Qantas

Qantas (Qantas Airways Limited) (IPA: /ˈkwɔntəs/) is the name and callsign of the national airline of Australia. In 2007, Qantas was voted the fifth best airline in the world by research consultancy Skytrax. more...

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The name was originally "QANTAS", an acronym for "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services". The airline is based in Sydney, New South Wales and is Australia's largest airline.

History

Beginnings

Qantas was founded in Winton, Queensland on 16 November 1920 as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited by Paul McGuiness, Hudson Fysh, Fergus McMaster and Arthur Baird. The airline's first aircraft was an Avro 504K purchased for £1425. The aircraft had a cruising speed of 105 kilometres per hour (65 mph) and carried one pilot and two passengers. Eighty-four year old outback pioneer Alexander Kennedy was the first passenger, receiving ticket number one. The airline operated air mail services subsidised by the Australian government, linking railheads in western Queensland.

Between 1926 and 1928, Qantas built seven De Havilland DH.50s and a single DH9 under licence in its Longreach hangar. In 1928 a chartered Qantas aircraft conducted the inaugural flight of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, departing from Cloncurry.

Flying boats and war — 1934 to 1945

In 1934, QANTAS Limited and Britain's Imperial Airways (the forerunner of British Airways) formed a new company, Qantas Empire Airways Limited. Each partner held 49%, with two per cent in the hands of an independent arbitrator. The new airline commenced operations in December 1934 flying between Brisbane and Darwin using old fashioned DH50 and DH61 biplanes.

QEA flew internationaly from May 1935, when the service from Darwin was extended to Singapore using newer de Havilland DH-86 Commonwealth Airliners. Imperial Airways operated the rest of the service through to London. In July 1938, this operation was replaced by a thrice weekly flying boat service using Shorts S.23 Empire Flying Boats. The Sydney to Southampton service took nine days, with passengers staying in hotels overnight. For the single year of peace that the service operated, it was profitable and 94% of services were on time. This service lasted through until Singapore fell in February 1942. Enemy action and accidents destroyed half of the fleet of ten, when most of the fleet was taken over by the Australian government for war service.

Read more at Wikipedia.org