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, affectionately known as AA, was founded in 1930, and has pioneered several industry firsts. It was the first airline to offer a frequent flyer program. It was the first airline to use electronic ticketing. Its AAdvantage rewards program remains the largest frequent flyer program in the world, with in excess of 50 million members.

American Airlines currently offers travel 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.

A well-known subsidiary of American is its regional carrier American Eagle. This small airline with the smaller planes often provides the only service at less-traveled airports in the US, Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean. American Eagle's home offices are also located in Fort Worth, Texas.

American was a founding member of the airline alliance Oneworld. Airline alliances allow carriers to share flight codes and luggage transfer facilities with numerous other carriers to give fliers more choices. Oneworld airlines also share their frequent flier programs. The Oneworld Alliance celebrates its tenth 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.

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.