To publicise the advantages of air mail, the New Zealand Air League organised a network of airmail services on Christmas Eve 1931.
Mail was delivered to Palmerston North on December 24 including airmail from Wellington and from Gisborne. There were then airmail flights from Palmerston North to Auckland, Gisborne and Invercargill with mail being delivered and picked up at intermediate destinations.
The total size of the Christmas airmail to all destinations was 16,836 with no fewer than 73 different flight departure-arrival pairs. Due to philatelic interest, a significant number of covers were flown between each. The smallest number was 69 between Gisborne and Hawera while 1439 covers were flown from Wellington to Auckland.
The postage was 5d made up of 2d ordinary postage plus 3d air mail fee. The 3d airmail was overprinted 5d and issued on December 18 in green specially for this flight.
Similar Christmas Eve flights were made in
1932.
Getting to Palmerston North
From Gisborne
Mail from Gisborne and the east was flown from Gisborne to Palmerston North via Hastings. It left Gisborne at 3.55 am in the morning of December 24 using a Desoutter Monoplane piloted by W.H. Lett. The same plane was then used on the return journey.
The cover is one of 248 items flown from Gisborne to Dunedin. It was flown from Gisborne to Palmerston North where it was transferred to the Invercargill flight for delivery at Dunedin.
It is postmarked 3 am in Gisborne and backstamped at 1 pm in
Dunedin.
From Auckland
Mail from the north was sent from Auckland to Palmerston North by the night train of Dec 23.
The cover was posted in Auckland on 23 December, taken by train to Palmerston North and was then one of the 236 items flown by J.M. Buckeridge on the Palmerston North to Wanganui leg of the flight to Auckland on 24 December.
The backstamp shows that it had arrived in Wanganui by 11 am.
From the South Island and Wellington
This cover is postmarked in Christchurch on 22 December and is addressed to Auckland.
Mails from the South Island were collected together at Christchurch and sent by the regular steamer from Lyttelton to Wellington on the night of December 23. They then joined with the mail from Wellington and were flown to Palmerston North by Flying Officer J.M. Buckeridge. He then continued to Auckland.
A total of 1439 covers were flown from Wellington to Auckland.
That total includes covers from the South Island.
From Palmerston North
To Auckland
This flight actually started at Wellington. At Palmerston North, mail for the south and the east was transferred to the other planes and mail for the north was loaded.
The pilot was J.M. Buckeridge and the flight to Auckland was via Wanganui, Hawera and New Plymouth.
The cover was flown from Hastings to Palmerston North where it was transferred to the Auckland flight for delivery at New Plymouth where it was backstamped at 1.45pm.
According to Stapleton, although both purple and grey-blue
cachets were applied at Hastings, the 73 covers for New Plymouth
had a grey-blue cachet.
Walker only mentions purple cachets from Hastings.
The cachet on the above cover is purple and the cover
has been authenticated
by the Expert Committee of the
Air Mail Society of New Zealand.
To Invercargill
The route to Invercargill was via Wellington, Blenheim, Christchurch, Timaru, Oamaru and Dunedin. The pilot was M.C. McGregor and the plane was a DH 60 Gipsy Moth.
The cover was posted in Palmerston North and was one of 272 flown to Timaru. The backstamp shows that it had arrived in Timaru by 1 pm.
Covers were picked up as well as being delivered to the intermediate points.
To Gisborne
This was the return flight from Palmerston North to Gisborne via Hastings. The plane was a Desoutter Monoplane and the pilot was W.H. Lett.
The cover was posted in Auckland on 23 December, taken by train to Palmerston North and was then one of 456 items flown from Palmerston North to Gisborne on 24 December.
The backstamp shows that it had arrived in Gisborne by 12.30 pm.
Gisborne - Palmerston North - Gisborne
This is a much travelled cover with four different registration labels.
It was first sent from Auckland to Gisborne and has a 21 December postmark. It was then postmarked at Gisborne at 3am on 24 December, had the Gisborne cachet applied and was flown to Palmerson North where a receiving mark was applied at 11 am.
It was offloaded at Palmerston North, postmarked at 11 am, and had a registration label and the Palmerston North backstamp added.
It was then flown on the return flight from Palmerston North
to Gisborne where it was backstamped at 12.30.
Finally, it was sent back to Auckland being postmarked at 7.30pm on 24 December in Gisborne.
It is franked with a total of 2/6½ in stamps which is ½d too much. It requires four registration fees of 4d, two airmail fees of 3d and four ordinary postage fees of 2d which comes to 2/6.
The stamps are a range of 1898 pictorials, GV definitives and
the complete airmail set.
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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