American Airlines: From Texas to the World
March 3, 2009 by Tom Martens
Filed under Flights
American Airlines is the world?s largest passenger airline with headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, which is also its main hub. American Airlines serves hundreds of destinations and operates flights in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Caribbean, Japan, China and India.
American Airlines was founded in 1930 and is the first airline to offer electronic ticketing. American Airlines is also the first airline to offer a frequent flyer program. Its AAdvantage rewards program remains the largest frequent flyer program with more than 50 million members.
Flying almost 700 planes to over 250 cities, American Airlines is especially popular on routes within the USA and between the United States and Latin America, carrying over a million passengers a year between the two markets. In fact, no other carrier serves more passengers between Latin American and the USA than American. But American Airlines is also strong in many other international markets.
There are four American hubs throughout the world: Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), Chicago, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Miami. The airline also has a strong presence in all the New York airports, in Los Angeles, and Boston. The company’s maintenance facilities, employing thousands of workers are located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Kansas City, and Fort Worth.
American Airlines is also the parent company of a regional carrier called American Eagle Airlines. American Eagle Airlines offers regional service in the United States, the Caribbean, Canada, and Mexico. Like American Airlines, American Eagle is also headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas.
American Airlines is a founding member of the Oneworld airline alliance, the third largest airline alliance in the world. An airline alliance is an agreement between at least two airlines to work together, with member airlines offering integrated services in order to make airline travel more convenient for passengers. Alliances usually work around shared passenger terminals and frequent flyer programs. Oneworld celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2009.
Part of the reason American Airlines serves so many destinations around the world, but especially in the USA, was its acquisition of Trans World Airlines (TWA) and the TWA hub in St. Louis in 2001. Unfortunately, the acquisition of TWA caused American to bleed cash, and these financial problems were compounded when two American Airlines planes were hijacked and crashed on 9/11. After the September attacks, American Airlines was forced to relinquish its St. Louis hub and to lay off a small number, that is, a few dozen, former TWA employees. American Airlines continues to struggle to minimize its losses, and in 2008 was the first airline to charge fees for checked baggage. Despite the nearly universal unpopularity of the move with passengers, just as they adopted other American Airlines innovations, other carriers also announced their own baggage fees.
Most of American’s jets are McDonnell Douglas MD-82 or MD-88 series twinjets. The carrier announced recently that it will order the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner to its fleet.
In 2008 American became the first carrier to offer in-flight Internet service on all its planes. This innovation came only a year after the airline began offering Wi-Fi on its flights within the United States.