In December 1912, Jannus was forced down while in flight due to piercing stomach pains. With no doctor around, the audacious pilot guzzled a case of beer, which was meant for the mayor, in order to ease the pain. It took one more case of beer that he purchased himself to numb the agony and fly home. The same year Jannus had his appendix removed.

The Wigwam Hotel in St. Petersburg, Fla., now the Edgepark Hotel, became home to Jannus. It didn’t take long for him to become the center of attention, attending parties and meeting many women. “Tony Jannus was as handsome as a picture and so refined. He was so thoughtful of others and had such a winning personality that he was always sought after by the girls. [He] was a most interesting conversationalist,” Wigwam proprietor, Eleanor C. Reed once stated. Before his death, some young ladies even claimed to be engaged to the flying rebel, blushing when his name was spoken.

On New Year’s Day in 1914, a single-engine biplane lifted off the water near St. Petersburg and headed northeast under the bright Florida sun across Tampa Bay. Twenty-three minutes and 21 miles later, Tony Jannus and his first passenger, Mayor Abe Pheil of St. Petersburg, landed the Benoist “flying boat” in Tampa. It was the world’s first scheduled commercial flight which Jannus called the “Airboat Line.” One way fare was $5.00 and every seat was a window seat.

Also in 1914 Jannus and his brother, Roger Jannus, furthered their passion for aviation and opened their own firm, “Jannus Brothers, Aviation”. It consisted of pilots, airplane design and construction or “anything air-propelled specializing in flying boats and airplanes.” Jannus spoke of death as wildly as he spoke of life, once promising that in due time he would “fall” (crash) and when he did he would write a book about it while recovering. The book would be written from a flier to fliers, he said.