20. History’s First Airline to Earn Revenue from the Transportation of Passengers via Aircraft
In 1908, German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin founded Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, a company that designed and manufactured rigid lighter-than-air vessels, or airships. In World War I, Zeppelin airships were employed as history’s first long-range strategic bombers and carried out numerous raids against France, Belgium, and Britain. Although the damage they inflicted was relatively minor, the giant cigar-shaped Zeppelins became objects of terror to civilians below. The sight of the rigid airships over London in particular – and the efforts to bring them down – became iconic in the war years.
The count’s airships had civilian applications as well. In 1909, the German Airship Transport Company, which went by its German acronym DELAG, was founded as a commercial offshoot of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin to transport passengers. Headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, it became history’s first airline to earn revenue from the transport of people via aircraft. Between 1910 and the outbreak of WWI, DELAG carried over 30,000 passengers in more than 1500 flights. Then the war came and hit it hard. First, the German government requisitioned its airships for military use. Then when Germany lost the war, the Treaty of Versailles awarded the company’s best Zeppelins to the victors. DELAG bounced back, however.
