American Airlines Flights:
An overview of American Airlines
American Airline was formed as the result of an assembly of 82 smaller airline companies and was incorporated in January 1930 under the name American Airways. The airline established its base in New York and started operation with routes to New York, Boston, Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles. These routes were made operational with the Fokker and Ford Trimotors. The biplanes of Curtiss Condor were added in 1934. These planes were also fitted with sleeping berths.
The American Airways Company was bought by E. L. Cord in 1934, who renamed it American Airlines. The company was then run by C. R. Smith. Smith began working on the DC-3 along with Donald Douglas, which they started flying in 1936. They referred to their aircraft as ‘Flagships’. American Airlines established the Admirals Club for its passengers and, because of their support for the plans of Fiorello LaGuardia’s to build the New York City airport, acquired an airline lounge which was the first of its kind in the world. This airline lounge soon became a model for other similar lounges across the globe.
Soon after the end of the Second World War, American Airlines launched American Overseas Airlines to facilitate travel to Europe. This subsidiary was sold in 1950 to rival airline Pan Am.
By the late 1950s American Airlines had started using jet aircrafts and offered non stop flights from coast to coast. By 1962, American Airlines had invested about $440 million buying jet aircrafts. It also introduced Sabre – a system for electronic booking that was, yet again, a first of its kind. The system was developed in conjunction with IBM.
Today, American Airlines is the world’s largest airline due to the vast number of passengers it transports and the size of its fleet. American Airlines is also the second largest company in the world in terms of operating revenues.
The airline offers a wide range of programs to its customers. The air miles earned by passengers can be given as gift, shared and reactivated. American Airline has its own credit card that comes with attractive benefits for those who use their cards for booking flights with the airline. On top of these benefits, American Airlines also offer a variety of travel perks to its passengers.
Besides servicing regions in the United States, American Airlines also services East Asia, North America, South and Central America and Europe.
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Globe Trotting with American Airlines :
American Airlines Alliance Like most other carriers, American Airlines made the decision to enter into an alliance with other airlines to ensure an extensive network of destinations to its passengers. The airline is part of the One World Alliance and is one of the founding members. Through this alliance American Airlines offer its passengers a choice of over 675 worldwide destinations. The One World alliance consists of American Airlines, LAN, Cathay Pacific, Royal Jordanian, British Airways, Japan Airlines, Iberia, MALEV, and Qantas.
Although American Airlines do not fly to and from South Africa, they offer flights through some of the One World Alliance partners: British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Iberia.
British Airways operates out of Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. It connects South Africa to London, Harare, Livingstone, Mauritius, Victoria Falls and Windhoek amongst other destinations. Most of these flights are operated by a code share airline and the departure point for almost all of the above destinations is Johannesburg. Connecting flights into the USA are available from some of the major centres serviced by BA.
Cathay Pacific is the only airline that flies directly to the USA and operates out of Johannesburg. Destinations offered are Adelaide, Amsterdam, Auckland, Brisbane, Singapore, Zurich, Colombo, Tokyo, Dubai, Frankfurt, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, New York, Paris, Rome, San Francisco etc. Not all of these flights are a direct connecting. Some may have stopovers.
Iberia flies from Johannesburg to Barcelona and Madrid in Spain. Connecting flights into the USA are available from Madrid.