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Airmail (orair mail) is amail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly thansurface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be the only option for sending mail to some destinations, such as overseas, if the mail cannot wait the time it would take to arrive byship, sometimes weeks. TheUniversal Postal Union adopted comprehensive rules for airmail at its 1929Postal Union Congress in London. Since the official language of the Universal Postal Union is French, airmail items worldwide are often markedPar avion, literally: "byairplane".
For about the first half century of its existence, transportation of mail via aircraft was usually categorized and sold as a separate service (airmail) from surface mail. Today it is often the case that mail service is categorized and sold according to transit time alone, with mode of transport (land, sea, air) being decided on theback end in dynamicintermodal combinations. Thus even "regular" mail may make part of its journey on an aircraft. Such "air-speeded" mail is different from nominal airmail in its branding, price, and priority of service.
Specific instances of a letter being delivered by air long predate the introduction of Airmail as a regularly scheduled service available to the general public.
Althoughhoming pigeons had long been used to send messages (an activity known aspigeon mail), the first mail to be carried by an air vehicle was on January 7, 1785, on ahot air balloon flight fromDover toFrance nearCalais. It was flown byJean-Pierre Blanchard andJohn Jeffries. The letter was written by anAmerican LoyalistWilliam Franklin to his sonWilliam Temple Franklin who was serving in a diplomatic role inParis with his grandfatherBenjamin Franklin.[1]
During the first aerial flight in North America by balloon on January 9, 1793, fromPhiladelphia toDeptford, New Jersey,Jean-Pierre Blanchard carried a personal letter fromGeorge Washington to be delivered to the owner of whatever property Blanchard happened to land on, making the flight the first delivery of air mail in the United States.[2][3] The first official air mail delivery in the United States took place on August 17, 1859, whenJohn Wise piloted a balloon starting inLafayette, Indiana, with a destination ofNew York. Weather issues forced him to land nearCrawfordsville, Indiana, and the mail reached its final destination via train.[4] In 1959, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 7 cent stamp commemorating the event.[5]
Balloons also carried mail out ofParis andMetz during theFranco-Prussian War (1870), drifting over the heads of theGermans besieging those cities.Balloon mail was also carried on an 1877 flight inNashville, Tennessee.
Starting in 1903 the introduction of theaeroplane generated immediate interest in using them for mail transport. An unofficial airmail flight was conducted by Fred Wiseman, who carried three letters betweenPetaluma andSanta Rosa, California, on February 17, 1911.[6]
The world's first official airmail flight came the next day, at a large exhibition in theUnited Provinces of Agra and Oudh,British India. The organizer of the aviation display,Sir Walter Windham, was able to secure permission from thepostmaster general in India to operate an airmail service in order to generate publicity for the exhibition and to raise money for charity.[7] Mail from people across the region was gathered in atHoly Trinity Church and the first airmail flight was piloted byHenri Pequet, who flew 6,500 letters a distance of 13 km (8.1 mi) fromAllahabad toNaini—the nearest station on theBombay-Calcutta line to the exhibition.[8][9] The letters bore an official frank "First Aerial Post, U.P. Exhibition, Allahabad. 1911".[10] The aircraft used was aHumber-Sommer biplane, and it made the journey in thirteen minutes.[9][11][12]
The first official American airmail delivery was made on September 23, 1911, by pilotEarle Ovington under the authority of theUnited States Post Office Department.[13]
The first official air mail in Australia was carried by French pilot Maurice Guillaux. On July 16–18, 1914, he flew hisBlériot XI aircraft from Melbourne to Sydney, a distance of 584 miles (940 km), carrying 1785 specially printed postcards, some Lipton's Tea and some O.T. Lemon juice. At the time, this was the longest such flight in the world.[14]
The world's first scheduled airmail post service took place in the United Kingdom between theLondon suburb ofHendon,North London, and thePostmaster General's office inWindsor, Berkshire, on September 9, 1911,[15] as part of the celebrations for KingGeorge V'scoronation[16] and at the suggestion ofSir Walter Windham, who based his proposal on the successful experiment he had overseen in India.
The service ran for just under a month, transporting 35 bags of mail in 16 flights; four pilots operated the aircraft includingGustav Hamel, who flew the first service in hisBlériot, covering the 21 miles between Hendon and Windsor in just 18 minutes. The service was eventually terminated due to constant and severe delays caused by bad weather conditions.[17] Similar services were intermittently run in other countries before thewar, including inGermany,France andJapan, where airmail provision was briefly established in 1912, only to meet with similar practical difficulties.
The range, speed and lifting capacity of aircraft were transformed through technological innovation during the war, allowing the first practical air mail services to finally become a reality when the war ended. For instance, the first regularly scheduled airmail service in theUnited States was inaugurated on May 15, 1918. The route, which ran betweenWashington, D.C., andNew York City, with an intermediate stop inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, was designed by aviation pioneerAugustus Post.[18][19] The field used for this service is marked bya plaque inWest Potomac Park. In 1925, the U.S. Postal service issued contracts to fly airmail between designated points. By 1931, 85% of domestic airline revenue was from airmail.[20]
In Germany,dirigibles of the 1920s and 1930s were used extensively to carry airmail; it was known asZeppelin mail, or dirigible mail. The GermanZeppelins were especially visible in this role, and many countries issued special stamps for use on Zeppelin mail.
The 1928 bookSo Disdained byNevil Shute—a novel based on this author's deep interest in and thorough knowledge of aviation—includes a monologue by a veteran pilot, preserving the atmosphere of these pioneering times: "We used to fly on the Paris route, fromHounslow toLe Bourget and get through as best as you could. Later we moved on toCroydon. (...) We carried the much advertised Air Mails. That meant the machines had to fly whether there were passengers to be carried or not. It was left to the discretion of the pilot whether or not the flight should be cancelled in bad weather; the pilots were dead keen on flying in the most impossible conditions. Sanderson got killed this way at Douinville. And all he had in the machine was a couple of picture postcards from trippers in Paris, sent to their families as a curiosity. That was the Air Mail. No passengers or anything—just the mail".[21]
In the aftermath of the war, theRoyal Engineers (Postal Section) and theRoyal Air Force pioneered the first scheduled international airmail service betweenFolkestone, Kent andCologne, Germany. The service operated between December 1918 and mid-1919; its purpose was to provide troops of theBritish Army stationed in Germany with a fast mail service.[22] (see more atBritish Forces Post Office) Throughout the 1920s theRoyal Air Force continued to develop air routes through theMiddle East.
On 25 December 1918, theLatécoère Airlines (later becoming the famedAéropostale) became the first civilian international airmail service, when mail was flown fromToulouse, France, toBarcelona, Spain. Less than 2 months later, on 19 February 1919, the airmail service was extended toCasablanca, Morocco, making theLatécoère Airlines the first transcontinental airmail service.[23] In June 1919,Alcock and Brown completed the first transatlantic airmail flight.
The first airmail service established officially by an airline occurred inColombia, South America, on 19 October 1920.Scadta, the first airline of the country, flew landing river by river delivering mail in its destinations. Australia's first airmail contract was awarded to Norman (later Sir) Brearley's Western Australian Airlines (WAA). The first airmail was carried betweenGeraldton andDerby inWestern Australia on December 5, 1921.
Sincestamp collecting was already a well-developed hobby by this time, collectors followed developments in airmail service closely, and went to some trouble to find out about thefirst flights between various destinations, and to get letters onto them. The authorities often used specialcachets on thecovers, and in many cases thepilot would sign them as well.
The first stamps designated specifically for airmail were issued byItaly in 1917, and used on experimental flights; they were produced byoverprintingspecial delivery stamps. Austria also overprinted stamps for airmail in March 1918, soon followed by the firstdefinitive stamp for airmail, issued by the United States in May 1918.
A postal service may sometimes opt to transport some regular mail by air, perhaps because other transportation is unavailable. It is usually impossible to know this by examining an envelope, and such items are not considered "airmail." Generally, airmail would take a guaranteed and scheduled flight and arrive first, while air-speeded mail would wait for a non-guaranteed and merely available flight and would arrive later than normal airmail.
A letter sent via airmail may be called anaerogramme,aerogram,air letter or simplyairmail letter. However,aerogramme andaerogram may also refer to a specific kind of airmail letter which is its own envelope; seeaerogram.
Some forms of airletter, such asaerogram, may forbid enclosure of other material so as to keep the weight down.
The choice to send a letter by air is indicated either by a handwritten note on theenvelope, by the use of special labels calledairmail etiquettes (blue stickers with the words "air mail" in French and in the home language), or by the use of specially-marked envelopes. Specialairmail stamps may also be available, or required; the rules vary in different countries.
The study of airmail is known asaerophilately.
The Proposed New York–Philadelphia–Washington aerial mail route
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