Aer Lingus began with one six-seat biplane called Iolar, the Eagle
Ireland's national airline took off on 27 May 1936 with a single six-seat de Havilland Dragon biplane named Iolar, the Irish for eagle, flying from Baldonnel near Dublin to Bristol. Its name, an anglicised form of the Irish for air fleet, came from a Cork county surveyor who happened to love aviation.
The government founded the company on 15 April 1936 with capital of 100,000 pounds. A second biplane, the 14-seat Éire, soon opened the first air link between Dublin and London by stretching the Bristol route to Croydon. Early growth was patchy. In 1940 the airline moved to a new airport at Collinstown, but wartime security cut its network to a single route across the Irish Sea, and regular London flights only resumed in November 1945, when cabin crew also appeared for the first time.
Crossing the Atlantic took persistence. Constellations were ordered in 1947, but an incoming Taoiseach, John A. Costello, considered transatlantic ambitions far beyond what a modest Irish carrier should attempt, and the plan was shelved. The first transatlantic service finally ran from Shannon to New York on 28 April 1958. Jets arrived in December 1960 with Boeing 720s for New York and Boston, followed by 707s and, in 1971, the first of two 747s.
Some ventures were quirkier than others. In 1963 the airline tried Carvair aircraft that swallowed five cars through a hinged nose, but car ferries made them uneconomic. It also dabbled in hotels, buying chains in the United States and Britain before selling them again. In 1977 Gráinne Cronin became its first female pilot, making Aer Lingus the second European airline after SAS to hire women for the flight deck, and in 1979 Pope John Paul II flew a specially fitted 747 from Rome to Dublin.
Its 747s retired in 1995 after carrying more than eight million transatlantic passengers, replaced by Airbus A330s. The state floated the airline in 2006, and after Ryanair and the government sold their stakes, International Airlines Group took control on 2 September 2015.
Source: Aer Lingus
