Early Intercontinental Air Routes, 1930s

Due to range limitations, the first international air routes were composed of a series of refueling stages. Crossing the comparatively calm and narrow South Atlantic was much easier than transiting the North Atlantic. Although the world’s most powerful economies bracketed the North Atlantic, regular airplane services did not begun between the USA and Europe until 1939 when Pan Am offered Boeing 314 flying boat services. The 9-day trip from London to Sydney on Imperial Airways in 1938, for instance, with overnights at luxurious hotels along the way, cost more than $15,000 in 2003 dollars (Dick and Patterson, 2003). Following the outbreak of World War II, commercial services were suspended by military flights operated by Pan Am and other carriers continued, providing experience and stimulating technical advances upon which the postwar expansion of transatlantic services would be based.