The seventh S.73 airliner, the second for Ala Littoria, at the 1935 Milan airshow. The first four production aircraft went to Sabena. For the aircraft in the foreground see photo 864506. Photo from: Fondazione Fiera Milano

The third SM.75, registered in April 1938. In November 1940, I-TITO was involved in airlifting Italian troops from Brindisi to Tirana, Albania - no doubt for the war against Greece. Photo from: Smithsonian Institution

The Z.506C model of the Airone seaplane was a 14-passenger airliner but this first airframe, I-ALAL, was a special which in March and April 1938 made a route proving flight from Lido di Roma to Buenos Aires and back, covering 24,000 km at an average speed of over 300 km/h. Small Ala Littoria titles worn in cheatline. Where is that monument or lighthouse? I-ALAL impressed for military duties in June 1940. Photo supplied by the Fasisct era Italian Library of Information in New York City. Photo from: Smithsionian Institution

The first S.73 for Ala Littoria. The prototype was MM365 (c/n 30001), and the first four production aircraft went to Sabena in 1935. Photo from: Life

The S.74 was a large airliner seating a maximum of 27 passengers. The photo seems to have been taken on 27 March 1935 when the prototype, I-URBE, was flown to Rome - Urbe airport. The three examples built served on the Rome - Marseille - Lyon - Paris route until 1938. They were then sent to Tobruk in Libya and fully militarised in 1940. All three were lost during the war. Photo from: Nationaal Archief (Netherlands)

The Dodecanese Islands were an Italian territory in the Aegean Sea - Mar Egeo in Italian. A surviving 1935 timetable shows that Ala Littoria flying boats took almost three and a half hours from Brindinsi - Idroscalo Civile to Athens and two and a half hours from Athens to Rhodes. Developed from the S.55, the S.66 could carry 18 to 22 passengers - nine to eleven in each hull. The type saw service as a rescue aircraft during WWII. Photo by: Franz Grasser

'Arrival of the first direct Rome - Budapest flight.' The humble terminal here was replaced by a small modern building in 1935. Mátyásföld was replaced by Budaörs (LHBS), itself short-lived as Budapest's airport, in 1937. Photo from: Fortepan