2019-12-30 Mon

India is a land of many firsts. So obviously it’s no surprise that the 1st Air Mail flight of the world flew in India. Making history on 18 February 1911, the first official Airmail flight in the world arrived in Naini (a satellite city of Allahabad) from Allahabad. India was soon connected with the world via the Imperial Airway’s Karachi-Croydon Airmail Services. While India was connected to the international Airmail services, Indian Inland mail was still majorly via surface post.

The February 1930 Bulletin of the Indian Air Mail Society published a Postal notification which announced that Indian State Air Mail Services will come into effect from 28th December 1929 between Karachi and Delhi. These services were to connect Indian Inland air mail with the Imperial Airways’ Karachi-Croydon air mail service.

After a short lived attempt in 1921, inland Indian air mail services were regularly started from December 1929. On 29th December a DH 66 flew from Karachi to Delhi carrying India’s 1st inland air mail. The flight returned to Karachi on 30th of December 1929 from New Delhi after collecting mails from Jodhpur and Hyderabad. From Karachi the mail was further connected with the air services to London!

The airmail covers used for this flight have postmarks that commemorate this “Air Mail” “First Flight”. The stamps too are postmarked with the day, date and time when the letters were posted from and delivered to Karachi, Delhi, Jodhpur, Hyderabad and Calcutta (letters were collected from and delivered to Calcutta via surface mail).

The postcard in the image alongside was carried on the 1st return flight from Delhi to Karachi on 30th of December 1929. The card is stamped with “Jodhpur” postmark (9:30 am Jodhpur on 30 December) and has a Delhi-Karachi First Flight cachet. A stamp on the backside of the card shows that the card had arrived in Karachi by 6pm that same day.

Isn’t it fascinating? Well, Philately is a wonderful hobby indeed! Happy Collecting fellas…

Image Courtesy: http://www.nzstamps.org.uk/

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