page_title: Tony Jannus Award
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Tony Jannus Award / History
context_page_description: The Tony Jannus Award recognizes outstanding individual achievement in scheduled commercial aviation by airline executives, inventors and manufacturers, and government leaders. The award is conferred annually by the Tony Jannus Distinguished Aviation Society and was first bestowed in 1964 in Tampa, Florida, U.S. Its namesake, aviation pioneer Tony Jannus, piloted the inaugural flight of the St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line on January 1, 1914, the first scheduled commercial airline flight in the world using heavier-than-air aircraft. In addition to preserving the legacy of Tony Jannus, the non-profit Society also offers financial assistance to college students pursuing studies in aviation and conducts an annual essay contest for high school students to encourage careers in aviation.
  Past recipients of the award include such famed luminaries as Eddie Rickenbacker, Donald Douglas, Jimmy Doolittle, C. R. Smith, William A. Patterson, and Chuck Yeager. Those so honored are enshrined at the St. Petersburg Museum of History's First Airline Pavilion.
context_section_description: Tony Jannus was an early American pilot whose aerial exploits were widely publicized in aviation's pre-World War I period. He flew the first airplane from which a parachute jump was made, in 1912. Jannus was also the first airline pilot, having pioneered the inaugural flight of the St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line on January 1, 1914, the first scheduled commercial airline flight in the world using heavier-than-air aircraft. Departing from a location near the downtown St. Petersburg Municipal Pier on Second Avenue North, Jannus piloted the twenty-three-minute inaugural flight of the pioneer airline's Benoist XIV flying boat biplane. A crowd of 3,000 gathered at the pier to watch the history-making takeoff at 10 a.m. and were told by organizer Percival Fansler that "What was impossible yesterday is an accomplishment today, while tomorrow heralds the unbelieveable"  [sic].  
  Occurring just ten years after Wilbur and Orville Wright's historic first airplane flight, the new St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line began providing two daily round trips across Tampa Bay, departing St. Petersburg at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., with return flights from Tampa departing at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. At a fare of five dollars, it was the first time tickets were sold to the general public for point-to-point commercial air travel on a scheduled basis.
  Fifty years later, in 1963, James Hamlett and the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce created the Tony Jannus Award to recognize the "Man who has done the most to advance the airline industry" and to celebrate the Tampa Bay area's historic role in the development of commercial aviation. The following March 1964, Senator A. S. Mike Monroney was named the first Tony Jannus Award recipient for his work as chairman of the U.S. Senate's Aviation Subcommittee and as chief proponent of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 that created the Federal Aviation Administration. In the 1970s, the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce joined with the Tampa chamber to co-sponsor the award. The joint effort by the two chambers of commerce eventually evolved into the Tony Jannus Distinguished Aviation Society, a non-profit organization which now confers the award.
caption: The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line over Tampa Bay, 1914
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