United Airlines

United Airlines is arguably the oldest commercial airlines of United States. It is a subsidiary of UAL Corporation, an airline holding company, and a major provider of air travel in the country. Elk Grove Township is its operations base. Its largest hub is at O'Hare International Airport, recording the maximum departures in a day. Apart from that, the other hubs of the airlines are located at Denver International Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, and Los Angeles International Airport. United Airlines has its Maintenance Operations Center at San Francisco International Airport. Bank of America and Fidelity Investments are the largest owners in the airlines.

History
United Airlines traces its historical affiliation to Varney Airlines, which was an air mail service founded in Boise, Idaho. In 1927, William Boeing established his own airline, Boeing Air Transport. Soon, he started buying other airmail carriers and ended up as the owner of Varney as well. In 1929, he changed the name of his company to United Aircraft and Transport Corp. In 1961, United Airlines merged with Capital Airlines, thus becoming the largest commercial airline in the whole world. In 1968, it became a subsidiary of the UAL, with the restructuring of the company.

Destinations covered
United Airlines has an extensive network of 73 domestic and 41 foreign destinations. Among the international destinations, it serves France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium, Russia and Switzerland in Europe and Japan, China, South Korea, Singapore Thailand and Vietnam Kuwait and UAE in Asia. In Americas, it operates flights to the Caribbean, Central America, Canada, and Mexico, Argentina and Brazil in South America and almost the whole of US.

United Airlines also operate scheduled flights to Melbourne and Sydney in Australia. Along with that, the air service maintains non-stop flights to a number of cities in China, which comprise of Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Guangzhou. It used to serve India and Japan as well, but the services were terminated sometime back. At present, it operates in codeshare in India, with the other airlines operating in the counrty. It also holds the distinction of being the only US airline that serves Vietnam.

Fleet
United Airways operate with a fleet of 385 aircrafts, which include Airbus A319-100, Airbus A320-200, Boeing 737-300, Boeing 737-500, Boeing 747-400, Boeing 757-200, Boeing 767-300ER, Boeing 777-200 and Boeing 777-200ER

Achievements
Till July 31, 2006, United Airways was the second largest airline in the world, in terms of the revenue-passenger-miles (next only to American Airlines). Along with that, it was the third-largest airline in the world by total operating revenues (behind Air France-KLM and American Airlines) and the fourth largest one by total passengers transported (behind American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines).

United Airways is the only American airline to have ferried an American president, Richard Nixon (to Los Angeles) in 1973. With this, it achieved the distinction of having operated the Executive One (a U.S civilian aircraft with President on board). The airlines was rated by the U.S Department of Transportation as the 11th among 19 U.S carriers for baggage handling complaints by the passengers,

9/11 Setback
Two of the carriers of United Airways were used to launch the fatal terrorist attack on the WTO and Pentagon in US, on 11th September 2003. One aircraft crashed into the south tower of WTO in New York City, while the other crashed in rural Pennsylvania, missing its target according to the United States Department of Homeland Security. In July 2007, a ruling by a federal court stated that 9/11 damages lawsuit against United American airlines would commence in the month of September. The airlines� application to operate on a route between Los Angeles to Shanghai was rejected in 2009.