January 1: The airline Deutsche Luft Hansa changes its name to Lufthansa.
February 3: The first scheduled trans-Atlantic airmail service between Berlin, Germany, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is inaugurated by Luft Hansa. The journey is made in four stages.
February 7: The first airmail flight between Australia and New Zealand is made by Charles Ulm in an Avro Ten. The flight time is 14 hours 10 minutes.
February 17: The first airmail flight from Australia to New Zealand is flown by Charles T. Ulm in his Avro Ten, a license-built Fokker F. VIIB/3m registered as VH-UXX.
February 18: TWA assembles a team to fly a prototype of the DC-1 from Burbank, California, to Newark, New Jersey, in a record-breaking 13 hours and 4 minutes.
February 19: The United States Army Air Corps begins flying US airmail after the government cancels all existing airmail contracts due to alleged improprieties by the previous administration during the negotiations of those contracts.
March 8: Edwin Hubble photo shows as many galaxies as Milky Way has stars.
March 22: A Pan American Grace Airlines Ford 5 (NC407H) crashes in Lima, Peru, killing 3 of 15 on the aircraft.
March 26: Piloted by John Lankester Parker and with three passengers on board, the first landplane derivative of the Short Kent flying boat takes off to the air for the first time. Named Scylla (G-ACJJ), the big biplane is followed by Scyrinx (G-ACJK) for the busy Imperial Airways routes into continental Europe.
April 11: Comdr. Renato Donati of the Italian Regia Aeronautica sets a new world altitude record by flying a much modified Caproni Ca. 113 biplane to a height of 47,352 ft. The same aircraft is also used by the Contessa Carina Negrone in 1935 to set a new altitude record for women of 39,402 ft.
May 11: First flight of the Douglas DC-2.
May 19: The first flight of the Russian Tupolev Ant-20 Maxim Gorkii, at this time the largest aircraft in the world. Powered by eight engines, capable of carrying 80 passengers, it is used mainly as a mobile propaganda office.
May 29: The Collier trophy for the year’s outstanding aviation achievement is awarded in Washington, D.C. to Hamilton Standard Propeller Company for the development of the controllable-pitch propeller.
July 14: Flamboyant flying tycoon Howard Hughes lands in New York after a record-breaking flight around the Northern Hemisphere.
July 15: Continental Airlines commences operations.
July 28: Nelly Diener becomes Europe’s first air stewardess.
August 8: James Ayling and Leonard Reid take off on what would become the first non-stop flight from Canada to England, completing the trip aboard their de Havilland DH.84 Dragon 30 hours and 50 minutes later.
September 28: Lufthansa, Germany's national airline flies its millionth customer.
December 1: The first airway traffic control center is opened in Newark, N.J., operated by staff of Eastern Air Lines, United Air Lines, American Airlines and TWA.
December 20: A KLM DC-2 registered PH-AJU crashes into the desert during a flight from Amsterdam Netherlands to Jakarta, Indonesia, killing all 7 on-board.
December 25: French pilot Raymond Delmotte sets a new world speed record for landplanes of 314.33 mph, flying a Caudron 460.
