All American Airways inaugurated service over Segment 4 of Air Mail Route 97 on July 25, 1949, serving the intermediate points of Butler, Bradford, Dunkirk, and Fredonia between Pittsburgh and Buffalo. Dunkirk and Fredonia jointly used the Dunkirk / Fredonia Airport.

This cover was carried on the inaugural Air Mail Route 97 flight from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Buffalo, New York (where it was backstamped) and is listed in the Contract Air Mail Flights (CAM) Section of The American Air Mail Catalogue as 97N50.

Perry Nahl, a former Editor-in-Chief of The American Air Mail Catalogue, prepared the cover.

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.