The modern airline industry is one consisting of countless carriers worldwide, with operators around the globe catering to just about every conceivable market in present-day commercial aviation. Even on a quick trip to a major international airport, you can quickly lose count of the number of different airlines on show, with their diverse paint schemes serving as a reminder of our connected world.

However, all of this had to start somewhere, with the world’s first airlines having come into existence well over a century ago. Unlike today’s commercial aviation sector, where startup carriers are established relatively frequently, the early airline industry grew slowly, particularly due to the emergence of the First World War in the mid to late 1910s. As it happens, the world’s first airline was founded 115 years ago.

Starting off with airships

As noted by Drive Spark, the first company in the world to use aircraft for revenue-earning purposes is widely recognized to have been the Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft. Known in short as DELAG, Airships.net notes that the carrier’s name translates as ‘German Airship Transportation Corporation Ltd.’ DELAG’s story began 115 years ago, with its foundation occurring on November 16th, 1909.

Avgeeks with a special penchant for aviation history will note that this took place less than six years after the Wright Brothers made the world’s first powered heavier-than-air flight on December 17th, 1903. With fixed-wing heavier-than-air planes still being in their infancy at the end of the 1900s, it is, therefore, perhaps unsurprising to see that DELAG’s vessels of choice were, instead, large airships
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DELAG operated airships manufactured by Zeppelin, a company that, according to MDR, was founded in 1908, and whose name has, over the years, become almost synonymous with flying dirigibles. Less than a year after its foundation, DELAG operated its first flight, with a Zeppelin airship named Deutschland and bearing the designation LZ 7 taking to the skies seven months later on June 19th, 1910.

Zeppelin Airship Schwaben

Unfortunately, the first few weeks of operations were far from plain sailing for DELAG, as, before the month was over, its first airship was to be destroyed in a crash. According to the Aviation Safety Network, LZ 7 was lost on June 28th of that year after crashing in the Teutoburg Forest. The vessel had been blown off course after experiencing an engine failure and running out of fuel in stormy conditions.

Early growth

Thankfully, as the ASN notes, there were no fatalities among the 32 people onboard the LZ 7 Deutschland airship at the time of the accident that brought an end to its short career with DELAG. The carrier was determined to bounce back from this early hurdle, and would put several more dirigibles into service before the onset of the First World War, such as the Schwaben and Deutschland II.

LZ 10 Schwaben Airship Exiting The Hangar

According to Airships.net, many of DELAG’s early scheduled passenger services were sightseeing tours, rather than point-to-point journeys that transported paying guests from one location to another. Nonetheless, the carrier did soon begin to offer point-to-point routes, with the interwar period being a particularly fertile era for this growth, that would see it offer strong competition to land-based transport options.

A key early point-to-point route for DELAG saw the world’s first airline link Berlin with Friedrichshafen, with the LZ 120 Bodensee airship connecting the two cities by air in as little as four to nine hours. The relatively high-speed nature of these journeys was a compelling prospect for those who could afford them, as to travel between Berlin and Friedrichshafen by rail at the time took 18 to 24 hours.

LZ 120 Bodensee Airship

The LZ 120 Bodensee that served the route was a particularly special vessel, as This Day In Aviation notes that it was the world’s first fully streamlined airship. Its design aimed to decrease drag wherever possible, which was also evidenced by the fact that its gondola was attached directly to the underside of the envelope. The LZ 120 Bodensee could carry a crew of 12, with space for 20 passengers.

More detail on the first route

DELAG’s route from Berlin to Friedrichshafen commenced operations in August 2019, less than a year after the First World War had come to an end. With German society at the time in a state of rebuilding, This Day In Aviation notes that DELAG hoped its new route would help catalyze growth in aerial intercity travel. Naturally, successful operations on the route would also have publicity benefits for the firm.

LZ 120 Bodensee Airship

In terms of the route’s schedule, Airships.net notes that operations began on August 24th. Generally speaking, the LZ 120 Bodensee (whose name references the lake upon whose northern shore Friedrichshafen sits), would fly northbound on odd-numbered dates, and southbound on even-numbered dates. As it happened, the operation didn’t just serve the two cities at either end of the route.

Indeed, for a limited time, DELAG’s flights between Berlin and Friedrichshafen also included a stop en route, in Munich. However, this was relatively short-lived, with the flights ceasing to make their stopovers in the largest city and capital of Bavaria in October 1919. The LZ 120 Bodensee could fly at 82 mph (132 km/h), but its time at DELAG was short, as it was given to Italy as war reparations in 1921.

LZ 8 Deutschland II Airship Accident

Still, by all accounts, this airship was one of the few that DELAG operated in its early years that wasn’t lost in an accident. Indeed, in addition to the aforementioned LZ 7 Deutschland incident, the Zeppelin Museum also notes that its successors, the unnamed LZ 6 and the LZ 8 Deutschland II, only operated a handful of passenger flights before their careers came to untimely ends in the following ways:

  • LZ 6 – Destroyed in a hangar fire while undergoing maintenance procedures.
  • LZ 8 Deutschland II – Blown against the side of a hangar and damaged beyond repair (pictured above).

Interwar events halted DELAG’s growth

Eventually, DELAG began to look beyond the German border to see where else it could expand its network of commercial passenger-carrying airship operations. As part of this, it planned to use a vessel known as the LZ 121 Nordstern (‘North Star’) to extend its existing route between Friedrichshafen and Berlin further north. Indeed, Airships.net notes that Stockholm was chosen as the destination.

LZ 10 Schwaben Airship

However, these plans never came to fruition, as DELAG was forced to surrender the LZ 121 Nordstern to France before it could even enter service on the route to the Swedish capital city with the company. The reason for this, much like the transfer of the LZ 120 Bodensee to Italy, is that it was dictated that the vessel would be given to the French as part of the war reparations paid by the Central Powers.

In the aftermath of the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles also temporarily forced DELAG to cease operations, as it stipulated that German manufacturers could only construct much smaller airships. Indeed, the upper limit in this regard was placed at 28,000 cubic meters (1,000,000 cubic feet), whereas Zeppelin had, before these rules were put in place, been aiming to build larger airships for DELAG.

LZ 13 Hansa Airship

As such, the airline had to wait for the rules to be relaxed before it could add to its fleet and replace the dirigibles that it had lost in the war reparations process. This eventually took place in 1925, allowing the Zeppelin company to push forward with the design and production of an airship that it hoped would enable intercontinental air travel. Needless to say, the results were quite spectacular.

Flying further

The airship in question was the legendary LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, which, according to Airships.net, flew for the first time in September of 1928. A month later, the huge vessel flew into the history books by operating the world’s first scheduled passenger-carrying flight across the Atlantic Ocean, flying from Friedrichshafen to Lakehurst, New Jersey with 20 passengers and 40 members of crew onboard.

LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin

The 111 hours and 44 minutes that the airship took to make its journey were rather pedestrian by today’s standards. Nonetheless, the flight was a major achievement that paved the way for the growth of the busy and lucrative transatlantic corridor that we all know and love today. The LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin would also serve, as MDR notes, New York City, as well as destinations in South America.

The end of the line

The launch of DELAG’s South American services came in 1931, just two years before the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933. This seismic political event would, of course, go on to have major implications on a human, militaristic, and geopolitical level all over the world, but it also heralded significant change closer to home as well. For DELAG, this spelled the end of the line two years later, in 1935.

Hindenburg Disaster

Specifically, it was then that, as Airships.net notes, the Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei (German Zeppelin Transport Company) was established as DELAG’s successor. This ensured greater Nazi control over airship operations, with the instigator being none other than Air Minister Hermann Göring. Following the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 and the onset of the Second World War, Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei ceased operations, bringing the story of the world’s first airline to a close.

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