American Airlines (original) (raw)

American Airlines is the largest airline in the world and is based in Fort Worth, Texas in the United States. Its IATA designator is AA.

In 1934, American Airways Company became American Airlines, Inc. It is now one of the divisions operated by its parent company, AMR Corp AMR Corp. also operates American Eagle Airlines, Inc (which includes Executive Air.) and American Connection. Trans World Airlines, LLC was operated by AMR before it was consolidated into AA. The CEO is Gerard Arpey and the chairman is Edward A. Brennan.

American Airlines is part of the airline alliance Oneworld. They also codeshare rail service to stations in France with SNCF French Rail, Belgium with Thalys International, Germany with Deutsche Bahn (AiRail Service) and stations in Switzerland (one of which also serves France), with Swiss Rail

History

American Airlines developed from a conglomeration of about 82 small airlines companies through a series of corporate acquisitions and reorganizations. In 1934, American Airways Company, in financial straits, was acquired by a corporate raider, E.L. (Errett Lobban) Cord, who renamed the company "American Airlines". Early in its history, it was headquartered at Midway Airport in Chicago, Illinois.

The main American Airlines route until the late 1950's was from New York and Chicago to Los Angeles via Dallas. One of the early American Airlines presidents, C.R. (Cyrus Rowlett) Smith, worked closely with Donald Douglas to develop the DC-2, which American Airlines started flying in 1936.

After World War II, American launched an international subsidiary, American Overseas Airways, to serve Europe. It also launched flights to Mexico in the 1940's.

With the introduction of jet service in the 1960's, American's focus shifted to nonstop coast-to-coast flights, although it maintained feeder connections to other cities along its old route. During the 1970's, American flew to Australia and New Zealand, although it traded these routes to Pan Am in 1975 in exchange for routes to the Caribbean. In the 1980's, American began flights to Europe and Japan.

American Airlines moved its corporate headquarters from New York City to Fort Worth, Texas in 1979, and changed its routing to a spoke-hub distribution paradigm starting in 1981. Its official hubs since then have been:

San Juan was added to the network in the Pan Am trade. Miami was added when American purchased the Latin American operations of Eastern Airlines in 1991, making it the largest U.S. carrier in that region.

On June 1, 1999, American Airlines Flight 1420 crashed upon landing at Little Rock National Airport at Little Rock, Arkansas on a flight from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, killing the pilot and 8 passengers.

As of May 2002, American Airlines served 172 cities with a fleet of 833 aircraft - with an average of 2800 daily departures. The average age of their aircraft is 10.8 years. (from the AMR Corp. page at amrcorp.com)

Famous disasters

Former CEOs

Other facts of interest

Sources

Eagle by Robert J. Serling, published by St.Martin's/Marek in 1985.
International Directory of Company Histories St. James Press.