Despite those promising army orders Colsman, as director of the Zeppelin Airship Company, saw the need to commercialise the basis of airship production in order to fund further development. His proposal was to form a passenger airline service linking the main cities of Germany, and in November 1909 the company with a capitol of 3 million Marks was founded in Frankfurt and Main.

 

DELAG, the Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengessellscaft, was funded in part by the Hamburg-Amerika Shipping Company and from money raised by those cities involved in the undertaking. Each city, in addition, provided ‘aerial harbours’; erecting airship sheds at their own expense to house the fleet of airships. Although no scheduled passenger services ensured, excursion flights of several hours’ duration at 100 Marks per head proved popular to Germans and foreigners alike over the next four years of operation.

 

The first airship destined for service was the LZ-7 Deutschland, with a capacity of 681,000 cu.ft and able to carry passengers in comfortable Pullman-style accommodation in a cabin amidships. LZ7, named Deutschland, first flew on 19 October 1910, and was placed in service by Delag.