The Australian airline Qantas turns 100 years old.
The Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services (Qantas) airline celebrates on Monday 100 years since its founding in the Australian outback.
On November 16, 1920, two Australian Flying Corps veterans, Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness, along with local farmer Fergus McMaster, founded what would later become the national airline, EuropaPress reported.
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This happened just 17 years after the first flight powered by the Wright brothers, two years after the end of World War I and at the end of the last great global pandemic, the Spanish flu.
The new airline focused on conquering the “tyranny of distance” that was a major barrier to the growth of modern Australia. Its first chances of success were uncertain, to the point that the first sponsors called their investment “a donation”.
See also: Qantas launches a clothing line in its latest revenue initiative.
Initially transporting mail between cities in the interior, the airline carried passengers to Singapore in the 1930s. In the late 1940s, its strategic importance led to its nationalization, and in the 1960s, it was one of the first to adopt the jet plane that incorporated worldwide travel.
Qantas invented business class in the 1970s, switched to a fleet of 747s in the 1980s, was privatized in the 1990s, founded Jetstar in 2004, underwent major restructuring in 2014 and, in 2020, made significant nonstop trips to Europe and the United States.
Qantas is the oldest continuously operating airline in the world and the only one that flies to every inhabited continent on earth.
CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS.
Planned centenary celebrations have been significantly reduced due to the impact of the Covid-19, but Qantas wanted to celebrate the centenary with a low-level overflight of Sydney Harbour on its anniversary night. The flight path is expected to pass near Rose Bay, where the Empire Flying Boats took off for Singapore between 1938 and 1942.
“We would like to take this moment to thank all those who have supported Qantas over the years. And in particular, to the many people who have dedicated part or all of their careers to this great company,” said airline president Richard Goyder.
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