American Airlines back to the future in May
American Airlines has expanded its cargo schedule in May to provide 140 weekly flights to 15 cities in Asia Pacific, Europe and the Caribbean, up from 80 flights the week before.
New destinations include daily flights between Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) and Hong Kong and weekly flights between DFW and Beijing, Chicago (ORD) and Paris, ORD and London, Philadelphia (PHL) and Rome, San Juan and and Zurich.
The airline's early roots can be traced back to flying cargo, when a DC-3 loaded with more than 2.7 t of fresh spinach, fresh flowers, airplane parts and apparel flew the first scheduled air cargo flight from Burbank, CA to New York LGA on 15 October 1944.
After growing into a passenger airline, American returned to freighter operations from 1974 to 1984 with six B747F and 79.8 t of cargo capacity. (ah)