[3]: 56 On March 1, 1912, Tony Jannus piloted a Benoist biplane when Albert Berry made the first parachute jump from a moving airplane near St.

[1][5] Later that year, Jannus set a 1,900-mile (3,058 km) overwater flight record following the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers from Omaha, Nebraska, to New Orleans in a Benoist Land Tractor Type XII mounted with floats.

The next day, he flew in an air race over Manhattan, the Times reporting that "The graceful Benoist biplane sailed along on an even keel...driven by the famous Tony Jannus".

Impressed by the record-setting overwater flight made by Jannus in 1912, Florida businessman Percival Fansler approached some St. Petersburg businessmen the next year with a proposal to use Benoist flying boats for "a real commercial line" over open water between the two cities.

[3]: 57–59  Convinced by Fansler's plan, several St. Petersburg community leaders, led by L. A. Whitney of the local chamber of commerce and Noel Mitchell, agreed to provide financial support for the creation of an airline service to connect the two cities.

engine and the whirring of a propeller turning several hundred times a minute, the rush of the cool salt air and the shimmering sunlight on Tampa Bay — no trip could be more enjoyable.".

[10] Departing from a location on January 1, 1914, near the downtown St. Petersburg Municipal Pier on Second Avenue North, Jannus piloted the twenty-three-minute inaugural flight of the pioneer airline's Benoist XIV flying boat biplane.

A crowd of 3,000 gathered at the pier to watch the history-making takeoff at 10 a.m. and were told by Fansler that "What was impossible yesterday is an accomplishment today, while tomorrow heralds the unbelieveable" [sic].

Following the end of the St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line's scheduled service between the two Florida cities on March 31, 1914, Jannus left St. Petersburg and quit flying for Benoist, becoming a test pilot for Curtiss Aeroplane Company.

An operational replica of the Benoist Model XIV airplane flew across Tampa Bay in a 75th anniversary re-enactment of Jannus' flight, on January 1, 1989.