HEAVIER AIR-MAILS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 449, 3 September 1928, Page 13

HEAVIER AIR-MAILS

BRITISH SERVICES GROW RAPID TRANSIT SOUGHT British Official "Wireless. RUGBY, Saturday. The Postmaster-General, Sir William Mitchell-Thomson, announces a steady growth in the British air mail traffic for the quarter ended June 30. Parcels weighing nearly 14,0001b.* were sent by air in the period to Germany, as against 9,0001 b. in the corresponding quarter of 1927. In the same period more than 5,0001 b. of parcels were sent by the same means to Paris, compared with 5,0001 b. in the same quarter of 1927. The letter traffic to France and Germany showed increases of SO per cent and 50 per cent, respectively. More than 4,6001 b. of letter mails were dispatched by the Cairo-Basra service, compared with about 3,0001 b. in the corresponding quarter of 1927, an increase of more than 50 per cent. Since the opening of this year’s summer season several new air. services have been made available. The most notable are the new air letter service to Persia in direct communication with London, the Moscow air service, a service in Peru for letters and parcels to Iquitos and certain other parts and the recently established service to South America, via Prance and Dakar. Air parcel services have also been opened to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia and Hungary. All these represent a really appreciable gain in time over the ordinary routes, amounting in some cases to as much as several weeks. The public are evidently realising that the air parcel services offer not °uly rapid transit but also speedy clearance through the Customs in the country of destination.