Travel guides12 min read
What happened in between was not a steady climb. It was four or five moments when the industry was turned over, each one making something cheaper or something further, and each one changing who got to fly.
1903–1914: from a feat to a service
Flying was one thing. Selling a seat to a stranger was another, and it took eleven more years.
In 1909 DELAG was founded in Germany — the first airline in the world, though it flew Zeppelin airships rather than aeroplanes. DELAG carried sightseeing passengers between German cities, and before the First World War it had carried tens of thousands of them without a fatal accident.
The first scheduled airline flight by aeroplane: 1 January 1914. The St. Petersburg – Tampa Airboat Line crossed Tampa Bay in Florida. The pilot was Tony Jannus; the single passenger was Abram Pheil, a former mayor of St. Petersburg, who had bid 400 dollars at auction for the first seat. The distance was about 34 km and the flight took roughly 23 minutes, replacing a half-day journey around the bay by boat or road.
One passenger, one short hop, one flying boat. But the principle was complete: a published schedule, a published fare, and a seat for anyone who bought one. That is what an airline is.
1914–1935: war made the aircraft, peace made them airlines
The First World War pushed the technology faster than any commercial effort could: stronger engines, sturdier airframes, and thousands of trained pilots. When it ended in 1918, Europe had a surplus of both aircraft and people who could fly them.
1919 was the year it all arrived at once:
- 25 August 1919 — the first scheduled international passenger flight, London to Paris, flown by Britain's Aircraft Transport and Travel.
- 7 October 1919 — KLM founded in the Netherlands. It is the oldest airline in the world still operating under its original name, and it is still flying.
- 5 December 1919 — Avianca founded in Colombia, the second-oldest still operating.
- 1919 — the Paris Convention on air navigation, the first international agreement to establish that every country is sovereign over the airspace above it. That principle still underpins all aviation law.
- 16 November 1920 — Qantas founded in Australia.
Through the 1920s, though, carrying passengers lost money. Airlines lived on government mail contracts; passengers were secondary freight, wedged between the mail sacks in cabins that were unpressurised, loud and cold.
1935: the first aircraft that could live on passengers
The Douglas DC-3 first flew on 17 December 1935 — exactly 32 years after the Wright brothers. It carried 21 passengers, and it was faster, more reliable and cheaper per seat than anything before it. It was the first aircraft that let an airline make money on fares alone, without a mail subsidy underneath.
That was the moment this became a business rather than a subsidised public service. More than 16,000 DC-3s and their military C-47 version were built, and a handful are still flying.
1944–1945: two organisations wrote the rules
In the middle of the Second World War, with post-war civil aviation clearly coming, 52 countries met in Chicago.
- The Chicago Convention, 7 December 1944 — created ICAO, the intergovernmental body that sets safety and technical standards for civil aviation worldwide. The same convention defined the "freedoms of the air", the rules deciding whether an airline from country A may fly to, over, or between points inside country B.
- April 1945, in Havana — IATA was founded, the airlines' own association: standardising tickets, fares, airport codes, baggage handling and settlement between carriers.
The two are different in kind and are constantly confused, so they have an article of their own: what ICAO and IATA are, and how they differ.
1952–1970: the jet age shortened the world
On 2 May 1952, Britain's BOAC put the de Havilland Comet into commercial service on London – Johannesburg. It was the first jet airliner: higher, smoother, and nearly twice as fast as a propeller aircraft.
Then the Comet fell apart. In 1954, two of them broke up in mid-air within a few months. The investigation traced it to metal fatigue around the corners of the square windows, where stress concentrated with every pressurisation cycle. The Comet was grounded; the industry learned a lesson paid for in lives, and ever since aircraft windows have rounded corners — a detail you can still see on every flight you take.
Boeing was the beneficiary. On 26 October 1958, Pan Am flew the Boeing 707 from New York to Paris and the jet age began in earnest. Crossing the Atlantic went from the better part of a day with refuelling stops to a single overnight flight.
On 22 January 1970 the Boeing 747 flew its first commercial service — Pan Am, New York to London. The "Jumbo" carried roughly two and a half times what a 707 did, and that scale pushed the cost per seat low enough that long-haul flying stopped being a luxury. If one aircraft turned international travel into something ordinary people did, it was the 747.
1976–2003: Concorde, a beautiful dead end
On 21 January 1976, Concorde entered commercial service: twice the speed of sound, London to New York in about three and a half hours instead of eight. Technically it was the summit. Commercially it was a failure.
Concorde burned enormous amounts of fuel per seat, carried only about 100 passengers, and its sonic boom got supersonic flight banned over land in many countries — which left it little but ocean crossings. Only 14 ever flew commercially. After the Paris crash in 2000 and the collapse in demand after 2001, Concorde was retired in 2003.
The lesson has shaped the industry ever since: airlines optimise for cost per seat, not for speed. Today's airliners are barely faster than the 707 of 1958 — but they use far less fuel.
1978 onwards: fares fell because the rules changed, not the aircraft
This is the biggest change of all for what a passenger pays, and it owed nothing to technology.
Before 1978, the United States government decided which airline could fly which route and at what price. The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 ended that. Any airline could fly any route, at any fare it chose.
Southwest Airlines — flying inside Texas since 18 June 1971 — already had the model: one aircraft type, fast turnarounds, no assigned seats, no meals, tickets sold direct. It spread:
- Europe: Ryanair and easyJet through the 1990s, once the EU opened its internal aviation market.
- Asia: AirAsia was relaunched in 2001 and proved the model worked in a very different region.
- Vietnam: Vietjet flew its first commercial service on 24 December 2011. In our network data it is on 97 city pairs today — the second-widest reach in the country, behind only Vietnam Airlines.
Two engines instead of four: why the giants ended
The Airbus A380 — the largest passenger aircraft ever built — flew its first commercial service on 25 October 2007 with Singapore Airlines, Singapore to Sydney. Airbus ended production in 2021 after about 250 aircraft.
The reason is a rule few passengers have heard of: ETOPS. Twin-engined aircraft were once limited in how far they could be from the nearest diversion airport, which forced four engines onto ocean crossings. As engine reliability improved the limit was relaxed — and twins were allowed to fly straight across.
The consequence: the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 — two engines, composite airframes, far less fuel — do the A380's job without needing 500 seats filled every time. Instead of funnelling everyone through a few mega-hubs, airlines fly more, smaller, direct routes. That is why there are more non-stop long-haul services from Vietnam every year.
The short timeline
| Year | Milestone | Why it mattered |
|---|---|---|
| 1903 | The Wright brothers fly at Kitty Hawk | Controlled flight is possible |
| 1909 | DELAG, the first airline | Flying becomes a ticketed service (by airship) |
| 1914 | First scheduled airline flight | 1 passenger, 34 km, 23 minutes |
| 1919 | KLM, Avianca, the Paris Convention | The modern airline, and sovereignty over airspace |
| 1935 | Douglas DC-3 | Passengers turn a profit without a subsidy |
| 1944–45 | ICAO and IATA | Global safety standards, and commercial ones |
| 1952 | de Havilland Comet | The first jet airliner — and the metal-fatigue lesson |
| 1958 | Boeing 707 | The jet age properly begins |
| 1970 | Boeing 747 | Long-haul stops being a luxury |
| 1976–2003 | Concorde | Fast does not beat cheap |
| 1978 | US deregulation | The biggest change to fares — legal, not technical |
| 2007–2021 | Airbus A380 | The end of the four-engined airliner |
Where Vietnam fits
Vietnam came to this late and then moved very fast:
- 15 January 1956 — Vietnamese civil aviation is established, starting with a very small fleet.
- The 1990s — Vietnam Airlines is reorganised as the national carrier, begins operating Western aircraft and opens international routes.
- 24 December 2011 — Vietjet's first flight brings the low-cost model to the domestic market.
- 16 January 2019 — Bamboo Airways flies its first commercial service.
- Today — in the fare data TripWise.vn records, the market has 163 city pairs on sale, 71 of them domestic, reaching 40 international destinations.
For scale: the first scheduled airline flight in 1914 carried one passenger 34 km. Today the Hanoi – Ho Chi Minh City route alone is flown by four airlines, dozens of times a day, over a distance more than thirty times as far.
Common questions
Which was the world's first airline?
DELAG of Germany, founded in 1909, though it flew Zeppelin airships. For scheduled aeroplane service it was the St. Petersburg – Tampa Airboat Line, from 1 January 1914.
Which is the oldest airline still flying?
KLM of the Netherlands, founded 7 October 1919 and still operating under its original name.
Why do aircraft windows have rounded corners?
Because of the de Havilland Comet accidents of 1954. Square windows concentrated stress at the corners, causing metal fatigue and structural failure after repeated pressurisation cycles. Rounded corners spread that stress.
Why are there no supersonic airliners any more?
Concorde used far too much fuel per seat, carried only about 100 passengers, and was banned from supersonic flight over land in many countries. The industry competes on cost per seat, not speed.
Why did the Airbus A380 stop production?
Because relaxed ETOPS rules let twin-engined aircraft like the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 cross oceans directly, burning less fuel and without needing 500 seats filled on every flight.
Read on
What ICAO and IATA are · Airport and city codes · Reading the codes on your ticket · Becoming a pilot · Working as cabin crew
Sources and dates
Historical milestones follow standard aviation sources. Network figures (163 city pairs, 71 domestic, 40 international destinations, Vietjet on 97) are TripWise.vn's own records from live fares at the time of publication, 15 September 2026, and move with the airlines' schedules.
