RIGHT: Biggles stories first appeared in Popular Flying magazine FAR RIGHT: An England to South Africa Imperial Airways timetable from 1938 BELOW: A 1960s brochure for British European Airways


‘The converted DH34 biplanes used in the 1920s were fitted out with eight wicker chairs’


44


Unsurprisingly, the fear of death was a major stumbling block during those early days of passenger flight. Having witnessed German Zeppelin bombing raids and pilots dropping like flies during the Great War, the general public found it hard to separate the ideas of flying and dying. Canny marketing came to the rescue. Ford explains how female passengers were key in this battle of hearts and minds. “If a woman was not afraid to fly, a man would not be either. If a delicate lady could sew, write in her diary, put lipstick on and not get sick while flying, then a slightly less delicate man could certainly enjoy the flight,” she says. Outside of the advertising messages, however,


nearly all passengers were male – civil servants of the British Empire, or wealthy businessmen. And the reality of those early services was much grimmer than the brochures suggested. “The converted DH34 biplanes used in the 1920s were


fitted out with eight wicker chairs, the only concession to cosiness being a measure of chintz upholstery,” Ford writes. “On some Continental airlines passengers were given earplugs. Fatalities were high, and insurers initially refused to cover passengers who chose to fly.”


AP RIL 20 19 bus ine s s tr a v el ler .c om


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