IOR/R/15/2/512

The volume is a continuation of ‘File 13/4 I Facilities for foreign air companies to use Arabian Air Route’ (IOR/R/15/2/511) and contains correspondence relating to the authorisation of foreign aircraft to use the air route following the Arab coast of the Persian Gulf, and the route’s aerodrome facilities, chiefly those at Bahrain (Muharraq aerodrome).

Covering a period that includes the start of the Second World War, much of the volume’s correspondence concerns the status of those countries associated with the foreign air companies seeking to use the Britain’s air facilities in the Gulf. This includes the arrival of Signor Venturini, Middle East Manager of the Italian airline Ala Littoria, in Bahrain in September 1939, investigating an extension of an Ala Littoria air route between Rome and Bangkok (ff 46-52, 64-66, 101-105), and a request from the Japanese Government for reciprocal air links between Britain and Japan in January 1940 (ff 91-92).

However, the majority of the file is taken up with correspondence relating to the Dutch airline Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappih (KLM) and their request to use the Arab coast air route and its facilities, after Iran’s withdrawal of permission for them to use facilities on the Persian coast of the Gulf in 1940. British Government correspondence on the matter includes discussion of a wartime agreement with KLM, offering the use of British air facilities, in return for KLM occasionally putting their transport at Britain’s disposal for military requirements.