First transatlantic airline flight by landplane.

[Dr Jekyll]

The November edition of Air and Space magazine has an article about the very first commercial passenger flight across the Atlantic by landplane. It was on October 23rd 1945, and from New York La Guardia to Bournemouth Hurn.

All in an unpressurised DC4 and with refuelling stops in Gander and Shannon. What the article doesn't give unless I've missed it, is the fare. Anyone know?

[Simpo Two]

I was about to say 'Alcock and Brown, Vickers Vimy, 1919' then realised you added 'commercial' later, doh...

Does island hopping count though?

[Dr Jekyll]

My first attempt at a thread heading was something like 'First commercial transatlantic scheduled airline flight with passengers' so I was doing my best to shorten it without changing the meaning.

Perhaps 'service' would be a better term than flight.

[Eric Mc]

It’s a bit complex because commercial flights with airships had started in the 1920s and flying boat services with mail, and later passengers, towards the end of the 1930s.

[Simpo Two]

Eric Mc said:

It’s a bit complex because commercial flights with airships had started in the 1920s and flying boat services with mail, and later passengers, towards the end of the 1930s.

He did specify landplane though.

Maybe if things had evolved differently we'd have an A380 flying boat now...

[Eric Mc]

If there had not been accelerated development brought about by World War 2, I do think that flying boats would have lasted a bit longer but I'm pretty sure that by the 1960s they would have been superseded by land planes as far as long range passenger transport is involved.

The advent of gas turbine engines would have sounded the death knell of the large flying boat as jets are not ideal for off the water operations.

[irocfan]

Dr Jekyll said:

The November edition of Air and Space magazine has an article about the very first commercial passenger flight across the Atlantic by landplane. It was on October 23rd 1945, and from New York La Guardia to Bournemouth Hurn.

All in an unpressurised DC4 and with refuelling stops in Gander and Shannon. What the article doesn't give unless I've missed it, is the fare. Anyone know?

It would appear that said mag it incorrect (unless they're talking from a UK perspective), the first seems to have been an FW200 before WWII

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tedreed/2013/08/10/fi...

[Eric Mc]

A Focke Wuld Fw200 airliner did indeed make a flight from Berlin to New York. I always thought it was more of a route proving flight rather than a genuine commercial flight carrying passengers.

Flying the Atlantic was quite a marginal exercise right up to 1939 - whether in a landplane or a flying boat. During World War 2, a whole system was set up to allow larger aircraft to fly the Atlantic on ferry and delivery flights and airfields were built in locations to facilitate these flights. It was this infrastructure that allowed true commercial trans-Atlantic operations to begin more or less as soon as the war finished.