First Commercial Airline - 1914

A photo of the first commercial airline flight, a small, two-passenger plane flying over Tampa Bay. (Image credit: FloridaMemory.com)

They flew one passenger 15 miles from St. Petersburg to Tampa. Tickets were $5 ($150 bucks in today's money, $1500 next week thanks to those morons in Congress). The airline operated for four months until all the snowbirds went back north in the spring. Space.com has the story.

Opening St. Petersburg - Tampa Airboat Line
Tony on the right

Tony Jannus was the pilot. He was a bit of a celebrity back then. He died in 1916 while flying over the Black Sea. Tony Jannus Distinguished Aviation Society has the story.

Map of first scheduled passenger air route from St. Petersburg to Tampa Bay, Florida. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.

There were any number of ways to get from one these cities to the other, but they all took much longer. A boat would probably be the quickest but it would take at least an hour, assuming you could find one that had steam up and was ready to go. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has a page about early airlines, which is where I found this map. Current maps are covered with roads, so they don't give a good picture of the situation.

Via FlightAware