Imperial Airways travel poster, 1926.

The poster shows a Handley Page W10 flying across a map of Europe. Imperial Airways Limited was formed by the British government on 31st March 1924, after a government report recommended that Britain's interests in commercial air transport would be best served by merging the larger existing aircraft companies. The four companies concerned were Handley Page Transport, the Instone Airline, Daimler Airway and British Marine Air Navigation, all four of which had struggled to operate at a profit.