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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 2340.PDF
265 FLIGHT 27 August 1954 Central African Air ways V iking at Dar-es-Salaam COMMONWEALTH AIR SERVICES ANY airline timetable bears witness to the enormous strides taken since the development of British Com-Lmonwealth commercial air services began a quarter of a century ago. The most vivid example of their importance today, however, is surely found in the itinerary of the recent Royal Tour. Her Majesty the Queen and H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh travelled nearly 20,000 miles by air, mainly in civil aircraft of B.O.A.C. and the regular Commonwealth air lines. Their triumphant tour showed how real are the invisible bonds which unite the great family of Commonwealth nations; it also underlined the increasing extent to which members of that family depend upon their civil airlines for maintaining personal contact within and beyond the shores of their own countries. This review of the major Commonwealth airline operators therefore forms an appropriate introduction to the special Commonwealth issue of Flight. AFRICA Formed by the East African Government in 1946, the East African Airways Corporation operates an unduplicated route mile age of 22,000 miles with a fleet of nine DC-3s and three Rapides. The airline's primary role is the provision of a regional network covering Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and Zanzibar. There are also two services weekly from E.A.A.'s base at Nairobi to Durban. Last year die company carried 73,062 passengers compared with a total of 9,403 in the first year of operation. The national carrier for the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasa- land, Central African Airways Corporation, was formed in June 1946 with a small fleet of Rapides and Ansons. Salisbury is the centre of the company's 8,000-mile network, which extends to London in the north and to Durban and Johannesburg in the south and is the base for C.A.A.'s fleet of nine Vikings, four DC-3s and six Beavers. Over the past five years C.A.A.'s annual passenger traffic has increased from 24,000 to 126,000. In 1956 the company will take delivery of five Viscount 700Ds which will enable the present Salisbury-Johannesburg schedule to be reduced from 3| to 2\ hr and are also intended for service on routes to Dar-es-Salaam, Lourenco Marques, Durban and London. An all-British fleet of ten Doves and five Bristol 170s is operated by West African Airways Corporation, which was formed by the governments of Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Sierre Leone and Gambia in 1946. W.A.A.'s services carry local traffic within these terri tories and also provide connections with international flights call ing at Dakar, Accra, Kano and Khartoum. The present rate of passenger traffic is well over 60,000 annually. Largest of the African airlines is, of course, South African Air ways, formed in 1934 as a subsidiary of South African Railways and controlled by the Union Government. The S.A.A. fleet is made up of four Constellation 749s, seven DC-4s, three Dakotas and eleven Lodestar feederliners and the unduplicated route mile age is 15,374. Best known of the S.A.A. services is the Springbok Constellation service to London, operated in partnership with B.O.A.C., in addition to an extensive network of internal and regional services linking all the main cities of the Union and providing connections with Portuguese East Africa and Southern Rhodesia. S.A.A.'s annual passenger uplift is approaching a total of 200,000. AUSTRALASIA Australia's international flag carrier is Qantas Empire Airways which originated in 1920 as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service, Ltd. In 1934 Imperial Airways and the original Q.A.N.T.A.S. formed Qantas Empire Airways to operate part of the England-Australia route. Both the British and the private Australian interests were bought out by the Australian Govern ment in March 1947. The company's outstanding operational per formance over its 68,000-miles of long-distance routes is matched by an impressive commercial record: it has operated at a profit for 30 consecutive years. In partnership with B.O.A.C. Qantas oper ates the longest international route in the world—the Kangaroo route between London and Sydney. Two years ago Qantas in augurated the 8,665-mile scheduled route between Sydney and Johannesburg via the Cocos Islands and Mauritius and on May 15th took over the former B.C.P.A. trans-Pacific service between Sydney and San Francisco and Vancouver. Other Qantas flights serve Japan, New Guinea and Pacific islands; altogether, Qantas links Australia with 24 other countries. The total of 81,839 passengers carried in 1953 appears relatively small but the corres ponding total of passenger miles flown was more than 196 million. Until recently the main-line Qantas routes were operated with a fleet of six Constellation 749As; these are now being replaced by L.1049C Super Constellations and four of the 749As are being transferred to B.O.A.C. Also in service with Qantas are five DC-4s, 13 DC-3s, four Sandringhams, four Catalinas, four Drovers and five Dragons. By far the largest of Australia's flourishing independent domes tic airlines is Australian National Airways, with a fleet of two DC-6s, eight DC-4s, 22 DC-3s and three Bristol Freighters. Two new DC-6Bs will join A.N.A.'s fleet in February or March. Since the formation of A.N.A., in June 1936, the company has built up an intensively operated route network of over 14,500 miles on which nearly 578,000 passengers and 37,000 tons of freight were carried last year. A.N.A.'s major competitor was set up by the Australian Labour Accra is the setting—Qnd the nam%—of Is W.A.A.C. Dove. i
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