When was the first international commercial flight

Flying from the Ritz to the Ritz, long-distance luxury airships and pilots playing bridge - BILL READ FRAeS looks at how the aviation press of 100 years ago reported on the birth of international air travel in 1919 and how they thought it would develop in the future.

This year British Airways (BA) is celebrating its centenary. The centenary is not of the British Airways’ name, which dates back to 1974 with the merger of British European Airways (BEA) and British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) but to a small company called Air Transport & Travel (AT&T) which, on 25 August 1919, launched the world's first daily international passenger air service from London to Paris.

The links between AT&T and BA are somewhat complicated and not a little confusing. First formed in 1916 as part of the Aircraft Manufacturing Company Limited (Airco), AT&T became part of the BSA Group in 1920 but went bankrupt at the end of the year. The assets of AT&T were acquired by Daimler and combined with Daimler Air Hire to form Daimler Airways Ltd. This company lasted until 1924 when Imperial Airways was formed with the incorporation of Daimler Airways, Instone Air Line Company, British Marine Air Navigation and Handley Page Transport. With the outbreak of WW2 in 1939, Imperial Airways and another airline, British Airways Ltd, were taken over first by the Air Ministry-run National Air Communication (NAC) and then, in 1940, combined into a new company called British Overseas Airways Corporation. BOAC was later merged in 1974 with BEA to create British Airways.

Returning to where it all began in 1919, this article delves in the historical archives of the RAeS National Aerospace Library to look at the background to the first international passenger flights and how the aviation press thought that air transport would develop in the future.

1919 was an exciting year in the history of aviation. With the Great War now over, the aviation industry was now looking to the future and how new technology and aircraft designs developed in wartime could be used for peacetime operations. As already described in a previous article, 1919 saw the first flights across the Atlantic between America and Europe, as well as from Britain to Australia.

However, these pioneering and somewhat risky in terms of safety long-distance flights were not the only aviation developments. Aircraft manufacturers and private operators were also eyeing the commercial possibilities of using proven existing aircraft designs to carry passengers and cargo safely over shorter distances.

The long-distance airship

However, while heavier-than-air aircraft were starting to be considered safe enough to use for short distance commercial flights, long-distance flights would be conducted by the safest and most reliable form of aerial transport currently known – the airship. Following the success of the R34’s two transatlantic flights in July 1919, contemporary commenters were all convinced that the future of long-distance passenger air transport lay with lighter-than-air vessels. In a lecture on commercial aviation given shortly before the flight of the R34, Captain Illingworth from the RAF said that the immediate future of Atlantic flying lay with airships while aeroplanes would remain the instrument for short or rapid trips between 800 to 1,000 miles. “For commercial purposes the airship is a very serious contender to the aeroplane in long distance flights,” wrote Aircraft on 4 June 1919.

It's safer by airship

A proposed London-New York airship. (NAL)

The reason why airships why airships were perceived as the transport of the future was because they were considered safe. Unlike an aircraft, an airship which experienced engine trouble could still remain in the air. “The single-engined aeroplane is not, and never will be, a long distance over water machine. The multi-engined machine, yes. The airship best of all,” stated Aircraft on 28 May after the failure of the Hawker & Grieves transatlantic flight. Airships also had the advantages of long range (when unladen, the R34 was said to have sufficient fuel for non-stop flights of up to 8,000miles), weight carrying and flight durability. Airships could also fly in conditions of poor visibility. “One obstacle that at least they will never can surmount and that is fog,” commented The Times on 5 July . “Unless a means is found by which aeroplanes can land in a fog the airship will always have an advantage.”

The Ministry of Reconstruction issued a pamphlet entitled ‘The Future of Aerial Transport’ which agreed that the large airship many advantages over the aeroplane for certain commercial purposes. However, the leaflet also cautioned that airships were slower than aeroplanes and cost much to build and operate.

When it came to bad weather, it was admitted airships had a number of disadvantages compared to heavier-than-air machines in that they could not rise above storm clouds without losing too much gas and were also more subject to damage from storms due to their large size.

One aspect of airship design that was hardly mentioned was that of the risk of fire from the hydrogen gas bags – a surprising omission given their subsequent safety record in the years to come. “The fact that the envelope is filled with inflammable gas need not cause any misgivings as to safety,” remarked a report by the Air Ministry in early 1919 on the commercial applications of airships vs aeroplanes. “Official statistics show that only one airship has been lost in this country due to catching fire in the air, although 83,360 hours have been flown and over 2.5 million miles covered during the war. 

Hub and spoke

Zeppelin NT please note – the Italians were the first to develop tourist airships back in 1919. (NAL)

Predictions on the future use of airships for long-distance travel were surprisingly prophetic in certain aspects. Following the success of the R-34, Brig-Gen E M Maitland was quoted as saying: “Undoubtably airships will be used commercially in the future for very long journeys over sea and land. They will not conflict in any way either with seaplanes or aeroplanes … the airship will do the long distances and the others will radiate out from the airship terminus for shorter distances.

This hub-and-spoke vision for airships was also echoed by Aircraft which wrote on 9 July that: ‘The airship would embark passengers at London and make a non-stop voyage to Alexandria. There, passengers for Cairo, Upper Egypt and Palestine would disembark and be carried to their destination by aeroplane.’

There was even a role for smaller airships. In a lecture given by RAF Lt-Col W Lockwood Marsh in March 1919, he suggested that smaller former North Sea patrol semi-rigid airships could be used to take 10-12 passengers for joy rides at seaside resorts or around the Isle of Wight.

Giant liners of the air

A precursor of the future airship roof garden experience – a band of musicians playing aboard the top of the R33 airship on a flight across the Irish Sea. (NAL)

Anything seemed possible. The Times reported on 11 July that the Air Department would soon send out a giant airship, four times the size of the R-34, to go through Egypt to the Cape and back. “Developments of a high order are promised,” commented a report in Aircraft. “Airships of 1,100 feet in length could with ease take a commercial load of something like 150 tons from England to America in less than half the time taken for the faster passenger steamer.”

Future airships would be much larger and very luxurious. In a report to the Civil Aerial Transport Committee, Brig-Gen Maitland described the facilities a future passenger airship might offer: “It will have a speed of 90 to a 100 miles per hour with ample accommodation for passengers in the shape of saloon, drawing room, smoking room and state rooms with a lift giving access to a roof garden on the top.”

In an interview at Rooseveldt Field in Long Island before the return of the R34, the airship’s commander Major George Herbert Scott said: “I predict that in five years we shall have ships of 10,000,000 cubic feet capacity … five times the capacity and twice the length of the R34. The passenger accommodation would be such that the journey could be made in complete comfort. The cars would be slung under the main envelope and would include drawing-room and dining cars, besides sleeping accommodation. Each passenger could have a daily bath and, as there is no connection between the cars and the envelope, could smoke as much as he pleased. The ship would be quite quiet and there would be plenty of space to move about.”

Major Scott flew the Atlantic again on the R100 airship’s flight to Canada in 1930 and was killed later that year on the R101 when it crashed in France on a flight to India.

However, despite the optimism, there were also words of caution. Technology was moving so fast that the superiority of the airship might soon be challenged. “It must not be imaged that we are within even measurable distance of discerning what possibilities will be realised in regard to giant airships and other aircraft even in so brief a period as the next eighteen months,” cautioned H Massac Buist in The Morning Post of 14 March. Fixed wing aircraft already had the potential to carry more passengers. As early as November 1918, The Daily Mail reported that a Handley Page biplane had made a 38-minute flight over London carrying a record 40 passengers plus the pilot.

Government cutbacks

Unfortunately, all this optimism on the future of lighter-than-air travel had reckoned without one factor - the British Government. Instead than investing in the development of airships as was hoped, it was announced in the 10 September issue of Aircraft that: ‘The airship is apparently to receive the full brunt of the Government economy panic. On the Clyde work on the half-finished R36 has been stopped at about 500 workers are stated to be out of work.’ Work on the R37 at Bedford and the R39 at Barlow also ceased.’

H H Golightly from Armstrong Whitworth had strong words familiar to any project which has been subject to government cutbacks. “The Government will not save a penny by closing down the works. The cost of R39 will be over a quarter of a million and about a third of the work is already done. The airship as it stands is worth about £100,000 and it will cost the Government as much money to close the works as it will to complete it. This means that we in this country waste the experience we have in airship building and throw to the winds the supremacy in the air.”

The Government’s response to was to offer some of its surplus airships to private enterprise to create international routes for passengers and post, claiming that their disposal would ‘assist the lighter-then-air industry’. The R80 was to be sold to its manufacturers, Vickers. The R38 was built and sold to the USA but later broke up during flight trials in 1921.

No-fly regulations

Returning to the background to the commencement of commercial flights, aircraft manufacturers previously specialising in military machines were busy adapting designs for the new boom in civil aviation. The Grahame-White company was reported to be converting a bomber into a ‘limousine’ capable of accommodating 20 passengers. The British Aerial Transport Company was going one better and designed the first aeroplane solely for commercial operations. An article in Modern Transport described the BATC machine as having a windowed cabin lofty enough for a passenger to stand up in and fitted with easy chairs. There were even to be an indicator to show passengers which towns they were passing over - a precursor perhaps of the moving maps available on modern IFEs?

However, while there were plenty of companies eager to begin flying passengers, they were not allowed to as, in the early months after the Great War, the British Government forbade any civilian flying (an interesting parallel to those companies developing air taxis today awaiting the air traffic regulations to actually fly them. The 29 January 1919 edition of Aircraft carried a report on the flight of a Caudron-Farman ‘Aerobus’ from Paris to London which was only permitted to make the journey if it carried only military personnel. Inter city flying had also already commenced but mainly for the purposes of carrying mail and newspapers.

However, the rules were changed when the British Government passed a bill lifting the ban. On 14 April, the Air Ministry announced than civil flying would be permitted to commence from 1 May 1919. However, all types of machine were to be built to Air Ministry specifications and flown by qualified and approved pilots. “It is hoped that the passing of the bill will not be followed by a large crop of company floatations with exaggerated promises as to immediate performances,” cautioned an (unattributed) newspaper clipping.

To provide the public with a taster for the commencement of civil flights, the Government permitted aircraft to be flown with passengers over the Easter weekend (17-22 April 1919) but only within a three-mile radius of an aerodrome. The announcement caught some aircraft companies on the hop, as they had either no aircraft or pilots to spare to offer for public rides. However, the Sopwith Company issued a somewhat alarming statement saying: “We are quite prepared to take on anything of this sort. We have got the machines for it, including a two-seater for people who like being stunted.”

First commercial flights

Map of new UK civil air routes from 1 May 1919. (Aeronautics/NAL)

On 1 May the first commercial flight in England was made between Cricklewood Aerodrome and Manchester aboard a twin-engine Handley Page carrying ten passengers. Due to bad weather and headwinds, the flight took four hours which, as the Daily Mail remarked, was the same length of time that it took to do the journey by train.

A British and Colonial Aeroplane Company commercial flight from Filton to Hounslow in early May carried one of the world’s first business passengers. Mr H J Thomas was reported as travelling in a ‘warm closed-in coupe’ fitted within a Bristol biplane complete with writing desk to allow him to work on his business correspondence en route.

The first international air services were soon to follow. BA’s precursor, Airco-owned Air Transport & Travel, announced that it was to begin a Hounslow-Paris daily service on 25 August, offering four places per flight. The airline had been ready for some time to begin operations, as advance details of the Airco service were published on 15 November 1918 - almost immediately after the Armistice. Tickets would be available from the Ritz Hotel for 15 guineas, passengers being carried in rotation according to the number of the ticket. At 10am each day, passengers would be taken by car from the Ritz to the Aerodrome for a 1030 flight departure – subject to weather conditions. At 1pm, the aircraft would land in in Paris, where passengers would arrive at the Ritz, Paris by 1.30pm.

On 25 August 1919, AT&T began the world's first daily international passenger air service launched, from London to Paris. The aircraft took off from Hounslow Heath not far from what is now London's Heathrow Airport and landed at Le Bourget. The service was operated using a two-seat Airco 4a and a four-seater Airco 16. “These are both comfortable and reliable machines with cabins through the side of which passenger can see easily,” wrote the Evening Standard. “The old war cockpit has been superseded in favour of an enclosed transparent area. The machine will have a cruising speed of about 100 miles per hour, so that winds of thirty or forty miles per hour will not delay us to any appreciable extent. The journey to Le Bourget should take about two hours and a quarter.” 

The Evening Standard also included a description of the airport: “London’s air port is Hounslow and it is from the aerodrome there that the machines will depart very day at noon. Very thorough ground arrangements have been made to meet the demands of business people.”

Pic – The first international air passengers experience the joys of customs and passport checks. (NAL)

However, the same report in the Evening Standard complained that it was not yet possible to send letters by air. “The Post Office up to the present has turned a deaf ear to a request that urgent French mails should be carried by air … the business letter of the future will go by air. And so will important documents from banks, etc and valuable articles like diamonds. All of these things will be carried in a fire-proof box that will float and each machine will also have special floats. But the pioneers of this service laugh at any question of risk and contend that with experienced pilots, thoroughly reliable machines and short journeys, no one need worry any more than if the journey was by road or by sea.”

However, it appears that the Post Office soon changed its mind as, according to the Royal Mail website, the first international mail delivery was made on 10 November in an AT&T DH4A.

In its first month of operation AT&T made 54 flights. (L’Aerophile/NAL)

In September Airco reported that it had made 54 flights in in its first month of operation (one was cancelled due to bad weather and a second because of a mechanical defect). Depending on the weather, flights took 2hr 30min on a good day to 2hr 45min, if the winds were against them. In addition to carrying passengers, Airco reported that there was an increasing demand for air cargo. Banks had begun to send ‘scrip’ by air and a 25lb parcel of furs was dispatched by air at the premium price of £9 7s 6d. The airline also announced that it would be operating four aircraft on the route instead of two and that it was in negotiations with La Compagnie General Transaerienne in France for them operate their own aircraft on the same route.

Handley Page also begin operating its own London-Paris service. (L’Aerophile/NAL)

Handley Page also began its own London-Paris service, followed in September by an additional London-Brussels service operated by a machine capable of carrying up to ten passenger each with 30lb of luggage plus 500lb of freight.

Lack of Government assistance

It was predicted that aircraft of the future would be guided by blimps acting as aerial signal boxes. (NAL)

With commercial flights now a reality, commentators now began to speculate as to what lay in the future. Once again, the British Government came under criticism for not doing enough to encourage the development of aviation. There were complaints that, although Britain was setting new records in long-distance flights, the British government was not doing all it could to support the development of air transport. “America and France, as well as Germany, have done more in promoting passenger and especially mail services this year than has been accomplished in this country, where a like amount of Government assistance and enterprise has been lacking,” complained H Massac Buist in The Morning Post.

In a letter to the Daily Express, AV Roe wrote: “The future of commercial aviation is in the hands of the Government” which should provide new aerodromes around the country to popularise flying among the general public. He went on to complain that no aircraft could land at an aerodrome unless it is licenced and that air operators have to pay 5s to land at a government aerodrome. Aircraft added on 2 July that: “The chief difficulty in laying out air routes is not the selection and equipment of aerodromes but in obtaining the necessary permits from the various Governments and lesser authorities over whose territory such routes run.”

Safety and reliability

Flying boats not only had the advantage of being able to land on water but you could also bathe from them. (Daily Mail/NAL)

There was also an ongoing debate over the relative merits of the three main types of aircraft available at the time – airships, seaplanes and aircraft that could only operate from the land. While many thought that airships were the safest form of transport, as already described above, others considered the seaplane the next best option, as it could land on. However, not everyone was convinced. In an interview in The Observer on 21 July, F Handley Page remarked that: “In the long run we shall find that it is a mistake to rely on descents to the water. Aeroplanes fly in winds which make the surface of the sea too rough for any aeroplane or seaplane to live in or to get off from…. The aeroplane of the future will have a very small landing undercarriage just suited for landing on specially prepared places.”

What was agreed was that, before aircraft could be used to create networks of air routes, they had to be safe. “The whole future of civil flying depends upon safety and reliability,” commented The Times on 26 March 1919. “Aviation, when fully developed will have an immense bearing on the maintenance of peace throughout the world.” The Times also added that heavier-than-air machines had potential as ‘public pleasure machines’ for coastal joy riding at seaside resorts – provided that they were not of ‘doubtful reliability’.

Some commentators also had an eye to the military potential of long-range military aircraft. On 17 August 1918, while the Great War was still in progress, The Manchester Guardian remarked on the advantages if the US could fly large bombers across the Atlantic to assist the war effort. The following year, The Daily Mail commented on 22 July, that: “The Atlantic will be flown not by single spies but by squadrons. Aeroplanes, light as they are, take up undue ship space. If the coming swarms of large American fighting and bombing machines could fly straight over the ocean on their own wings, the direct and indirect gains would be enormous”.

Pilots and passengers

Getting passengers into an aircraft was more difficult that it is today. (Daily Mail/NAL)

Another issue was the need for more pilots – a subject which is still topical 100 years later. To fly all the new aircraft created by the anticipated boom in commercial aviation, would require the recruitment of professional commercial pilots. The obvious place to begin was to recruit ex military flyers - although some writers were concerned that they might take uneccessary safety risks with passengers. An article in Flying waxed lyrical over the joys of working as a commercial pilot. “The life of a commercial airman will be far from unpleasant. What youth with any heart for adventure could resist the temptation of speeding over and around the world? The life is the cleanest and healthiest the could be imaged: an ideal profession for the open-air man. No longer will be he rigged up like an Eskimo, incessantly exposed to a cutting head-wind and the roar of the engine. He will recline at his ease in an enclosed cabin, electrically heated and lighted throughout, where he will be able to converse in comfort; even take a hand at Bridge” – a prediction which modern-day pilots might disagree with in certain details.

The introduction of passengers into aircraft also had its downside. An article in Flying included an early reference to what we now call ‘air rage’ in which a party of 14 Frenchmen on a Paris-London flight became unruly while playing cards and drinking champagne. “We can conceive of occasions when accident or malice might cause the jettison of bottles (empty) or other heavy objects. Life on the earth will become intolerable if the airways are to shed a continuous shower of objects descending with even augmented velocity.”

The future of commercial air transport

Bristol Pullam aerocar. (NAL)

So, what would be the future passenger experience in the years to come? In an article on 4 June 1919, Flying looked forward six years to 1925, when it predicted that air passengers would be able to travel from Hounslow all over the world. With international flight being announced by an ex Clapham Junction railway porter, travellers of the future would catch the electrically heated and luxuriously furnished New York aerobus while others would go for holidays or business trips to Egypt, India, South Africa or the Pacific Islands. “In a near and glorious future an afternoon spin from London to Cornwall will be a commonplace event; Cairo or Fez or Constantinople an every week-end flight.” Apart from the railway porter and the timescale, the prediction was remarkably accurate.

There was also a realisation of the advantage of flying to the business traveller. “When the businessman can rely upon aircraft to take him to the distant North in appreciably shorter times than the best train of the day, with a reasonable degree of safety and at not a prohibitive cost, he will begin to use it as a piece of commercial machinery and its use will naturally follow,” commented Aeronautics on 29 May.

Some commentators were remarkably accurate in their predictions. F Handley Page predicted that there would come a time when travel by air would start to compete with sea travel – a prediction that would eventually come true, although not until the arrival of the jet age in the 1950s. After flying from London to Paris on a DH4 in April 1919, Gen Seely from the Imperial Air commission said that: “he had been assured by air experts that there was no reason why aeroplanes should not travel at 800 miles an hour before long which would enable one to breakfast in London and lunch in New York”.

The final word comes from an article from Aircraft which predicted that, in 100 years’ time in 2019, "a city man with a week-end villa in Buenos Aires may bring his family to South Kensington (to see Alcock and Brown’s Vickers Vimy in the Science Museum) and say: “By Jove! How did they ever get about in a thing like that?”"

Bill Read
2 August 2019