Eastern Air Lines is back in the air | CNN

1914: First scheduled commercial flight —

1914: On the morning of January 1, the first scheduled commercial airline flight took to the air. Taking off from St Petersburg, Florida, and flying to Tampa, the Benoist flying boat was piloted by Tony Jannus, with the former mayor of St Petersburg, Abram C Pheil, as the sole passenger.

1920: Oldest airline takes to the skies —

1920: KLM operated its first flight, making it the oldest airline still in operation today. The following year it began scheduled flights between Amsterdam and London.

Courtesy J. A. Hampton/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

1935: Trans-Pacific flight —

1935: The first trans-Pacific commercial flight left San Francisco bound for Manila. The Pan Am flight -- on a Martin M-130 China Clipper, like the one pictured -- took one week with numerous stops along the way.

courtesy www.panam.org

1936: Revolution in the air —

1936: The Douglas DC-3 entered service with American Airlines with a flight from New York to Chicago. It became known as the "plane that changed the world" with its speed and range better than any other plane of the time. More than 10,000 were built.

Courtesy FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Image

1938: A transatlantic first —

1938: On August 11, a Lufthansa plane became the first non-stop land-based commercial aircraft to cross the Atlantic Ocean. It took off from Berlin and landed in Brooklyn, New York.

Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images

1952: First commercial jet airliner flight —

1952: The "de Havilland Comet," designed by British aviation pioneer Captain Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, was the first commercial jet airliner to go into production and made its commercial debut in 1952.

Courtesy Fox Photos/Getty Images

1959: Walk this way —

1959: The first jet bridge was used for passengers to board and disembark planes at San Francisco airport.

Courtesy Hulton Archive/Getty Images

1970: Flying goes Jumbo —

1970: The world's first wide-body aircraft, the Boeing 747, entered service with Pan Am on its New York to London route.

Courtesy Keystone/Getty Images

1971: Low-cost flying —

1971: Flyers are used to low-cost carriers today, but Southwest Airlines was the first of its kind that made established legacy carriers improve their competitiveness.

Courtesy Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

1973: First female pilot —

1973: Frontier Airlines was the first airline with a female pilot flying a scheduled route on a modern jet airliner -- Emily Howell Warner.

Courtesy Kevin Winter/Getty Images

1976: Concorde's first flight —

1976: Making its commercial debut in 1976, Concorde, a joint effort between the British and French governments, ushered in an era of supersonic travel, ferrying deep-pocketed passengers from London and Paris to New York (among other destinations) in less than half the time of other commercial aircrafts.

Courtesy Evening Standard/Getty Images

1981: Loyalty counts —

1981: American Airlines is recognized as being the first airline to offer the industry's first frequent flyer program with AAdvantage.

Courtesy Joe Raedle/Getty Images

1997: Strength in numbers —

1997: The first of the Big Three airline alliances was founded. Star Alliance began with five airlines: Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, Thai Airways, Air Canada and United Airlines. Other alliances, Oneworld and SkyTeam, soon followed.

Courtesy HERWIG VERGULT/AFP/Getty Images

1998: Polar express —

1998: Commercial airlines were allowed to operate over the northern polar region. Cathay Pacific was the first to utilize the route flying from Hong Kong to New York non-stop in around 16 hours.

Courtesy PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/GettyImages

2007: Flying goes "super-sized" —

2007: The Airbus A380 "superjumbo" took the place of the Boeing 747 as the world's largest passenger jet, first entering commercial service with Singapore Airlines. With two full decks it can carry 853 passengers, depending on the seating configuration.

Courtesy MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP/Getty Images

It started in a flying boat ... a century of commercial aviation

Story highlights

Revived Eastern Air Lines will be based in Miami

It will start with charter flights and build to scheduled service

Airline went bankrupt in 1986, but new group bought rights to the name

Miami CNN —

“America’s favorite way to fly” has returned.

Eastern Air Lines, which used that slogan in the 1980s, flew its first of 20 new planes into Miami International Airport on Friday afternoon. The event marks a relaunch of the once-bankrupt airline, which last flew in 1991.

According to an airline spokesperson, Eastern is now expected to take to the skies in March 2015 as a charter airline. That date is a few months delayed from the original hopes of CEO Ed Wegel, who said in January that the airline would start flights this month.

In recent months, Eastern has ordered a fleet of 737-800 Boeing aircrafts. It has also held hiring events for flight attendants, as well as started the application process for pilots. On its website, Eastern says it will initially hire 10 captains and then add 25 to 30 pilots.

Eastern Air Lines Group filed an application with the Department of Transportation earlier this year. It will be based in Miami, where Eastern was headquartered from 1927 to 1991, when it was the largest employer in what was then known as Dade County.

Wegel also said no decisions have been made on initial routes, but that the airline plans to restart as a provider of charter services initially and then build into scheduled service at a yet-to-be-determined date. He said the group bought the rights to the Eastern name and logo out of bankruptcy court in 2009, but it had to wait until now to find the investor support needed to restart the airline.

“When you look at history since ’78, how many airlines started, how many didn’t make it, it’s not a business for the faint of heart,” Wegel said in January. “But we believe there are opportunities that will present themselves for us once we show we are a good airline operator.”

According to the group’s website, Eastern was founded in 1927 and adopted its name in 1930. It was a major carrier along the East Coast, pioneering the shuttle service from New York to Boston and Washington.

Wegel said there were years in the 1980s when Eastern had the most passengers of any U.S. airline, because of the shuttle and its extensive Latin American route system. “We’ve done extensive surveys and polling on the name,” he said. “It has 80% recognition in Miami, and overall it has very positive name recognition still.”

The airline was sold in 1986 and filed for bankruptcy protection in 1989. Labor unrest and a drop-off in air traffic associated with the January 1991 Gulf War forced it out of business.

CNN Money contributed to this report.