Spartan Airways First Flights to Isle of Wight.

Spartan Airways was part of the Whitehall Securities aviation portfolio and was born out of the Spartan Aircraft manufacturing company. It ran services from London (Heston) to Ryde and Cowes on the Isle of Wight. These began on April 12th 1933. In 1934 they negotiated a contract with Southern Railways who had come in as part of the newly formed RAS. They moved their operations from Heston to Croydon, where Imperial Airways who ran the air operations of RAS were based. RAS did not run a service from London to the Isle of Wight, so Spartan ran that service under contract from 1 May 1934 until 31st October 1934. In September 1935 Spartan Airways joined Hillman Airways and United Airways to form Allied British Airways. Spartan Airways only carried mail for a short period of time from October 1, 1934 to October 31, 1934. They carried the mail under contract from RAS when the Birmingham to Cowes RAS route closed for the Winter. To restore a connection to the North the Spartan service was re-routed to go via Southampton to Cowes and Bembridge which became the terminus. There were no fancy covers and apart from a few first flight covers arranged by the dealer Francis Field, the role of Spartan Airways in airmail has largely gone unnoticed. From November 1, 1934 Hillmans Airways took over the mail contract from RAS.