American Airlines (AA) is the
largest airline in the world in terms of total passengers-miles transported
[1] and fleet size[
citation needed], and the second-largest
airline in the world (behind
Air France-KLM) in terms of total operating revenues[
citation needed]. A wholly owned 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, as well as flights to
Canada,
Latin America, the
Caribbean,
Western Europe,
Japan,
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 (RPMs).
As of February 2007, American serves 157 cities (excluding codeshares with partner airlines) with a fleet of 674 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
transcontinental market.
American has five
hubs:
Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW),
Miami (MIA),
San Juan (SJU),
Chicago (ORD), and
Saint Louis (STL).
Dallas/Fort Worth is the airline's largest hub, with AA operating over 84 percent of flights at the airport and traveling to more destinations than from any of its other hubs.
Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and
New York City (JFK) serve as a focus cities and international gateways. American operates maintenance bases at
Tulsa (TUL),
Kansas City (MCI), and
Fort Worth Alliance (AFW).
American Eagle Airlines is a Fort Worth, Texas-based regional airline partner of American Airlines, wholly owned by AMR Corporation.
American Airlines is a founding member of the
Oneworld airline alliance.
American Airlines was developed from a conglomeration of about 82 small airlines through a series of corporate acquisitions and reorganizations: initially, the name American Airways was used as a common brand by a number of independent air 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), and Colonial Air Transport in the Northeast.
On
January 25,
1930, American Airways was incorporated as a single company, with routes from
Boston,
New York and
Chicago, Illinois to
Dallas, and a transcontinental route from Dallas to
Los Angeles. The airline operated its routes with wood and fabric covered
Fokker Trimotors and all metal
Ford Trimotors. In 1934 American began flying
Curtiss Condor biplanes fitted with sleeping berths.
In 1934, American Airways Company was acquired by
E.L. Cord, who renamed the company "American Air Lines". Cord hired Texas businessman
C.R. (Cyrus Rowlett) Smith to run the company. Early in its history, the company was headquartered at
Chicago Midway International Airport in
Chicago, Illinois.
Smith worked closely with
Donald Douglas to develop the
DC-3, which American Airlines started flying in 1936. With the DC-3, American began to brand itself using nautical terms, calling its aircraft "
Flagships" and establishing the "Admirals Club," an honorary club for valued passengers. The DC-3s had a four-star "admiral's pennant" which would fly outside the cockpit window while the aircraft was parked, one of the most well-known images of the airline at the time.
American was the first airline to cooperate with
Fiorello LaGuardia's plans to build an airport in
New York City, and partly as a result became the 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 only, but a discrimination suit decades later changed the club into a paid membership club, creating the model for other airline lounges.
After
World War II, American launched an international subsidiary,
American Overseas Airlines to serve
Europe; however, AOA was sold to rival
Pan Am in 1950. AA launched another subsidiary around the same time, Líneas Aéreas Americanas de Mexico S.A., to operate flights to
Mexico, and built several airports there.
American Airlines was an early adopter of jet aircraft, and introduced the first transcontinental jet service using
Boeing 707s on
25 January 1959. With the introduction of its "Astrojets," as it dubbed the new jet fleet, American's focus shifted to nonstop coast-to-coast flights, although it maintained feeder connections to other 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) together with
IBM, and built an upgraded terminal at Idlewild (now
JFK) Airport in
New York City which became the airline's largest base of operations.
American changed its routing to a
hub-and-spoke system starting in 1981, opening its first hubs at DFW and Chicago O'Hare. American began flights to
Europe and
Japan from these hubs in the mid-1980s.
In the late 1980s, American opened three new hubs for north-south traffic.
San Jose International Airport was added as a hub after American purchased
Air California. American also built a new terminal and runway at
Raleigh-Durham International Airport to take advantage of the rapidly-growing
Research Triangle Park nearby, as well as compete with USAir's hub in
Charlotte.
Nashville was also chosen as a hub.
Lower fuel prices in the era and a favorable business climate at the time led to higher than average airline industry profits. The industry's expansion was not lost on the American Airline's existing employees who on
February 17,
1997 struck for higher wages. President
Bill Clinton invoked the
Railway Labor Act citing economic impact to the United States a few minutes later quashing the strike.
[3] Pilots settled for substantially lower wage increases than their demands as a result.
The three new hubs were all abandoned in the 1990s: some San Jose facilities were sold to
Reno Air, and likewise at Raleigh/Durham to
Midway Airlines. Midway went out of business in 2001. American purchased Reno Air in February 1999 and fully integrated its operations on
31 August 1999, but did not resume hub operations in San Jose.
Miami also became a hub after American bought Central and South American routes from
Eastern Air Lines in 1990 (inherited from
Braniff International Airways but originated by
Panagra). Through the 1990s, American expanded its route network in Latin America to become the dominant U.S. carrier in the region.
On
15 October 1998 American Airlines became the first airline to offer electronic ticketing in all 44 countries it serves.
[
edit] TWA merger, 9/11, and aftermath
Mr. Crandall left the company in 1998 and was replaced by
Donald J. Carty, who negotiated the purchase of
Trans World Airlines and its hub in St. Louis in April 2001.
The merger of seniority lists remains a contentious issue, particularly for pilots - the groups were represented by different unions at their respective airlines. In the final merger, 60 percent of former TWA pilots were moved to the bottom of the seniority list at AA. The most senior TWA captain, hired in 1963, was integrated at the same seniority level as an AA captain hired in 1985.[
citation needed] However, the TWA pilots were given "super-seniority" and a specified ratio of positions as captain if they stayed in St. Louis. The result was that most former TWA pilots stayed in St. Louis and roughly maintained their same relative seniority; though, some left St. Louis and fly in the co-pilot seat next to AA pilots who may have been hired at a later date, but are more senior outside the protections afforded to that base. For cabin crews, all former TWA flight attendants (approximately 4,200 employees) were furloughed by mid-2003 due to the AA flight attendants' union putting TWA flight attendants at the bottom of their seniority list.
In the wake of the TWA merger and the roughly concurrent
September 11, 2001 attacks by al-Qaeda operatives working under the direction of Osama bin Laden (which claimed two of AA's aircraft along with passengers and crew), American began losing money. Mr. Carty negotiated new wage and benefit agreements with the airline's labor unions, but was forced to resign after union leaders discovered that Carty was planning to award handsome executive compensation packages at the same time. St. Louis' hub was also downsized afterwards.
In Mr. Carty's wake, American has undergone additional cost-cutting measures, including rolling back its "More Room Throughout Coach" program (which eliminated several seats on certain aircraft types), ending three-class service on many international flights, and standardizing its fleet at each hub (see below). However, the airline has rebounded and expanded its service into new markets, including
Ireland,
India and
mainland China.
On
July 20,
2005, for the first time in 17 quarters, American announced a quarterly profit; the airline earned $58 million in the second quarter of 2005. It had previously lobbied for the preservation of the
Wright Amendment, which regulates commercial airline operations at
Love Field in Dallas. On June 15, 2006, American reached an agreement with
Southwest Airlines and the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth to seek repeal of the Wright Amendment on the conditions that Love Field remain a domestic airport and that its gate capacity be limited
American Airlines serves destinations on five continents. Its network is particularly developed in the
Americas, where it serves more destinations than any other U.S. airline. Hubs at Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami and New York (JFK) serve as major gateways to Latin America, while American's Chicago hub has become the airline's primary gateway to Europe and Asia. Similar to other U.S. legacy carriers, American has dramatically cut back on flying point-to-point routes (both domestic and international) to once-important non-hub cities such as Boston, San Jose, and Fort Lauderdale in favor of consolidating operations into major hubs. American is the only U.S. airline with scheduled flights to
Anguilla,
Bolivia,
Dominica,
Grenada,
Haiti, and
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
In recent years, American has begun to expand its network in
Asia, albeit with mixed success. In 2005, American re-introduced a non-stop flight from Dallas/Fort Worth to
Osaka, which had been discontinued after the September 11 terrorist attacks, but this service was discontinued a year later. American also launched non-stop service from Chicago to Nagoya, but that too ended within a year. Also in 2005, American launced service from Chicago to
Delhi.
[5] Somewhat surprising to some (given the lack of success that United Airlines encountered operating the same route) this service has been profitable. In April 2006, American began service from Chicago to
Shanghai, which has also proven to be profitable for the company. However, in October 2006, American ceased its San Jose, CA to Tokyo/Narita service, leaving LAX as American's sole international gateway on the West Coast. American planned to start flights between Dallas/Fort Worth and Beijing via Chicago-O'Hare (on Westbound only) in 2007 but lost its bid to
United Airlines' Dulles to Beijing route.
American has recently applied to fly between Miami and the Venezuelan city of
Valencia. The route is waiting for government approval to begin on 10 May 2007.
As of March, 2007, American's fleet has an average age of 13.9 years.
[6] Almost half of its fleet is composed of
McDonnell Douglas MD-82 and
MD-83 series twinjets, referred to by AA as "Super 80," denoting the type's original name, "DC-9 Super 80." Much of the Super 80 fleet dates back to the early 1980s, although some were later acquired from TWA. American has considered to start phasing out its MD80 fleet and start to replace them with 737-800s, although an announcement from the airline has yet to be made before AA starts replacing aircraft.
Most of AA's aircraft have been refitted with new interiors in the last few years, with the exception of many
Boeing 757s. The 757 seats have been re-covered, with new carpet, and deeper overhead bins. AA has also introduced new aircraft to its fleet: the newest are the
Boeing 777-200ERs, which replaced
MD-11s on key transoceanic routes in the late 1990s such as
Tokyo Narita, and
737-800s, which replaced
727s on many domestic and
Caribbean routes. The "More Room Throughout Coach" or MRTC, which increased seat pitch and passenger legroom by reducing the number of seats, was an experimental marketing and business plan that has been discontinued.
American has discontinued three-class service on most aircraft, but continues to offer first class on 777 and 767-200 aircraft. First class passengers on 777 routes enjoy the "Flagship Suite," a first class seat that can swivel inwards toward a personal work area and also recline 180 degrees to become a bed (slightly more than half the 777 fleet have these seats -- the remaining aircraft have traditional lie-flat seats). 767-200 flights between
JFK,
SFO, and
LAX offer three-class "American Flagship Service" which replicates the passenger service offered on long international flights. The business class cabins of American's 767-300 aircraft are in the process of being refitted with electronic "lie-flat" seats. When the installation is complete, the seats will also be introduced on American's 777s.
On all American aircraft except the 757s formerly operated by TWA, passengers in all cabins have a cigarette port DC power ports in the first and/or business class cabins, and at select seats in coach. All classes of service on the 777 have personal video screens, although they lack Audio/Video On Demand (AVOD) systems. These personal video screens have the "GateConnect" feature which allows passengers to view terminal maps and connecting flight information for their destination airport.
American has redesigned its schedules so that each hub city receives certain aircraft types more often than others, which is intended to simplify maintenance and last-minute fleet substitutions. Chicago, DFW and St. Louis get most MD-80 service, SJU and JFK receive most 757 and A300 service, and Miami gets most 737 service.
777 and
767-300ER aircraft are usually reserved for high density domestic markets and international flights.
American Airlines was one of three carriers (
Continental Airlines and
Delta Air Lines being the other two) to sign an exclusivity agreement with Boeing in the late 1990s. When Boeing acquired
McDonnell Douglas, the
European Union forced Boeing to void the contracts, the carriers are said to still have a gentlemens agreement with Boeing.
AAdvantage is the frequent flyer program of American Airlines (AA). It is pronounced "advantage" (i.e., the first letter is silent). Launched May 1, 1981, it was the first such loyalty program in the world, and remains the largest with more than 50 million members as of 2005.
Miles accumulated in the program allow members to redeem tickets, upgrade service class, or obtain free or discounted car rentals, hotel stays, merchandise, or other products and services through partners. The most active members, based on the amount and price of travel booked, are designated AAdvantage Gold, AAdvantage Platinum, and AAdvantage Executive Platinum elite members, with privileges such as separate check-in, priority upgrade and standby processing, or complimentary upgrades. They also receive similar privileges from AA's partner airlines, notably those in
oneworld.
Increased competition following the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act prompted airline marketing professionals to develop ways to reward repeat customers and build brand loyalty. The first idea at American, a special "loyalty fare," was modified and expanded to offer complimentary first class tickets and upgrades to first class for companions, or discounted coach tickets. Membership was seeded by searching AA's SABRE computer reservations system for recurring phone numbers. The 130,000 most frequent flyers, plus an additional 60,000 members of AA's Admirals Club were pre-enrolled and sent letters with their new account numbers. The name was selected by AA's advertising agency, and is consistent with other American Airlines programs featuring the "AA" in the name and logo.
Less than a week later, rival United Airlines launched its Mileage Plus program; other airlines followed in the ensuing months and years. The rapid appearance of competition changed the nature of the program, and as airlines began to compete on the features of their frequent flyer programs, AAdvantage liberalized its rules, established partnerships with hotel and rental car agencies, and offered promotions such as extra free beverages. In 1982 AAdvantage also became the first program to cooperate with an international carrier; members could accrue and redeem miles on British Airways flights to Europe.
In 2005 American Airlines joined other major US carriers in introducing an online shopping portal allowing shoppers to earn AAdvantage miles when shopping online.
The Admirals Club was conceived by AA president C.R. Smith as a marketing gimmick shortly after he was made an honorary
Texas Ranger. Inspired by the
Kentucky colonels and other
honorary organizations, Smith decided to make particularly valued passengers "admirals" of the "Flagship fleet" (AA called its aircraft "Flagships" at the time). The list of Admirals included many celebrities, politicians and other VIPs, as well as more "ordinary" customers who had been particularly loyal to the airline.
There was no physical Admirals Club until shortly after the opening of LaGuardia Airport. During the airport's construction, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia had an upper-level lounge set aside for press conferences and business meetings. At one such press conference, he noted that the entire terminal was being offered for lease to airline tenants; after a reporter asked whether the lounge would be leased as well, LaGuardia replied that it would, and a vice president of AA immediately offered to lease the premises. The airline then procured a liquor license and began operating the lounge as the "Admirals Club" in 1939.
The second Admirals Club opened at Washington National Airport. Because it was illegal to sell alcohol in Virginia at the time, the Club contained refrigerators for the use of its members, so they could store their own liquor at the airport.
For many years, membership in the Admirals Club (and most other airline lounges) was by the airline's invitation. After a passenger sued for discrimination, the Club (and most other airline lounges) switched to a paid membership program. Membership now costs $250 to $450 a year, depending on previous member status and AAdvantage frequent flyer program level; membership can also be purchased with AAdvantage miles.
