To permit better air service in lower New England, the Civil Aeronautics Board authorized Allegheny Airlines to extend Air Mail Route 97 from Newark / New York to Boston, via various intermediate points; and also permitted American Airlines and Eastern Airlines to suspend service at Bridgeport and New Haven, and Northeast Airlines to suspend service at New London, Connecticut.

The return service from Boston was dual in nature, with Allegheny Airlines establishing two separate routings to and from Boston. The first dispatch was via Providence, Rhode Island and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh. The second dispatch (fifteen minutes later) went via Bridgeport, Connecticut and Baltimore, Maryland to Washington, DC.

This cover was carried on the April 12, 1960 inaugural Air Mail Route 97 flight from New Haven, Connecticut to Baltimore, Maryland (where it was backstamped) and is listed in the Contract Air Mail Flights (CAM) Section of The American Air Mail Catalogue as 97S82.

A Civil Aeronautics Board order, effective June 11, 1979, authorized the corporate title “Allegheny Airlines” to be changed to “USAir, Inc.” The name change reflected the carrier’s geographic expansion and increased airline status.

In early 1997 USAir changed its name to US Airways and introduced a new corporate identity. 

On February 14, 2013, US Airways Group and AMR Corporation announced that the two companies would merge to form the largest airline in the world. The combined airline carries the American Airlines name.