The Sky’s First Chapter
Before the sky was crowded with aircraft, before airports had terminals or gates, before flying was routine, flight was still an experiment.
Early aircraft operated at the edge of what was possible. Pilots flew without instruments or reliable maps, never fully certain how or where they would land. The sky wasn’t yet a place of trust. It was something to be tested.
And what tested it first wasn’t people. It was mail.
At first, the government carried the sky alone. When airmail began in 1918, the Postal Service flew the routes and shouldered the risk, proving that flight could connect a nation. But the sky quickly asked for more.
As routes stretched and demand grew, it became clear that airmail needed partners. In 1925, the Kelly Act opened the door to private operators and with it, a new chapter of aviation began.
One of those early contracts found its way west, to a modest airmail operator navigating wide skies and uncertain routes. It didn’t set out to build an airline. It set out to move mail, reliably and on time.
That operation was Varney Air Service, the first chapter in what would become United Airlines.
“One of United’s earliest flights carried U.S. mail,” said Stephanie Giraldi, Senior Manager of Postal Network Optimization & Performance at United Cargo. “That partnership with the Postal Service isn’t just part of our history. It’s the foundation of it.”
A hundred years later, mail is still moving beneath United’s passenger cabins, quietly and consistently, across a global network early airmail pilots could never have imagined.
Today, United Cargo supports domestic, international, and regional postal operations through long-standing contracts with the USPS and partnerships with more than 20 international postal authorities. What began as mailbags strapped into open cockpits has evolved into a highly coordinated operation operating at massive scale. From 2020 through mid-2025 alone, United Cargo carried more than 340 million kilograms of mail, generating over $970 million in postal revenue.
Yet the heart of the work hasn’t changed.
In the earliest days of airmail, pilots followed railroad tracks through fog because airways didn’t yet exist. Some landed in open fields when weather closed in. Others slept beside their aircraft and flew again at dawn, because the mail could not wait. Mail didn’t just move through the sky. It forced aviation to grow up.
“People think of United as a passenger airline,” said Kelly Feeney, Manager of Domestic and AMOT Postal Sales and Operations. “But there’s a whole world moving underneath those flights that most people never see.”
Today, that world is defined by precision. Every piece of mail is scanned, tracked, and handed off with care. Domestic routes connect cities overnight. International exchanges cross oceans. Military shipments reach service members stationed thousands of miles from home. Final-mile partnerships complete journeys that may span continents.
“The technology would absolutely amaze those early pilots,” Giraldi said. “But the responsibility would feel familiar. You’re still being trusted with something that matters.”
That expectation shaped the airline United would become.
“We take mail very seriously at United,” Giraldi added. “This isn’t something we treat as an afterthought. It’s about performance. It’s about doing it right, every time.”
For Kate Hurley, International Postal Operations and Sales Manager, the meaning of that legacy becomes clearest when it reaches people who rely on mail the most.
“Mail is often the strongest physical connection to home for military members overseas,” she said. “Care packages. Letters. Familiar things. That matters.”
Hurley sees the arc of change every day. What began with small planes flying short routes now spans continents on widebody aircraft. Mail that once crossed a few states now crosses hemispheres, tracked digitally from handoff to delivery.
“The scale is what’s changed,” Hurley said. “The purpose is still the same. You’re moving something people are waiting for.”
And the purpose has endured. The aircraft may be larger. The routes longer. The technology more advanced. But the promise made on those first short flights still applies: what’s sent will arrive. Through wars, economic shifts, pandemics, and technological revolutions, mail has remained a constant thread in United’s story.
As United enters its second century, the story of mail reminds us why aviation exists in the first place. What began as mail, became a century of connection, still moving every day beneath the wings.
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Please note:
Lemon Queen is the communications agency for United Cargo and is officially contracted with the distribution of its media releases.