Everything about Imperial Airways totally explained
Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long range air transport company, operating from
1924 to
1939 and serving parts of Europe but especially the Empire routes to
South Africa, India and the
Far East. There were local partnership companies;
Qantas (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Ltd) in
Australia, and
TEAL (Tasman Empire Airways Ltd) in
New Zealand.
Formation
Created following the advice of the government
Hambling Committee in 1923 — that the main existing aircraft companies should be merged to create a company which would be strong enough to develop Britain's external air services — and offered a £1m subsidy over ten years if they merged. Imperial Airways Limited was formed in March 1924 from the
British Marine Air Navigation Company Ltd (three
flying boats), the
Daimler Airway (five aircraft),
Handley Page Transport Ltd (three aircraft) and the
Instone Air Line Ltd (two aircraft). The land operations were based at
Croydon Airport to the south of London. IAL immediately discontinued the predecessor's service to points north of London, the airline not being interested in serving what they regarded as the 'Provinces'.
The first commercial flight was in April 1924, when a daily
London-
Paris service was opened. Additional services to other European destinations were started throughout the summer. The first new airliner was commissioned by Imperial Airways in November 1924. In the first year of operation the company carried 11,395 passengers and 212,380 letters. In April 1925,
The Lost World (a recent blockbuster film) was shown to the passengers on the London-Paris route. This was the first time that a film had been screened for passengers on a plane.
The extension of service to the
British Empire (Empire Services) wasn't begun until 1927 when, with the addition of six new aircraft, a service was instituted from
Cairo to
Basra. but the first service from London for
Karachi didn't start until 1929 using newly purchased
Short S.8 Calcutta flying boats, even then the passengers were transported by train from
Paris to the
Mediterranean where the Short flying boats were. In February 1931 a weekly service between London and
Tanganyika was started as part of the proposed route to
Cape Town and in April an experimental London-
Australia air mail flight took place; the mail was transferred at the
Netherlands East Indies, and took 26 days in total to reach
Sydney. The purchase of eight
Handley Page HP.42 four-engined airliners boosted the range of services, in 1932 the service to Africa was extended to Cape Town.
In Australia in 1934 Imperial and
Qantas (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Ltd) formed Qantas Empire Airways Limited to extended services in
Southeast Asia. But it wasn't until 1937 with the
Short Empire flying boats that Imperial could offer a real through service from
Southampton to the Empire. The journey to the Cape consisted of flights via
Marseille,
Rome,
Brindisi,
Athens,
Alexandria,
Khartoum,
Port Bell,
Kisumu and onwards by land-based craft to
Nairobi,
Mbeya and eventually
Cape Town. Survey flights were also made across the Atlantic and to
New Zealand. By mid-1937 Imperial had completed its thousandth service to the Empire.
Air Mail
The Empire Air Mail Programme began in July 1937, delivering anywhere for 1½ d./oz. By mid-1938 a hundred tons of mail had been delivered to India and a similar amount to Africa. In the same year, construction was started on the Empire Terminal in
Victoria, London, designed by A. Lakeman and with a statue by Eric Broadbent,
Speed Wings Over the World gracing the portal above the main entrance. The terminal provided train connections to flying boats at
Southampton and to the since closed
Croydon Airport. The terminal operated as recently as
1980.
To help promote use of the Air Mail service, in June and July, 1939, Imperial Airways participated with
Pan American Airways in providing a special "around the world" service with Imperial carrying the souvenir mail eastbound over the
Foynes, Ireland, to
Hong Kong portion of the New York to New York route. Pan American provided service from New York (departing on June 24) to Foynes (via the first flight of Northern FAM 18) and Hong Kong to San Francisco (via FAM 14), while United Airlines carried it on the final leg from San Francisco to New York where is arrived on July 28.
Amalgamation
Compared to other operators (
Air France,
KLM,
Lufthansa) it was lagging behind in Europe and it was suggested that all European operations be handed over to its competitor
British Airways Ltd (founded in 1935) which had more modern aircraft and better organization. However in November 1939 both Imperial and British Airways Ltd were merged into a new state-owned national carrier:
British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC). The new carrier adopted the Imperial
Speedbird logo, which has evolved into the present
British Airways Speedmarque, and the term (Speedbird) continues to be used as BA's
call sign.
Related lists
Further Information
Get more info on 'Imperial Airways'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://imperial_airways.totallyexplained.com">Imperial Airways Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
