Nakajima AT-2, used on routes between Tokyo, Japan and Xinjing, Manchukuo
Japan Air Transport Corporation (日本航空輸送株式会社, Nihon Kōkū Yusō Kabushiki Kaisha) was the national airline of the Empire of Japan from 1928 to 1938.
History
Commercial aviation began in Japan with the privately held Japan Air Transport Institute, which pioneered passenger service between Sakai, Osaka and Tokushima on Shikoku island on 12 November 1922. [1]
On 30 October 1928, the Japanese government established the Japan Air Transport Corporation (JAT) as the national flag carrier under the Ministry of Communications. JAT absorbed the Japan Air Transport Institute and two other small companies and began scheduled passenger services in 1929; international service from Fukuoka to Dalian via Korea commenced in September 1929.[2] It initially used the Imperial Japanese Army air base at Tachikawa as its terminal in Tokyo. JAT later moved to Haneda Airport, which was completed in August 1931.
JAT was heavily subsidized by the Japanese government, receiving the equivalent of $1 billion in today's currency prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. During the early 1930s, its aircraft were often chartered (for free) by the military for missions in Asia, especially during the 1931 invasion of Manchuria.
JAT began service from Fukuoka to Naha and Taipei (Taihoku) in October 1935, providing the first same-day connection between the Japanese home islands and Taiwan.[2]
JAT shifted its focus to the civilian passenger market and began using new 14-passenger Douglas DC-2s on new, more commercially profitable routes between Japan and Manchukuo in 1936. With the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, JAT benefited from a resurgence in military passenger traffic.
In 1938, JAT carried nearly 70,000 passengers, representing 2.6 percent of the world's passenger traffic.
In December 1938, the government established a new airline, Imperial Japanese Airways, as a monopoly for all civil aviation and Japan Air Transport Corporation was merged into the new company.
Nakajima Super Universal (J-BJDO) collided in mid-air with a Mitsubishi Ka-1 (J-BIDH) over Ōmori, Tokyo, killing all five on board both aircraft and 40-80 on the ground (sources differ). The high causality count was because a large crowd gathered around the wreckage, but then the Fokker's fuel tank exploded a few minutes after the crash.
References
^Tae Hoon Oum and Chunyan Yu, Shaping Air Transport in Asia Pacific (Taylor & Francis, 2019)
Best, Martin S. (Spring 2008). "The Development of Commercial Aviation in China: Part 5A: Japanese Airlines in Occupied China and Manchuria". Air-Britain Archive. pp. 17–31. ISSN0262-4923.
