Originally Posted by
WHBM
I recall that about 6 months after the American flight to Chicago started, they had a competition to guess which destination was flown on to from the Stansted flight through Chicago more than any other. This was done with leaflets on the AA ticket desk, one of which I picked up when passing (from AirUK or Ryanair !), as the desk was unstaffed then, filled in Los Angeles, and put it in the box provided alongside. Prize was, of course, two tickets on AA to anywhere in the US.
Sure I was right, and encouraged by the box appearing virtually empty, I kept looking at the AA website until an answer was finally posted there - Minneapolis. I really found this a little unlikely.
Anybody else go in for it ?
My first visit to the "new" Stansted was in 1992 a few weeks before the first American Airlines flight from Chicago to London Stansted started. I traveled up from Southampton for the day to have a look at the new terminal and saw the unmanned check in desks all set up with the American Airlines name and logos. They really stood out as the airport and terminal was still fairly quiet in 1992.
I wasn't aware of the competition that your referring to at the time of the visit to the terminal in 1992 and I only became aware of it many years later.
When American Airlines announced that they were to fly from Chicago O'Hare to London Stansted Airport on the 15 October 1991 it was a huge deal for the airport and it more or less came of age especially as it was the airport's first and only scheduled transatlantic flight at the time.
At the time of it's announcement American Airlines did a lot of advertising especially in the London area and in particular on the underground claiming that they now flew daily to the USA from all of the three London airport's.
American Airlines commenced direct daily flights between London Stansted Airport and Chicago O'Hare Airport on the 16 June 1992 with a Boeing 767-200 registration N328AA. Over 20,000 passengers were carried in the first three months of operations, but the average yield per passenger was low and losses of some $10 million had been accrued by the time the service was suspended on the 31 May 1992.
American Airlines returned to London Stansted Airport again in 2007 with a New York JFK flight. The flight commenced in October 2007 with a daily Boeing 767-300. The flight didn't last long even though American Airlines had announced that the flight would go double daily for summer 2008 shortly before they announced that it was being axed. The last American Airlines flight between New York JFK and London Stansted Airport was in April 2008. Flight numbers were AA124/AA125.
I was actually going to do a post about the former scheduled trans-Atlantic flights between London Stansted Airport and the USA over the next day or so with reference to American Airlines, EOS, MaxJet, Primea with the addition of some photos. I still intend on doing so and might well duplicate the post with the content I've already provided in this post regarding the history of American Airlines at London Stansted Airport.