The Secretary of State's flight to India aboard an Imperial Airways aeroplane was only one step toward the creation of Empire airways. Empire route development took place in stages. The network was not laid out in one grand sweep even though the guiding dream was always two imperial trunk lines, one to South Africa, and one to India and Australia. Without any pomp and ceremony in London, Imperial took control of the Middle East air route. The Middle East sector was initially organised and flown by the Royal Air Force (RAF) to eliminate the roundabout sea journey to Iraq, a British territorial mandate, and the site of concerted British imperial air policing. In British Africa Imperial did not have to contend with geopolitics as it did in Europe or the Middle East, but it did have to contend with precursors, the Air Ministry, and several different colonial governments.