KLM: THE WORLD'S OLDEST AIRLINE STILL GOING STRONG!

In 1930, KLM began scheduled passenger service between Amsterdam and Jakarta. The Fokker F.XII plane took 10 days to reach, including 81 hours of flying time. It was the world's longest scheduled flight before the Second World War.

- JOSEPH NORONHA

THE FIRST POWERED FLIGHT OF A HEAVIER-THAN-AIR AIRCRAFT occurred on December 17, 1903, when Orville Wright piloted the Wright Flyer at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Six years later, on November 16, 1909, the world’s first airline to use an aircraft in revenue service was established. However, DELAG, based in Frankfurt, did not operate fixed-wing aircraft, but a fleet of zeppelin rigid airships. It ceased operations within 30 years. The first scheduled airline to use a fixed-wing aircraft was the St Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line. It commenced service on January 1, 1914, between St Petersburg, Florida, and Tampa, across Tampa Bay, a distance of just 37 km, with a Benoist XIV biplane. However, the airline folded up in five months. KLM, which stands for Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij voor Nederland en Kolonien (“Royal Dutch Airlines”), was established in 1919, and holds the distinction of being the world’s oldest airline still in service.