D. AIR TRANSPORT

D. AIR TRANSPORT Commercial airlines became a mode of travel only after the First World War. The first regular air service was begun between London and Paris in 1919. Today; the greatest amount of air traffic is found in the USA with large number of international and internal flights. There are four large air corporations in the USA­ the United Air Lines, Trans-World Airlines, Pan-American Airlines and Eastern Air Lines.

The busiest airports are those of New York, Chicago, Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston and Miami. The largest airline company of Canada is the Trans-Canada Airline. Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are the busiest air terminals. Next to the United States, the greatest volume of air traffic is found in Europe, especially at London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Shannon (southern Ireland), Berlin, Warsaw, Vienna, Geneva and Moscow. London's Heathrow airport is the busiest in the world. Most of the European countries have their own national airlines, the most important of which include British Airways, Lufthansa (Germany), Alitalia, Air France, KLM (the Dutch airline) and SAS (jointly operated by the Scandinavian countries-Norway, Sweden and Denmark). Japan Airlines, Air India, Quantas (Austra­lia), South African Airways also have important internal and international air routes. The Russian airlines is the Aeroflot.