United Airlines

United Airlines dates to 1929, when William E. Boeing (1881–1956), Frederick B. Rentschler (1887–1956), and their associates founded United Aircraft Transport Corporation, a conglomerate of both aircraft manufacturing and air transport. By 1930 it had acquired four mail carriers—Boeing Air Transport (formed in 1927), Pacific Air Transport (1926), Varney Air Lines (1926), and National Air Transport (1925)—and in 1931 established United Airlines, Inc., in Chicago as a holding company providing an umbrella management for the four operating divisions.

In 1934, under U.S. congressional pressure, aircraft conglomerates were forced to dissolve, separating the manufacture of aircraft from air transport. United Airlines, Inc., became an independent operating company, fully unifying all the transport divisions. (The Boeing and United Aircraft manufacturing companies also emerged from the dissolution.) William A. (“Pat”) Patterson (1899–1980), the new president, was the major influence on the company’s progress until his retirement in 1966.

From 1930 the company had a network of routes from New York City to San Francisco and Seattle along with a number of north-south routes in the West, and in that year the company’s—and the world’s—first stewardesses were trained and put into service on the Chicago–San Francisco flights. Transcontinental flights from New York followed. After World War II, United’s routes and services expanded greatly. In 1961, upon its merger with Capital Airlines, United became the largest air carrier (in terms of number of passengers) in the Western world, exceeded globally only by the Soviet Union’s Aeroflot; United retained that first rank for a couple of decades.

In 1968–69 United Airlines reorganized itself, and in 1986 it acquired Pan American World Airways’ trans-Pacific routes (connecting the United States with East Asia and the South Pacific). In 1990 United Airlines acquired Pan American’s routes between London and the United States, and in 1991 United bought the bankrupt Pan American’s Latin American and Caribbean route systems.

Following its reorganization in 1968–69, United also embarked on a number of corporate mergers. Its new parent and holding company, UAL, Inc., acquired the Western International (later Westin) Hotels (a large American hotel chain) in 1970, the Hertz Corporation (the largest car-rental business in the United States) in 1985, and Hilton International Co. (another large hotel chain) in early 1987. These businesses were sold off in late 1987, however, and henceforth the parent company concentrated on its major subsidiary, United Airlines, which remained one of the largest air carriers in the world.

In 1994 United employees purchased a controlling (55 percent) share of the airline in return for $4.9 billion in wage and work-rule concessions. The buyout made United the largest employee-owned company in the United States. Despite federal assistance to United and many other U.S. airlines following the September 11 attacks in 2001, it filed for bankruptcy reorganization in December 2002. The firm emerged from bankruptcy protection in 2006.

In the early 21st century, because of increasing financial difficulties in a struggling airline industry, United underwent a period of major restructuring, which included a decrease in flight routes, a reduction in seating capacity, and employee layoffs and job cuts. In 2004 United launched its low-fare carrier Ted Airlines, which it discontinued in 2009, and in 2007 it acquired an equity stake in Aloha Airlines. The following year United partnered with Continental Airlines to expand its flight options, and in 2010 it merged with Continental. However, the two airlines continued to operate separately—as subsidiaries of the newly created United Continental Holdings—while waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a single operating license, which was granted in late 2011. In March 2012 Continental’s operations were rebranded under the United name.