Flagship Airways

Flagship Airways, Inc, commonly referred to as Flagship, was a major American airline headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, along the Chicago Riverfront. It was the world's third largest airline when measured by fleet size, revenue, scheduled passenger-kilometres flown, and number of destinations served. Flagship, together with its regional partners, operated an extensive international and domestic network with an average of nearly 2,700 flights per day to nearly 240 destinations in more than 30 countries.[6]
Flagship Airways was a founding member of the SkyOne alliance, the second largest airline alliance in the world, and coordinated fares, services, and scheduling with alliance partners German Airlines, Royal Airways, and SchweizAir in the transatlantic market and with China Southeastern and Australian Airlines in the transpacific market. Regional service was operated by independent and subsidiary carriers under the brand name of Flagship Express.[7]
Flagship operated out of six hubs located at Chicago-O'Hare, Newark, Atlanta, San Francisco, Washington-National, and Munich. Flagship operated its primary maintenance base at the Columbia, Missouri Regional Airport in addition to the maintenance locations located at its hubs. Newark-Liberty International Airport was Flagship's largest passenger carrying hub handling 31.1 million passengers annually with an average of 100,000 passengers daily. The company, as of 2010, employed over 43,300 people.[5] Through the airline's parent company, Flagship Airways Group, it is publicly traded under NASDAQ: FAG with a market capitalization of over $30.99 billion as of 2010.
== History ==
Flagship was founded in 1929 as a crop dusting service near Jefferson City, Missouri. The service began carrying the mail in 1931, and purchased its first passenger aircraft in 1937, when it first beared the name "Heartland Airlines".
During World War II, the U.S. Government and the British Government commissioned Heartland to use its fleet of seventeen Ford Trimotors to transport small supplies (such as postcards for soldiers, rubber bands, yarn, etc.) from the U.S. East Coast to Great Britain. The British sovereign, King George VI, appreciated the service so much that he proclaimed Heartland to be the "Flagship Airline of the British Flag." The next day, the airline's official title was renamed to "Royal British Flagship Air Ways, Inc."