The air (mail) man

We don’t think anything of airmail now. Although not as popular as it once was, mail - mostly in the form of packages - goes all over the world all the time.
But someone had to start it. And despite the attempt as pigeon post which we have written about before, the first airmail service in New Zealand was in 1919 between Auckland and Dargaville.
In December 1919 George Bolt, flying for the Walsh brothers in Mission Bay, took off and made the first official airmail flight. Mail was picked up from the harbour opposite the Queen St wharf from a launch. He flew up the east coast then crossed to the west coast heading for the mouth of the Dargaville river. (Te Ara, the online dictionary of New Zealand has a recording of Bolt discussing the first flight).
Despite keeping it up for four months, it never made a profit and was stopped.
He tried again with a route between Auckland and Whangarei using a seaplane but it was no more successful.
A regular route was later taken up by another pilot - Captain Euan Dickson a couple of years later..
Bolt was born in Dunedin on May 24, 1893 to Frederick and Mary and became interested in flight at the age of nine when he saw early hot air ballooning and modelling.
Determinedly he built his own glider which he flew above the Cashmere Hills. After that he never stopped - building more and more from which he took aerial photos.
In 1916 he was hired by pioneer pilot Vivian Walsh and learned to fly flying boats and float planes.
Bolt married Mary Best in Christchurch in 1922.
He went on to work for Dominion Airways then was appointed the commercial pilot, chief engineer and advanced flying instructor for the Wellington Aero Club.
Mary Bolt had died in 1928, leaving George with two young children. On 3 March 1933 he married Dora Irene Frankland Bell at Khandallah, Wellington.
During the second World War he flew in the Royal New Zealand Air Force and the Royal Air Force and on his return became Chief Engineer for Tasman Empire Airways Limited, or TEAL, which went on to become Air New Zealand.
In 1953 he received an OBE and retired in 1960.
The main access road to Auckland Airport is called George Bolt Memorial Drive.
Bolt died on July 27, 1963 and is buried in Purewa Cemetery​