Aeroput
The first civilian aircraft to fly over Serbia before the end of World War I postal service flights carrying mail.
When the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was established in December 1918, two-seaters Breguet 14 flew a regular route from Novi Sad through Belgrade and Niš to Skopje almost daily.
Before an airport in Bežanija suburb of Belgrade was built, a temporary solution was found in an airfield in the village of Jabuka near Pančevo.
The airfield included a 500 by 500 meters grass field by the side of the road, that was used for grazing livestock, except for the brief periods when the airplanes were landing or taking off, as was the case in Prague and other cities.
In order to compete with the Orient Express train line, which was for a long time the fastest link between Western Europe and the Middle East, this company introduced world's first regular night flights on the Belgrade-Bucharest route.
In a conference held on 6 February 1926 by the initiative of Serbian Aero-Club the rules of air traffic were created, and all participants become the founders of the new airline company, Aeroput.
Aeroput director and co-founder, aeronautical engineer Tadija Sondermajer, a reserve colonel in the Royal Yugoslav Air Force and the most prominent figure in the civil aviation of Serbia and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia at the time, suggested that along with Russian pilot Leonid Bajdak, they flew an intercontinental flight from Paris to Bombay.
The airport was built on a meadow called Dojno Polje between Bežanijska Kosa and left bank of the Sava River, about two kilometers from Zemun.
After a two-hour flight by overcast sky and low clouds over the Sava River, which is a major landmark for pilots, they noticed the towers the Zagreb cathedral.
The plane landed at the airport Borongaj at 11 o'clock, which was 25 minutes earlier than schedule, thus making a couple of exhibition passes over Zagreb.
Belgrade - Zagreb line was flown daily, except Sundays, until November, when due to the winter conditions, air traffic was disrupted.
Aeroput also bought two Caudron C.449 Goéland monoplanes, one de Havilland DH.89 Dragon Rapide and six mid-range Lockheed Model 10A Electra aircraft.
In cooperation with Italian and Romanian companies, the Bucharest - Belgrade - Zagreb - Venice - Milan - Turin route was introduced.
Maintenance department was located in one of the large hangar at the civilian part of the airport, it was a modern and possessed a test stand for aero-engines.
After the war Aeroput renewed work on 2 July 1945, and a general meeting of shareholders elected the first post-war management of the company.
The meeting was attended by delegates of the new government of Democratic Federative Yugoslavia (DFY), and with the participation of then the Head of State Ivan Ribar, who was a pre-war shareholder and board member.
However, the later communist government of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia adopted a decree prohibiting private joint-stock companies, and on 24 December 1948 Aeroput was liquidated.
Aeroput aperated in the domestic airports and airfields of Belgrade, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Skopje, Borovo, Sušak, Dubrovnik (Gruda), Podgorica, Niš and Split; along with domestic seaplane stations at Belgrade, Dubrovnik, Split, Divulje, Sušak, Kumbor (Kotor) and Vodice (Šibenik).
[10] Regular flights were made from Belgrade and Zagreb to domestic destinations but also to international ones, to Thessaloniki, Graz, Vienna, Athens, Sofia, Trieste, Venice, Rome, Prague, Brno, Budapest, Klagenfurt and Tirana.
