Airlines

An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in which they both offer and operate the same flight. Generally, airline companies are recognized with an air operating certificate or license issued by a governmental aviation body. Airlines may be scheduled or charter operators.

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Aerolíneas

DELAG (Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft) was the world’s first airline. It was founded on November 16, 1909, with government assistance, and operated airships manufactured by The Zeppelin Corporation. Its headquarters were in Frankfurt. The first fixed-wing scheduled airline was started on January 1, 1914, from St. Petersburg, Florida, to Tampa, Florida, operated by the St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line. The four oldest non-dirigible airlines that still exist are the Netherlands‘ KLM (1919), Colombia’s Avianca (1919), Australia‘s Qantas (1921), and the Czech Republic‘s Czech Airlines (1923).

航空公司

Compagnies Aériennes

The earliest fixed wing airline in Europe was Aircraft Transport and Travel, formed by George Holt Thomas in 1916; via a series of takeovers and mergers, this company is an ancestor of later British Airways. Using a fleet of former military Airco DH.4A biplanes that had been modified to carry two passengers in the fuselage, it operated relief flights between Folkestone and Ghent. On 15 July 1919, the company flew a proving flight across the English Channel, despite a lack of support from the British government. Flown by Lt. H Shaw in an Airco DH.9 between RAF Hendon and Paris – Le Bourget Airport, the flight took 2 hours and 30 minutes at £21 per passenger.

الخطوط الجوية

Flugzeuge verschiedener Fluggesellschaften am Flughafen Maastricht Aachen (Niederlande) während der Corona-Pandemie im Jahr 2021 — Aircraft of Various Airlines at Maastricht Aachen Airport (Netherlands) during the Corona Pandemic in 2021

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Авиакомпании

Airline ownership has seen a shift from mostly personal ownership until the 1930s to government-ownership of major airlines from the 1940s to 1980s and back to large-scale privatization following the mid-1980s. Since the 1980s, there has also been a trend of major airline mergers and the formation of airline alliances. The largest alliances are Star Alliance, SkyTeam and Oneworld, and these three collectively accounted for more than 60% of global commercial air traffic in 2015. Airline alliances coordinate their passenger service programs (such as lounges and frequent-flyer programs), offer special interline tickets and often engage in extensive codesharing (sometimes systemwide).

Fluggesellschaften

Hava Yolları

The world’s largest airlines can be defined in several ways. As of 2019, American Airlines Group was the largest by fleet size, passengers carried and revenue passenger mile. Delta Air Lines was the largest by revenue, assets value and market capitalization. Lufthansa Group was the largest by number of employees, FedEx Express by freight tonne-kilometres, Turkish Airlines by number of countries served and UPS Airlines by number of destinations served (though United Airlines was the largest passenger airline by number of destinations served).