The Beginnings of British Commercial Aviation. On August 25, 1919, at 9.10 a.m. a de Havilland 4A bomber, converted by the British Aircraft Transport and Travel (AT&T) company for passenger use, took off from London and flew to Paris in two hours.

Commercial aviation in England officially took flight on August 25, 1919, immediately following the lifting of the World War I ban on civil aviation. The first daily international scheduled service was launched by Aircraft Transport and Travel (AT&T), flying a converted de Havilland DH.16 from Hounslow Heath (near present-day Heathrow) to Le Bourget in Paris. This historic flight carried a single passenger, along with a cargo of leather, grouse, and Devonshire cream. Shortly after, the focus shifted to Croydon Airport, which became London’s primary international gateway in 1920. These early flights were expensive, loud, and restricted to the elite, but they laid the groundwork for the modern global aviation network. By 1924, several small pioneer airlines merged to form Imperial Airways, the predecessor to British Airways, which expanded routes across the British Empire. In 2026, we look back on these 1919 pioneers as the founders of an industry that now moves millions of people daily across the same English skies.