Air and Space: The Dawn of Transatlantic Flight

By John Fleischman

    On October 23, 1945, the first general transatlantic passenger flight was made from New York to London. It carried eleven other passengers including a governor and various press reporters, along with the cargo of envelopes that declared that they had been on the first commercial landplane flight overseas.

"Stamp collectors might have considered October 23, 1945 a day to remember, but 75 years later few recall the first scheduled transatlantic service via 'land plane' from New York to London...Everyone who has ever flown the Atlantic in economy class should have been invited to a big 75th anniversary party—except there was no party. It wasn’t cancelled because of COVID. It was never planned."

    Before that first DC-4, clippers carried luxury passengers in small groups. Henceforth, transatlantic travel would become commonplace, carrying millions of people. Unfortunately, this historic day was not celebrated.

"More importantly, corporate identity left the event a brand orphan. The airline that might have been throwing the party—American Airlines—sold its Atlantic division to Pan Am in 1950. When Pan Am went bankrupt in 1991, Delta inherited its transatlantic routes (but apparently little obligation to celebrate past glories)."

     It was also not some unexpected accomplishment. Flying boats had already offered flights across the Atlantic, and in late 1945, the US War Department sold military versions of the DC-4 to airlines to be converted for the first commercial transatlantic flights. American Airlines' AMEX division (later renamed to AOS) was the first to be ready.

"The Washington Star devoted an entire page of its Sunday edition to the implications of the flight. 'A new era in trans-Atlantic air travel began late this month as United States air lines inaugurated a speedy low-priced service,' proclaimed Joseph A. Baird. 'It was the first step toward a not-too-distant future when a weekend jaunt to Europe will be hardly more expensive than a trip to the West Coast.'"

    Unfortunately, transatlantic flight did not fit American Airlines' bottom line, and the AOS division was later sold to Pan Am. There are also disputed accounts of which plane actually made that first flight. Many say it was the Flagship London, but one account claims it is Flagship New England, which crashed after takeoff in 1946.