Flight International – 6 August 2019

32 | Flight International | 6-12 August 2019 flightglobal.com

CENTENARY

I

n a year that marks so many important

aviation anniversaries, the month of August

has possibly the most significant of them all

• for on 25 August 1919, a small British-
  built biplane took off from heathland close to
  where London Heathrow is today, beginning
  the first-ever daily international scheduled
  passenger air service.
  Flight covered the historic inauguration in

its 28 August edition under the rather innocu-

ous headline “The London-Paris Air Service”,

reporting that it was organised by “Messrs.

Aircraft Transport and Travel, Ltd. Two Airco

machines set out from this side and one ma-

chine from Paris.”

While other passenger air services had been

flown before, aviation historians point to the

Aircraft Transport and Travel (AT&T) opera-

tion between Hounslow Heath and Le Bourget

as the true beginning of international flights, as

it marked the first daily international passen-

ger, mail and passenger service. None of the

previous flights had combined all of these.

AT&T was founded in October 1916 by in-

dustrialist and visionary George Holt Thomas,

as a subsidiary of his Aircraft Manufacturing

Company (Airco) business where Geoffrey de

Havilland was chief designer. The “airliner”

that operated the inaugural flight to Paris was

a two-seat Airco DH4A biplane. It was

powered by a single 375hp (280kW) Rolls-

MAX KINGSLEY-JONES LONDON

This month marks the centenary of international passenger services, which began with

daily London-Paris trips. We revisit Flight’s coverage and look back over the 10 decades

How air travel took

off 100 years ago

Aircraft Transport and Travel operated initial route between Hounslow Heath and Le Bourget using adapted Airco DH4A biplanes

British Airways

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