BOAC (and Pan American) Transatlantic Flying boat Services from 1939

I think it is established that Pan Am started a full passenger/mail/freight transatlantic service with Boeing 314s to Lisbon in June 1939 and to Southampton in July 1939. From August to September 1939 BOAC’s predecessor Imperial Airways performed 8 transatlantic experimental round-trips with Empire flying boats(flight- refuelled by Harrow tankers) and carrying mail/freight but AFAIK not paying passengers . The five non-flight-refuelled round-trips via Newfoundland by BOAC’s ‘Clare’ and ‘Clyde’ in August and September did indeed carry a few non-commercial VIP passengers with the mail/freight including Harold Balfour, ‘Wild’ Bill Donovan and the first American ferry pilots and LIFE magazine captured ‘Clare’ in colour at La Guardia, New York during the Battle of Britain, though the photos remained unpublished for nearly 70 years
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/64c028a70b50b424.html

It seems the transatlantic ‘service’ by BOACs Boeing 314s was somewhat of an accident resulting from their need to have engine maintenance done at Baltimore every 120 hours and (apart from carrying Churchill several times) they flew a circular winter route Baltimore-Bermuda- Azores-Lisbon-Bathurst -Lagos-Bathurst-Belem/Natal-Trinidad-Bermuda-Baltimore with a Summer route available Baltimore-Botwood-Foynes-Botwood-Baltimore and it seems commercial carriage to/from Baltimore was restricted by the U.S. authorities

The Return Ferry Service BOAC operated with Liberators from Prestwick to Montreal and back is credited with being the first sustained landplane transatlantic ‘service’ but operated for government rather than commercial objectives.

The Pan American transatlantic service was initially fully commercial and theoretically available to all nationalities during American neutrality prior to Pearl Harbour though one suspects increasing State Department involvement in who travelled .
John Wilson has recently produced a paper on how the Pan Am Boeing Clippers replaced the Italian LATI South Atlantic mail/courier air service after Pearl Harbour even carrying Axis mail! (and according to Wilson initially uncensored,though censor stations were soon installed en route)
http://www.wasc.org.uk/PanAm%20group.html
It is noticeable from the enclosed maps that Pan Am, too, seemed to follow a circular pattern over the Atlantic, probably like sailing ships with the prevailing winds 🙂

Thanks, David….perhaps I should have said ‘withdrawn’….was it actually flown by Saunders-Roe and what was the British Air Council? You sent me a photo of the crashed G-AGDA ‘Catalina’ ‘C1’ which shows the first official BOAC logo with a Speedbird over a Globe worded BRITISH overseas AIRWAYS (crop attached) . This emblem only appeared in a few other photos (of Empire boats ‘Corsair’ after rebuild, and ‘Clifton’ on completion) and on a Lodestar, and on some early BOAC leaflets and adverts….Mick

From an Aeroplane Monthly article by John Stroud on the Empire boats…my guess the paint job put on Corsair after the Short Bros rebuild (1940)

Ad for the UK-Lisbon BOAC service, 1940

A surprisingly late appearance of the first official BOAC aircraft nose logo (1943)

BRITISH OVERSEAS AIRWAYS CORPORATION AND QANTAS, 1940-1945.© IWM (CNA 3627)

Former British Airways managers such as Runciman favoured calling the new airline simply ‘British Airways’ but were over-ruled…. the wrangle over what the airline should be called lingered even until 1946 when a U.S. issued timetable was still titled British Airways.
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/ba2/ba46b/ba46b-1.jpg

The post-war split into BOAC, BEA, and BSAA resolved the name problem but the politicking involved would make an interesting article 🙂