National airline | History, Examples, & Air Travel (2024)

national airline, air transportation services owned and operated by national governments.

All U.S. airlines are, and have been, privately owned. Many other countries have a history of government-owned airlines. Often national airlines were founded as private services and later purchased by governments. Some airlines have been founded by national governments or entities connected to those governments.

The oldest airline in the English-speaking world, Qantas, was founded privately in Australia in 1920 and purchased by the Australian government in 1947. It was privatized through a process that began in 1992. Air India, which was established in 1932 as the private company Tata Airlines, was nationalized in 1953; it was eventually privatized and sold to the Tata Group in 2021. Air France was formed in 1933 by the merger of four private airlines, though by the early 21st century, the company, now part of a larger entity, was largely privatized, with the French government a minority owner.

British Airways was formed in 1974 through the merger of Britain’s European and overseas airlines, both already government-owned. In 1987 the British government privatized it through a stock offering. Ireland’s Aer Lingus began a privatization process in 2006.

Aeroflot was the Soviet Union’s national airline, and today the Russian government is a significant shareholder in the company. The Turkish government retains some ownership of Turkish Airlines, which was created by the government in 1933, after public offerings in 2004 and 2006.

China’s three major airlines—Air China, China Southern Airlines, and China Eastern Airlines—are state-owned. Qatar Airways, Emirates, and Etihad Airways have close ownership relationships with their home countries, though they are not directly owned and controlled by their national governments. Ethiad, for example, is owned by an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund. These airlines and others like them are today called flag carriers, to reflect the financial and cultural ties that the airlines have with their countries.