With the Hercules, Imperial Airways took over responsibility for the airmail service from the Royal Air Force, which had been operating the obsolete Airco DH.10 Amiens.

To reduce the risk of deterioration in tropical areas the fuselage was a tube steel frame, with the cabin and rear baggage compartment of plywood mounted inside it.

[2] Following a period of crew training the prototype left the United Kingdom for Cairo on 18 December 1926 to be based at Heliopolis.

The second aircraft left Croydon for Cairo on 27 December 1926, carrying the Secretary of State for Air Samuel Hoare.

The City of Cairo was to fly the mail from Karachi to Australia but ran out of fuel and forced landed at Koepang on 19 April 1931.

The City of Cape Town was briefly used in South Africa from October 1932 until 1933 by Sir Alan Cobham for his itinerant air pageant.

The City of Jodhpur was used in an aerial ant-locust campaign in Rhodesia in 1934 and the following year it crashed into a swamp near Lake Salisbury in Uganda and was destroyed.

[2] West Australian Airways ordered four Hercules aircraft for a new passenger and mail service between Perth and Adelaide.