The history of commercial aviation in the Philippines has started in 1925. The first regular air services were launched in Iloilo (Central Philippines). It was said that Iloilo is the birthplace of Filipino commercial air transportation. Jose Tinsay, an Ilongo aviator, was the first to fly the 43-kilometer Guimaras Strait between Iloilo and Bacolod.

Then in late April of 1932, Don Eugenio Lopez, the sugar and shipping magnate, launched Iloilo-Negros Air Express Company (INAEC) which became the first Filipino owned private airline in the Philippines with its operational base in Iloilo. INAEC’s first aircraft, a Stinson Tri-Motor, had its inaugural flight on February 1, 1933 from Iloilo to Manila. Regular air services between Manila, Bacolod Iloilo and Cebu started within a year, and then expanded to Zambonga and Davao in another two years. INAEC with its three-engine aircrafts advertised its air travels as “fast, commodious, elegant and reliant” compared with the other services.

Despite the great depression in the US and Europe, aviation in the Philippines still boomed at that time with 60 airfields scattered all over the country, four of which is in Manila. Inaec then used Grace Park (airfields were then called “parks”) located near the Bonifacio Monument.

From 1935 to April 1937, the Air Corps had arrangements with INAEC and the US Army Air Corps in Nichols Field for enlisted men to work as apprentices in their shops. Many Air Corps maintenance men had their hands-on training at INAEC.

Also in 1937, INAEC purchased its own seaplane, a Sikorsky S-43 amphibian, the most modern aircraft at that time and which carried 16 passengers. Another feat for INAEC is the introduction of steward service which was the first in the Philippines. INAEC was so successful that, by the end of the decade, it was flying 2,000 passengers a month. In 1941, it began flying to Baguio.

The entire INAEC fleet was however destroyed in World War II.

But quickly after the war, Don Eugenio Lopez and brother Fernando Lopez restarted the operation of INAEC. INAEC was then converted to Far Eastern Air Transport Inc. (FEATI) with an inaugural flight on November 19, 1945 from Grace Park in Manila to Iloilo. Immediately the airline set up widespread domestic route network. In May the following year it flew to Hongkong and Bangkok, making it the first Filipino airline to go regional. Then later, with flights to San Francisco, Shanghai, and India, it became the country’s first international airline service.

Political and business manoeuvrings forced the Lopez brothers to sell FEATI to Soriano and merge it with PAL. But on November 9, 1993, INAEC was reborn to service the air transportation needs of the Lopez Group.

On December 19, 2001 INAEC obtained its Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) and immediately thereafter went into domestic and international chartering and non-scheduled air services.

The Founders

Few families in the Philippines have had a history as colourful and as successful as the Lopezes. Since their beginnings in Iloilo in the early 1800's, the Lopez family has espoused business excellence, nationalism, and social responsibility. In business, they demonstrated an extraordinary resilience, staging tremendous comebacks from adversity.

Sources: http://www.philstar.com- "Manila International Airport:Gateway to the world" CITY SENSE by Paulo Alcazaren (The Philippine Star) updated November 10, 2001 12:00AM; "A Chronology of the Lopez Family 1800-2000", Book of Phoenix by Raul Rodrigo; http://www.thenewstoday.info/20051125/transportation.services.in.iloilo.city.1930s.html; Book on " The Philippine Air Force Story" by Capt. Eldon Luis G. Nemenzo, with 1Lt. Guillermo Molina, Jr.II, & the Editorial Staff Office of the Commanding General, Philippine Air Force, printed in the Phils by Kaunlaran Trading & Printing Co., Inc., First Printing in August 1992