AIR CENTRE AT CAIRO

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 744, 17 August 1929, Page 34

AIR CENTRE AT CAIRO

MAY REPLACE CROYDON DEVELOPMENT OF AFRICA A startling suggestion that Cairo should be made the great Imperial centre of commercial aviation, instead of Croydon, was made by Captain the Hon. F. E. Guest, the former Air Minister, to a reporter recently He had just returned from an air survey of North Africa. “This proposal,” he said, “would give Great Britain a strategic centre of enormous importance for Empire air development, and might make British territories in Africa one of the playgrounds of the world’s wealthy tourists. “European weather conditions are one of the greatest menaces to the success of the projected routes to India, Australia and the Cape. Just how bad an obstacle the weather is I realised during my recent flight. I shall never try to fly to Egypt again. “I hope to make a trip to the Cape in a fey months’ time, and shall probably ship my airplanes to Cairo and begin there. “If Cairo, and not Croydon, were the starting point for Empire air routes, you would eliminate both the

delays which the weather is certain to cause and also the constant risk of accident. Passengers could go to Cairo by boat, train and airplane, as they do now, and catch the air liner there. “Croydon is on the rim of the Empire; Cairo, in addition to being in one of the world’s most perfect flying countries, is at the heart of the projected Empire air routes. Cairo in the long run would also enable us to tap Continental passenger traffic more effectively than Croydon.” Captain Guest admitted that the Egyptian Government would probably object to Britain using Cairo as an air centre, and that it would take a long time to transfer the activities of Croydon to a new airdrome in the desert. He did not think either obstacle insuperable, and pointed out that the advantages to be derived from the scheme justified the expense that would be involved. “For the development of Africa, which in many respects is our most important air route,” Captain Guest said, "a Cairo air base would have advantages which it is difficult to overestimate. “Time often drags in Cairo, even with the season in full swing, and w ith the Cape only ten days away many people would prefer to spend their money on an air trip down Africa rather than on hotels and on tit© well-worn round of amusements.

World-famous places, such as the Zimbabwe Ruins, the Victoria Falls, and the Rand goldfields, are on the route, and it should not be difficult to make Central Africa quite a fashionable resort during the Cairo season. “Think of the things a party of excursionists could do on a trip to the Central African lakes!”