BORN: Winter 1966/1967
Debuting as The American Way, the first issue was 20 pages
(not counting covers) and had eight
articles, three of which were travel-related (New York,
Phoenix, and California). The other stories were mostly about
aviation and flight service. Basically, it was a brochure made to
look like a magazine.
The earliest issues of American Way claim that the
magazine was "The American Airlines In-Flight Magazine for
America's Most Important Air Travellers." Though it doesn't say
that on the magazine now, it still holds true today - except, of
course, now we're the magazine for the world's most
important air travelers.
Prompted by a letter from a reader, in May/June 1969, the magazine
gets a table of contents and page numbers - as well as a
Letters to the Editor page.
When it was first published,
The American Way was designed
with a wrap cover. This practice was abandoned in 1970.
In May 1975,
The was dropped from the magazine's
title.
American Way's first CEO note ran on March 1, 1991.
Called
Vantage Point, it was written by Robert L.
Crandall.
The three largest issues of American Way (thus far) ran
210 pages each, and they were the November 1, 1999; November 15,
1999; and November 1, 2000, issues.
Figures That Matter
-In 1967, the quarterly circulation of American Way was
600,000 (200,000 per month), with four million readers (1.3 million
per month). Today, we're distributed twice a month, and the
circulation is nearly four times that at 350,900 (701,800 per
month), with three times the number of readers - 1,627,000
(3,254,000 per month).
-Although it started out as a quarterly publication, The
American Way went bimonthly in 1968, and then monthly in
September 1969.
-The median household income of the American Way reader
was $31,400 in fall 1979. Today, it's $100,026.
-In 1969, a subscription for the quarterly The American
Way was $3 per year, and a single issue cost a mere 50 cents.
By 1976, as a monthly publication, it cost $10 yearly or $1 by the
issue. Today, for 24 issues a year, it costs $72, and a single copy
is $5.
-By 1975, the readership of the magazine had reached 2.7 million
each month. However, American Way had yet to be
profitable.
-During the late '70s, advertisers began to take notice of the
airline magazine industry as a whole, and ad revenue for
American Way began exceeding its expenses - we were
finally turning a profit. AW continues to bring in the green (and
operate in the black) to this day.
-By the mid-1980s, AW's large (and heavy) issues made the cost of
fuel burn extremely expensive, thus it was decided in January 1985
for American Way to go from a monthly publication schedule
to fortnightly (every two weeks) - translating to smaller, lighter
issues every other Tuesday, or 26 times a year.
-On October 1, 1986, American Way's publication schedule
changed to twice a month (on the first and the 15th), or 24 times a
year. We currently remain the only airline magazine to be published
this often.