He was previously chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of AMR Corporation, the parent company of American Airlines, from 1998 to 2003.

He is a past chairman of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, a former member of the board of trustees of both Southern Methodist University and Queen's University and of the board of directors of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Foundation and the Dallas Theater Center.

Born in Toronto, Ontario, on July 23, 1946, Carty attended Queen's University and Harvard Business School.

In April 2003, in the long wake of the September 11 attacks and facing an industry beset by terrorism and hard economic times, Carty and his executive board wanted to strike a cost-cutting deal with American's labor unions, intended to mitigate AMR's upcoming $1 billion first-quarter loss.

[3] On February 2 of that year, Toronto-based Porter Airlines, in the process of starting up a regional service out of the downtown Toronto island airport, announced that Carty would simultaneously be its chairman.

They currently live in Dallas, Texas, and spend time in Newport Beach, California, and on a lake in Greater Madawaska, Ontario.