American Airlines is the airline with the largest fleet in the world. With its almost 700 aircraft it serves more than 150 destinations in the North and South America, Asia and Europe. The oneworld member is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas.
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On January 25, 1930, 82 small airlines, through reorganizations and acquisitions, were incorporated as one single company, American Airways. They served routes from Dallas to Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles. In those early days Fokker and Ford Trimotors were used.
In 1934, E. L. Cord acquired the company and renamed it American Airlines (AA). C. R. Smith became CEO, a position he would hold for more than 30 years. He worked closely together with Donald Douglas, developing the DC-3, which American Airlines started to use in 1936.
Also, American was the first airline to cooperate with Fiorello LaGuardia, who planned to build an airport in New York City. Later, AA became the owner of the world’s first airline lounge at the new LaGuardia airport.
After WWII, AA started to expand to Europe, forming the subsidiary American Overseas Airlines (AOA), which, however, was sold to Pan Am in 1950. Another subsidiary, American Airlines de Mexico S.A. was formed to operate flights to Mexico.
AA’s main focus became non-stop coast-to-coast flights, when the 707 Astrojet was introduced in the 1960s.
In cooperation with IBM, AA launched the first electronic booking system, an achievement of CEO Robert Crandall, who chaired the company from 1985 to 1998.
In 1981, the routing was changed to a “hub-and-spoke system”, opening the first hubs in Dallas and Chicago. From the mid-eighties on, Europe and Japan were served from these hubs. Three further hubs followed in the late eighties, but however were abandoned again in the 90s. Miami became a hub after several route expansions to Central and South America in 1990.
Many old DC-10s were replaced by Boeing 767s in the 90s.
American Airlines became the first airline to offer electronic ticketing in all 44 countries it served in October 1998. In the same year, the oneworld alliance was formed, AA being a founding member.
AA’s new chairman, Donald J. Carty, negotiated the purchase of Trans World Airlines (TWA) and its hub in St. Louis in April 2001.
In the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, AA lost two of its aircraft. In the wake of these events and some trouble concerning the TWA merger, American began to lose money. Several cost-cutting measures, e.g. the downsizing of St. Louis hub and standardizing its fleet at each hub, were the consequence. In the second quarter of 2005 AA was able to announce a profit of $58 million again.
American expanded its services to countries like Ireland, China and India in the following time.
In 2007, American Airlines was the largest airline in the world in terms of total passengers transported and fleet size. It served more than 150 cities with a fleet of almost 700 aircraft.
The airline possesses five hubs in Dallas/Fort Worth, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and San Juan.
AA operates scheduled flights throughout the United States, as well as to Canada, Latin America, the Caribbean, Western Europe, Japan, mainland China, and India.
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