**Part of a global infrastructure: mail sacks ready to be loaded onto a Swissair Boeing 747 in 1973.** Museum of Communication, FFF_04425, photo: Beat Jost

Fighter pilots and the origins of airmail in Switzerland

The mass transport of mail by airplane has long been a central component of global logistics networks. But it experienced a difficult beginning in Switzerland. Moreover, the reasons behind the country’s move to airmail are not what you would expect.

Nicolas Kessler

Nicolas Kessler is curator of the postal and transport history and philately collection at the Museum of Communication and research assistant for the digital archive at the PTT Archive.

Every day, masses of small packages arrive at Zurich Airport in Kloten. They come by freight plane or in the hold of passenger aircraft – usually from China. They have been dispatched by online retailers like Temu or Shein, which offer their products for very low prices. Many of their wares cost no more than a few francs and are delivered to the customer’s door in Switzerland within a few days of the order being placed.

According to research conducted by the newspaper Blick, about half a million of these packages arrived in Switzerland daily during August 2024. The exact figure is not known, but it is definitely a very high number. This business practice is coming under increasing criticism, with reports of terrible working conditions in factories and competitive pressures for Swiss industry and retail. Not to mention dubious product quality and the considerable environmental burden from energy-intensive manufacturing plus harmful carbon emissions from air transport.

The mass transport of mail items by air has long been a mainstay of global logistics networks. However, in the age of digital communication there are not many letters going back and forth. It’s the insatiable demand for consumer goods that is fuelling the airmail boom.

Airmail: how did it happen?

So, how did airmail get off the ground initially? According to the brochure ‘Vom Läuferboten zur Luftpost’ (‘From messengers to airmail’), published by Swiss PTT (now Swiss Post) in the 1980s, it was a simple case of progress:

“Our postal service has always moved with the times with regard to transport: in 1857, railway postal cars began operating. In 1904, the motor vehicle made its debut, and in 1906 the first three post buses started ferrying people around [...].”

So, aerial transport seems to have been the next logical step: “Having started with balloons in 1909, Switzerland’s first use of motorised air transport for mail was in 1913 [...]. Since then, airmail has established itself as a mainstay of international postal traffic [...]”

This narrative presents the inception of airmail as the logical and almost automatic outcome of progress and new technologies. However, this is not borne out by the archival evidence, at least in Switzerland. This article looks at what really happened. The aerial revolution was a global phenomenon, and developments outside Switzerland heavily influenced the emergence of airmail within the country.

How it all began: keeping fighter pilots busy

Switzerland’s first airmail flight was in 1913. Aviation pioneer Oskar Bider piloted a small prop airplane taking letters from Basel to Liestal. By today’s standards that is a ridiculously small journey of about 14 kilometres. It was a one-off special delivery of a kind not unusual in other countries at the time, particularly in Europe. These flights attracted a lot of attention and generated considerable excitement among stamp collectors. However, they were not part of the regular postal service.

Switzerland started using airmail regularly after the First World War. The Kommando der Schweizer Fliegerabteilung, i.e. the air force, started regular flights between Bern and Zurich from January 1919. Some months later, the route was extended to include Lausanne. The Swiss postal service then started its official trial operation in April. The precise procedures were specified in a decree dated 23 April 1919. As it was a lot more expensive to transport mail by air than by rail, a 50-centime surcharge had to be paid. Special airmail stamps were issued that could only be used for items to be transported by air. Rules were also drawn up for cancelled flights as the reliability of flight connections was not great, due to external factors like the weather.

**It started with a war: a plane of the Swiss Air Force, which was just a few years old at the time, photographed above Locarno in 1919 by Walter Mittelholzer.** ETH Library

**The decree of 23 April 1919 regulating the operation of the trial project to establish a regular air route for mail between Zurich and Lausanne.** PTT-Archiv, P-00 C LA 00001:05.

The postal service was doubtless keen to try out this new means of transport. But there was also another reason behind the push to airmail: the end of the First World War. Given the threat level in 1914, the Swiss Armed Forces had had no option but to create their own air force. This was done in haste, even using planes requisitioned from the Swiss National Exhibition. By the time the war was over, Switzerland had its own air force. And it didn’t come cheap, with planes requiring maintenance and pilots in need of regular training. In the end it was decided to introduce “a regular courier service between Dübendorf and Bern as part of the obligatory monthly flight training” as the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) newspaper reported on 11 July 1919. The high cost of the exercise relative to the low income it generated was a problem. Following the initial hype, the service only transported about 250 letters a day. Hence the warning in the NZZ article that the people would have to “give up on the idea of airmail if it was not subsidised enough to at least break even”.

So, from a commercial perspective airmail failed to deliver, at least initially. But people still kept faith with it, as reported in another NZZ article from 15 October 1919 on the founding of Swiss airline Ad Astra. It claimed it was necessary “to keep moving forward in this promising area to prevent foreign capital and airlines from establishing a firm foothold among us”. The whole thing was a type of “homeland security”, and there was also the matter of “keeping the fighter pilots and plane mechanics, trained by the state at great expense, in practice, giving them a guarantee for their professional existence.”

The new Swiss Air Force was one of the main reasons behind the first airmail routes in the country. The photograph shows the aircraft grandly lined up at Dübendorf military air base, which at the time could rightly be called an airfield ‒ with the emphasis on “field”. Museum of Communication, Bern, FFF_65170.

**In its infancy, flying was adventurous and dangerous at the same time, as shown by this spectacular crash onto the roof of the Löwen Hotel in Schlieren in 1917.** ETH Library

The world was growing smaller …

Other Swiss cities also wanted their share of the action. A request from St. Gallen City Council to the Swiss postal department asked for the city to “be considered as a future airmail destination”. However, a domestic airmail service was never going to turn a profit as the time saving only really made a difference over longer distances.

It was around this time that the first international airmail routes were emerging. This raised practical questions, for example how was the post to arrive in Lörrach from Basel if it was then to be forwarded on by air to Frankfurt? And how would the duty be paid? This resulted in a charming piece of communications history in June 1920. An airmail flight from Frankfurt to Lörrach was unable to go ahead “due to darkness”. The mail therefore had to be transported by rail (the slower alternative). And how did the German postal authorities communicate what was happening? Naturally, by sending a telegram to the postal directorate in Bern.

The development of a global airmail network required some degree of coordination. New routes or changes to airmail flights had to be communicated among the different national postal services. And there was also the matter of when to use airmail. For example, in response to a request by the Swiss postal authorities, the General Post Office provided details of connecting flights in the British Empire in March 1932. It was possible to send letters by airmail to Australia. They would start the journey by taking the London–Karachi–Delhi route before going on to Jodhpur, ultimately arriving in Colombo 11 days after having been dispatched from London. For the final leg of the journey to Australia, they were actually put on board the ship that would have sailed from London one day prior to the departure of the first flight. In other words, the England-India air service was hardly worth it when sending post to Australia or New Zealand.

When the plane takes as long as the steamer: the British General Post Office explains the aerial route for sending mail to Australia in 1932. — **When the plane takes as long as the steamer: the British *General Post Office* explains the aerial route for sending mail to Australia in 1932.** PTT-Archiv, P-00 C LA 00037:01.

The promise of a networked world. This faith in progress was also evident in advertising. The poster shows an idyllic but remote settlement. The airplane and mail box represent connectedness with the rest of the world. Museum for Communication, LPG_0121.

… but at what price?

Costs were a perennial issue during the first decades of air travel, for passenger flights as well as airmail. Convinced of the necessity of investing in air transport, Swiss airlines were able to benefit from state subsidies. The then Federal Post and Rail Department was a double subsidiser during the 1930s through its role in running the postal service and through the Swiss aviation authority, which was part of the department. The airlines received payment from the post office for every mail flight: they charged a flat fee per flight for 100 kg of freight, even though the mail rarely weighed so much. This was necessary, “as most companies would otherwise have to cease their operations. The income from freight transport was not nearly enough [...]. Higher taxes would only prompt a move away from airmail to other modes of transport”, to quote from internal documents at the Swiss postal and telecommunications service (PTT).

In some ways things haven’t really changed. Although airmail no longer receives direct state subsidies, the Swiss Confederation loses out on large amounts of fuel tax, as commercial air travel is tax exempt. This is the subject of criticism in view of the ever more pressing need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

So, the benefits of airmail in purely postal terms were unimpressive in the early days. Instead planes transported mail as a means of accomplishing other, political goals, for example to cross-subsidise the fledgling Swiss Air Force or to support the airlines. It was only during the post-war years when a global network of air routes evolved that airmail and air freight really took off. The time saving compared to shipping justified the higher transport costs – even if the transport of letters and packages by air is more or less indirectly supported by public funds even today.

This blog post originally appeared on the Museum of Communication's blog.

More of: 20th / 21st century Economy Technology Transportation

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