United States airmail service

United States airmail was a service class of the United States Post Office Department (USPOD) and its successor United States Postal Service (USPS) delivering air mail by aircraft flown within the United States and its possessions and territories. Letters and parcels intended for air mail service were marked as "Via Air Mail" (or equivalent), appropriately franked, and assigned to any then existing class or sub-class of the Air Mail service.

After an intermittent series of government sponsored experimental flights between 1911 and 1918, domestic U.S. Air Mail was formally established as a new class of service by the Post Office Department on May 15, 1918, with the inauguration of the Washington–Philadelphia–New York route for which the first of special Air Mail stamps were issued.

The exclusive transportation of flown mail by government-operated aircraft came to an end in 1926 under the provisions of the Air Mail Act of 1925, better known as the Kelly Act.^[1] which required the USPOD to transition to contracting with commercial air carriers to fly them over Contract Air Mail (CAM) routes to be established by the department, although during the first half of 1934 the United States Army Air Corps temporarily took over the routes—with disastrous results—when all CAM contracts were summarily canceled by President Franklin D. Roosevelt owing to the Air Mail scandal. Domestic air mail became obsolete in 1975 as a distinct extra fee service,^[2] and international air mail in 1995, when the USPS began transporting all First Class long-distance intercity mail by air on a routine basis.

Scheduled airmails[edit]

U.S. Government flown air mail[edit]

On February 18, 1911, Fred Wiseman transported two letters to Santa Rosa, California Postmaster H.l. Tripp from Petaluma, California Postmaster John Olmsted. When the letters arrived, Fred became the pilot who carried the first airmail sanctioned by a U.S. postal authority.

End of domestic U.S. air mail as a distinct service[edit]

Air mail as a distinct service was effectively ended within the United States on October 10, 1975,^[2] however, when all domestic intercity first-class mails began to be transported by air whenever practical and/or expeditious at the normal first-class rate. Domestic air mail as a separate class of service (and its rate structure) was formally eliminated by the successor to the Post Office Department, the United States Postal Service (USPS) on May 1, 1977.^[42]

When the USPS began to service all international First Class mails by air without additional charge in 1995 and simultaneously eliminated Surface (or "Sea") service which provided transportation by ship, it also announced that the words "air mail" would no longer appear on any U.S. postage stamps.^[43] However a stamp denominated for foreign mailing, and showing a small airplane silhouette, is considered to be the final "air mail" issue. It was issued in 2012.^[44] While the USPS no longer offers traditional letter air mail, it does provide various classes of "premium" domestic and international business, priority, and express air mail services with guaranteed delivery times at much higher rates.^[45]

In June 2006 the USPS formally trademarked Air Mail (two words with capital first letters) along with Pony Express.^[46]

(1896–1973) As a young Army 2nd Lieutenant fresh out of flight school, Edgerton flew the Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., leg on the first day of scheduled air mail service in the United States on May 15, 1918. Over the next five months as an Army air mail pilot Edgerton flew 52 trips over a total of 7,155 miles, spending 107 hours in the air and making only one forced landing.^[47] When the Post Office Department took over flying operations of the Air Mail Service in October 1918, Edgerton stayed on and eventually became Superintendent of Flying Operations. Later he organized and became Superintendent of the Radio Service of the Post Office Department establishing its first aeronautical radio stations, helped to organize a civilian pilot-training program, and as a Colonel during World War II served as executive officer for air operations of the War Department.^[48]

2nd Lt. James Clark Edgerton

(1887–1975). He was born on March 6, 1887, in Montesano, Washington. He learned to fly at the Army Aviation school in San Diego, California. By 1918 he was a Major and was supervising pilot training. He then was assigned the task of creating the logistics for regularly scheduled airmail service for three cities. Service began on May 15, 1918. He left the Air Service and in 1923 formed Consolidated Aircraft Corporation. He retired in 1949 and died on October 29, 1975, at age 88.^[49]

Maj. Reuben Hollis Fleet

2nd Lt. George Leroy Boyle Also just out of flight school, Boyle flew the first northbound Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia leg on May 15, 1918, but got lost and made a forced landing near Waldorf, Maryland, just 18 minutes after takeoff. After a second failed attempt on May 16 to again fly the mail from Washington to Philadelphia which ended in a crash landing on a Philadelphia golf course, Lt. Boyle was summarily dismissed from the Air Mail service by Maj. Fleet.

Fred S. Robillard

List of United States airmail stamps

Transcontinental Airway System

The short film is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.