When Besse traveled to Mukalla on a sailing ship, the journey was slow and uncomfortable, prompting him to establish in 1936 an airline company with a capital of five thousand pounds, dubbed Arabian Airways, the fleet consisted of two small planes, each with a capacity of four seats. His idea was to connect the port city of Aden and Hadhramaut region, but one of the planes crashed after one year of operation and replaced by another, then the second plane crashed at the Tarim airport in 1938, due to losses incurred he decided to close the company the following year in 1939.