Varig Porto Alegre, by Otto Ernst Meyer-Labastille, a German aviator decorated in the World War I, who immigrated to Brazil in 1921 and noticed how necessary air transportation was for a large country like Brazil. Varig was an off-spring of the German trade company and airline Condor Syndikat, thus sharing the same origin as Syndicato Condor, later renamed Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul. Condor Syndikat gave the initial operational and financial support and for a short time Varig and the sister-company Syndicato Condor operated in partnership. The first aircraft of VARIG was a ten-passenger Dornier Do J Wal flying boat, transferred
Airline Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft I" was the world's first airline. It was founded on November 16, 1909, with government assistance, and operated airships manufactured by The Zeppelin Corporation. Its headquarters were in Frankfurt. The first fixed wing scheduled airline was started on January 1, 1914, from St. Petersburg, Florida, to Tampa, Florida. The four oldest non-dirigible airlines that still exist are Netherlands' KLM (1919), Colombia's Avianca (1919), Australia's Qantas (1921), and the Czech Republic's Czech Airlines (1923). The earliest fixed wing airline in Europe was Aircraft Transport and Travel, formed by George Holt Thomas in 1916; via a series of takeovers and mergers,