Explore a captivating collection of free vintage airline posters, route maps, and prints. All images are in the Public Domain, making them free to download and perfect for adding a touch of nostalgia to your décor.
I have always been enchanted by the romance of air travel, recalling an era when flying was a special occasion. Curating a collection of vintage airline posters and prints brings back that nostalgia.
Thousands of airlines have vanished over the years, with over 40 going bust since the pandemic’s onset, and more likely to follow. I fondly remember flying with now-defunct airlines like BOAC, Monarch, British Caledonia, Laker Air, and Pan Am.
Growing up in Hong Kong, we visited the UK every few years to visit family. In those days, airline travel was an event, and my mum would dress us smartly for the flight. The journey from Hong Kong to London took over 24 hours, with multiple stops for refuelling. Each stop allowed us to explore the transit airport and stretch our legs. Today, the same trip is a nonstop flight, taking only half the time.
Vintage Airline Posters
I’m a sucker for nostalgia. Combined with my romantic memories of air travel as a child, it has led me to dig up this collection of vintage airline posters and prints.
Some of the posters are travel adverts for the destinations the airlines flew to; others are route maps. As a child, the first thing I used to do when I sat in my airline seat would be to grab the airline magazine from the seat pocket in front of me. I would then study the route map at the back of the magazine. This is probably where my love of vintage maps began.
If like me, you view air travel in the past through rose-tinted glasses, I thoroughly recommend watching the TV series Pan Am.
How To Download the Prints & Posters
With your mouse, click on the title above the airline poster you want to download. A higher-resolution image of that poster will open as a new window on your device. You can save it to your device if you click on that illustration.
Pan Am Vintage Airline Posters
1. Pan Am Routes of the Flying Clipper Ships
A vintage airline poster of Pan American Airlines (Pan Am) showing the routes of the flying clipper ships across Central and South America.
Pan Am, was the main and largest international airline and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States from 1927 until the airline’s collapse on December 4, 1991.
Pan Am started its South American routes with flying boat planes nicknamed Clipper Ships between 1931 and 1946. The clipper service operated across Latin America from the International Pan American Airport in Miami, Florida.
A 1955 travel poster advertising a destination on the Pan Am Clipper route above.
A beautifully illustrated map of Asia was featured on the menu cover at Pan Am. The pictorial map is by the French illustrator Jacques Liozu.
This wonderful tourist map contains drawings of people and products of each country, representing regions, resources, sights, important buildings, people, activities, crops, etc.
This is a 1947 pictorial map of Pan American World Airways’ world routes, showing countries and major cities. The legend includes the Pan American World Airway system: US flag carriers, proposed services, and affiliates.
There are many antique world maps here.
TWA, United Airlines & Delta Prints
Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a prominent American airline from 1930 until 2001. TWA was the second unofficial flag carrier of the United States after Pan Am and was owned for a while after the war until the ’60s by Howard Hughes.
The vintage airline poster is from the 1960s and shows an abstract interpretation of Times Square in New York with a TWA jet and jetstream at the top of the image.
7. United Airlines Poster Hawaii
United Airlines is a US-based, third-largest airline in the world. It is still in operation today and is mostly referred to as United.
8. United Air Lines Mainliner Vacation Map
United Air Lines mainliner vacation map: the mainline airway to the nation’s greatest vacation lands, east and west. 1940 Pictorial map of the United States showing United Airlines and connecting airlines. Includes scale bar indicating “scale of flying hours.”
A 1960s Delta in New York Ad. Delta is one of the major airlines of the United States and a legacy carrier. It was founded in 1925 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
10. United Air Lines Southern California
KLM & Other European Airlines
11. Dutch Swedish Air Route Poster KLM
1928 ABA Advertisement leaflet about The Dutch Swedish Air Route by ABA and KLM.
12. KLM Vintage Airline Poster
1934 Advertisement for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. Depicting a map of the world in global shape, it shows KLM and other airlines’ service routes. The map includes routes from Amsterdam to Batavia via Amsterdam, London, Athens, Cairo, Baghdad, Karachi, Calcutta, Rangoon, Bangkok, Medan, Singapore, and Batavia.
Batavia is the old name for the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Indonesia was a Dutch colony from the 17th Century until the end of the Second World War.
14. KLM World Route Poster 1948
This is a delightful vintage world map showing KLM routes. There a few key illustrations for each continent, from the Statue of Liberty to camels and kangaroos.
15. French-Romanian Company for Air Transport
Compagnie franco-roumaine de navigation aérienne (CFRNA). 1920s poster showing the airlines’ routes from Paris and flying times.
16. TAI – Transports Aeriens Intercontinentaux World Map
Transports Aériens Intercontinentaux (TAI) was a private French airline based at Orly Airport, Paris. 1963 it was merged to form UTA French Airlines, which became part of the national Air France carrier in the early 1990s.
A beautiful advertising vintage airline poster map for the airline. The French naval officer and painter Luc-Marie Bayle designed the map.
The world map has many illustrations showing the means of sea and air transport used over the ages: galleys, ships, canoes, wheeled boats, hot air balloons, biplanes, and airships. It is from the 1950s. As a French airline, most routes are to old French colonies in Africa and Indo-China.
BOAC and British Airlines
British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was a British state-owned airline created in 1939. In 1974, BOAC and BEA merged, forming today’s British Airways.
For most of its history, its main rival was Pan Am. As a child, my first airline flight was a BOAC plane from Hong Kong to London.
19. BOAC Vintage Scotland Poster
A BOAC airline poster advertising flights to Scotland.
20. BOAC Vintage Airline Poster Map
Colourful BOAC pictorial promotional map.
A BOAC World route map of the Eastern Hemisphere dated 1951.
British European Airways (BEA), formally was a British airline that existed from 1946 until 1974. IT merged with BOAC to form the national carrier British Airways—a 1951 poster by Geoffrey Salter.
23. Imperial Airways Route Map Poster
1937 global spread of the routes of Imperial Airways. Imperial Airways later became BOAC and then British Airways.
24. BSAA Vintage Airline Poster
British South American Airways (BSAA) was a state-run airline in the United Kingdom from the late 1940s until 1950, responsible for services to the Caribbean and South America.
Union Airways of New Zealand Limited was New Zealand’s first major airline. It was founded in 1935. Its services reached main centres from Auckland to Dunedin and extended to Gisborne and the West Coast of the South Island.
Other Related Posts
The vintage board game images collection has a fun aeroplane board game game.
You might also like the vintage nautical prints and Japanese travel posters if you enjoyed these old airline posters.
For transport buffs, check out this collection of vintage bicycle prints.
Don’t forget to check out the extensive collection of vintage maps on Pictureboxblue. The Chase pictorial map collection has a beautiful world map of aviation history.
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Linda
Tuesday 19th of October 2021
Thank you SO MUCH for collecting together such a fantastic archive of posters, maps, prints etc. I’m having such a good time downloading and printing them off. They are so useful for crafting. Thanks again!!!!
claire
Wednesday 20th of October 2021
Thank you, it's lovely to here that you have found them useful.