This commemorates American's emergence as the largest airline in the world. In just 20 years, American has gone from a company whose routes barely extended out of North America and Mexico, to an airline who serves 5 continents. American flirted with international services in the late 1940s with AOA and in the 1970s with South Pacific services but was primarily a domestic carrier in the era where Pan Am, Braniff, and TWA carried the U.S. Flag to foreign lands