American Airlines announced several new long haul routes today, even though most of them aren’t actually new.
It’s mostly bringing back old routes for summer. American continues the old US Airways tradition of doing most of their Europe as summer seasonal, though they’ve talked up turning summer routes into year-round for Philadelphia once the Airbus A321XLR arrives in the fleet.
| U.S. Hub | Destination | Seasonality | Aircraft | |||
| Dallas | Athens | Summer seasonal starting May 21, 2026 | Boeing 787-8 | |||
| Dallas | Buenos Aires | Extended service May 21-Aug. 3, 2026 | 787-8 | |||
| Dallas | Zurich | Summer seasonal May 21-Aug. 4, 2026 | Boeing 777-200 | |||
| Miami | Milan | Year-round starting March 29, 2026 | 787-8 | |||
| Philadelphia | Budapest | Summer seasonal starting May 21, 2026 | 787-8 | |||
| Philadelphia | Prague | Summer seasonal starting May 21, 2026 | 787-8 | |||
American Airlines Boeing 787-8
Dallas – Athens gives them a fifth Athens flight. Premium leisure to Athens is strong. This is just a Boeing 787-8, though, so very few business class seats to fill.
Prague and Budapest were pre-pandemic destinations American had added, serving the river cruse market. They had cheap lift then in the form of Boeing 767s, which were retired during the pandemic. Now they’ll be served with Boeing 787-8s as well. That’s great in some ways, but again tough to get business class on that aircraft.
American used to serve Dallas- Zurich (not since 2007) and Miami – Milan (ended in 2020). American is the only U.S. carrier with announced service to Budapest. I always thought a New York JFK – BUdapest flight would be workable for Delta (but that United might try it first from Newark).
Meanwhile, Aemrican also announced an upgauging of two Tokyo flights – both Dallas and Los Angeles – Tokyo Haneda will see a Boeing 777-300ER replace a Boeing 787-9, representing a lot more premium capacity starting March 29, 2026.
It’s notable, though, that there’s nothing new here for the New York JFK or Chicago O’Hare hubs. And I expected to see Charlotte – Barcelona, to be honest.
Real news.
AA doing something that doesn’t suck.
Where are the two 787-9s going to be deployed?
I guess AA really is simply ‘abdicating’ to Delta and United in NYC. (Good news, @Tim Dunn!) As for the new routes, ‘great’ for you Texans. For Philly, those ‘eastern’ European routes are interesting. I’ve taken Delta’s JFK-PRG, on their ancient 763, and it was nice to not have to connect. Clearly, the 789 is a better aircraft. And I don’t think any other US carriers currently fly nonstop to BUD.
Now I’ve seen everything. Not a single airline serves Budapest from JFK or Newark, so AA decides to serve the city . . . from Philadelphia.
Really nice to see AA growing in Philadelphia. Let’s hope that the new Philadelphia routes run through the end of August. AA ends their seasonal routes so short.
@Sharon — Growing? Other than Frontier, hardly anyone else but American even flies outta Philly!
AA is very “not bold” when it comes to having an uniqueness on route planning. Like nothing Asia to PHX. Of course PHX itself represents the America West mentality. Lounges that mirror 1985.
All but DFW-ATH are recycled routes that flew previously.
BUD and PRG are interesting. The market has softened substantially there as the riverboat cruise industry is not as big along the Danube etc…as it was until 2019 due to droughts. Either AA anticipates strong demand or is just trying to rebuild the network it couldn’t until it had more wide bodies.
MIA-MXP makes sense and should do well.
DFW-ATH will potentially siphon traffic off ORD and CLT to ATH, PHL too.
DFW-ZRH is just there for World Cup and a little premium leisure. There’s no corporate traffic to chase here for such a short season.
@1990 silly boy. PHL is a busy airport with over 30 million pax a year. AA only has about 65% of the market share, the rest is scattered among the domestic and international carriers.
@Mak PHL-BUD makes perfect sense for AA. If there was enough O&D between NYC and BUD there would be service by DL or UA. AA needs the feeder traffic the PHL hub provides to make the leisure route work.