The company Air Travel organised a series of flights in 1931
and 1932 in which official airmails were carried.
The most interesting were the Christmas flights on 12 November and
24 December
1931 to publicise the advantages of air mail.
The Route
The flight of November 12 was the first time that the
new airmail stamps issued on
10 November were used on air mail.
The route was from Invercargill to Auckland stopping at Dunedin, Christchurch,
Blenheim, Wellington, Palmerston North and New Plymouth to pick up
mail which could then be sent from Auckland or from Wellington to Sydney
by sea to join the
special Christmas flight to the UK
from Australia organised by
Australian National Airways.
The flight was also used for internal mails and covers exist flown between each
of the stops.
The total mail to all destinations was 3855.
The postage was 5d made up of 2d ordinary postage and 3d air mail fee.
The flight left Invercargill at 3.51 and arrived in Auckland at 17.56.
The pilot was Sq Ldr M.C. McGregor and the plane was a
Simmonds Spartan biplane with registration number ZK-ABU.
A photograph of this plane is shown.
A return flight to Wellington
was made on the next day.
Internal flight and on to UK
The cover is one of 362 flown from Invercargill to
Wellington on November 12.
It was then one of 1,598 items sent from Wellington to Sydney by sea on the SS Marama on 13-17 November
to connect with the
All Australian Airmail to the UK.
The postage is 1/5 made up of 2d ordinary postage plus 3d internal
airmail and 1/- Australia to UK airmail.
It arrived in the UK on 16 December.
The manuscript 17/12/31 is on the front which is presumably when it was
received in Thurso in the north of Scotland.
Internal flight only
This cover was one of the 362 flown on the Invercargill to Wellington leg on 12 November
which left Invercargill at 3.51am.
It was backstamped after arrival in Wellington at 3.45pm.
It is postmarked on 10 November, and so the 4d is
postmarked on its first day of issue.
It is also franked by a 1931 1d Smiling Boy Health stamp
which had been issued 10 days earlier on 31 October.
This cover is one of 145 flown from Invercargill to Christchurch.
The letter is postmarked 11 November and it arrived in
Christchurch on 12 November in time to be backstamped at 9am.
The flight from Invercargill was the first time that the
new airmail stamps issued on 10 November could be flown.
The next cover is one of 300 flown from Christchurch to Auckland
and was my first ever New Zealand airmail cover!
It has turned out to be a very expensive purchase!!
The cover is postmarked 11 November, flown on the 12th and
backstamped in Auckland that evening.
It was then backstamped in Ellerslie on the 13th.
The next cover is also flown from Christchurch, this time one of the
66 flown to Blenheim.
It is postmarked on the day of the flight at 1am.
It does not have an arrival backstamp, but on the back it has the special cachet
produced by the Air Mail Society of New Zealand to
commemorate the first use of New Zealand airmail stamps.
Cachet applied in error
No special cachet was applied to the internal mail, but
a special cachet was applied to the covers destined for the
All-Australian airmail to London.
The overseas cachet was applied in error to
this cover which was only flown from Wellington to Auckland.
It is backstamped on arrival in Auckland on 12 November and then on the next
day on delivery in Ellersie, a suburb of Auckland.
The cover is autographed by the pilot M C McGregor and is franked with the 2d Smiling Boy Health stamp.
This cover from Wellington to Auckland also had the
All-Australian airmail to London
special cachet applied in error.
The cover was originally addressed Poste Restante
which meant that it was to be collected at the post office.
There was a special department in larger offices known as the
Delivery Counter from where such items could be collected.
As it could be some time before an item was collected, items
were backstamped to show when they had arrived.
This cover was backstamped on arrival in Auckland on 12 November
and then backstamped Delivery on 13 November
when it was deposited at the Delivery Counter.
It then received a third Auckland mark on 14 November
when it was collected and redirected to Masterton.
Flown internal flight plus Adelaide – Perth and Karachi – London
Although the internal flight was set up to be in conjunction with
the special Christmas flight from Australia to UK,
covers could also connect with other existing air mail services.
This cover has routing instructions for it to be flown on three different flights:
Christchurch – Auckland on the internal flight of 12 November;
Adelaide – Perth on 21-22 November
and Karachi – London on 10 -17 December 1931.
It is correctly franked with the complete set of airmail stamps:
the 3d pays for the internal New Zealand flight, the 4d for Adelaide – Perth and the 7d
for Karachi – London.
In addition, the 2d GV covers the surface rate.
The total cost was therefore only 1d less than the combined cost of the
internal flight plus the special Christmas flight from Australia.
The mail arrived in London on 17 December.
Addressed to Tasmania
The next cover was flown from Christchurch to Auckland and is
addressed to Launceston in Tasmania.
The routing instructions are By New Zealand and Australian
Air Mail Service.
It is franked with 8d in stamps presumably intended to be 2d ordinary postage,
3d internal New Zealand flight and 3d internal Australian flight.
However the ANA service from Sydney to
Hobart via Launceston was terminated on 26 June 1931
and a replacement service to Tasmania did not start until
1933.
Hence, although the intention of the sender was for the
cover to be flown within Australia, no appropriate airmail service was
in operation.
One question is why the cover has an Air Mail Sydney backstamp on 17 November
along with the Launceston backstamp of 19 November.
It is possible that it was only then that the lack of a suitable airmail
service was noted and that the blue line through Australian in the
routing instructions was applied.
However, there is one further twist in the tale.
The ANA plane Southern Sun left Hobart on 19 November
and flew to Sydney via Launceston and Melbourne on the first
stage of the All Australian mail to the UK.
It must therefore have flown from Sydney to Hobart on a
positioning flight, likely on either 17 or 18 November.
As ANA still had an air mail contract between Sydney
and Hobart, could they have carried mail on the positioning flight?
If so, then this cover would have been part of that mail.
Return on Nov 13, 1931
After flying from Invercargill
to Auckland to connect with the Australia – UK Christmas airmail
on November 12, M.C. MacGregor flew
back from Auckland to Wellington via New Plymouth and Wanganui on November 13.
An official airmail was carried with
mail being delivered and collected at each stop.
This cover is postmarked at 1 am on 13 November and is
one of only 74 flown from Auckland to New Plymouth where it
was backstamped at 12.45.
The next cover is one of 368 flown from from Auckland to Wellington.
The letter is postmarked on the evening of 12 November
and the plane left Auckland
at 6.55am and arrived in Wellington at 12.16.
The letter was backstamped at 12.30, i.e. earlier than the mail to New Plymouth!!
The postage rate was again 2d surface plus 3d airmail surcharge.
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All scans were made by the author.
Information on this page is taken from:
Airmails of New Zealand, volume 1 (1955) compiled by Douglas A Walker,
and the New Zealand Airmail Catalogue, (2nd Edition, 1994)
by James Stapleton.
Both are published by the
Air Mail Society of New Zealand