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This week's installment of Defunct Thursday is a two-parter: China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) was Asia’s first sustained commercial airline. For their twenty years of operation, CNAC pioneered air operations over some of the world’s most challenging terrain: the Himalayan mountains. Scheduled service began on October 21, 1929, along a 525-mile route from Shanghai to Hankou with two passengers and one pound of mail. From 1929 to 1936, CNAC logged a total of 46,404 passengers and 838,271 pounds of mail flown over 5,538,974 miles. By 1937, its fleet had grown to four Douglas DC-2s, one Sikorsky S-43, two Douglas Dolphins, two Ford Tri-Motors, four Loening Air Yachts, and five Stinson Detroiters. During that year the airline was employing thirty-four pilots and co-pilots in addition to ground personnel. Stay tuned for next week's installment for the rest of CNAC's story, or skip to the end and learn more by revisiting our 2014 exhibition: “The Legend of CNAC: China National Aviation Corporation, 1929–1949” at https://bit.ly/3Jl6dRx This image was posted on March 31, 2022.