Further expansion by Allegheny
Airlines’ Air Mail Route 97 extended southwest from Pittsburgh to Nashville via
Lexington, Kentucky on March 1, 1968.
This cover was carried on the inaugural Air Mail Route 97 flight from Nashville, Tennessee to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (where it was backstamped) and is listed in the Contract Air Mail Flights (CAM) section of The American Air Mail Catalogue as 97E103.
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.