Editing Imperial Airways (section)

===The Eastern route===
[[File:Imperial_Airways_Ad_1936.jpg|thumb|right|A 1936 advertisement]]

Regular services on the [[Cairo]] to [[Basra]] route began on 12 January 1927 using [[de Havilland Hercules|DH.66]] aircraft, replacing the [[Cairo – Baghdad air route|previous RAF mail flight]].<ref name=DH66 /> Following two years of negotiations with the Persian authorities regarding overflight rights, a London to [[Karachi]] service started on 30 March 1929, taking seven days and consisting of a flight from London to [[Basel]], a train to [[Genoa]] and a [[Short S.8 Calcutta]] [[flying boat]]s to Alexandria, a train to Cairo and finally a DH.66 flight to Karachi. The route was extended as far as Delhi on 29 December 1929. The route across Europe and the Mediterranean changed many times over the next few years but almost always involved a rail journey.

In April 1931 an experimental London-[[Australia]] air mail flight took place; the mail was transferred at the [[Dutch East Indies]], after the DH66 City of Cairo crashed landed in Timor, on the 19th April, having run out of fuel, and took 26 days in total to reach [[Sydney]]. For the passenger flight leaving London on 1 October 1932, the Eastern route was switched from the Persian to the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, and [[Handley Page HP 42]] airliners were introduced on the Cairo to Karachi sector. The move saw the establishment of an airport and rest house,  [[Mahatta Fort]], in the [[Trucial States|Trucial State]] of [[Sharjah (emirate)|Sharjah]] now part of the [[United Arab Emirates]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2021}}

On 29 May 1933 an England to Australia survey flight took off, operated by Imperial Airways [[Armstrong Whitworth Atalanta]] G-ABTL ''Astraea''. Major H. G. Brackley, Imperial Airways' Air Superintendent, was in charge of the flight. ''Astraea'' flew [[Croydon Airport|Croydon]]-[[Paris]]-[[Lyon]]-[[Rome]]-[[Brindisi]]-[[Athens]]-[[Alexandria]]-[[Cairo]] where it followed the normal route to [[Karachi]] then onwards to [[Jodhpur]]-[[Delhi]]-[[Kolkata|Calcutta]]-[[Sittwe|Akyab]]-[[Yangon|Rangoon]]-[[Bangkok]]-[[Prachuap Khiri Khan|Prachuab]]-[[Alor Setar]]-[[Singapore]]-[[Palembang]]-[[Jakarta|Batavia]]-[[Surabaya|Sourabaya]]-[[Bima]]-[[Kupang|Koepang]]-[[Bathurst Island Airport|Bathurst Island]]-[[Darwin, Northern Territory|Darwin]]-[[Newcastle Waters]]-[[Camooweal]]-[[Cloncurry]]-[[Longreach]]-[[Roma, Queensland|Roma]]-[[Toowoomba]] reaching [[Eagle Farm Airport|Eagle Farm, Brisbane]] on 23 June. Sydney was visited on 26 June, Canberra on 28 June and Melbourne on 29 June.{{Citation needed|date=May 2021}}

There followed a rapid eastern extension. The first London to [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] service departed on 1 July 1933, the first London to [[Rangoon]] service on 23 September 1933, the first London to [[Singapore]] service on 9 December 1933, and the first London to [[Brisbane]] service on 8 December 1934, with [[Qantas]] responsible for the Singapore to Brisbane sector. (The 1934 start was for mail; passenger flights to Brisbane began the following April.) The first mail service was inaugurated on March 14th, 1936.<ref>{{Cite web |last=JamesG |date=2016-07-24 |title=1936 – First Regular Mail Service to Hong Kong - Rhodesian Study Circle |url=https://www.rhodesianstudycircle.org.uk/1936-first-regular-mail-service-to-hong-kong/#:~:text=First%20Regular%20Mail%20Service%20to%20Hong%20Kong,mail%20route%20from%20London%20to%20Hong%20Kong. |access-date=2025-04-13 |language=en-GB}}</ref> The mail service, and later the passenger service, from London to Hong Kong connected with the London-Australia branch at Penang.{{citation needed|date=April 2025}} The mail leaving London on 14 March 1936 was connected with the first flight in Penang on March 23, following the establishment of a branch from Penang to Hong Kong.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Imperial Airways Route to Hong Kong |url=http://www.nzstamps.org.uk/air/external/eastern/hk.html |access-date=2025-04-13 |website=www.nzstamps.org.uk}}</ref>