We received a placard from Dr. Anna Ács, who is a museologist from Balatonfüred, Hungary. The placard indicates a floatplane and a flight-guide around Lake Balaton. In the 1920’s the seaplane-activity was prosperous around Lake Balaton.
The placard’s floatplane is an old, aluminum-made Junkers F-13. This version flew with 2 pilots sitting in uncovered seats. The closed section of the deck was available for 4 passengers. Anyway, the Aeroexpress Airlines had eight F-13s in service.
The beginning of the scheduled seaplane-aviation around Lake Balaton was in 29th June, 1923. Aeroexpress organized a grand opening-ceremony with music, dinner, shindig and tombola.
In these times the Junkers floatplanes had usual daily routine. At the morning, the floatplanes started from Budapest. The landing zone was at the bank of the Danube, near to the Liberty Bridge, in front of Hotel Gellért. The destination was Siófok (Lake Balaton). The flying time was around 30 minutes (with three passengers).
At Lake Balaton, there was a timetable: floatplanes flew from 10 PM on the Siófok-Balatonalmádi-Balatonfüred-Balatonföldvár-Siófok circle.
This course was an hour long. At the request of the passenger, the floatplanes made unique trips around Lake Balaton, or shorter flights is the Siófok-Balatonalmádi-Tihany triangle.
Thanks to the floating capability, these planes were available to provide air-taxi service around Lake Balaton.
At 6 AM the floatplane ended the day with another scheduled flight at Lake Balaton. At the evenings, the F13s made converse-flights back to Budapest.
On shorter hops, floatplanes flew with 5 passengers and 1 pilot.
The floatplanes activity was advertised by preferential boat- and train tickets, beauty contest, tombola, cinema-tape, musical alarm and background music.
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