number 28. The Government will provide free aerodromes and landing areas in British territory in Egypt, the Sudan, and Irak.