Indian National Airways Ltd was an airline based in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

, India.Page 15 The founder of the airline was R. E. Grant Govan, a

based British industrialist who also co-founded the

Board of Control for Cricket in India The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the national governing body for cricket in India. Its headquarters are situated at Cricket centre, Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The BCCI is the richest governing body of cricket in the world ...

and the

Cricket Club of India Cricket Club of India (CCI) is a cricket club in India. It is located on Dinsha Wacha Road, in Churchgate of Mumbai, India. It was conceived as India's counterpart to the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). It is considered one of the most prestigiou ...

.Page 105Page 22 The airline was formed on the basis of a government airmail contract.Page 7-9 The company was started by Govan Bros Ltd. in May 1933 with a capital of Rs. 3 million.Page 845 It became the second airline to start operations in India in December 1933, with a weekly passenger and freight service between

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

and

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

as well as between

and

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city ...

.Page 93-96 It also started a weekly service between

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

and

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...

, a feeder service for

Imperial Airways Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long-range airline, operating from 1924 to 1939 and principally serving the British Empire routes to South Africa, India, Australia and the Far East, including Malaya and Hong Kong. Passenger ...

. The company then had a fleet made up of light single engined aircraft. By 1937 the airline had clocked over a million miles and made a slender annual profit.Page 796 The airline was awarded another government contract in 1938 under the ''Empire Air Mail Scheme'' for carrying first class mail on the

and

Colombo Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo me ...

routes for a period of ten years along with

Tata Airlines Air India is the flag carrier airline of India, headquartered at New Delhi. It is owned by Talace Private Limited, a Special-Purpose Vehicle (SPV) of Tata Sons, after Air India Limited's former owner, the Government of India, completed the sa ...

. This was a major boost for aviation in India. As this contract promised a minimum income along with an operating subsidy, the company was able to expand and renovate its fleet.Page 106 During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, all mail contracts were suspended and aircraft put under government disposal. Only spare capacity was allowed for commercial use, which affected the industry on the whole. It was one of the four major airlines in India at the time of Indian Independence in 1947.Page 472 Govan Bros Ltd. and all its businesses, including Indian National Airways Ltd, was sold to the Ramkrishna Dalmia led

Dalmia Group Dalmia Bharat Group, (DBG) is an Indian conglomerate company, which trace their origin to the businesses established by ''Ramkrishna Dalmia'' and Jaidayal Dalmia. The Dalmia brothers established a business conglomerate in eastern India, in the ...

in 1947 and its name was subsequently changed to Dalmia-Jain Airways. As of 1947, the airline had a fleet of six

Vickers Viking The Vickers Viking was a British single-engine amphibious aircraft designed for military use shortly after World War I. Later versions of the aircraft were known as the Vickers Vulture and Vickers Vanellus. Design and development Researc ...

s with another nine

De Havilland Dove The de Havilland DH.104 Dove is a British short-haul airliner developed and manufactured by de Havilland. The design, which was a monoplane successor to the pre-war Dragon Rapide biplane, came about from the Brabazon Committee report whic ...

on order.Page 32 The company also bought some war-surplus

Douglas DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...

aircraft from the United States of America at the end of the war.Page 275 In 1953 Indian National Airways was nationalised and merged into

Indian Airlines Indian Airlines was a division of Air India Limited. It was based in Delhi and focused primarily on domestic routes, along with several international services to neighbouring countries in Asia. It was a division of Air India Limited after m ...

References

{{Airlines of India Airlines established in 1933 Airlines disestablished in 1953 Defunct airlines of India Indian companies established in 1933 1953 disestablishments in India Companies based in Delhi