The past year saw no specially important developments of commercial aviation inside Great Britain itself. A week-end service between Southampton and Havre was inaugurated, and passengers and mails were flown from London to Leeds. The most important undertaking was perhaps the delivery by air of newspapers. For a time the Manchester edition of the Daily Mail was taken by air for distribution in Carlisle, Dundee and Aberdeen, the last-named place being reached in three and one-quarter hours instead of the thirteen hours of train journey. Evening newspapers were carried daily during the summer from London to various resorts on the South coast.
The London-Leeds undertaking is the only regular service between English towns that has lasted for long. Elsewhere the air rates proved to be too high, and although there were plenty of aërodromes, the promoters of aërial transport companies could not compete with the all-embracing network of railways. During the great railway strike of October, however, valuable transport work was done by aircraft. For the rest, aëroplanes in England are chartered as aërial taxicabs for special trips, and last summer one or two companies reaped a moderate harvest by organizing pleasure trips at the seaside resorts. An airship or two have taken tours around the battlefields of France and Flanders. A few wealthy amateurs have bought aëroplanes for their private use.
Other European countries—France, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Scandinavia, Spain and Portugal—have made rather less progress in the manufacture and development of aëroplanes or dirigibles; but their use of aircraft for commercial purposes was about the same as that of Britain—newspaper distribution, some special journeys, and many joyrides. French aviators have opened tentative airways to Morocco, Senegal and Tunis. For regular passenger or goods services in continental Europe the high cost of fuel and accessories makes the rates too high. Also aërodromes and landing grounds are too few; and seldom can aëroplanes compete on a large scale with railways over comparatively short distances. Exceptions are the Paris-Lyons and Madrid-Lisbon airways.
Germany, throughout what was for her a terrible year, made further progress with her Zeppelin dirigibles. A number of return voyages were made over the route Berlin-Munich-Vienna-Constantinople. The latest type of Zeppelin is so efficient that no weather conditions, except a strong cross-hangar wind, prevents the airship Bodensee from making its daily flight of three hundred and ninety miles between Friedrichshafen and Staalsen, thirteen miles from Berlin. The passenger carrying Zeppelins, which prior to the war provided the only important example of commercial aircraft, claim a remarkable record. They have carried more than one hundred and forty thousand people, and yet not one of the passengers has been killed or injured in an accident; although some members of the crews lost their lives in the early days of the pioneer Zeppelins.
The vast distances of the United States offer better opportunities for aëroplane traffic than the comparatively small and closely-railwayed countries of Western Europe. There is no doubt that, had the United States government supported its aircraft companies to the same extent as did the British government, commercial aviation in America would have traveled along a smooth road. Even without this support it has made excellent progress. Successful regular services are established between Los Angeles and San Diego, and elsewhere in the West, and in the East many passengers have been carried between New York and Atlantic City, and around the coast of Florida. Plans are being laid for various other airways, including one between Key West and Havana.
While no continuous service for aërial goods traffic exist in the United States, aëroplanes are often chartered for special deliveries. This is particularly the case in the oil countries of Texas and Oklahoma, where newly-grown and important centers are off the beaten railroad track. One company in Oklahoma regularly sends its employees' pay by aëroplane from town to oilfield camp, thus assuring a quick and safe delivery, free from the necessity of armed guards and the danger of hold-ups. Other items worth noting in the United States' aërial history of the past twelve months are that aëroplanes have performed survey work and located forest fires, that thirty-two cities have applied for commercial aërodromes for postal, passenger and express purposes, and that an advertising agency is soliciting aërial business that will include display work on dirigibles, balloons and aëroplanes, the dropping of pamphlets from the air, and aërial photography.
Where the United States undoubtedly leads the way is in the ownership and use of privately owned aëroplanes—a circumstance partly explained by the great quantities of new money being spent. For a time some of the American manufacturers were months behind their post-war orders, and were selling everything that could fly. One famous company disposed of hundreds of pleasure craft at $7,500 apiece. Many buyers, impatient of delay, accepted immediate delivery of training machines, rather than wait for the pleasure craft. Reputable agencies dealing in second-hand aëroplanes bought from the United States and Canadian governments, disposed of thousands of machines and could not obtain enough to satisfy all their clients. An interesting development was the idea of community aëroplanes, purchased and maintained jointly by small groups of people living in the same residential district.
The United States postal authorities have satisfactorily maintained aërial mail services over the route New York-Washington-Cleveland-Chicago. After some preliminary fiascos these became reliable, besides being very speedy, as compared with train schedules. For June the Washington-New York air mail achieved ninety-nine per cent. efficiency, and the Cleveland-Chicago route one hundred per cent. The latter never missed a day in May and June, and not a single forced landing occurred during the first seventy days. At the close of 1919 the air mails showed a surplus of $19,000 of revenue over working costs, on a basis of two cents charge for each ounce of mail matter carried. Better results are expected now that specially constructed machines, with freight capacities of one thousand pounds and upward, are ready for use.
The British dominions and dependencies take a great interest in aëronautics, and last year saw satisfactory beginnings in some of them. In Australia, for example, a passenger and freight service links Sydney and Port Darwin, over a distance of twenty-five hundred miles, with intervening stations. Plans are ready for regular flights from North to South of the continent, and also from East to West, across the difficult country between New South Wales and Victoria on the one hand, and Western Australia on the other.