 Juan Trippe formed the Aviation Corporation of the Americas (ACA) on June 2, 1927, with the backing of powerful and politically connected financiers who included Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney and W. Averell Harriman, and raised $250,000 in startup capital from the sale of stock.Their operation had the all-important landing rights for Havana, having acquired American International Airways, a small airline established in 1926 by John K. Montgomery and Richard B. Bevier as a seaplane service from Key West, Florida, to Havana.ACA met its deadline of having an air mail service operating by October 19, 1927 by chartering a Fairchild FC-2 floatplane from a small Dominican Republic carrier, West Indian Aerial Express.