Imperial Airways Ltd

In 1927 and 1928, much to the disgust of Flight: "The most astonishing feature of the Bournemouth meeting was the presence of the Handley Page 'Hampstead' with three Bristol 'Jupiter' engines, which was used for the undignified task of taking holiday crowds for 'joy-rides' over Bournemouth and surrounding districts.  ... why should such a monopoly company come along and start competing with our 'joy-ride' concerns, who receive no subsidy whatever? Already plenty of difficulties face our struggling 'joy-ride' concerns, who are doing splendid propaganda. For a monopoly company to cut in is in the worst of taste, and we trust that there will be no more 'Imperial Joy-riders.' "

They took no notice, of course:

May 1930: "the Imperial Airways Silver Wing "Argosy" air-liner City of Glasgow will fly up to Renfrew today, and will take up passengers."

April 1932: "Another wet week-end spoilt business for the joyriding firms. In spite of the weather, Imperial Airways had a large party of between 200 and 300 visitors on Saturday afternoon, and a large number of them took flights in one of the Handley Page 42's."

- 1925 the H.P. 9a Hampstead G-EBLE 'City of New York' later re-registered in Australia as VH-ULK

- 1925 A.W. Argosy I G-EBLF 'City of Glasgow'