Airline Information history

In 1863, Ferdinand von Zepplin was the first passenger to fly with the Union Army of Potomac.

Addressing the first meeting of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain in 1866, Francis H. Wenham provided a concise and forceful restatement of Cayley’s most important ideas regarding wings.

In 1869, Langley built the Aerodrome No.

In 1877, Enrico Forlanini developed the first steam-powered, unmanned helicopter.

Horatio Phillips, a fellow member of the Aeronautical Society, developed an even more effective wind tunnel design, and he patented (1884) a two-surface, cambered-airfoil design that provided the foundation for most subsequent work in the field.

In 1899, he began working on the first Zeppelin airship.

In 1900, the first Zeppelin launched and lasted for only eighteen minutes before begin forced to land on a lake due to mechanical problems.

That information culminated in the Wright glider of 1902, a breakthrough machine whose wing design enabled the Wright brothers to take the final steps to the invention of the airplane.

The Wrights made the first sustained, manned heavier-than-air flight on December 17th 1903.

In 1906, Alberto Santos-Dumont announced his first takeoff with his machine entitled, “14-bis,” in Paris.

In 1907, Paul Cornu developed the first manned helicopter that rose off the ground.

The first person to fly as a passenger was Leon Delagrange, who rode with French pilot Henri Farman from a meadow outside of Paris in 1908.

In 1914, Roland Garros affixed a machine gun to the tip of his plane, effectively making him the first “ace.”

In 1915, Kurt Wintgens won his first aerial victory with a fighter plane equipped with a built-in machine gun.

By 1917, the United States government felt enough progress had been made in the development of planes to warrant something totally new - the transport of mail by air.

The first flight left Belmont Park, Long Island for Philadelphia on May 14, 1918 and the next day continued on to Washington, where it was met by President Woodrow Wilson.

The Post Office took over the operation of the guidance system the following year, and by the end of 1923, constructed similar beacons between Chicago and Cheyenne, Wyoming, a line later extended coast-to-coast at a cost of $550,000.

Henry Ford, the automobile manufacturer, was also among the early successful bidders for airmail contracts, winning the right, in 1925, to carry mail from Chicago to Detroit and Cleveland aboard planes his company already was using to transport spare parts for his automobile assembly plants.

Congress adopted the recommendations of the Morrow Board almost to the letter in the Air Commerce Act of 1926.

Juan Trippe, one of the original partners in Colonial, later pioneered international air travel with Pan Am - a carrier he founded in 1927 to transport mail between Key West, Florida, and Havana, Cuba.

In 1930, Postmaster General Walter Brown pushed for legislation that would have another major impact on the development of commercial aviation.

Following the Democratic landslide in the election of 1932, some of the smaller airlines began complaining to news reporters and politicians that they had been unfairly denied airmail contracts by Brown.

Eventually, Boeing also gave the 247 variable-pitch propellers, that reduced takeoff distances, increased the rate of climb, and boosted cruising speeds It was unveiled in 1933, and United Air Lines promptly bought 60 of them.

Congressional hearings followed, chaired by Senator Hugo Black of Alabama, and by 1934 the scandal had reached such proportions as to prompt President Franklin Roosevelt to cancel all mail contracts and turn mail deliveries over to the Army.

The first air traffic control tower was established in 1935 at what is now Newark International Airport in New Jersey

Called the plane that changed the world, the DC-3 was the first aircraft to enable airlines to make money carrying passengers. As a result, it quickly became the dominant aircraft in the United States, following its debut in 1936 with American Airlines (which played a key role in its design).

In 1940, however, President Roosevelt convinced Congress to transfer the accident investigation function to the CAA, which was then renamed the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). These moves, coupled with the tremendous progress made on the technological side, put the industry on the road to success.

In 1942, the world's first jet-powered bomber launched entitled, the “Arado Ar 234.” Helicopters also saw rapid development during World War II.

The tanker, the KC-135, was a huge success as a military plane, but even more successful when revamped and introduced, in 1958, as the first United States passenger jet, the Boeing 707.

The legislation created a new safety regulatory agency, the Federal Aviation Agency, later called the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) when Congress created the Department of Transportation (DOT) in 1967.

The Soviet Union was the first to succeed, testing the Tupolev 144 in December of 1968.

1969 marked the debut of another revolutionary aircraft, the Boeing 747, which, again, Pan Am was the first to purchase and fly in commercial service.

Douglas built its first wide-body, the DC-10, in 1970, and only a month later, Lockheed flew its contender in the wide-body market, the L-1011.

Ryanair is Founded in 1984, Ryanair is based in Dublin, Ireland and is recognised as one of the largest budget airlines in the world, providing flights for more than 100 million passengers every year.

A state-owned airline, it started operations in 1985 and is also recognised as one of the largest airlines in the world for cargo activities.

China Southern Airlines was founded in 1988 and is the largest airline in Asia by fleet size, delivering its services through more than 600 aircraft.

Owned by Expedia Group, which is the parent company of Expedia, Travelocity launched in 1996 and was an innovator within the field of online travel agents, allowing customers to purchase tickets from the hotel and airline industry without needing to deal with a human agent.

Launched in 1998, with its HQ in New York City, Travelzoo is a travel website with a focus on North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific markets.

Timeline of Flight: The Library of Congress covers the extensive timeline of flight beginning with 1,000 B.C.E. to 2000.

The platform, which doubles as a metasearch engine, launched in 2001 and is based in Bellevue, Washington, USA. Expedia connects with some of the major global distribution systems, in order to provide information about pricing and availability of airline tickets.

Launched in 2002 and based in Edinburgh, Scotland, Skyscanner is a metasearch engine owned by the Chinese Trip.com Group.

In 2003, the first autonomous flight across the Atlantic Ocean was successfully completed by a computer-controlled model aircraft.

Kayak was founded in 2004 and is now owned by Booking Holdings, which is the parent company of Booking.com.

Founded in 2005, CheapOair is based in New York City, USA and functions as an OTA service, allowing customers to purchase travel products, including airline tickets.