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.

American Airlines currently offers service to over 260 cities with almost 700 aircraft. American is very popular on routes between the United States and Latin American, carrying over a million passengers between the two markets each year. In fact, American Airlines carries more passengers between the United States and Latin America than any other airline. In addition, American Airlines has a strong international market.

American has four airline hubs throughout the world. They are located in Dallas/Fort Worth, Chicago, Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico. American Airlines also has a large presence in Los Angeles, New York City and Boston. American Airlines employees thousands of workers at its maintenance bases in Tulsa, 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.

One of the reasons American serves so many destinations is its acquisition of Trans World Airlines (TWA) in 2001, unfortunately, only a short time before the devastation of September 11. The acquisition was already causing American to hemorrhage cash when two of its jets were hijacked and crashed on 9/11. The September attacks forces American to relinquish its St. Louis hub, and to let a few former TWA employees go. American continues to struggle financially, and when high fuel prices hit in 2008, it became the first airline to impose a fee for checked baggage, an innovation, like all its others, that competing airlines quickly mimicked.

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.

American is also a leader in in-flight technology, becoming in 2008 the first carrier to offer in-flight Internet service. This came less than a year after American Airlines began offering free Wi-Fi to passengers on flights within the USA.