FROM THE ARCHIVES:The first scheduled air service between Dublin and London, via Bristol, began in 1936 with this inaugural Aer Lingus flight on the 14-seater de Havilland 86 Express.
BREAKFAST IN Dublin, lunch in London and back in Dublin again in time for tea was the experience of a party of guests on the first Dublin-London-Dublin flight of the new air service linking the two capitals, which commenced yesterday.
Before the aeroplane, which was named “Éire” by the Acting Minister of Industry and Commerce (Mr. Thomas Derrig) on Saturday last, took off from Baldonnel Aerodrome in the morning, it was blessed by the Army Air Corps Chaplain, the Rev. W. O’Riordan. The machine was flown by Captain O. E. Armstrong (chief pilot of the Irish organisation participating in the Irish Sea Airways).
The Lord Mayor of Dublin [Alfie Byrne], Mr. W. H. Morton, general manager, Great Southern Railways, and Dr. E. Haslett were passengers on the outward journey, but did not return in the machine as they had business in London. Bristol was reached 1 hours and 40 minutes after leaving Baldonnel. [. . .] Leaving Bristol at 11.28 a.m. the machine landed at Croydon at 12.16 p.m.
Success to the new service was toasted at Croydon Airport Hotel at a luncheon presided over by Sir Hugo Cunliffe-Owen, chairman of Olley Air Services Ltd, and its subsidiary, Blackpool and West Coast Air Services, which, in conjunction with Aer Lingus Teoranta, are responsible for the operation of the new service.
Sir Hugo said that he wished to welcome heartily their friends from the Irish Free State on the inauguration of a further link between the two countries, which, they felt, could do nothing but add to a better understanding.
Mr. Sean O hUaidhaigh, chairman of Aer Lingus Teoranta, said that they were very honoured to have been passengers in the first regular Irish air service landed on the Croydon tarmac, the centre of aviation, from which air services went to all corners of the Earth.
At one end of the route they had London with its teeming millions, and at the other Dublin, which in the last decennial census, was found to have added to its population more than the population of Cork city, and they anticipated that a couple of machines in each direction would eventually be required every day.
Mr. J. W. Dulanty, Free State High Commissioner in London, said that he was overjoyed in more senses than one at the new venture. A British and an Irish company had combined in this new development – a thing that would have been thought miraculous a few years ago.
The Lord Mayor of Dublin said that they had had a delightful journey. They admired the beautiful scenery, and he could tell his friends who might feel a little nervous not to have any fears.
They had not experienced on the journey the bumps to be met with when motoring or on the smoothest railway line.