MIAMI – Today in Aviation, United Airlines (UA) launched its own air freight service in 1940. With the service, shortly before the beginning of the WWII, the airline inaugurated what some historians say was the first all-cargo operation in US airline history.
A Douglas DC-4 aircraft were used by the airline to transport mail from New York to Chicago and back. The route was short-lived and ended five months later. Air freight remained on the sidelines of mail and passenger traffic until March 14, 1941, when the “Big Four” airlines—UA, American Airlines (AA), TWA, and Eastern—formed Air Cargo, Inc., to transport read more ⇒
Source:: “Airways Magazine”