The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-12-22
LONDON SELLING
 TICKETS ID PARIS
 BY TIE AIR ROUTE
Fare Is S75, Trip is Made in Two and One-Half Hours and Passengers Life Is
 Insured for $5000
By CLAIR PRICE

London, November 2S.-Passenger traffic by air has already begun with the announcement that, weather per hitting, a daily airplane service is to be instituted between London and Paris at a fare of S75. the passengers prob ably to be insured in the sum of S5000.
 According to present arrangement, passengers are to leave London at 10:30 a m and to reach Paris at 1 p. m. This is at a speed of 100 miles per hour and reduces the time of the Lon don-Paris journey from seven hours to two and a half hours. Only few hours after the announcement had been made the sale of tickets had briskly begun. Sir Arthur Stanley, member of Parliament, chairman of the Red Cross. bought the first ticket. Other tickets for the first trip have been taken by: E. Manville, chairman of the Associ- ated Chambers of Commerce; Percy Martin, managing director of the Bir- mingham Small Arms company; Julian Orde, secretary of the Royal Automo- bile club; H. J. Irish, SIT John and Lady Shelley Rolls Lieut.. Guy A. Reed, U. '. R.; Mrs. Robert Rankin, the Lon don Daily Express; the Princess Low enstein, the Hon. Kathleen Robson, Mrs. Alec Tweedie, A. E. Nathan and Mrs. Locke King.
 This begins the reduction of many plans for aerial transportation to act ual fact The present service is to be the Aircraft Manufacturing company s machines, using the De Haviland mod els. The London to Paris route is merely the first to materialze of a number of routes which Holt Thomas, head of the aircraft company, has in prospect.
 Mail services from England to France, Italy, Norway, India and South Africa, with a chain, of aerial stations extend ing at 10-mile intervals all over the world, are being planned by him.
 The end of the war makes it possible to give some details of the machine which will operate in the first com mercial flight. It is called the De Hav- Hand 10, and during the years in which the aircraft company has been turning out machines for the British and Amer ican forces, it has been used for bomb ing purposes, it's planners having spe- cialized in the last IS months on speed and weight-carrying with a view to turning the machine to commercial pur- poses as soon as the end of the war made it possible.
 The De Haviland 10, which was de- signed for long distance bombing raids into Germany, climbs 5000 feet in five minutes and is able to loop the loop and perform the other stunts which one usually expects only from a light scout machine
 You do not, of course want to loop the loop with passengers going to Paris" MT. Thomas said today but the fact that the machine will loop the loop shows it's flying qualities. Even though stunts will not be demanded on commercial routes, 1t Is always neces- sary to remember that the elements are ! not under a pilots control, and it is only the really good flying machine which is always safe. There is indeed no quality that the war has forced upon our designers which is not absolutely necessary for the commercial machine
 The first essential of the mail serv- ices which MT. Thomas has in mind will be the internationaiization of fly ing. The limits of the celestial rights of a country arc as yet undetermined but in the case of the London to Paris flight, 1t is apparent that British rights do not extend farther than mid channel It is thought unlikely, there fore, that the French government will allow an all-British enterprise to op- crate mail to Paris, or that the Ital- ian government would permit an all British enterprise to run Rome mail