Australia: Start of Air Letter Service to the US, February 10, 1947

Air letter #A-2 sent from RICHMOND (10 FEB 47) to Baltimore, US. The handstamp "1st day Aust - USA" most likely is private.

The sender wrote: "Just a hurried note to send this off to you. I read in this mornings news paper that from to-day we are able to send these 'flimsys'" to the U.S.A., so it is really First Day." 
The first air letters had the nickname "flimsy".

Before the decisions of the 1952 Brussels UPU congress came into effect on July 1, 1953, air letter service was subject to bilateral agreements between countries. This air letter was sent on the first day of the agreements with the US, which was in fact unilateral in the beginning as the US only started sending air letters to Australia on April 29, 1947.