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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 0171.PDF
171 SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS An Outline History of the Unions 21-year-old Airline A TWENTY-FIRST birthday has just been celebratedby South African Airways, for it was on February 1st,1934, that the airline assumed control over Union Airways, South Africa's first scheduled air carrier. Underthe directorship of the late Maj. A. M. Miller, this private company had begun operations on August 26th, 1929, witha fleet of five D.H. Gipsy Moths. Union Airways' initial mail services were primarily intendedto connect Johannesburg, Durban and Port Elizabeth with the mailboats at Cape Town. Later the fleet was augmented withPuss Moths, Junkers F.13 and W.34 four-seaters and a Fokker Super-Universal. Passenger services were introduced, and thecompany's headquarters were moved from Port Elizabeth to Durban. Under an Act passed in 1931, the South African RailwaysAdministration was given authority to operate its own depart- mental aircraft for the carriage of passengers and goods. Asnoted above, the Act was not implemented until 1934, when control was taken of Union Airways, which was now findingdifficulty in keeping pace with growing traffic demands. The South African Railways financed the new enterprise, whichremained a separate entity. Services were inaugurated with the three Junkers F.13s and one W.34 taken over from Union Airways,but these single-engined aircraft were soon to be replaced. On November 1st, 1934, three Junkers Ju 52 three-engined 14-pas-senger aircraft, which had been on order by Union Airways, were placed in service on the more important routes. The advent ofthe larger aircraft, and the improved regularity resulting from the adoption of airborne D/F. and communications wireless, as wellas direction-finding stations at certain of the major towns, proved a stimulus to air traffic. Further Ju 52s had to be purchased thefollowing year and a new service between Johannesburg, Kim- berley and Cape Town was introduced on April 1st, 1936. Thisroute had previously been flown by Armstrong Whitworth Atalantas of Imperial Airways as part of the London to CapeTown service. Meanwhile, on February 1st, 1935, S.A.A. had taken over SouthWest African Airways, whose fleet of two Junkers A.50s and one F.13 had operated within the Mandated Territory and in 1932 hadintroduced a weekly airmail service between Windhoek and Kimberley. The weekly service was continued with F.13 aircraftand was arranged to connect with the service between Johannes- burg and Cape Town. On July 1st, 1935, headquarters weretransferred from Durban to the Rand Airport, as Johannesburg had now become the most important centre in the air network.When, under the 1935 Empire Airmail scheme, it was decided to convey all first-class mail by air throughout the British Com-monwealth, South and South West Africa became the first territories to adopt this policy. Soon afterwards orders were Two pictures which span 20 years in the history of S.A.A.: (above) one or the airline's four Constellation 749As over Johannesburg; and (right) a 1935 scene at the Rand Airport, showing passengers leaving a Ju 52. 19354 11 57 8,938 522,257 193826 31 273 34,162 1,862,195 placed for Ju 52s, ten-seater Junkers Ju 86s and Airspeed Envoys.The first Ju 86 arrived in the Union on June 5th, 1937, and by the end of 1938 many of the new aircraft were in service and anincrease in the number of services was possible. The remarkable growth in the first four years of South African Airways' existenceis clearly shown by the following figures: — Number of aircraft (multi-engined) ...Number of pilots Total staff Total passengers Aircraft mileage flown Routes operated at this time included Johannesburg to Durban,Johannesburg to Cape Town, Durban to Cape Town, and Johan- nesburg to Bulawayo, Lourenco Marques, Windhoek, Kisumu(Uganda) and Port Elizabeth. Meanwhile, negotiations were afoot with the Belgian and Portuguese authorities for the inaugurationof a circular route linking the Union with Portuguese Angola and the Belgian Congo and connecting with the service to Kisumu. The first section of this route was opened on August 21st, 1939,with a service between Johannesburg and Luanda in Angola, but before negotiations for the extension of the route could be com-pleted war broke out and the plan was shelved. Nevertheless, the opening of this service served to complete an extra-territorialnetwork of regional services linking the Union with all the adja- cent territories—Mozambique, South-West Africa, Rhodesia andAngola. Upon the outbreak of World War II, the fleet of 18 Kestrel-powered Ju 86s with their complement of airscrews and ground personnel were placed on a military footing as a Defence Wing,
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