Today most countries have at least one airline that flies to foreign countries and one airline that flies inside the country. Some countries have several of each.
The world's first passenger airline was called the St. Petersburg Tampa Airboat Line. This St. Petersburg was in Florida in the USA, and the airline took passengers on a 20-mile flight across Tampa Bay. It operated for only four months from January 1914.
The first European airline flew every day from Berlin to Weimar called Deutsche Lutt-Reederei (DLR). It started to operate on 6 February 1919. At first it carried only mail and newspapers, but before long it took passengers as well. The planes were open to the air so passengers had to wear special clothing and shoes to protect them from the wind, rain and cold.
In March 1919 the first international airline began to operate. Lignes Aeriennes Farman flew once a week between Paris and Brussels. The journey took two hours and 50 minutes. Later that year, an English airline, Air Transport and Travel, flew every day from London to Paris.
Although the first passenger flights took place in the USA, the development of air travel in America was strangely slow; it was not until 1926 that there were any regular passenger services there. It was not until 1939 that the first service across the North Atlantic began to operate. This was a service by the Pan American Boeing 314 flying boat, Yankee Clipper, which took 18 hours and 42 minutes to cover the journey between Newfoundland in North America and Southampton in England. The journey now takes about four hours by Boeing 777 and half that by Concorde.
Today for many people air travel is as much part of their lives as traveling by boat, car or train. Although it has not seriously affected travel by car or train, it has caused many shipping lines to stop carrying passengers, as most people now prefer to make long journeys by air rather than by sea.
