100 Years On The World’s First Scheduled International Air Passenger Service from London to Paris on August 25, 1919, with Cargo of Grouse and Clotted Cream
It was 100 years ago on August 25, 2019, George Stevenson-Reece was the sole passenger as the traveller also an Evening Standard journalist on the world’s first daily international flight of Air Transport and Travel, later became Britain’s flag carrier, British Airways. The Hounslow Heath aerodrome is now later known as Heathrow Airport. The account of the 2 hours 30 minutes flight journey from London to Paris was the front page lead news story of a ‘’late night special’’ edition of the Evening Standard on August 25, 1919. It ran under headline ‘’To Paris And Back To London By Air’’.
Mr Stevenson-Reece travelled alone in the cramped cabin of the DH4A bi-plane accompanied by a consignment of leather, ‘’several brace of grouse’’ and jars of Devon Clotted Cream bound for the restaurants in Paris.
Only 16 years after the Wright brothers had got their aircraft off the ground in 1903, and just 10 years after Louis Bleriot had flown across the Channel, Lieutenant Eardley H Lawford the pilot, took off at 09:10 am on ‘’a grim morning, pouring with rain and with practically no visibility’’. Mr Stevenson-Reece the journalist wrote of how the flimsy aircraft ‘’climbed in a fairly rapid spiral up to 1,000 ft’’before he spotted the Crystal Palace through a gap in the clouds, looking ‘’like a child’s toy’’, and the Thames, ‘’like a varnished zinc strip’’. From his opened cockpit Lt Lawford navigated using the Folkstone railway line to the coast before ‘’wave hopping’’ across the Channel to France. The bumpy low-level flying is said to have made Mr Stevenson-Reece feel ‘’extremely unwell’’.
Lt Lawford, who had seen action over the Western Front during World War I, followed the Seine and arrived in a fraction of the journey time it would have taken by train and steamer, having travelled 220 miles at about 100 mph. The plane was made of wood covered in linen and was fitted with ‘’most modern device to aid a pilot’’.
The reporter was charged 21 guineas each way, equivalent to more than £2,000 today in 2019. It was a century on since 1919, it is possible to make the same trip for as little as £22.99 each way from London to Paris return flight.
ERROL BAPTISTE COPYRIGHT 2019