The first commercial transport flight with an airplane took place on November 7, 1910, when Phil O. Parmalee carried two bolts of silk on his Wright Model B from Dayton to Columbus, Ohio. The world’s first air-freight shipment was sponsored by the Morehouse-Martens Department Store as a publicity event.

Even as the Wright brothers were still unveiling their creation in 1908, the emerging aeronautical industry began to publicly display its wares at what today we would call trade shows. The first great one, the Salon l’Aéronautique, was mounted in Paris in December 1908 and became an annual event. Experimenters, producers of aircraft and engines, and manufacturers of aeronautical accessories gathered in a lavish setting not only to sell, but also to introduce the public to the wonders of the new technology of flight.