AIR TRAVEL IN U.S.

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 852, 21 December 1929, Page 28

AIR TRAVEL IN U.S.

TRANSCONTINENTAL FLIGHT IN 48 HOURS SERVICES EXTENDING For some years the United States lagged behind Europe in commercial aviation, largely because American policy was opposed to direct subsidies for private enterprise. Now, however, a notable expansion in the carriage of passengers and freight is being seen. The Government pays liberally for the air mail service, which is carried on by private companies, and their profits from this source have enabled them to experiment in long distance carriage of passengers.

Daily flights are made from Chicago, for instance, to other near-by cities — Detroit, Michigan, Minneapolis, Minnesota, St. Louis, Missouri, Cleveland, Ohio, and others, and from New York to Boston and Washington. In the Far West, the development has been even more extensive; passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco, or either of these cities and Seattle, take the daily plane as casually as they might board an overnight Pullman. The last few months, says the “Manchester Guardian Weekly,” has seen several competing services established between the Atlantic and Pacific

coasts. Since this distance of 3,000 miles is deemed too far to be made in one flight with passengers, and since dangerous mountains ranges are traversed, an ingenious scheme has been worked out for combined rail-

way and airplane travel. Passengers from New York leave that city by train in the evening. During the night they go through the dangerous Appalachian range, and next morning they leave the train at Cleveland or Cincinnati, Ohio, and take to the air. They fly all day, reaching Western Kansas, where they resume their rail journey. Next morning they are in New Mexico, where they are again transferred to airplanes, and reach Los Angeles by nightfall. Thus they make in about 48 hours a. journey which takes 80 by the fastest trains, plus some hours spent waiting for a connection in Chicago, St. Louis, or New Orleans. Oddly enough, there is no train straight across the United States trom New York to San Francisco; the nearest thing to it is one from Washington to the Pacific coast, which is not widely known or used.