Aeroput

Aeroput , full name Gesellschaft für Luftverkehr AG Aeroput ( Serbian Друштво за ваздушни саобраћај А. Д. Аеропут Društvo za vazdušni saobraćaj AD Aeroput ), was the first Yugoslavian airline based in Belgrade . Founded in 1927, Aeroput was renamed Jugoslovenski Aerotransport in 1947 .

history

The story of a domestic Serbian and Yugoslav airline begins with the establishment of the Royal Serbian Airmail, which during the First World War also limited the post between Skopje and Thessaloniki and from 1919 between Belgrade, Novi Sad , Zagreb , Sarajevo and Mostar with its Breguet 14 Passengers carried. Despite all this, there was still no domestic civil airline. The first airline to fly to Yugoslavia or Belgrade was the Franco-Romanian Compagnie franco-roumaine de navigation aérienne , or CFRNA for short , from March 15, 1923 . A regular air route between Belgrade and Bucharest was set up for passenger transport, which was flown by Caudron C.61 . On September 2, 1923, the airline also flew the first international night flight between Belgrade and Bucharest . CFRNA especially wanted to establish itself as a competitor to the Orient Express , the fastest connection between Western Europe and the Middle East at the time.

Inspired by CFRNA and other airlines, the Yugoslav "Aeroclub" held a conference in Belgrade on February 6, 1926, at which it was decided to found a domestic airline. A corresponding application was made to the Ministry of Trade and Industry, which approved the application on May 13 of the same year. However, the project threatened to collapse due to a lack of interest; by the end of March 1927, only 10% of the planned 24,000 shares had been paid up. To avoid failure, Tadija Sondermajer, a leading Serbian and Yugoslav aviation pioneer at the time (of German-Polish origin on his father's side), and Leonid Bajdak, a Russian emigrant, held an unusual PR campaign: They flew from April 20 to May 1, 1927 A new record with a Potez 25 from Paris to Bombay with stops in Zagreb, Belgrade, Aleppo , Basra , Bandar-e Dschask and Karachi . Although this record flight was internationally sidelined by Lindbergh's famous Atlantic flight , it aroused the interest of local banks and companies, with which the company of a local airline could finally be realized. Aeroput was founded as a public company with 412 shareholders. The official entry in the commercial register as a legal person followed on June 17, 1927 . Your first commercial manager was Tadija Sondermajer. By 1928, four Potez 29s were procured, the home airport was Dojno polje, which opened in 1927 in what is now New Belgrade (abandoned in 1962 with the opening of today 's Belgrade airport ).

The first regularly flown air route was between Belgrade and Zagreb in 1928. The first international flight from Zagreb to Vienna took place on October 7, 1929 . In the same year Aeroput became a member of the IATA . In 1930 the line was flown between Belgrade and Thessaloniki, and from 1935 Bucharest, Venice , Milan , Turin , Brno , Prague , Sofia and Tirana followed .

During the Second World War , almost the entire inventory of Aeroput was destroyed and operations were discontinued. Only three Lockheed Electras with members of the government who had fled Belgrade on board were able to escape to Greece and Egypt, respectively, while two Lockheed Electras were shot down by the air force . On July 2, 1945, at a conference chaired by the then Yugoslav President Ivan Ribar , who was a shareholder and board member of Aeroput before the war, the restart was decided. In 1947, the now nationalized airline was renamed Jugoslovenski Aerotransport , or JAT for short , and with the ban on private corporations on December 24, 1948, Aeroput was finally liquidated.

designation

The name of the airline is a compound word and consists of the internationally used word element aero for 'air' and the Serbo-Croatian word put meaning 'way'. The name Aeroput is therefore the Serbo-Croatian equivalent of the English Airways .

fleet

• 8 Lockheed Model 10A Electra
• 6 Potez 29/2
• 3 Spartan Cruiser II
• 2 Caudron C. 449 Goéland
• 1 Caudron C. 441 Goéland
• 1 Farman F.306
• 1 Farman F.190
• 1 De Havilland DH.80 Puss Moth
• 1 De Havilland DH.60M Moth
• 1 De Havilland DH.83 Fox Moth
• 1 De Havilland DH.89 Dragon Rapide
• 1 Aeroput MMS-3

Incidents

On September 12, 1933, a Farman F.306 crashed not far from Ljubljana airport on the flight between Ljubljana and Sušak with a pilot, a mechanic and six passengers. All eight inmates were killed. On July 15, 1936, a Spartan Cruiser (built under license by Zmaj near Belgrade) with a pilot, a radio operator and five passengers on board crashed on the same line near Hruščica near Ljubljana. All seven inmates were fatally injured. The most serious incident occurred on August 22, 1940, when a Lockheed Electra with two pilots or a crew member and nine passengers crashed near Gospić on the Zagreb- Split route . All eleven inmates were killed. And on October 22, 1940, a Lockheed Electra with two pilots, a radio operator and nine passengers also crashed on the Belgrade-Zagreb route when approaching Zagreb Airport; all three crew members and three passengers died, a fourth passenger later succumbed to his injuries.

See also

• Former Airlines List (Europe)

Web links

• Aeroput Timetable (with advertising posters)

Individual evidence

1. ^ The history of aviation in Romania. TAROM SA., 2012, archived from the original on February 17, 2012 ; accessed on April 6, 2014 . 
2. ↑ Jovo Simišić: The Forgotten Ace. (No longer available online.) Jat.com, archived from the original on June 5, 2009 ; Retrieved October 16, 2011 . 
3. ↑ Eighty years since the first civil flight. (No longer available online.) Jat.com, February 14, 2008, archived from the original on July 18, 2010 ; Retrieved October 16, 2011 . 
4. ↑ Jovo Simišić: PRVI LET AEROPUTA. balkanmagazin.net, August 27, 2008, accessed October 16, 2011 . 
5. ↑ Serbian / Yugoslav daily newspaper Politika of September 13, 1933 (sr)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ Politika, July 16, 1936 (sr)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ Politika, 23 August 1940 (sr)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ Politika, October 23, 1940 (sr)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.