American Airlines MD-80 Takeoff from PHL

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 worlds 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.

AAs 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.

Between 1983-2001, American Airlines acquired over 300+ MD-80's becoming the largest owner of this popular airplane.

BUT in May 2008; in a world of high gas prices and a slumping US economy, American Airlines announced in May 2008 it would cut domestic capacity 11 to 12 percent after the peak summer travel season, but already has begun trimming flights.

American ould end its short-lived service from New York to London's Stansted Airport and drop a daily nonstop flight from Chicago to Honolulu. The carrier also is pulling out of Oakland, Calif.

It planned to retire 45 to 50 planes over the course of the next few years, most of them are these gas-guzzling MD-80s, and its American Eagle sister carrier will retire 30 to 35 jets.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• PHL
• KPHL
• ORD
• KORD
• philly
• takeoff
• american
• airline
• airplane

[arnaudovangel]

@caillou1718 yeah they do, they even have wifi on them ;)

[caillou1718]

Does American Airlines still have the MD-80s

[IamnotKanye]

What seat was this?

[tommiej3]

Love it - what year??