Warned of Winged Rival

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 480, 9 October 1928, Page 9

Warned of Winged Rival

RAILWAYS AND SHIPS Day of Air Transport is at Hand WARNING shipping and railway companies that if they did not use air transport as an ally, they would later timl it a serious rival. Sir Sefton Brancker told the Institute of Transport that the Empire was on the threshold of farreaching air traffic developments. (United i'.l .— By Telegraph — Copyright) • ( Australian and A.Z. Brcss Association)

Reed. 12.35 p.m. LONDON, Monday. j The Director of Civil Aviation. Sir Sefton Brancker, in his presidential address to the Institute of Transport, advised railway and shipping companies to avail themselves of the developments of air transport- Shipowners should arrange to carry first-class mail matter and speed passengers by air, using lower, more comfortable and more profitable ships for the remainder of the traffic. “We are on the threshold of farreaching air traffic developments affecting the future of the nation and the Empire as vitally as shipping and railroads had done. “There will presently be 73,300 miles of properly-organised air routes about the world.

“Air transport is at present unprofitable, because we cannot deal with heavy freights and third-class passengers, which were the mainstays of most of the railways and shipping lines.” He believed that probably the weekly air service to India would pay at no distant date. Among future possibilities would be liners equipped as aircraft carriers. “Unless shipowners utilise aircraft as an ally,’’ said Sir Sefton (according to a “Times” cable), “they will find therein a definite and inevitable rival, depriving them of some of their most valuable traffic.” He pointed out that regular commercial services all over the world flew 22,557,000 miles last year, compared with 1,170,000 in 1919.