JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 664

I really quite like this image—it has a quality to it that
looks like a futuristic view of air travel, but it was in fact a
the-future-is-now image. Imperial Airways offered luxurious accommodation for
their passengers in the long flights to India (7 days) and Cape Town (11 days). Passengers had a pretty sustained exposure to relative luxury with
in flight, and landed every evening, the passengers shuttled off to hotels for
a good night’s sleep.   The passengers in this illustration are enjoying
a pot of tea at what look like a full-sized table, while through the very large
viewing window we see another Imperial Airways aircraft passing by *very*
closely. 

This advertisement appears in the 2 July 1932 issue of The
Illustrated London News, posted less than a year after the company started
offering the London- Cape Town route.   The
airline flew Handley Page H.P. 42s with four engines
for these flights—there were eight of these aircraft used for these flights
over the year, each posting over one million miles.  All without a single injury to a single
passenger.