Originally Posted by
jlemon
What was the first airline to operate trans-Atlantic services between England and New York from a place other than London?
Identify the airline and the English place flown from.
Well, I've been giving this bonus quiz item from WHBM some thought....and right off the bat, I'll wager the service was operated with a flying boat and thus not with a land plane.
I will also assume we are talking about scheduled passenger service here and not a route proving or mail flight.
Two air carriers come to mind: Imperial Airways and Pan American World Airways.
I'll go with Pan Am operating a Boeing 314 Clipper from Southampton to New York via Foynes in Ireland as well as a stop somewhere in Newfoundland and perhaps another stop somewhere in the Canadian maritimes.
Close enough
JL. The airline was known as British Airways, but was legally BOAC. They had been formed during early WW2, in 1940, by the merger of the old Imperial Airways, mainly long-haul flying boats plus the London to Paris route, and British Airways (Mk 1), the largest pre-war independent airline, which had developed a notable route structure across much of northern Europe. During the wartime their UK services were all closed down, although an exception was the Baltimore to Bermuda flying boat, and the aircraft used on military missions, but the corporate survived, and when civil aviation was allowed again from 1 January 1946 they started up again. So although there were various trial runs etc pre-war, the first schedule (below) was afterwards.
Three Boeing 314 flying boats had been obtained during the war, and these, named Bangor, Berwick and Bristol, started that first service from Poole Harbour through the Azores and Bermuda to Baltimore, having tacked on to the wartime Bermuda operation. This avoided the icing locations of the North Atlantic. Flights from the UK were weekly at first, with two extras per week between Bermuda and Baltimore, which had been maintained through wartime.
Poole Harbour was where the wartime flying boats had been based, away from the old Southampton base where the large docks and the Spitfire factory were constant attack points. It was about a 3 hour train journey from London. The flights initially used the old British Airways brand before changing to BOAC.
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...6b/ba46b-1.jpg
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...6b/ba46b-2.jpg
http://www.pooleflyingboats.com/map.html
(especially the Archive tab)
So, why is this not the answer to
S2A's question about which city other than London had the first transatlantic scheduled flight. Simple. Neither Poole, nor the adjacent Bournemouth (they seamlessly run into each other) are cities. They are just very sizeable towns. Cities are very sparingly assigned in the UK.