The document provides information on the history and development of commercial airlines globally. It discusses the founding and growth of early airlines in Europe, the United States, Asia and other regions. Some of the earliest airlines include DELAG (1909), KLM (1919), Avianca (1919) and Qantas (1921). The airline industry experienced rapid consolidation in the 1920s and growth in the 1950s with the introduction of jet aircraft. Key trends and largest airlines globally are also summarized.

1. AIRLINES
 DELAG was the world's first airline.It was founded on November 16,
1909 with government assistance, and operated airships
manufactured by The Zeppelin Corporation. Its headquarters were in
Frankfurt.
 The first fixed wing scheduled air service was started on January 1,
1914 from St. Petersburg, Florida to Tampa, Florida.
 The four oldest non-dirigible airlines that still exist are Netherlands'
KLM (1919), Colombia's Avianca (1919), Australia's Qantas (1921),
and the Czech Republic's Czech Airlines (1923).

2. AIRLINES
European airline industry
 The earliest fixed wing airline in Europe was the Aircraft Transport
and Travel, formed by George Holt Thomas in 1916.
 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.
 On 25 August 1919, the company used DH.16s to pioneer a regular
service from Hounslow Heath Aerodrome to Le Bourget, the first
regular international service in the world.
 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 19 passengers, to
run a London-Paris passenger service.

3. AIRLINES
European airline industry
 The first French airline was Société des lignes Latécoère, later known
as Aéropostale, which started its first service in late 1918 to Spain.
 The Société Générale des Transports Aériens was created in late
1919, by the Farman brothers and 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.

4. AIRLINES
European airline industry
 The first German airline to use heavier than air aircraft was Deutsche Luft-Reederei
established in 1917 which started operating in February 1919.
 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 continuously
operating airline in the world. 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
Aircraft Transport and Travel DH-16, and carrying two British journalists and a
number of newspapers. In 1921, KLM started scheduled services.

5. AIRLINES
European airline industry
 In Finland, the charter establishing Aero O/Y (now Finnair) was signed
in the city of Helsinki on September 12, 1923. Junkers F.13 D-335
became the first aircraft of the company, when Aero took delivery of
it on March 14, 1924. The first flight was between Helsinki and
Tallinn, capital of Estonia, and it took place on March 20, 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.

6. AIRLINES
European airline industry
 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 Co Ltd., to allow British airlines to compete
with stiff competition from French and German airlines that were
enjoying heavy government subsidies.
 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 7 October 1933.

7. AIRLINES
US airline industry
 Tony Jannus conducted the United States' first scheduled commercial
airline flight on 1 January 1914 for the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat
Line.
 The 23-minute flight traveled between St. Petersburg, Florida and
Tampa, Florida, passing some 50 feet (15 m) above Tampa Bay in
Jannus' Benoist XIV wood and muslin biplane flying boat. His
passenger was a former mayor of St. Petersburg, who paid $400 for
the privilege of sitting on a wooden bench in the open cockpit. The
Airboat line operated for about four months, carrying more than
1,200 passengers who paid $5 each.

8. AIRLINES
US airline industry
 Service during the early 1920s was sporadic: most airlines at the time were
focused on carrying bags of mail.
 In 1925, however, the Ford Motor Company bought out the Stout Aircraft
Company and began construction of the all-metal Ford Trimotor, which
became the first successful American airliner. With a 12-passenger capacity,
the Trimotor made passenger service potentially profitable.
 Juan Trippe began a crusade to create an air network that would link
America to the world, and he achieved this goal through his airline, Pan
American World Airways, with a fleet of flying boats that linked Los Angeles
to Shanghai and Boston to London. Pan Am and Northwest Airways (which
began flights to Canada in the 1920s) were the only U.S. airlines to go
international before the 1940s.

9. AIRLINES
US airline industry
 Development since 1945
In the 1950s, the De Havilland Comet, Boeing 707, Douglas DC-8, and
Sud Aviation Caravelle became the first flagships of the Jet Age in the
West, while the Eastern bloc had Tupolev Tu-104 and Tupolev Tu-124 in
the fleets of state-owned carriers such as Czechoslovak ČSA, Soviet
Aeroflot and East-German Interflug.
The Vickers Viscount and Lockheed L-188 Electra inaugurated turboprop
transport.

10. AIRLINES
US airline industry
 Development since 1945
 The next big boost for the airlines would come in the 1970s, when
the Boeing 747, McDonnell Douglas DC-10, and Lockheed L-1011
inaugurated widebody ("jumbo jet") service, which is still the
standard in international travel.
 The Tupolev Tu-144 and its Western counterpart, Concorde, made
supersonic travel a reality.
 Concorde first flew in 1969 and operated through 2003.
 In 1972, Airbus began producing Europe's most commercially
successful line of airliners to date.

11. AIRLINES
ASIAN Airline industry
 INDIA was also one of the first countries to embrace civil aviation.[35] One of
the first Asian airline companies was Air India, which was founded as Tata
Airlines in 1932, a division of Tata Sons Ltd. (now Tata Group).
 The airline was founded by India's leading industrialist, JRD Tata. On
October 15, 1932, J. R. D. Tata himself flew a single engined De Havilland
Puss Moth carrying air mail (postal mail of Imperial Airways) from Karachi to
Bombay via Ahmedabad.
 The aircraft continued to Madras via Bellary piloted by Royal Air Force pilot
Nevill Vintcent.
 Tata Airlines was also one of the world's first major airlines which began its
operations without any support from the Government.

12. AIRLINES
ASIAN Airline industry
 Although Philippine Airlines (PAL) was officially founded on February 26, 1941, its
license to operate as an airliner was derived from merged Philippine Aerial Taxi
Company (PATCO) established by mining magnate Emmanuel N. Bachrach on
December 3, 1930, making it Asia's oldest scheduled carrier still in operation.
 During the era of decolonization, newly born Asian countries started to embrace air
transport.
 Among the first Asian carriers during the era were Cathay Pacific of Hong Kong
(founded in September 1946), Orient Airways (later Pakistan International Airlines;
founded in October 1946), Air Ceylon (later SriLankan Airlines; founded in 1947),
Malayan Airways Limited in 1947 (later Singapore and Malaysia Airlines), El Al in
Israel in 1948, Garuda Indonesia in 1949, Japan Airlines in 1951, Thai Airways
International in 1960, and Korean National Airlines in 1947.

13. AIRLINES
Largest Airline
The world's largest airlines can be defined in several ways.
 American Airlines Group is the largest by its fleet size, revenue, profit,
passengers carried and revenue passenger mile.
 Delta Air Lines is the largest by assets value and market capitalization.
 Lufthansa Group is the largest by number of employees, FedEx
Express by freight tonne-kilometers
 Ryanair by number of international passengers carried and
 Turkish Airlines by number of countries served.

14. TYPE OF AIRLINES
 Primarily point-to-point operations
 Short-haul routes, often between regional or secondary airports
 Strong focus on price-sensitive traffic, mostly leisure passengers
 Typically a single service class, with no (or limited) customer loyalty programmes
 Limited passenger services, with additional charges for some services (e.g., on-board
catering)
 Low average fares, with a strong focus on price competition
 Different fares offered, related to aircraft load factors and length of time before
departure
 A very high proportion of bookings made through the Internet
 High aircraft utilisation rates, with short turnaround between operations
 A fleet of just one or two aircraft types
 Private-sector companies
 A simple management and overhead structure with a lean strategic decision-making
process

15. TYPE OF AIRLINES
While low-cost airlines differ in service offerings, by definition they feature most of the
following:
 Standardized fleet (lower training, maintenance costs; purchasing aircraft in bulk)
 Absent non-essential features (reclining seats, frequent flyer schemes)
 Use of secondary airports for lower landing fees and marketing support
 Avoidance of airports with high costs
 Rapid turnaround (less time on the ground, more flights per day)
 Online ticket sales to avoid the cost of call centres or agents
 Online check-in (fewer check-in desks), charge for desk check-in
 Baggage charges for checked bags to offset baggage handling and loading costs
 Passenger loading via stairs rather than jetways (Stansted, the main Ryanair hub,
has jetways, and they are needed for large airports)
 Use staff for multiple jobs (cabin crew also check tickets at the gate, clean
aircraft)

16. TYPE OF AIRLINES
 Hedge fuel costs (buying fuel in advance when cheaper)
 Charge for all services (including on-board services, reserved seating, and
extra baggage)
 Do not use reserved seating (which slows down boarding), or charge extra for
reserved seating or early boarding.
 Fly point-to-point (passenger transfers to other flights are not accommodated,
no compensation for missed connections)
 Carry little extra fuel (reducing aircraft weight )
 Outfit plane with cost-cutting modifications, such as winglets
 Route planning before aircraft arrives at airport (saving time on the ground)
 Market destination services such as hotels and rental cars for commissions

17. TYPE OF AIRLINES
Pricing policy
 The pricing policy of the low-cost carriers is usually very dynamic, with
discounts and tickets in promotion. Like other carriers, even if the
advertised price may be very low, it often does not include charges and
taxes.
 Most airlines charge additional taxes and fees on their tickets.
 Traditional perceptions of the "low-cost carrier" as a stripped-down, no-
frills airline have been changing as new entrants to the market adapt the
business model in new ways.
 Spirit Airlines, Frontier and JetBlue offer assigned seating and premium
cabins.
 JetBlue offers live in-flight television, and Southwest Airlines offers in-
flight WiFi.