To India in Week

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 499, 31 October 1928, Page 9

To India in Week

IMPERIAL AIRWAYS PLANS

Service to Start in April

INDIA has been brought within a week of London by the Imperial Airways’ plans to inaugurate a combined airplane and flying-boat service via Italy, Greece and Egypt next April. Details for a regular service are already finalised, and the extension of the routes to Australia, China and Japan regarded as almost certain.

(United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (United Service)

Reed. 12.15 p.m. LONDON, Tuesday. The main stages in the new 5,000 miles air-route from England to India are now settled. The Imperial Airways survey party, under Flight-Lieutenant B. Cross, a former Air Ministry flying-boat expert, who has been appointed Mediterranean manager, is leaving immediately to locate intermediate bases. Air passengers from London will take airplane to Basle, thence by night express through the Alps. Genoa will be reached in 24 hours. Here they will embark in a short Calcutta type flying-boat for the two and a-half days’ journey to Alexandria, calling at Rome, Naples, Greek is-

lands and probably Gallipoli, thence to Crete, Tobruk, following the coast to Alexandria, where the Egyptian Government is building a combined marine and land airport. Here the passengers will connect with the existing trans-desert section, reaching Basra in a day and Karachi in two and a-half days, totalling seven days from London. It is expected that the time will be considerably shortened soon after the service comes into operation in April. It is assumed that the Imperial Airways in the near future will extend its Middle-East route to Singapore, where it will branch into Australian, Chinese and Japanese sections.