Klaus Vomhof - Air Transport Historian

Klaus Vomhof lives in the U.K., and is the author of Leisure Airlines of Europe: The History of European Charter Airlines from 1945 to the present day. I got in contact with him when he was selling his collection of about 35 Air-India flight schedules from the 1950s thru 1970s. It is generally very difficult to get such a large bunch of timetables.

You may wonder why these are collectible. A comprehensive Timetable collection actually helps chronicle the history of an airline and records the introduction and cessation of routes, aircraft used, flight timings etc. All very valuable to an airline historian and to an aerophilatelist. They also often contain route maps, fleet information, fares etc.

In addition, Air-India timetables have perhaps the most amazing art on their cover, which is reason enough to want these in any collection. You can see images in the timetables section on my website.
This week I was pleasantly surprised to receive a very kind gift from him, and an invaluable addition to my collection and web-site. A package arrived in the mail containing The Story of Indian Air Transport by J. R. D. Tata.

This is text of a talk Mr. Tata gave at the Royal Aeronautical Society on 18th November 1960, as The Sixteenth British Commonwealth Lecture. This was first published in the Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society in January 1961, and the book I got was a mint state reprint (with permission of the RAS) by the Air-India Press, Bombay on March 1973 (200 copies). Indeed a treasure. It does not stop here. He also sent me an Air-India charters timetable effective 15 July 1978, the first I have seen; and a press release from Air-India London on the 30th Anniversary of the first Bombay-London service that was on 8 June 1948.

The Press Release had a most wonderful label affixed on it. This had the image of a Travel Poster issued in 1948, and the release also mentions that Air-India had issued a re-print of 1948 poster itself. Now, that would indeed be an interesting find.

Thank you Mr. Vomhof for your  generous gift. I am sure many Air-India enthusiasts will enjoy viewing these.