Limited-edition Breitling Navitimer American Airlines watch launches

“I still remember the thrill of my first flight,” Breitling CEO Georges Kerns said in a news release. “The Navitimer American Airlines brings it all back to me: the clean design, the optimism, the sense of discovery. It’s a watch that encourages us to dream and, like American Airlines itself, to continue to broaden our horizons.”

American Airlines launched in 1930 when 82 smaller airlines came together. The airline’s brand has been redesigned over the years, and the watch celebrates “the timeless cool of the 1960s and 1970s—an exhilarating moment in the history of aviation, when the dream of flight finally became available to everyone” by using the airline’s look from the same era that featured “bold colors and clean lines.”

The watch is a reskin of the Navitimer B01 Chronograph 43 and has a power reserve of 70 hours. The stainless-steel case features a glareproof cambered sapphire glass and encloses a blue dial and red hour and minute hands. The American Airlines logo is on the case back.

Seventy-five of the watches will have a brown leather strap ($8,650), and 25 will have a stainless-steel mesh bracelet ($9,350). The watch is available only in the United States.

Breitling and AOPA have worked together in the past to offer limited-edition AOPA Navitimers. The relationship started in the 1950s, when Willy Breitling began working on a watch for members at AOPA’s request.

“He decided to develop an innovative wrist-worn instrument that would enable pilots to perform all necessary flight calculations, including average speed, distance traveled, fuel consumption, rate of climb or descent, and conversion of miles to kilometers or nautical miles,” according to the Breitling website.

AOPA offered the Navitimer to members starting in 1954 through the late 1970s. Breitling and AOPA came together again to offer the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Limited Edition AOPA Navitimer in 2014; 750 of the timepieces were produced.

The Navitimer Ref. 806 1959 Re-Edition is still available from Breitling for $8,600 and features the AOPA wings on the watch face.