Today in 1936, a small green biplane sat on the grass runway at Baldonnel Military Aerodrome on the western edge of Dublin. The aircraft was a de Havilland DH.84 Dragon, registration EI-ABI, her name was Iolar. Eagle, as Gaeilge.
Aer Lingus itself had been founded just five weeks earlier, on 15 April 1936, with authorised capital of £100,000, a staff of twelve, one aircraft, and a biscuit tin of spare parts. The airline had been registered under its full title, Aer Lingus Teoranta, on 22 May.
"Lingus" comes from the Irish "loingeas," meaning fleet. The name had been proposed by Richard F. O'Connor, the County Cork Surveyor, who was also, handily, an aviation enthusiast. The company had purchased Iolar from the Blackpool and West Coast Airline in England for £2,400.
That morning at Baldonnel, Army chaplain Father William O'Riordan said a blessing over the aircraft before she flew. In attendance was Seán Lemass, then Minister for Industry and Commerce, who would go on to be Taoiseach and the architect of Ireland's economic opening to the world.
At 9am precisely, Iolar lifted off and pointed her nose east towards what was grandly designated Route No. 800. There were five passengers aboard. William Herbert Morton, Manager of the Great Southern Railway and a director of the new airline. Tim O'Driscoll of the Department of Transport. Henry Fitzherbert and his wife Sheelah, paying customers whose connection to Morton went through Sheelah's father, Joseph X. Murphy TD, a director of the Great Southern Railways and the Bank of Ireland. The fifth passenger was May Ó hUadhaigh, wife of Aer Lingus chairman Seán Ó hUadhaigh. She held Aer Lingus ticket number 1.
The only cargo was a bundle of Irish Times newspapers bound for London. That paper ironically didnt even bother to cover the story the next morning. It got a passing mention two days later.
Iolar flew at up to 130 miles per hour, left the Irish coast two miles south of Bray Head, crossed the Irish Sea, climbed to 4,000 feet above the Welsh mountains, and landed at Bristol Whitchurch Airport around midday. The crossing had been, Morton told a local reporter, "calm and pleasant."
At Bristol, a small welcoming delegation including Alderman A. A. Senington, Chairman of the Airport Committee, was there to receive them. The Fitzherberts disembarked. The rest flew back. They arrived at Baldonnel thirty-five minutes behind schedule at 15:05
The three-person Baldonnel ground staff, led by Station Superintendent J.J. Hurley, a former commander of a cruiser in the Chinese customs service, met them on the runway. Hurley's deputy M.J. Finnegan was there, along with booking agent E.A. Rafter, also known as Nobby Rafter, the first person ever employed by Aer Lingus.
That night, Aer Lingus chairman Seán Ó hUadhaigh wrote a memo noting with some relief, that the passengers least likely to complain about the wireless difficulties were the Fitzherberts.
Public enthusiasm was not immediate. In the first five weeks of operation, just 49 tickets were sold. A one-way fare to Bristol cost £7, roughly £580 in today's money. A return to London, when that route opened in September, was £4/14/6 through Liverpool. Most Irish people still went by rail and sea.
By the end of its first full year, Aer Lingus had carried 892 passengers, generated £4,697 in revenue, and recorded an operating loss of £5,147. Within weeks of that first flight, a summer service had opened to the Isle of Man. By September, using a newly acquired de Havilland DH.86 Express named Éire, the network reached London's Croydon Airport.
In 1937 the Irish government took full ownership through Aer Rianta. In 1938, Iolar herself was sold to the British airline Channel Air Ferries and re-registered as G-ACPY. She was lost during the war. The precise circumstances are not fully recorded.
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