AIRMAIL SERVICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 March 1940, Page 3

AIRMAIL SERVICE

BIG BATCH OF LETTERS FOR FIRST FLIGHT. INTEREST EY PHILATELISTS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND. March 4. The intense interest taken by philatelists and others in the forthcoming inauguration of an airmail service to connect San Francisco and Auckland is reflected in the- fact that nearly 175.09(1 letters are in care of the postal officials in the United States and Now Zealand awaiting the first regular mail Hights. There are approximately 20.000 letters at the Chief Post Office, Auckland. and the number is gradually increasing. The majority are believed to have been posted by stamp collectors. Letters sent by stamp collectors in various purls of the. world are also lying in San Francisco. Five months ago the total exceeded 54,000. and the most recent estimate is that at least 160,000 letters will be carried to Auckland or way ports in the first southward flight. Pan-American Airways has had many applications from prominent people for passage over the route. Some are from confirmed "first trip" travellers, but others have been made Ijy business houses. The two Boeing (lying-boats to be used on the South Pacific service, at least in the early stages, will bo the Honolulu Clipper and the California Clipper. So far none of the company's fleet of six Boeings has been christened the South Seas Clipper, as was originally intended, but six more are building and it is possible that one of them wiil be so named.