Source: adapted from Davies, 1964: Figure 6.

US Post Office Airmail Routes, 1921

The first regularly scheduled airmail service in the world began in 1918 on the New York-Philadelphia-Washington route for which the letter rate was $0.24 or about $3.50 in 2006 dollars. By 1921, a route spanning the nation had been forged. Due to the short range of the planes of the time, the routes were dotted with several stages, at most 375 km apart. So, crossing the continent from New York to San Francisco involved 16 stopovers and took about 4 days. The life of airmail pilots was glamorous but dangerous. Only 9 of the 25 pilots originally hired by the postal service were alive in 1925 (Bilstein, 1983).

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