“Air Crash Mail of Imperial Airways” with Kendall C. Sanford

Join the British Empire Study Group on Thursday, May 9th at 6 pm (ET) 11 pm GMT

Mail of Imperial Airways” with Kendall C. Sanford

Formed in 1924, Imperial Airways provided wings to the British Empire and represented the British entry in the race to dominate the skies.  Countries realized the power of air travel to make transportation of goods and communication between the vast points of the globe faster than shipping over land or on water.  The British Government recognized the need to create formable competition with the French and German airlines and followed the recommendation of the Hambling committee, providing heavy subsidies to get the venture off the ground, so to speak.  This fledgling airline ran into a lot of turbulence, and the program will guide you through the crash covers of Imperial Airways and touch on collecting crash covers.

Kendall C. Sanford

Ken Sanford is retired from the Airline Industry after forty years, and has been an aerophilatelist for most of that time. He worked for Pan Am as Manager, Passenger Services in Pan Am Headquarters in New York from 1969 to 1974 and in a similar position for the International Air Transport Association in Geneva, Switzerland for 23 years. He has specialized in the philately of Imperial Airways for over forty years. His collections have won gold medals in national level exhibitions with international participation, in the USA, Canada, Great Britain and Switzerland.

He is a Past President of the American Air Mail Society and is a member of that Society’s Board of Directors. Ken is President of the Metropolitan Airpost Society, which is an aerophilatelic society in the New York Metropolitan area. He has given displays of his Imperial Airways crash mail collection to aerophilatelic societies in many countries around the world.