Oldest Airlines Still Operating Today
UPDATED GRAPHIC // After comments, I found many more old airlines to add to this chart. However, the number became untenable so I had to add some restrictions to narrow it down to a manageable list. This graph now show airlines 50 years and older with a fleet of 100 or more in 2024, per Planespotters.net.
NOTE: I sourced data from corporate airline sites and aviation news site Simple Flying whenever possible, not Wikipedia.
Several airlines have celebrated their 100-year anniversary in recent years. In 2025, there will be three airlines turning 106 years old: KLM, British Airways and Avianca. While many airlines have failed or been acquired over the years, these 36 are still operating today. Geopolitics played a big part in the formation of many airlines as they changed hands after WW2 or were acquired by the government of their country.
Many of them began with one small plane delivering mail. Several were the result of consolidating different fledgling carriers early on, such as United which formed by uniting of Boeing Air Transport, Pacific Air Transport, National Air Transport and Varney Air Lines. The oldest American airline is Delta which started as a small crop-dusting operation in 1925.
In Europe, British Airways eventually came out of the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) which merged with 3 other airline companies in 1919. Today’s British Airways didn’t assume its name until 1974.
In the US, airlines such as Southwest and Alaska operated regionally until the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, after which they began to expand nationwide.
Cathay Pacific was started by two ex-Air Force pilots looking to fly goods from Australia to China after WW2.
India Air started as Tata Airlines in 1932 and became Air India only after its independence in 1947 after WW2.