Welcome aboard! This contemporary United Air Lines (UAL) promotional item depicts a UAL air hostess preparing to receive passengers aboard a DC-3 “Mainliner”, which would have operated the first leg of the global service. RIGHT An April 1937 UAL timetable. At that time, the new DC-3s flew from New York only as far west as Chicago. From May 1 that year they began operating coast-to-coast.

Dutch national airline KLM was an early adopter of the ultra-modern Douglas DC-2, placing an order for 14 in late 1934. Our global traveller would probably have flown in a DC-2 on the Milan/London - Frankfurt leg; perhaps even in this one, PH-ALF (c/n 1585), named Flamingo, although it wouldn’t have been on the service for much longer - it crashed near Brussels on July 28, 1937.

The passenger cabin of the de Havilland D.H.86 Express, in which our traveller would have flown on the Hong Kong - Penang leg.

In October 1933 the newly inaugurated Air France introduced the Wibault 282.T12 into service. Capable of carrying ten passengers at 150 m.p.h. (240km/h), the low-wing monoplane trimotor was operated on the airline’s main European services until 1938, when it was relegated to secondary routes. This example, F-AKEL, was originally built as the second 280.T but was upgraded to 282.T12 standard with more powerful engines for Air France.

This example, F-AKEL, was originally built as the second 280.T but was upgraded to 282.T12 standard with more powerful engines for Air France, as seen on the Winter 1936–37 timetable.

Three Martin M-130 Clipper-class flying-boats were built for Pan American Airways - NC14716 China Clipper (the first to be delivered, in October 1935); NC14714 Hawaii Clipper and NC14715 Philippine Clipper. Seen here is China Clipper, which completed the world’s first scheduled trans-Pacific flight in November 1935.

Imperial Airways’ Armstrong Whitworth XV G-ABTL, named Astraea, was one of eight examples of the Atalanta-class operated by the airline from 1932. It is seen here over Penang in the Straits Settlements of British Malaya in September 1934. Our traveller would have joined up with the AW.XV at Penang, northbound from Singapore.
RIGHT A typically stylish Imperial Airways timetable detailing services to the Middle and Far East and on to Australia, dated September 1936. For the pioneering around-the-world flight proposed in 1937, Imperial would have taken responsibility for the sectors from Hong Kong westwards through French Indochina, Malaya, Siam, India, Iraq, Egypt and ending in Greece.