Colonial Air Transport   Fokker Universal   N-AABA                       (c/n unknown)

                              

                                    Colonial Air Transport can arguably claim to have been the first regularly scheduled airline
                                    in the U.S. having been incorporated in 1923, although it did not start service until 1926.
                                    Its first aircraft, this Fokker Universal was registered under the National Aircraft Under-
                                    writers Association in the short-lived N- lettered series.      By 1926 the Air Commerce
                                    Act decreed that numbers would be used under class letters C, S or P categories.
                                   .(Commercial, State and Private)..  Colonial bid for and won the New York - Boston
                                    Air Mail route CAM 1 in 1926. Juan Trippe, later of Pan American fame, was appointed
                                    general manager.  Its fleet included two Universals, several Curtiss Larks and three Fokker
                                    F-VIIs.   Photo above from the Peter M. Bowers collection.  The airlines was acquired
                                    by The Aviation Corporation (AVCO) in 1929 and was amalgamated into the holding
                                    company Colonial Airways Corporation which included Canadian Colonial Airways,
                                    later to become Colonial Airlines.