Thursday, January 20, 2011

American Airlines 's Post world war developments

After second World War , American airline launched an international subsidiary, American Overseas Airlines, to serve Europe; AOA was sold to Pan Am in 1950. AA launched another subsidiary, Líneas Aéreas Americanas de Mexico S.A., to fly over to Mexico and built several airports there. American Airlines provided advertising and free usage of its aircraft in the 1951 film Three Guys Named Mike. Until Capital merged into United in 1961, AA was the largest American airline, which meant second largest in the world, after Aeroflot.

American Airlines introduced the first trans-continental jet service using Boeing 707s on January 25, 1959. With its 707s American shifted to nonstop coast-to-coast flights, although it maintained feeder connection to cities along its old route using smaller Convair 990s and Lockheed Electras. American invested $440 million in jet aircraft up to year1962, launched the first electronic booking system (Sabre) with IBM, and built an upgraded terminal at Idlewild (now JFK) Airport in New York City which became the airline's largest base. In the year1960s, Mattel released a series of American Airlines stewardess Barbie dolls, signifying their growing commercial success.[citation needed] Vignelli Associates designed the AA eagle logo in 1967. Vignelli attributes the introduction of his firm to American Airlines to Henry Dreyfuss, the legendary AA design consultant. The logo is still in use today.

By Sep:1970, American Airlines was ready to offering its first long haul international flights from the West Coast to Honolulu and on to Sydney and Auckland via American Samoa and Nadi.

A fictitious mark "American Airlines Space Freighter", the Valley Forge, was the setting for the 1971 science fiction movie Silent Running, starring Bruce Dern and directed by Douglas Trumbull. The freighter featured the then-new "AA" logo on the hull, along with the crew uniforms and several set pieces. On 30 March 1973 AA became the first major airline to employ a female pilot when Bonnie Tiburzi was hired to fly Boeing 727s. From 1971–1978 Beverly Lynn Burns worked as a stewardess for AA. She went on to become the first woman Boeing 747 airline captain when, on the afternoon of July 18, 1984, she commanded People Express flight #17 (aircraft 604) departing Newark International Airport at 3:30pm to Los Angeles International Airport. In a prearranged effort, this honor was shared with another female People Express captain Lynn Rippelmeyer, who flew flight number 2 from Newark to London Gatwick at 7:35pm that same day.

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