Flying Your Flags Around the World Quiz

Answer: British Airways

British Airways was initially composed of the British Overseas Airways Corporation (for the overseas routes) and British European Airways (for the European routes). BEA was originally a BOAC subsidiary formed during WWII, then became an independent company. In 1974, they merged to form British Airways.

Answer: Lufthansa

Deustche Lufthansa was Germany's flag carrier until 1945, when all of the company's planes were used for the war effort. After the Allies' victory in WWII, the company was liquidated. The new "Lufthansa" (originally Luftag), bought the old name of the airline.

Answer: Trinidad and Tobago

Guyana originally had a national airline, named Guyana Airways since 1934, but the airline shut down in 2001. Its new flag carrier, Caribbean Airlines, is based in Trinidad & Tobago and is majority-owned by the Trinidadian government.

Answer: Norway

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) is partially owned by the governments of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. As a result, SAS acted as a flag carrier for all three of those countries.

Answer: True

Austrian Airlines was founded in the 1920s and was majority owned by the Austrian government. In 2008, following advice from Merrill Lynch, the government of Austria sold the company to the German airline Lufthansa.

Answer: Cathay Pacific

Hong Kong was made a British colony in the 1840s, and was given to China in the 1990s. The "special administrative region" of China has had the flag carrier since the 1940s.

Answer: Astana

Originally, as part of the Soviet Union, Aeroflot was the de facto "flag carrier" of the "Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic". After the USSR's collapse in 1991, Aeroflot's Kazakh operation became Kazakhstan Airlines. This was followed by Air Kazakhstan after Kazakhstan Airlines went bankrupt. After Air Kazakhstan went bankrupt, the flag carrier soon became Air Astana.

Answer: Avianca

Because SCADTA was mostly owned by Germans, in the 1920s, the U.S. set up serious competition in Latin America with the rise of Pan American Airways. Regarding the airline, its shares were eventually sold to Pan Am to avoid ownership by the Nazis. The company was shut down during World War II and the Colombian government bought the assets.

Answer: Icelandair

Icelandair began as a merger between Loftleiðir (which specialized in overseas routes) and Flugfélag (specializing in European routes). Combined, they formed Icelandair, a somewhat cheaper alternative to European travel via one-stop transatlantic flights.

Answer: Korean Air and Air Koryo

Air Koryo was founded in the 50s as an airline intended to fly between North Korea and the Soviet Union. While the airline flies to multiple Asian destinations, it only flies charter flights between North and South Korea. Korean Air was initially the privately-owned Korean National Airlines; it was forcibly acquired by the South Korean government in 1962.