In order to provide additional service across Lake Erie, the Civil Aeronautics Board authorized Mohawk Airlines to extend Air Mail Route 94 beyond the terminal point of Buffalo, via Erie, Pennsylvania, to Detroit on December 1, 1956.
An unofficial cachet sponsored by Mohawk Airlines was applied
to some covers.
This cover was one of only 123 pieces of mail carried on the inaugural Air Mail Route 97 flight from the Detroit, Michigan Airport Mail Facility to Erie, Pennsylvania (where it was backstamped) and is listed in the Contract Air Mail Flights (CAM) Section of The American Air Mail Catalogue as 94W48f. 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 world's largest airline. The combined airline carries the American Airlines name.