LONGEST AIR SERVICE IN WORLD INAUGURATED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 626, 1 April 1929, Page 9

LONGEST AIR SERVICE IN WORLD INAUGURATED

BRITAIN TO INDIA SPECIAL PLANES AND PORTS Brttcah Official Wireless Reed. 12.0 Noon. RUGBY, Sunday. The longest air service in the world, and the biggest step yet taken by British civil aviation, was inaugurated yesterday with the opening of the Britain to India weekly mail and passenger service of the British Airways. The journey from Croydon to Karachi will take seven days, compared with 16 days required even with the fastest combination of boat and train on the ordinary route. The total length of the air line is 5,000 miles. From London to Bale, Switzerland, the mail is borne in a big threeengined Armstrong-Siddeley Argosy air liner. From Bale it is carried by (light mail train to Genoa. At Genoa it goes aboard an all-metal Short Calcutta air boat which flies with it to Alexandria. Here it is transferred to a 1,500 horse-power De Haviland Hercules Empire-type airplane which, by stages, bears it by way of Bagdad and Basra down the Persian Gulf to Karachi. To organise this new airway special airplanes and flying boats have been designed and built. Harbours for marine aircraft and lauding places for airplanes have been surveyed and established. and a chain of/ wireless and meteorological stations have leeen installed. The aircraft will be In wireless touch with inter - communicating ground stations throughout the whole journey by means of the latest Marconi apparatus. The London-Karaclii fare will be £l3O, including hotels meals, London to Bagdad £9O, and London to Egypt £S7. The surcharge on airmail letters is only sixpence. On the Argosy's arrival at Le Bourset, the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Samuel Hoare, who is a passenger, was greeted by a representative- of the French Ministry of Air, says a United Service message. The Argosy reached Bale at 6.45 p.m.