American Eagle Airlines is the regional partner of American Airlines, one of the largest scheduled passenger airlines in the world. American Eagle operates over 1,800 daily flights to more than 150 cities across the US, Canada, the Bahamas, Mexico and the Caribbean.
American Eagle started in the mid-1980s as a collection of regional airlines which were contracted to fly for American Airlines at that time. Flying turbo-prop aircraft of various sizes, these airlines were:
Simmons Airlines
Wings West Airlines
Metro Airlines
Flagship Airlines
Executive Airlines
All of these carriers, with the exception of Executive, were purchased by American Airlines and merged together to form American Eagle in November of 1984. American also bought Executive Airlines but did not merge them with the others. Executive flies to this day under the American Eagle name and colors, but under its own operating certificate. American Eagle Airlines then launched its jet service in May 1998 using an Embraer ERJ 145 aircraft.
In 2007, AMR announced plans to spin-off American Eagle into a separate company in 2008, but those plans were deferred because of industry and economic conditions. Presently, American Eagle carries approximately 21.5 million passengers a year, connecting 10.2 million passengers to and from American Airlines flights. American Eagle has approximately 13,000 employees.
American Eagle’s fleet consists of 305 aircraft; 231 Regional Jets and 74 large turbo-prop aircraft.
American Eagle bases its flight crews at hubs in Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
