American Airlines, Inc. ( AA ) is a major airline of the United States. It is the world's largest airline in passenger miles transported and passenger fleet size; third largest, behind FedEx Express and Delta Air Lines, in aircraft operated; and second behind Air France-KLM in operating revenues. A subsidiary of the AMR Corporation, the airline is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, adjacent to the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. American operates scheduled flights throughout the United States, and flights to Canada, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Japan, the People's Republic of China, and India. The Chairman, President, and CEO of AA is Gerard Arpey. In 2005, the airline flew more than 138 billion revenue passenger miles (RPM).
Overview
In May 2008, American served 260 cities (excluding codeshares with partner airlines) with 655 aircraft. American carries more passengers between the US and Latin America (12.1 million in 2004) than any other airline, and is also strong in the trans/inter/intracontinental market. American Airlines' total revenue for the year was $23.8 billion, of which $18.2 billion came from its Mainline division, $2.49 billion from its Regional division, and $874 million from cargo.
American has four hubs: Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW), Chicago (ORD), Miami (MIA), and New York (JFK). Dallas/Fort Worth is the airline's largest hub, with AA operating 85 percent of flights at the airport and traveling to more destinations than from its other hubs. Los Angeles (LAX), St. Louis (STL), San Juan (SJU), and Boston (BOS) serve as focus cities and international gateways. American currently operates maintenance bases at Tulsa (TUL), Kansas City (MCI), and Fort Worth Alliance (AFW), but American has announced that the Kansas City base will close in September 2010.
American Airlines has one regional affiliate:
- American Eagle Airlines, with hubs in Chicago O'Hare, Dallas Ft Worth, New York LaGuardia, Los Angeles, Miami and San Juan.
- American Eagle Airlines provides regional feed to American throughout the United States, the Caribbean, Canada, and Mexico.
- American Airlines is a founding member of the Oneworld airline alliance.
Communication
In 1967, Massimo Vignelli designed the famous AA Logo. Thirty years later, in 1997, American Airlines was able to make its logo internet-compatible by buying the domain AA.com. AA also corresponds to the Airlines IATA number. The original AA logo is still in use today, being "one of the few logos that simply needs no change".
In March 2000, American received the CIO Magazine's 2000 Web Business 50/50 Award for its AA.com web site.
History
Formation
American Airlines was developed from a conglomeration of 82 small airlines through acquisitions and reorganizations: initially, American Airways was a common brand by a number of independent carriers. These included Southern Air Transport in Texas, Southern Air Fast Express (SAFE) in the western US, Universal Aviation in the Midwest (which operated a transcontinental air/rail route in 1929), Thompson Aeronautical Services (which operated a Detroit-Cleveland route beginning in 1929) and Colonial Air Transport in the Northeast.
On January 25, 1930, American Airways was incorporated as a single company, based in New York, with routes from Boston, New York and Chicago to Dallas, and from Dallas to Los Angeles. The airline operated wood and fabric-covered Fokker Trimotors and all-metal Ford Trimotors. In 1934 American began flying Curtiss Condor biplanes with sleeping berths.
American Airlines before World War II
In 1934 American Airways Company was acquired by E.L. Cord, who renamed it "American Air Lines". Cord hired Texas businessman C.R. (Cyrus Rowlett) Smith to run the company.
Smith worked with Donald Douglas to develop the DC-3, which American Airlines started flying in 1936. With the DC-3, American began calling its aircraft "Flagships" and establishing the Admirals Club for valued passengers. The DC-3s had a four-star "admiral's pennant" outside the cockpit window while the aircraft was parked, one of the most well-known images of the airline at the time.
American Airlines was first to cooperate with Fiorello LaGuardia to build an airport in New York City, and partly as a result became owner of the world's first airline lounge at the new LaGuardia Airport (LGA), which became known as the Admirals Club. Membership was initially by invitation but a discrimination suit decades later changed the club into a paid club, creating the model for other airline lounges.
Postwar developments
After World War II, American launched an international subsidiary, American Overseas Airlines, to serve Europe; AOA was sold to Pan Am in 1950. AA launched another subsidiary, Líneas Aéreas Americanas de Mexico S.A., to fly to Mexico and built several airports there. American Airlines provided advertising and free usage of its aircraft in the 1951 film Three Guys Named Mike .
American Airlines introduced the first transcontinental jet service using Boeing 707s on January 25, 1959. With its Astrojets, as it dubbed the jet fleet, American shifted to nonstop coast-to-coast flights, although it maintained feeder connections to cities along its old route using smaller Convair 990s and Lockheed Electras. American invested $440 million in jet aircraft up to 1962, launched the first electronic booking system (Sabre) with IBM, and built an upgraded terminal at Idlewild (now JFK) Airport in New York City which became the airline's largest base.
By September 1970, American Airlines was offering its first long haul international flights from St Louis to Honolulu and onto Sydney and Auckland via American Samoa and Nadi. Source 1Source 2
From 1971–1978 Beverly Lynn Burns worked as a stewardess for AA. She went on to become the first woman Boeing 747 airline captain.
In 1975 American Airlines was headquartered at 633 Third Avenue in the Murray Hill area of Midtown Manhattan, New York City. In 1978 American announced that it would move its headquarters to a site at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in 1979. The move affected up to 1,300 jobs. Mayor of New York City Ed Koch described this move as "betrayal" of New York City. American moved to two leased office buildings in Grand Prairie, Texas.
Expansion in the 1980s and 1990s
After moving headquarters to Fort Worth in 1979, American changed its routing to a hub-and-spoke system in 1981, opening its first hubs at DFW and Chicago O'Hare. Led by its new chairman and CEO, Robert Crandall, American began flights from these hubs to Europe and Japan in the mid-1980s.
The airline finished moving into a $150 million (1983 dollars), 550,000 square feet (51,000 m 2 ) facility in Fort Worth on January 17, 1983; $147 million in Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport bonds financed the headquarters. The airline began leasing the facility from the airport, which owns the facility.
In the late 1980s, American opened three hubs for north-south traffic. San Jose International Airport was added after American purchased AirCal. American also built a terminal and runway at Raleigh-Durham International Airport for the growing Research Triangle Park nearby and compete with USAir's hub in Charlotte. Nashville was also a hub. In 1988, American Airlines received its first Airbus A300B4-605R jets. Some A300's from American Airlines were built in the early 90's.
In 1990, American Airlines bought the assets of TWA's operations at London Heathrow for $445 million, giving American a hub there. The US/UK Bermuda II treaty, in effect until open skies came into effect in April 2008, barred U.S. airlines from Heathrow with the sole exceptions of American and United Airlines.
Lower fuel prices and a favorable business climate led to higher than average profits in the 1990s. The industry's expansion was not lost on pilots who on February 17, 1997 went on strike for higher wages. President Bill Clinton invoked the Railway Labor Act citing economic impact to the United States, quashing the strike. Pilots settled for wages lower than their demands.
The three new hubs were abandoned in the 1990s: some San Jose facilities were sold to Reno Air, and at Raleigh/Durham to Midway Airlines. Midway went out of business in 2001. American purchased Reno Air in February 1999 and integrated its operations on August 31, 1999, but did not resume hub operations in San Jose. American discontinued m
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