FOCUS ON PHILATELY
by Ingert Kuzych
The world's first international, and regular, airmail service
CONCLUSION
Special stamps and postmarks
The mailing fees set out in the Austrian "Order No. 15" that established the first airmail service were in three parts:
1. The normal rate of 10 heller (h) for a postcard or 15 h for a letter. This charge was paid by regular definitive stamps.
2. A conveyance (handling) charge of 1 Krone (k) per item.
3. An airmail rate of 1.5 K for each 20 grams of weight and for each increment of the route, e.g., a typical letter Vienna-Krakow would require 1.5 K; Vienna-Lemberg would add 3 K.
These last two charges were paid for by special airmail stamps, which the post office created using old stamp plates to print a new set of three stamps but with new colors. These stamps were then overprinted with the word "Flugpost" (airmail) and some of them surcharged with new values: the 2 K violet stamps were revalued to 1.5 K and the 3 K yellow to 2.5 K; the 4 K gray's value was left unchanged. These stamps, made on light gray paper, became available on March 30 (Figure 4).
Official and military correspondence was sent free of charge. All such letters posted in Krakow or Lemberg received the following handstamp: "K. u K. Fliegerkurierlinie WienKyiv Flugstation Krakau (or Lemberg)" (K. u K.= Imperial and Royal; Air Courier Route Vienna-Kyiv Flight Station Krakow (or Lemberg)). These postmarks also served as receiving markings at these two cities and were in use from March 20 to the end of October 1918. Letters with these official markings are quite scarce and valuable (Figure 5).
"Post and Telegraph Order No. 15" designated Vienna, Krakow and Lemberg as arrival delivery sites; only the main post offices - Wien 1, Krakau 1, and Lemberg 1 - were authorized to accept mail for air delivery. The stamps were cancelled with ordinary round handstamps of the post office of origin. Additionally, a special round "Flugpost" postmark had to appear on the front of the cover, usually next to the cancelled postage stamps, to indicate that air delivery was required. These postmarks were also used to backstamp incoming airmail (Figure 6).
During the first two months of operation, most of the mails being sent between Vienna, Krakow and Lemberg were of a philatelic nature, that is they were frequently overfranked to show all three stamps of the set. On June 1, after the flood of philatelic mail had dropped off, the airmail service was extended to other major towns in the empire, 12 in Austria and 20 in Hungary. All such mail was delivered by train on a priority basis from these outlying post offices to the central post offices in Vienna, Krakow, or Lemberg. From there it was forwarded to its destination through the normal way reserved for airmail. Such letters, to or from outlying locales, are not easy to come by and command a premium (Figure 7).
All airmail delivered to Vienna was taken directly from the airfield to "Wien Telegraphenzentralstation P," which served as the main distribution point for Vienna's postal system. This central post office distributed the mail by means of pneumatic tubes to various terminals within the city. Attending postal clerks numbered all airmail letters consecutively, usually in the lower left corner, at the time of mailing.
Mail to Kyiv
The carrying of private airmail to Kyiv was allowed by the end of June 1918. However, the leg between Lemberg and Kyiv was not extensively used for private correspondence. In Kyiv, all of the mail was handled by Field Post No. 258, which used exclusively Austrian field post stamps for prepayment of fees on private airmail going out of the city, and the cancellation "K. u K. Etappen P.O. No. 258" (Imperial and Royal Communications Base No. 258) instead of an ordinary handstamp. Letters originating in Kyiv and franked with field post stamps are considered philatelic rarities and only Kyiv to Vienna examples are known, none from Kyiv to Lemberg or from Kyiv to Krakow. No special Ukrainian airmail stamps or cancels were ever produced.
Air service milestones
As previously mentioned, the first regularly scheduled flight from Vienna via Krakow and Lemberg to Kyiv took place on March 31, 1918. The majority of the letters on this flight bear March 30 Vienna cancellations and March 31 airmail postmarks (Figure 8). This first flight carried 184 covers from Vienna to Krakow and 264 covers from Vienna to Lemberg. The official mail to Kyiv is unrecorded. The first return flight to Vienna took place on April 3, 1918 (Figure 9). A total of 103 pieces of mail were carried from Lemberg to Vienna and 81 from Krakow to Vienna. Soon daily flights began to leave from both Vienna and Kyiv heading in opposite directions. In the first 90 days of operation, 80 successful one-day flights were made from Vienna to Kyiv. On the other days, bad weather prevented take-off or the completion of the entire journey.
Regular flights of the Vienna-Kyiv line formally ended on October 15, 1918 (Figure 10). The war was drawing to a close and the schedule could no longer be maintained. Nevertheless, occasional flights between the cities continued. Letters bearing postmarks with dates between March 20 and March 31, 1918, that is before the inauguration of regular mail service, or with dates after October 15, are extremely scarce but do exist.
During the period of airmail service the following quantities of items are known to have been carried between the cities:
Vienna-Krakow - 6,488 items
Vienna-Lemberg - 9,428 items
Krakow-Vienna - 8,332 items
Lemberg-Vienna - 11,038 items.
So, about 20 percent more mail was delivered to Vienna than left the capital.
The amount of mail between Vienna and Kyiv certainly did not reach the levels quoted above. However, this author was not able to locate any official tallies of quantities to or from the Ukrainian capital. There could be several reasons for this. The Austrian postal service may have felt it was necessary only to keep track of domestic use of the new airmail service (between Vienna, Krakow and Lemberg). Since mails to Kyiv were travelling to another country, there may have been less concern by postal personnel to keep thorough records. On the other hand, just the opposite could be true. Because so much of the post between these capitals was likely of an important nature (official or military, and not civilian), perhaps counts were deliberately withheld for security reasons. The latter scenario may be the more likely.
An extension of the line
On July 4, 1918, the airmail service was extended to Budapest from Vienna. This service had a direct connection to the Vienna-Kyiv route. The intention was to create a second service to Ukraine via a "southern route" from Vienna to Budapest, through Arad and Bucharest, with Odesa as the final destination (Figure 2). This second line was never established, but the Vienna-Budapest leg operated for a short while until July 23, 1918.
Hungarian airmail stamps were created for this service by overprinting two values of stamps then in use with the words "REPULO POSTA" (air mail). The Hungarian rates were a bit more complicated than those in the Austrian half of the empire and will not be elaborated upon here.
Some published reports stating that the link to Hungary closed because of lack of use are not creditable. The numbers speak for themselves:
Budapest-Vienna and other Austrian destinations - 6,247 items
Budapest-Krakow - 405 items
Budapest-Lemberg - 192 items
Budapest-Kyiv - a few items
Vienna-Budapest - 1,845 items.
In reality, the shutdown was caused by a couple of unfortunate plane crashes, the first on July 13 and the second on July 21, both of which saw the two-man crews killed.
Epilogue
The pioneering Vienna-Krakow-Lemberg-Kyiv airmail line gave birth to the airmail service that we today take for granted. Inasmuch as it traversed Austrian, Czech, Polish and Ukrainian territories, and briefly also Hungarian, it is of interest to philatelists who collect any of these countries.
Dr. Ingert Kuzych may be contacted at P.O. Box 3, Springfield VA 22150; or by e-mail at [email protected].
CONCLUSION
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 7, 2001, No. 1, Vol. LXIX
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