Commercial Flight

The first commercial flight was in April 1924, when a on a daily basis London-Paris service was opened. Additional services to other European destinations were started all the way through the summer. The first fresh airliner was commissioned by Imperial Airways in November 1924. In the first year of process the company carried 11,395 passengers and 212,380 letters. The extension of service to the British Empire was not begun until 1927 when, with the adding of six new aircraft, a service was instituted from Cairo to Basra. But the first service from London for Karachi did not start until 1929 using recently 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 stuck 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 buy of the 8 Handley Page 42 four-engined airliners boosted the range of services, in 1932 the service to Africa was extended to Cape Town.