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Aviation History
1939
1939 - 1840.PDF
FLIGHT, June 15 1939. 1924 Fifteen Years Work by Imperial Airways : " Civil Aviation Must Fly by Itself'1: Changing Ideas in Air Transport Operation (Illustrated Mainly with " Flight' Photographs). SINCE Imperial Airways was formed from already existing operating companies, the firm's history does not really begin with the publishing of the Hambling report in 1923, but rather with the first civil air services, which were started in 1919. It was actually on August 25 of that year when the first commercial machine left Hounslow aerodrome on the Paris service. This con verted D.H.4A carried its maximum complement of two passengers—at twenty-odd guineas a time—and Capt. " Bill " Lawford was the pilot. It was owned by the pioneer operating company, Aircraft Trans port and Travel, whose parent concern was the then well-known Aircraft Manufacturing Company, from which it may be said that the present D.H. Company developed. Curiously enough, within the next few years almost as many European services were started and run as are operated to-day by the two British companies. Almost immediately after the Aircraft Transport and Travel inauguration, Handley Page Transport started a service to Brussels, using, in this case, a converted O/400 twin-engined bomber, and the Instone Air Line, using first D.H.4AS and later a Vickers Vimy Commercial, D.H.34s, D.H.i8s and a Vickers Vulcan, ran to Brussels and Cologne. At the same time the French company, Messageries Aeriennes, also started to run a London to Paris service with twin-engined Farman Goliaths. Still more remarkable, it was in November, 1919, that the Post Office entered into a formal contraci for mail carriage between London and Paris—though, of course, the rates were very high. Despite considerable optimism and partly because of the very high fares, the machines on the various Continental services, which, by the end of the 1920 season, included ones to Amsterdam, did not carry a great deal of traffic, and in that year Handley Page Transport was forced to close down both their Amsterdam and Brussels lines, while the newly formed Belgian company—S.N.E.T.A.—also gave up for the time being. At about that time the B.S.A. and Daimler groups took over A.T. and TV, and continued to run the services to Paris and Amsterdam. In an effort to increase traffic, the London to Pans fare was reduced to ten guineas in 1921, but the French con cern, with the assistance of a subsidy, suddenly cut their fare to six guineas, and the British companies were unable to carry on until the first Government subsidy scheme was put into operation. With this help Handley Page Trans port and Instone flew to Paris on alternate days. In 1939 In the near future Imperial Airways will no longer be in existence as a separate entity, but will, with British Airways, become a public corporation. This moment —before the merger actually takes place—is a suitable one to survey the work which has been done by the two national air transport concerns. Articles dealing with British Air ways appear later in the issue September, 1921, these two com panies started to fly daily between London and Paris with an amplified subsidy. A year later there was a further rationalisation of the air line system, Handley Pages being given the London-Paris line ex clusively, while Instone Air Line was allocated the London-Brussels- Cologne route, and Daimler Air way broke new ground with an in ternal service between London and Manchester as well as an external service to Amsterdam. The latter was to be extended to Berlin in due course. Meanwnile the Hambling Com mittee had been called to consider the best ways and means to en courage commercial aviation by a system of subsidies. The findings of this Committee were issued early in 1923, the most important recom mendations being that one single powerful company should be formed to take the place of the four exist ing concerns, and that subsidies should be granted to this monopoly cojnpany over a period of ten years. The main difficulty with the previous tem porary subsidy arrangements was that the firms had not been given sufficient security of tenure. Three of the firms have already been mentioned—Handley Page Trans port, Instone Air Line and Daimler Airway—the fourth was the British Marine Air Navigation Company, which ran a flying-boat service, using a Supermarine Sea Eagle, between Southampton and the Channel Islands. One of the most important and often forgotten remarks of the Hambling Committee was that "no effective spend ing of Government subsidies by the companies could be obtained unless they themselves were concerned in the raising and expenditure of their own resources." Hence the fact that the merger company. Imperial Airways, which was formed in 1924, remained a private, though Government-supported concern. When the terms of the agreement between the Air Ministry and the British, Foreign and Colonial Corporation, Ltd. (the issuing house) were published, the merger company was alluded to as the Imperial Air Transport Co., Ltd. This cumbersome title was changed three months later to Imperial Airways, Ltd. The new company found itself possessing a very miscel laneous collection of aircraft when its London-Paris service was started on April 26, 1924. Between 1924 and 1926 Im perials carried on with the Paris, Brussels, Cologne, Basle and Zurich services, using D.H.34s, Handley Page W.8s, and so forth. With fair resources at their disposal, how ever—the 1925 subsidy for European services amounted to ^137,000—it was now possible for them to order types B
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