DELAG: The World’s First Airline

The world’s first passenger airline, DELAG, the Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft (German Airship Transportation Corporation Ltd) was established in 1909 as an offshoot of the Zeppelin Company.

While most of the earliest flights were sightseeing tours, with little scheduled point-to-point service, in 1919 the airship LZ-120 Bodensee began scheduled service between Berlin and southern Germany.  The flight from Berlin to Friedrichshafen took 4-9 hours, compared to 18-24 hours by rail.  Before the Bodensee was taken by the Italians as war reparations under the Versailles Treaty, the airship made 103 flights and carried almost 2,500 passengers, 11,000 lbs of mail, and 6,600 lbs of cargo.

The Origins of Delag

DELAG’s goal was to commercialize zeppelin travel by providing passenger service, and to purchase airships built by the Zeppelin Company, at a time when support by the military was still uncertain.

DELAG was created under the leadership of Zeppelin Company executive Alfred Colsman, who was was married to the daughter of aluminum manufacturer Carl Berg, who supplied aluminum for Count Zeppelin’s airships.

While DELAG was not able to fulfill its goal of providing scheduled intercity passenger service until after World War I, its pre-war fleet introduced thousands of people to zeppelin travel through local sighsteeing flights.  In cooperation with the Hamburg-Amerika steamship line as ticket agent, DELAG sold tickets for airship excursions around Germany.  In support of its operations, hangars and landing fields were built at Frankfurt, Oos (Baden-Baden), Dusseldorf, Lepizig, Postdam, Hamburg, Dresden, Gotha, and elsewhere in Germany (click links for photos).

Between 1910 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, DELAG zeppelins carried over 34,000 passengers on over 1,500 flights, without a single injury.  The majority of the passengers were given free flights to publicize the zeppelin industry  — especially members of German royalty and nobility, military officers, government officials, and business leaders — but DELAG also carried 10,197 paying passengers before having to cease operations with the beginning of the war.

DELAG Before World War I

DELAG operated several zeppelins between 1910 and 1914, including Deutschland II, Schwaben, Viktoria Luise, Hansa, and Sachsen.

LZ-7 Deutschland

Deutschland has the distinction of making the first commercial flight of the first commercial aircraft in history, but it was a flight which ended in a crash.

LZ-7 departed Dusseldorf on its seventh flight, on June 28, 1910, with Zeppelin Company director Alfred Colsman and a full complement of 23 passengers, mainly journalists covering the flight, enjoying the view from its carpeted, mahogany-paneled, mother-of-pearl-inlayed passenger cabin.

Before long, due to a combination of engine trouble, weather, and the relative inexperience of the ship’s military pilot, LZ-7 crashed into the Teutoburger Forest and was destroyed.  Fortunately, there were no serious injuries.

LZ-8 Deutschland II

LZ-8 was launched March 30, 1911, intended to replace the wrecked LZ-7.

Unfortunately, LZ-8, also named Deutschland, had a similarly short career.  On May 16, 1911, with Hugo Eckener in command of an airship for the first time, LZ-8 had barely left its hangar when it was pulled from its handling crew by a gust of wind and smashed against the roof of the hangar; the passengers and crew were able to escape without injury by climbing down a long fire ladder, but the ship was a total loss.

It has often been said that the almost predictable wreck of LZ-8 — the day’s gusty wind conditions made the flight ill-advised from the start — contributed to Hugo Eckener’s intense caution in the future, and his determination never again to sacrifice safety to pressure from passengers, the public, or any other source.

LZ-10 Schwaben

Schwaben was launched June 26, 199, and entered passenger service the next month, on July 16, 1911.   Frequently commanded by Hugo Eckener, LZ-10 made over 200 flights and carried over 4,300 passengers, mostly on local flights from the hangar at Oos (Baden-Baden), but also from Dusseldorf, Potsdam, and Frankfurt, and occasionally from other cities.

Schwaben was destroyed by a fire and hydrogen explosion at Dusseldorf on June 28, 1912.

LZ-11 Viktoria Luise

LZ-11 first flew on February 14, 1912, and was named after Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia, the only daughter of Kaiser Wilhem II.

The ship made local sightseeing flights, mostly from Frankfurt, but also from Postdam, Oos (Baden-Baden), and a few other cities.  LZ-11 made almost 500 flights, carrying almost 10,000 passengers.

Viktoria Luise was transferred to the German Army at the beginning of World War I and used as a training ship for the military.

LZ-13 Hansa

Hansa made the first international flight by a DELAG ship, traveling from Hamburg to Copenhagen and back on September 19, 1912.  Hansa’s first flight was on July 12, 1912, and it carried over 8,200 people on almost 400 flights, mostly from Hamburg and Postdam, but on occassion from other cities such as Leipzig, Gotha, and Berlin.  Hansa was last based in Dresden until the outbreak of World War I, when it too was transferred to the Army as a training ship.

LZ-17 Sachsen

LZ-17 made its first flight on May 13, 1913.  Sachsen was the first ship commanded by Ernst Lehmann, who received his airship training in the ship from Hugo Eckener.

During 1913, Sachsen was used mainly for local sightseeing flights at Oos (Baden-Baden) and Leipzig, with occasional flights from Hamburg, Dresden, and other cities.

In 1914 the ship made most of its flights from Hamburg, with additional flights from Potsdam and Leipzig.

Sachsen proved to be an extraordinarily successful ship for DELAG, and carried 9,836 passengers on 419 flights in civilian service.

With the outbreak of war in August, 1914, Sachsen was transferred to the Army as a training ship, still under the command of Ernst Lehmann, and the leader of the German Navy’s airship service, Peter Strasser, received his training from Eckener and Lehmann aboard Sachsen.  Sachsen was later modified to incorporate bomb racks and machine guns and made numerous bombing attacks on targets in Belgium, France, and England.  The ship was dismantled in 1916.

DELAG After World War I

DELAG built two new ships after World War I.  It operated a successful scheduled passenger service between Friedrichshafen and Berlin with LZ-120 Bodensee, and had just completed LZ-121 Nordstern when it was forced to cease operations in 1921 by the Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control under the Treaty of Versailles, and its ships were given to France and Italy as war reparations.

LZ-120 Bodensee

The first civilian zeppelin built after the war, LZ-120 was primarily designed to provide fast air transportation between Friedrichshafen and Berlin.  Construction was completed within six months, and the ship, named Bodensee, made its first flight on August 20, 1919.

Bodensee’s highly advanced and aerodynamically-determined teardrop shape (which differed greatly from the thin, pencil-like shape of most previous zeppelins) was a great leap forward in zeppelin design, due primarily to the engineering theories of designer Paul Jaray.

LZ-120’s shape provided less drag, increased speed, and greater aerodynamic lift, and became the basic model from which LZ-126 Los Angeles, LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin, and LZ-129 Hindenburg were adapted.

A relatively short, small ship, Bodensee carried 706,000 cubic feet of hydrogen (later increased to 796,300 during a refit).  But with its revolutionary design, and four Maybach MB.IVa engines of 245 hp each, LZ-120 Bodensee could reach a speed of 82 MPH.

Bodensee traveled the 370 miles between Friedrichshafen and Berlin in 4-9 hours, compared to the 18-24 hours it took by rail.  With washrooms and a small kitchen for light meals, Bodensee could carry up to 26 passengers in comfort as well as speed.  In the three months after the ship’s launch, LZ-120 made 103 flights (almost all of them between Friedrichshafen and Berlin) and carried almost 2,500 passengers, 11,000 lbs of mail, and 6,600 lbs of cargo.

In July of 1921, LZ-120 was taken from DELAG by the Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control and given to Italy, where it was renamed Esperia.

LZ-121 Nordstern

LZ-121 was built to provide the first international passenger zeppelin service, with plans for scheduled flights between Friedrichshafen, Berlin, and Stockholm.  Slightly larger than LZ-120, LZ-121 was completed in 1920 and christened Nordstern, but the ship was taken from DELAG in 1921 by the Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control and given to France.