OCEAN AIR CONTRACT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 989, 4 June 1930, Page 12

OCEAN AIR CONTRACT

FRANCE BEATS GERMANY FIGHT FOR CONCESSION France has beaten Germany in a fight for an air concession by which Brazil will be brought 15 days nearer Portugal. A fifteen-year contract has beet awarded the "Aero Postale" and the “Gnome and Rhone” motor works, the companies to furnish and operate planes from Lisbon to Africa and thence across the Atlantic to Pernambuco and Rio Janeiro. The flights are to be made via the Cape Verde Islands, where a landing and fueling station is to be constructed 320 mile* out in the Atlantic. The Junker Company, which is operating the Berlin-Canary Islands route, with boat connections to South America at Las Palmas or Santa Cruz de Teneriffe, fought tooth and nail for the monopoly. It even persuaded the German Government to lodge a strong protest against the cession to the French. Germany was the more disappointed because the Junkers already held a concession from Portugal for passenger and mail service from Lisbon to Madrid. The Portuguese Government argued that this concession, which was for one year, had lapsed because service between the two cap itals was interrupted for the winter. The French company is capitalised at £200,000. It is the first time that Portugal will be equipped with air lines connecting it not only with distant countries and its African colonies, but with intranational lines extending throughout the entire country. Flying fields, hangars, repair shops and stores will be maintained at Lisbon Oporto, Coimbra, Braga, Aveiro, Santarem and Vizeu.