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Aviation History
1937
1937 - 1326.PDF
4g8 FLIGHT. MAY 20, 1937. COMMERCIAL J\V/AT/ON •r- AIRLINES ~—- AIRPORTS- THE WEEK AT CROYDON Coronation Traffic : Co-operative Efficiency : Ground Control Needed ; The Booking Ban : International CORONATION-WEEK traffic was excellent, and things went fairly well except for the night flying over London and the coast towns, which was spoiled by weather, though the demand was exceedingly brisk. Apart from long-distance flights with films, such as the American and Japanese ventures, there was considerable activity taking, or attempting to take, pictures to different parts of England, especially to the north. Weather again intervened, but one firm, not easily defeated, sent off a multi-motor wireless equipped machine which got through after a single-engined machine of theirs had been forced back to Croydon. None of the taxi firms could compete with the bookings during last week, and were seeking for assistance from each other and from all and sundry. Le Touquet and Deauville were the popular resorts, and it was interesting to study the crowd waiting to go to these places. You would call them first-class passengers, I sup pose. I saw several nice-looking people and the rest were rich and discontented. Most women had anticipated the sun bronze they hoped to acquire, and there was hairdress- ing seldom seen outside a barber's window. One woman, tall, thin, painted brick-red and with flame-coloured hair, looked more like a factory chimney afire at the top than a human being. Team Work Regular air services, British, Dutch, German, Swiss and Belgian, were all full up on Friday and Saturday, and many were duplicated. Good team work was to be seen when Imperial, Air France and K.L.M. all had twenty or more passengers to pass immigration at the same time. The white-capped staffs of the three firms helped each other to keep the three bunches apart, and made them form up into queues. These rush periods show up weak points. One is ground traffic control—nobody's business at present, though it should be done by the control tower people. I saw one big four-engined machine with passengers, pilot and crew aboard, all ready to go at the correct time but unable to move owing to inconsiderate parking of other machines in front of and around it. A tractor had to be obtained and the machine, complete with load, was pulled some way backwards, a most ignominious proceed ing. Result, late departure which could have been avoided by a central and neutral ground traffic control authority. Then, too, "immigration," who are also "Immigration,'' was caught napping by practically continuous streams of outward passengers (who must have preference), so that incoming passengers had to wait far too long before pass port examination A visitor seldom seen at Croydon was a red, silver and black Danish Junkers JU52, belonging to D.D.L. (the Danish Air Company), and flying a red flag with a white cross on it. The pilot was very smart, yachtsman fashion in white ducks, and a top-hatted director of the company was aboard. It was a special machine to convey the Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark home after the Coronation. Both Lord Forbes and Lord Amherst earn their living as civil pilots, one is with Personal Airways and the other with Olley Air Service. A story goes that one of them had to hurry out of Coronation robes in order to fly pictures of the ceremony to another part of England. Regular air companies, incidentally, were much harassed by wild Press despatch riders arriving with last-minute photos to go on board. Some firms have a rule that delays thus caused cost the Press agency a guinea a minute. I doubt if the regulation is ever enforced. Congratulations are due to British Airways, who have succeeded in getting the Railway Clearing House ban re moved. This means they are now on equal terms with other companies plying for hire between England and the Continent, and all the big travel agents may now book for them by kind permission of the Railroad Dictators. Incidentally, little credit appears to be due to the railways, on whom, I hear, considerable pressure has been brought to bear, not by British Airways but by independent per sons. British Airways' internal services are still under the embargo—as are those of all other firms trying to earn an honest penny by carrying passengers from place to place in England. K.L.M. recently booked its 500,000th passenger through Thos. Cook's Amsterdam office. The lucky man was pre sented with two free return tickets to any place on the company's network of air lines. Amusing, by the way, was the description in a contemporary of the K.L.M. Douglas D.C.3 at the R.Ae.S. Garden Party, Heathrow. "The K.L.M. Douglas," says he, "flying the only flag to be seen, the Netherlands colours " (actually it was the company's house flag), "on an American aeroplane." According to the company's Croydon manager the descrip tion hardly did justice to the international character of the proceeding. The machine had several British em ployees of the Dutch company on board, as well as a Canadian journalist, and Miss Sheila Martin, here to repre sent the women of Australia at the Coronation. I am credibly informed that the steward was serving Scotch whiskey, French and Italian vermouth, and for all I know German lager beer and Russian vodka as well. One of the companies at Croydon recently received a telegram from the Continent reading: "A son stop thanks to inimitable efficiency your service I walked in just in time to congratulate him on his arrival," and signed "Proud Parent." A. VIATOR. The New African Route T HIS week, and from now on, the South African mails will be carried through to Durban by flying boat. The flat mail rate does not come into action until next month and the first outward trips are probably in the nature rather of delivery flights, since the route will be divided into three operational sections, with bases at Alexandria, Kisumu and Durban. As far as Nairobi, in the outward direction, the boat route is very similar to that used by the landplanes, but thereafter the boats will fly down the east coast via Mombasa, Dar-es-Salaam, Lindi, Beira and Lourenco Marques. From Durban, of course, mails and passengers are taken over by South African Airways.
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