United Airlines is the oldest and one of the largest airlines in the United States. Starting out as an air-mail service with only one route, today United Airlines carries passengers around the world to destinations all over the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe.
After winning the first government contract to provide commercial air-mail service, Walter Varney launched the service between Pasco, Washington, and Elko, Nevada, on April 6, 1926. That air transportation service was the predecessor of the modern United Airlines, and the airline marks that contract as the beginning of the company.
On July 1, 1927, Boeing Air Transport (BAT), a subsidiary of the company that would later become United Airlines, began passenger service between Chicago and San Francisco. The earliest airline passengers often sat among mail sacks and shivered during the winter and sweltered during the summer because the planes were not heated or air conditioned. Three years later, on May 15, 1930, BAT introduced the first flight attendant.
In December 1941, United Airlines joined the United States' war effort. During World War II, the airline modified 5,736 airplanes for the military, trained 7,000 sailors and soldiers as ground crew for the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy, and flew more than 50 million miles transporting soldiers and supplies for the military. United Airline's effort was massive and it was "the biggest, longest job tackled by United ... and despite many difficulties, it was carried out in a manner which reflected nothing but highest credit to the company," according to United Airline's employee magazine.
Following the war, United Airlines grew rapidly. On April 1947, the airline began flying new, fully pressurized planes that expanded the airlines' reach and reduced the time of a cross-country flight to 10 hours. United Airlines used those new planes to begin service from California to Hawaii on May 1, 1947. The airline continued to grow for the next two decades and further expanded its service by introducing jets to its fleet in September 1959. In June 1961, United Airlines became the world's largest airline following its merger with Capital Airlines.
Following the post-war boom, United Airlines faced financial hardship during the turbulent economic times at the end of the 20th century. In 1970, the airline lost $46 million, and for the next two decades the airline struggled to revamp its operations. During that time, United Airlines had six different presidents. It also introduced its Mileage Plus program to reward frequent fliers in 1981 and introduced its first international service by adding a flight from Seattle to Tokyo in 1983. In the 1990s, United continued to expand its international service and offered new flights to Europe and South America.
United Airlines today operates about 3,300 flights a day to 200 destinations in the United States and around the world, according to the company's website. United Airlines is consistently listed as one of the top five airlines in the United States based on the number of passengers carried, the number of routes served and ratings for quality and service. Its position in the top five changes based on which statistics you are viewing. In 2009, the airline received a three-star ranking from SKYTRAX for its operations and customer service.
