New England Airways started an airmail service between Sydney and Brisbane on 24 November 1931 replacing the ANA service that had ceased on 26 June 1931.
The first New Zealand acceptances for the New England Airways service left Wellington for Sydney by sea on 11 December 1931. They were then flown by a Ryan monoplane from Sydney to Brisbane on 17 December.
The cover is postmarked Christchurch on 10 December.
It is one of only 10 New Zealand covers carried on the
flight to Brisbane and
was backstamped at Brisbane on 17 December.
Australian National Airways (ANA)
From 1 January 1930, Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm's ANA had flown a Brisbane - Sydney service. The shown cover was flown from Sydney to Brisbane on the first flight. The pilot and co-pilot were Kingsford Smith and Scotty Allan.
From 1 June 1930 the service was extended and became Brisbane - Sydney - Melbourne.
This registered cover was flown from Brisbane to Melbourne. It is postmarked at Brisbane late on 31 May 1930 and so would have been flown to Sydney on 1 June and then flown on the second Sydney - Melbourne flight on 2 June. It is backstamped 2 June.
Registered letters should always be handed in at a post office. However, it seems that this cover was posted in an ordinary letter box and then picked out as having been intended for registered post. That is the reason for the IRREGULARLY POSTED cachet [1].
From 1 May 1931, the ANA service was extended with a service from Melbourne to Hobart in Tasmania. The shown cover was flown from Melbourne to Hobart on 2 May. A large cachet was applied to the covers.
Australian National Airways services between Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart ceased on 26 June 1931.
The plane used on these services was the Avro Ten. The 1928 trans-Pacific and trans-Tasman flights of Kingsford Smith and Ulm had been in the Fokker FVII trimotor Southern Cross. The British firm A.V. Roe obtained a license to build the Fokker FVII for sale in the British Empire as the Avro Ten. Australian National Airways bought five which they named the Southern Cloud, Star, Sky, Moon and Sun.
The Southern Cloud disappeared between Sydney and Melbourne on 21 March, 1931 and the wreckage was not found until 1958.
The Southern Sun started the All Australian Airmail to the UK in November 1931, but crashed in Malaya and never flew again. The Southern Star continued the flight, but after its return to Australia, ANA ceased operations.
The
Southern Moon was bought by Ulm,
redesigned and renamed the
Faith in Australia in 1933.
It carried the
first official airmail
between New Zealand and Australia in February 1934.
The Southern Star was bought by
Hart Aircraft Service
and was used once more to fly mail between Melbourne and Tasmania.
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All scans were made by the author.
Information on this page is taken from:
Airmails of New Zealand, volume 2 (1986) 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
[1] The Postage Stamps of New Zealand Vol 3, published by the
Royal Philatelic Society of New Zealand , 1955.