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After World War II, American acquired American Export Airlines, renaming it as American Overseas Airways, to serve Europe. AOA was sold to Pan Am in 1950. AA launched another subsidiary, Líneas Aéreas Americanas de Mexico S.A., to fly to Mexico and built several airports there. American Airlines provided advertising and free usage of its aircraft in the 1951 film Three Guys Named Mike. Until Capital merged into United in 1961 AA was the largest American airline, which meant second-largest in the world, after Aeroflot.

American Airlines was under pressure to enter the jet age so they orderd British-built De Havilland Comets. The orders were cancelled when the Comets were discovered to suffer serious metal fatigue. American Airlines introduced transcontinental jet service with Boeing 707s on January 25, 1959. With its 707s American shifted to nonstop coast-to-coast flights, although it maintained feeder connections to cities along its old route using smaller Convair 990s and Lockheed Electras. American invested $440 million in jet aircraft up to 1962; launched the first electronic booking system, Sabre, with IBM (the basis of today's Travelocity); and built an upgraded terminal at Idlewild (now JFK) Airport in New York City, which became the airline's largest base.[13] Vignelli Associates designed the AA eagle logo in 1967. Vignelli attributes the introduction of his firm to American Airlines to Henry Dreyfuss, the legendary AA design consultant. The logo was in use until January 17, 2013.