An airline is a company that provides a regular service of air transportation for passengers or freight (cargo). Airlines use aircraft to supply these services. Many passenger airlines also carry cargo in the belly of their aircraft, while dedicated cargo airlines focus solely on freight transport. Generally, airlines are recognized with an air operating certificate or license issued by a governmental aviation body. These airlines may be scheduled or charter operators.
Airline ownership has seen a shift from mostly personal ownership until the 1930s to government-ownership of major airlines from the 1940s to 1980s and back to large-scale privatization following the mid-1980s. Since the 1980s, there has been a trend of major airline mergers and the formation of partnerships or alliances for codeshare agreements, in which they both offer and operate the same flight. The largest alliances are Star Alliance, SkyTeam and Oneworld. Airline alliances coordinate their passenger service programs (such as lounges and frequent-flyer programs), offer special interline tickets and often engage in extensive codesharing (sometimes systemwide).
History
The first airlines
DELAG, Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft, was the world’s first commercial passenger airline. It was founded on November 16, 1909, and began services in June 1910, providing a regular service until 1935. DELAG operated airships manufactured by the Zeppelin Company.
The Compagnie générale transaérienne (CGT) was founded on October 10, 1909, making it the oldest airline company, which began cargo operations in April 1911 and began regular passenger operations in March 1913—weekly return fixed-wing flights. CGT was the first of the companies that would eventually merge to become Air France.
A fixed-wing scheduled airline was started in the United States in January 1914. The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line was piloted by Tony Jannus and flew from St. Petersburg, Florida, to Tampa, Florida.
Europe Beginnings
The British airship, HM Airship R34 was the first aircraft of any type to carry passengers across the Atlantic Ocean when on 2 July 1919 it left Scotland, travelled to New York and returned.The Transatlantic Voyage of R.34 Flight 10 July 1919, pp. 906–910
Aircraft Transport and Travel (AT&T), formed by George Holt Thomas in 1916 as a fixed-wing airline; via a series of takeovers and mergers, this company is the earliest predecessor company of British Airways. Using a fleet of former military Airco DH.4A biplanes that had been modified to carry two passengers in the fuselage, it operated relief flights between Folkestone and Ghent, Belgium. On July 15, 1919, the company flew a proving flight across the English Channel, despite a lack of support from the British government. Flown by Lt. H Shaw in an Airco DH.9 between RAF Hendon and Paris – Le Bourget Airport, the flight took 2 hours and 30 minutes at £21 per passenger. On August 25, 1919, the company used DH.16s to pioneer a regular service from Hounslow Heath Aerodrome to Paris's Le Bourget, the first daily international service in the world. The airline soon gained a reputation for reliability, despite problems with bad weather, and began to attract European competition. In November 1919, it won the first British civil airmail contract. Six Royal Air Force Airco DH.9A aircraft were lent to the company, to operate the airmail service between Hawkinge and Cologne. In 1920, they were returned to the Royal Air Force.The Putnam Aeronautical Review edited by John Motum, p170 Volume one 1990 Naval Institute Press
Other British competitors were quick to follow – Handley Page Transport was established in 1919 and used the company's converted wartime Type O/400 bombers with a capacity for 12 passengers, to run a London-Paris passenger service.
Société des lignes Latécoère, a predecessor of Air France, later known as Aéropostale, started its first airmail service in late 1924 to Spain. The Société Générale des Transports Aériens was created in late 1919, by the Farman brothers. It began a weekly service between Paris and Brussels on 22 March 1919, the world's first international commercial aviation service. The Farman F.60 Goliath plane flew scheduled services from Toussus-le-Noble to Kenley, near Croydon, England. Another early French airline was the Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes, established in 1919 by Louis-Charles Breguet, offering a mail and freight service between Le Bourget Airport, Paris and Lesquin Airport, Lille.
The first German airline to use heavier than air aircraft was Deutsche Luft-Reederei (DLR) established in 1917 which started operating in February 1919. In its first year, the DLR operated regularly scheduled flights on routes with a combined length of nearly 1000 miles. By 1921 the DLR network was more than 3000 km (1865 miles) long, and included destinations in the Netherlands, Scandinavia and the Baltic Republics. Another important German airline was Junkers Luftverkehr, which began operations in 1921. It was a division of the aircraft manufacturer Junkers, which became a separate company in 1924. It operated joint-venture airlines in Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland.
The Dutch airline KLM made its first flight in 1920, and is the oldest airline still using the original name. Established by aviator Albert Plesman, it was immediately awarded a "Royal" predicate from Queen Wilhelmina. Its first flight was from Croydon Airport, London to Amsterdam, using a leased DH-16 from Aircraft Transport and Travel, carrying two British journalists and a number of newspapers. In 1921, KLM started scheduled services.
In Finland, the charter establishing Aero O/Y (now Finnair) was signed in the city of Helsinki on 12 September 1923. Junkers F.13 D-335 became the first aircraft of the company, when Aero took delivery of it on 14 March 1924. The first flight was between Helsinki and Tallinn, capital of Estonia, and it took place on 20 March 1924, one week later.
In the Soviet Union, the Chief Administration of the Civil Air Fleet was established in 1921. One of its first acts was to help found Deutsch-Russische Luftverkehrs A.G. (Deruluft), a German-Russian joint venture to provide air transport from Russia to the West. Domestic air service began around the same time, when Dobrolyot started operations on 15 July 1923 between Moscow and Nizhni Novgorod. Since 1932 all operations had been carried under the name Aeroflot.
Early European airlines tended to favor comfort – the passenger cabins were often spacious with luxurious interiors – over speed and efficiency. The relatively basic navigational capabilities of pilots at the time also meant that delays due to the weather were commonplace.
Rationalization
By the early 1920s, small airlines were struggling to compete, and there was a movement towards increased rationalization and consolidation. In 1924, Imperial Airways was formed from the merger of Instone Air Line Company, British Marine Air Navigation, Daimler Airway and Handley Page Transport, to allow British airlines to compete with stiff competition from French and German airlines that were enjoying heavy government subsidies. The airline was a pioneer in surveying and opening up air routes across the world to serve far-flung parts of the British Empire and to enhance trade and integration.
The first new airliner ordered by Imperial Airways, was the Handley Page W8f City of Washington, delivered on 3 November 1924. In the first year of operation the company carried 11,395 passengers and 212,380 letters. In April 1925, the film The Lost World became the first film to be screened for passengers on a scheduled airliner flight when it was shown on the London-Paris route.
Two French airlines also merged to form Air Union on 1 January 1923. This later merged with four other French airlines to become Air France, the country's flagship carrier to this day, on 17 May 1933.
On 6 January 1926 two German airlines, Deutsche Aero Lloyd (DAL) and Junkers Luftverkehr merged to form Deutsche Luft Hansa Aktiengesellschaft. In 1933 The airline simplified its name to Deutsche Lufthansa. Lufthansa, due to the Junkers heritage and unlike most other airlines at the time, became a major investor in airlines outside of Europe, providing capital to Varig and Avianca. Post-war transport aircraft designed by Germans Junkers, Dornier, and Dutch Anthony Fokker were among the most successful in the world, at the time, due to their cantilevered wings eliminating the need for external struts or braces.
Expansion In 1926, Alan Cobham surveyed a flight route from the UK to Cape Town, South Africa, following this up with another proving flight to Melbourne, Australia. Other routes to British India and the Far East were also charted and demonstrated at this time. Regular services to Cairo and Basra began in 1927 and were extended to Karachi in 1929. The London-Australia service was inaugurated in 1932 with the Handley Page HP 42 airliners. Further services were opened up to Calcutta, Rangoon, Singapore, Brisbane and Hong Kong passengers departed London on 14 March 1936 following the establishment of a branch from Penang to Hong Kong.
France began an air mail service to Morocco in 1919 that was bought out in 1927, renamed Aéropostale, and injected with capital to become a major international carrier. In 1933, Aéropostale went bankrupt, was nationalized and merged into Air France.
Although Germany lacked colonies, it also began expanding its services globally. In 1931, the airship Graf Zeppelin began offering regular scheduled passenger service between Germany and South America, usually every two weeks, which continued until 1937. In 1936, the airship Hindenburg entered passenger service and successfully crossed the Atlantic 36 times before crashing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on 6 May 1937. In 1938, a weekly air service from Berlin to Kabul, Afghanistan, started operating.
From February 1934 until World War II began in 1939, Deutsche Lufthansa operated an airmail service from Stuttgart, Germany via Spain, the Canary Islands and West Africa to Natal in Brazil. This was the first time an airline flew across an ocean.James W. Graue & John Duggan "Deutsche Lufthansa South Atlantic Airmail Service 1934–1939", Zeppelin Study Group, Ickenham, UK 2000
By the end of the 1930s Aeroflot had become the world's largest airline, employing more than 4,000 pilots and 60,000 other service personnel and operating around 3,000 aircraft (of which 75% were considered obsolete by its own standards). During the Soviet era Aeroflot was synonymous with Russian civil aviation, as it was the only air carrier. It became the first airline in the world to operate sustained regular jet services on 15 September 1956 with the Tupolev Tu-104.
Deregulation Deregulation of the European Union airspace in the early 1990s has had substantial effect on the structure of the industry there. The shift towards 'budget' airlines on shorter routes has been significant. Airlines such as EasyJet and Ryanair have often grown at the expense of the traditional national airlines.
There has also been a trend for these national airlines themselves to be privatized such as has occurred for Aer Lingus and British Airways. Other national airlines, including Italy's Alitalia, suffered – particularly with the rapid increase of oil prices in early 2008.
United States
Early development