Transport: Imperial’s Empire

This week Imperial Airways Ltd. announced that it would reduce the time of the London-India run from four days to two-and-one-half days, the London-Australia from eleven days to nine. This means that any Sunday or Thursday during the year a traveler may climb into an Empire flying boat at Southampton, swish a mile over its land locked harbor, take off for the outposts of British rule. If the traveler, raincoated against England’s chilly mist, has his luggage marked “Australia,” he will slip between the Alps in the afternoon, dine in Rome, sleep that night in dusty Athens. Next day he will cross the eastern Mediterranean, sweep over Mesopotamia, go to bed in Basra, Irak. Third and fourth nights are spent in

India, at Karachi and Calcutta. Here the traveler will don his linen suit and silk shirt before taking off for humid Bangkok, Siam, the transfer point for Imperial Airways’ shuttle service to Hong Kong. Sixth night he sleeps at Singapore, where Quantas (Queensland and Northern Territory Services) Empire Airways Ltd. takes over the rest of his journey. Seventh night is spent at Rambang, Dutch East Indies, eighth at Longreach, Australia. Ninth day the traveler, his all-British 13,000-mile flight completed, is landed in Brisbane, busy capital of Queensland. The long trip will cost him $800, cut the fastest steamship time by 35 days.

Imperial’s Empire planes do not fly at night, but as beacons are installed and airports equipped for night flight, Imperial hopes to better its present slow time (average, 60 m.p.h.) between England and Australia, bring it closer to the 90 m.p.h. over-all time of its 50,695-mile route rival. Pan American Airways.

Biggest check the Government have on Imperial Airways is its Empire Air Mail Program by which, at a three cent per half-ounce rate, all mail is carried by air to South Africa, India, Hong Kong and Australia. To carry the first batch of mail at the new rate from England to the East, Imperial Airways chose a Quantas pilot, 40-year-old G. U. (“Guppy”) Allan, renowned in Australia as an opener of new air routes. So heavy were Pilot Allan’s mailbags (8,000 Ib.) that passengers were transferred to another ship. Imperial Airways looks forward this year to extending its 20,000-mile system by a North Atlantic service to Canada. Still in the dim future is the completion of its empire world circuit with a route across the Pacific between Vancouver and Hong Kong.