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American Airlines

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American Airlines Logo

File:Aa.b777.750pix.jpg
American Airlines Boeing 777

American Airlines is the largest airline in the world and one of the "big three" airlines in the United States (the other being United and Delta). It is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, and operates scheduled flights to four continents, with a particularly strong presence in the US-UK and US-Latin America markets.

AA is the primary division of the AMR Corporation, which also operates American Eagle Airlines, American Connection, and Executive Air. Its CEO is Gerard Arpey and its chairman is Edward A. Brennan.

AA is a founding member of the Oneworld airline alliance, has a broad codesharing arrangement with Japan Airlines, and also codeshares 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 Boeing 767

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 1950s 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-3, 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 1940s.

With the introduction of jet service in the 1960s, American's focus shifted to nonstop coast-to-coast flights, although it maintained feeder connections to other cities along its old route. During the 1970s, 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 1980s, 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 Jose became a hub after American purchased Air California, but was abandoned several years later, and much of American's operation there was taken over by Reno Air. San Juan was added as a hub 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 to that region. Raleigh and Nashville were established as north-south connecting hubs, but both were abandoned in favor of more direct north-south flights (the Raleigh terminal was later used as a hub for Midway Airlines). St. Louis was added through the TWA acquisition, but the service has been greatly reduced there.

In addition to its five remaining hubs, American retains a major presence at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, where it carries more passengers annually than any other airline. American's other focus airports include New York's LaGuardia Airport, Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, and Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California.

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 [1], although the airline has recently invested heavily in new Boeing 777 and Boeing 737 aircraft to replace its aging fleet of Boeing 767s and McDonnell Douglas MD-80s.

Famous disasters since 1979

Former CEOs

Destinations

The list does not include cities only served by American Eagle and/or American Connection.

Asia

Europe

North America

United States, U.S. Territories, Canada, and Mexico

Bermuda and the Caribbean, excluding US territories

Central America

South America

Other facts of interest

IATA Code

American Airlines uses the IATA designator code AA.

ICAO Code

American Airlines uses the ICAO designator code AAL.

Sources

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