6. What was the first airport in the world to operate scheduled international commercial services? Where did the flight go?
Originally Posted by
YVR Cockroach
Educated guess. Given KLM is the oldest continuously-operating airline, I will guess it was Amsterdam, way before Schiphol, to Brussels?
Great answer! However, I think the answer would be for a different question, a hypothetical 6A, first schedule international commercial service by an airline that is still flying.
England had Airco and the US had Chauk's Ocean, both no longer exists. I believe Airco operated domestically initially. Chauk did not but flew to the Bahamas.
6. What was the first airport in the world to operate scheduled international commercial services? Where did the flight go?
Miami airport, but not the current one. It's the Miami seaplane runway in Biscayne Bay between Miami and Miami Beach. The flight went to Alice Town, Bahamas, which is on Bimini Island, closer to Miami than Nassau. I don't really know seaplanes so I won't be able to say what plane was used.
Chauk's Ocean Airways, later Chauk's International Airlines, lasted a long time until around 2005 or so. An old Grumman seaplane crashed and the airline was shut down. It was tough to maintain a plane more than 50 years old and with the company no longer in the seaplane business. The FAA didn't have confidence in the airline.
I'm not completely sure of my answer except Chauk's was one of the first, if not the first, scheduled international flight. It used to be America's oldest airline when it was flying. I thought of flying them but wasn't too sure about the old aircraft. Kenmore Air flies old planes but Chauk's was an order of magnitude more difficult because Kenmore's old DHC Beavers and Otters are still support by the new manufacturer, Viking Air of Victoria, BC.