C
reated to provide
air-taxi services and
pleasure rides with
a Royal Aircraft
Factory BE.2c and an Avro 504K,
the Western ueensland Auto
Aero Service Ltd was founded in the
small town of Winton in the state of
ueensland on November 16, 1920 but
was very quickly renamed as ueensland
and Northern Territory Aerial Services Ltd –
Qantas was born.
The company’s initial directors Wilmot Hudson Fysh and Paul
McGinness, were both former Australian Flying Corps officers
and were soon joined by Fergus McMaster (a wealthy local sheep
grazier who became the company’s first chairman) and Arthur
Baird, a former flight sergeant who took control of maintenance.
By 1922 Qantas had moved to the larger ueensland outback
Th e Fly i n g
Kangaroo
Since its establishment
in 1920, Australian flag
carrier Qantas has survived
challenges ranging from
World War to Economic
Crisis to become one of
the most respected
airlines in the world,
as Bob O’Brien reveals.
town of Longreach
and later that year
it was given its first
big break when
the Australian
Government awarded
it a contract to run
scheduled airmail flights
between the ueensland
towns of Charleville and
Cloncurry.First Scheduled
Passenger
On November 2, 1922 the first scheduled
passenger service was due to carry 84-year-old
outback pioneer Alexander Kennedy and a cargo
of mail from Longreach to Cloncurry via WintonQantas founders
Wilmot Hudson Fysh
and Paul McGinness,
seen in 1919.92 AIRLINER Classics 2018
The Boeing 707 served
Qantas in f ine style
with the f irst examples
arriving in 1959 and
the last airframes
being retired twenty
years later.
A Q
H