DAYTON — American Eagle Airlines, a sister company of American Airlines, plans to begin offering three daily nonstop flights from Dayton International Airport to Chicago O’Hare International Airport beginning in April 2010, the company said Thursday, Sept. 17.

The service is to start on or about April 6, company spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan said in an e-mail response.

United Airlines already provides six daily nonstop flights between Dayton and Chicago O’Hare.

Iftikhar Ahmad, Dayton’s director of aviation, said the new service is welcome, especially because a number of carriers have reduced flights in efforts to cut costs during the economic downturn.

“It gives our customers more options,” Ahmad said.

The new service is a small part of actions announced Thursday by AMR Corp., owner of both American Airlines and American Eagle. AMR said it had obtained $2.9 billion in additional liquidity and aircraft financing, will modernize its fleet and will reallocate service capacity to hubs in Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami and New York.

AMR said its carriers were adding 57 daily flights at O’Hare for a total of 487 daily departures. Customers will have access to 12 new domestic destinations and three new international ones, AMR said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or jnolan@DaytonDailyNews.com.