| TÉMA | Topic | тема
ic flight around Prague’s Kbely airport. The first passenger, Václav König, a reporter from Lidové Noviny, was only carried the following day. 3 hours and some 320 kilometres later Karel Brabenec safely landed the aircraft with the reporter on board at Bratislava’s Vajnory airport. The first international service to Zagreb
During the first years of its existence, the new airline operated only internal flights that came to connect the capital with Bratislava, Brno, Košice and Karlovy Vary. There were only a few passengers to speak of at first. In the first year, the services of Czechoslovak State Airlines were used by just thirteen passengers travelling from Prague to Bratislava and seven passengers a demonstration flight in České Budějovice. In 1929, however, CSA became a member of the International Air Traffic Association and a year later the airline started operating its first international service from Prague to Zagreb. This was later extended to the Croatian port of Rijeka. In 1935 CSA added a Saunders Roe amphibious aircraft to its fleet in response to the popularity of the service to this popular tourist destination. It flew the last leg of the route from Zagreb to Susak and in fair weather it landed on water. A proper airport at last!
A great milestone in the development of company and of Czech aviation as a whole came on 5 April 1937. At 9 a.m. a DC-2 from Piešťany to Prague landed at the newly opened airport at Ruzyně. Only an hour later the airport became connected to the rest of the world by an Air France aircraft en route from Vienna to Dresden. The airport built on a plain known as Dlouhá mile was based on designs by two luminaries of Czech Functionalism, Adolf Beneš and Kamil Roškota, who were awarded a gold medal at the world exhibition in Paris in 1937 for the architectural design of the passenger terminal.
The Czechoslovak airline quickly built up its reputation as a modern airline capable of keeping pace with the rapidly developing aviation industry. The airport’s grass surfaces were replaced by a reinforced runway system, stewardesses appeared on board and there were regular flights to Paris, Rome, Budapest and Brussels. Unfortunately, the company’s promising development was interrupted by the war. On 17 August 1939 the Czechoslovak state airline ended in temporary liquidation, the fleet was taken over by Germany’s Lufthansa and regular operations were not renewed until March 1946. Just two years later, following the Communist takeover in February 1948, international flights had to contend with the Iron Curtain and their numbers were drastically reduced. Turning east
Even though airlines lost its regular connections to western Europe and had to turn to face the east, it maintained its reputation as a pioneer of innovation within the aviation industry. The company was one of the first airlines in the world to incorporate jet planes (the Soviet Tu 104) into its fleet. In 1962 Czechoslovak Airlines started operating a regular overseas service from Prague to Havana and thanks to the Il-62 long haul aircraft it expanded its network in the 1960s to destinations in Africa, the Near and Middle East, and even south-east Asia. World events had profound impacts on aviation in general as well as on CSA. The Caribbean crises, the relaxed atmosphere of the end of the 1960s and the Cold War tension in the 1980s were reflected in the number of flights and in the introduction of new destinations. In some cases it almost seems that a development within CSA anticipated some of these events. For example, a decision was made to incorporate European Airbus airplanes into the company fleet in the spring of 1989, just six months before Czechoslovakia returned to Europe.
Do flotily společnosti zařazen první Airbus. Státní podnik se mění na akciovou společnost. Zavedení věrnostního programu OK Plus. First Airbus aircraft added to the fleet. The state enterprise becomes a joint-stock company. Introduction of the OK Plus frequent flyer program. Во флотилию добавлен первый Аэробус. Государственное предприятие превратилось в акционерное общество. Введение программы поощрения постоянных пассажиров OK Plus.
1975
1992
Společnost začala poprvé využívat automatický rezervační systém, poprvé v historii také přepravila 1 000 000 cestujících ročně.
1995
The company launches an automatic booking system, and carries one million passengers per year for the first time in its history.
Zřízení webových stránek společnosti. Změna názvu společnosti na České aerolinie.
Компания впервые начала использовать автоматическую систему бронирования и первый раз за историю своего существования за год перевезла более миллиона пассажиров.
Launching of company website. Company name changes to Czech Airlines.
42
Начало сотрудничества с «Continental Airlines». Изменение названия компании на «Czech Airlines».