MAILS BY AIR

Hokitika Guardian, 7 December 1931, Page 3

MAILS BY AIR

A CHRISTMAS SERVICE. COMPREHENSIVE PLANS. WELLINGTON, December 4. Air mail flights embracing almost the whole of New Zealand will be undertaken on December 24 and will furnish a method of sending Christmas greetings and gifts which has not been available previously. In addition to these services trial flights between Auckland and Gisborne and Gisborne and Auckland, with calls at Hamilton and Rotorua on each journey will be made on December 10.

/ All the flights are being sponsored by the New Zealand Air League. Owing to space limitations parcels proper will not he accepted, but all other postal articles, including packets with a weight limit of 51b, may he sent by air mail. Several machines will be used on these Christmas flights.

Having connected with the limited express from Auckland and carrying air mail from Gisborne, a machine will leave Palmerston North at 7.15 a.m for Invercargill. It will leave Wellington at 8.15, Christchurch 10.30, Oamaru at noon, and Dunedin at 1 p.m., arriving at Invercargill at 2 p.m. Another mail will leave Wellington at 7.30 a.m. for Auckland, and included in it will be mail brought by the ferry steamer from the South Island. It will stop at Palmerston North, where it will connect with the Gisborne air mail and proceeding at 8.45' u.m. will leave Wanganui at 9.30, New Plymouth 11.15, and, completing its journey, will arrive at Auckland at 1.30 p.m.

Leaving Gisborne at 4 a.m. and Hastings an hour later, another machine will arrive at Palmerston North at 6.30 a.m. A return trip will then be made.

Departing from Palmerston North at 9 a.m., an aeroplane will leave for Gisborne, calling at Hastings, which will be left at 10.30 a.m., and arriving at its destination at noon.

On Thursday next another flight "will be carried out between Auckland and Gisborne. Similar conditions to those governing Christmas mails .-will apply. Auckland will he left at 9 a.m., Hamilton, at 9.30, Rotorua, at 10 a.m., and Gisborne will be reached at noon. The return trip will be made in the afternoon, Gisborne being left at 3.30 p.m., Rotorua at 5.30 p.m. and Hamilton at 6, a landing being made at Auckland at 6.30.