United Airlines is the oldest U.S. airline – not Delta. That’s true, even though Delta is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and both United and American won’t celebrate theirs until next year.

Right now American is promoting its centennial with the slogan ‘forever forward’. But it’s all backward-looking, old accomplishments and little about where they’re actually going.

Delta, though, seems to have shifted its origin story to claim 1925 as its birth year.

• The June 2004 issue of Delta’s inflight magazine commemorated 75 years for the airline.

• The Delta name was adopted in 1928 and passenger service began in 1929. So they claimed their birth year was 1929 back then.

• It’s only been 21 years since then, but somehow they aged 25 years during that time?

What happened in the interim? Well, they merged with Northwest Airlines. That gives them a credible claim to a history starting in 1926, just like American Airlines and United. But that’s not good enough for Delta, which more than anything is about narrative (they rent out the Sphere in Las Vegas for their CEO to introduce… a partnership with DraftKings that wasn’t even done with and that they’d swap out working wiht Lyft with Uber).

The claim to 1925 stems from the founding of the world’s first agricultural crop-dusting company, Huff Daland Dusters. That wasn’t an airline!

Credit: Delta

American Airlines traces its origins to several small carriers, including Robertson Aircraft Corporation (1926), which carried mail and passengers. The group included Colonial Air Transport and Southern Air Transport. In 1930, financier E. L. Cord brought together over 80 small carriers to form American Airways, Inc., offering a mix of passenger services and air mail routes.

Varney Airlines, founded by Walter T. Varney on April 6, 1926, was one of the carriers that merged into United Airlines during its formation in 1931 under the umbrella of Boeing Air Transport. United was a direct product of Boeing’s antitrust-mandated divestiture. Continental Airlines, merged with United, also traces to Varney – Varney Speed Lines was a separate company founded in 1934 and renamed Continental Airlines in 1937 under new ownership.

United, American and Northwest all trace to 1926! And so does Delta (via Northwest Airlines).

United’s first Varney flight in April 1926 pre-dates Robertson’s July 1926 air mail route, so technically United’s predecessor got there first. Northwest Airways, Inc. was incorporated on September 1, 1926, launched its first airmail service on October 1 between Minneapolis and Chicago, and began passenger service in 1927.

So United is the oldest U.S. airline, American second oldest, and Delta third – all by a few months. But since that’s not good enough for Delta’s narrative, they changed their mind about when they were founded. Delta had long claimed that they were founded, prior to merging with Northwest, in 1929. The Northwest merger gives them a 1926 founding. But they’ve pivoted to claim 1925 – and be first.

Huff Daland Dusters was founded in Macon, Georgia, and later moved to Monroe, Louisiana. The business was initially combating boll weevil infestations in cotton crops. It was purchased by local investors and renamed Delta Air Service in 1928, beginning passenger service in 1929. Its first route was Dallas – Jackson, Mississippi. Delta Air Lines moved its headquarters to Atlanta in 1941.

I write about this all because it strikes me as the most Delta thing ever. Delta is a good airline. They may even be 80% as good as they say they are. But they can’t just let the facts speak for themselves. They have to tell a story… even if the story is only tangentially related to the facts.

By the by, the oldest airline operating today is KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, founded on October 7, 1919. It’s been in continuous operation under the same name since the beginning. The second-oldest airline currently in operation is Avianca.

(HT: Luke)