OVERCROWDED

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 21, 26 January 1938, Page 11

OVERCROWDED

CROYDON'S PROBLEM

HOMELESS AIRLINERS

The .airport at Croydon is suffering from overcrowding by aircraft, wrote the aviation correspondent of "The Times" on January 1. The fact is admitted by the Air Ministry. It has been pointed out, with increasing urgency, from time to time by Imperial Airways. The point has now been reached at which that company is about to begin accepting delivery of 19 big land aeroplanes, and there is ho shelter for them at Croydon. Pilots must fly them, in order to have their licences endorsed for those types, and the machines must therefore receive the attentions of ground engineers, who cannot be expected to work out of doors for any length of time in a Croydon winter.

No solution of the dilemma has appeared up to the present. The Air Ministry agrees that the accommodation is "much overtaxed," and asserts that it is hoped to be able to overcome the difficulty, but confesses that no decision has yet been taken as to the measures which must be adopted. Meanwhile, the air liners of seven nations are huddled together at night in two hangars which are subdivided by partitions to make four separate shelters. The machines of half a dozen lesser companies are housed in a third hangar with a sprinkling of private charter and flying school aircraft; and the liners of British Airways are flown to Croydon every morning from Gatwick to begrn their day's work and are flown back to Gatwick again at the end of it. PLANS FOR NEW AIRPORTS. This is a temporary inconvenience for British Airways, which should be comfortably established at Heston by April. If plans for new airports were being realised with any speed the rest might be counted a temporary misfortune; but no news of rapid progress in the Southern Hail way's project for an airport at Lullingstone, Kent, is available, and the creation of a new airport near Ilfird by the City Corporation will be a lengthy undertaking. However ready ' air operating companies might be to relieve the overcrowding at Croydon, there are few. alternative terminals at which they could find the conditions necessary for the carrying on of their business. The official division of hangar space at Croydon among the principal companies seems, in theory, to place an impossible strain on the two compartments rented by Imperial Airways. Most nights three big air liners, six D.H. express liners, one German, one Swiss, and one Belgian liner have to find places under the roof of Imperial Airways. All twelve are supposed to be in the maintenance shop to be attended and inspected for the next day's duty. Usually two or more are in the workshop compartment where overhauls are undertaken. Even so, the congestion is a little oppressive, and some of these aircraft are often to be seen in the early evening undergoing their grooming outside the hangar. NEW BIG AEROPLANES. In the other two sheds are to be found the aircraft of the Royal Dutcli Lines, with one of the Swedish company taken under their wing, and those of Air France. Occasionally, by the charity of one or both of these companies, other lodgers may find shelter in their quarters. It wo ( uld seem doubtful whether the mere rearrangement of accommodation can make room for any of the Ensign and Albatross types of air liner which will begin coming into the hands of Imperial Airways during the next six weeks. These are big aeroplanes, the Ensign having a span of 123 ft and the Albatross a span of 105 ft, and are such as cannot be tucked into odd corners. Fourteen Ensigns and five Albatrosses are on order. Not all of them will be based on Croydon; but some of them will certainly need house-room there, particularly when the heavy traffic of spring and summer must be handled.

In the matter of landing space Croydon has been making extensions during the past year. In the middle of the southern boundary an additional area about 200 yards deep and nearly 300 yards long has been taken in, levelled, and prepared for use. On the side near Plough Lane another pisce with a frontage of 270 yards, tapering in depth from 140 yards to about 80 yards, is now being levelled in readiness for inclusion in the landing surface. So far no new hangar is being built, no decision to build on appears to have been taken, and no building enterprise begun now can possibly be finished in time (o meet the new demands as they present themselves in the form of exyra air liners.