In a move first reported by aviation watchdog JonNYC, American Airlines will drop its third daily Los Angeles – London Heathrow roundtrip effective with the start of the IATA winter season on October 27, 2024. They will also suspend service from Phoenix to London Heathrow for the winter season, from October 27, 2024 through March 28, 2025. These changes will load into the schedule this weekend.
..They just announced more this afternoon internally so far
I think 10-27 is the date they suspend"— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) July 12, 2024
The total number of Los Angeles – London Heathrow flights in the market drops from 10 to 9 daily, and the joint venture American has with BA drops from 6 to 5. Virgin and United each fly the route twice daily, though seasonally United drops to once in Winter which will bring the total number of flights in the market to 8 until spring. Meanwhile, British Airways serves Phoenix with an Airbus A350-100.
According to an American Airlines spokesperson,
As part a continuous evaluation of our network, American Airlines will adjust service from London (LHR). Together with our partner British Airways, we will continue to operate service from more than 25 destinations across the United States to LHR. We’re proactively reaching out to impacted customers to offer alternate travel arrangements.
JonNYC reports that one of the Heathrow slots will be used to retime a Chicago frequency.
This comes as American increased summer Europe capacity year-over-year above industry average and Delta’s earnings announcement and reduced profit expectations suggest that there are too many seats being flown relative to demand.
Winter demand across the Pond always drops markedly, which is why transatlantic low cost carriers face such a challenge since they don’t have a counerseasonal hubs to send planes. It’s easy to make money and fill aircraft flying to Europe in summertime, but business dries up in winter. It’s unclear whether American will use the opportunity of less Boeing 777 transatlantic flying to retrofit Boeing 777-300ERs eliminating first class and installing their new business class suites, or whether we’ll see more domestic widebody and Cancun flying.
The LHR-PHX market peaks in the winter so this drop is a surprise. IIRC when BA had 747s they upgauged PHX in the winter to the 747 whereas in the summer smaller equipment is utilized.
London is a much less important business city than it used to be, and today really only has real gravitas in finance. At the same time London has become less of a tourist destination for Americans. As such, these flights are often empty in front and filled in the back by low spending UK tourists. This is a trend we will see continue.
Two Heathrow slots are going to go unused?
This goes back to United being unable to make BOS-LHR work and then people crowing about DL’s decision to let VS take over the LAX-LHR flight.
and it might also partially explain why UA made half of what DL made across the Atlantic in 2023; UA has more of its own LHR slots than DL.
As much as LHR is tightly slot-controlled, there isn’t a whole lot of surplus demand.
And the larger issue is that AA clearly loses money on some of its LHR flights so whatever network changes are coming will involve much more than LHR.
AA has to figure out how to make money esp. in light of the coming FA contract settlement and bonus/retro. their route system will be smaller.
Going to need those wide bodies to run people back down south this coming spring time. Omni and Atlas can only move so many on those government contract charters.
Maybe AA threatened him with a clawback suit if he demanded a big payout. Therefore, he took the modest sum (all things relative) and is bidding his time till he can consult or do similar damage at another airline.
If any corporation is smart (and I am amazed each time I read this webpage), a clawback feature needs to become standard practice for those in the C-Suite..
As a California native.living in London, I’d take Virgin Atlantic across the pond any day over AA (and have flown both carriers for years).
Mak’s points about London are also spot on.
Seems unlikely, yet possible that AF entering the PHX market may have crimped AA on the LHR route. In the winter, you were forced to go through Heathrow (Condor is seasonal), now you can get there quicker. A lot of demand was connecting continent traffic, which may have moved to the more logical AF.
@Tim Dunn,
As usual, you spout nonsense and are blinded by the glow of the widget. BOS-LHR was never going to work for UA, for the same reason it didn’t in the 2000s. BOS is not a huge market for UA and it doesn’t have deep legs there, beyond flights to the hubs. The AA/BA partnership makes it irrelevant whose metal is on the route. AA is #3 at BOS, but still has a significant presence there and there probably is enough corporate traffic to keep the route running all winter long + connections over LHR.
UA doesn’t have feed at LHR. It is simply an O&D station and it provides often unreliable service on its supposedly most premium route, to EWR, flying 30-50 year old 767-300ERs that have regular mx issues.
DL has no feed either, and struggles on routes like SLC, DTW, and LAX, but it does have POS strength thanks to its ownership of VS.
AA doesn’t need 3 x daily on LAX-LHR in winter, and it is taking its 777-300ERs off line a few at a time for mods, supposedly, plus any heavy maintenance required on a subset of 787-8s that were the first to be delivered to the carrier. It needs capacity for Latin America, where demand is strongest in the Northern Hemisphere Winter, specifically to EZE/GRU + GIG.
London is not the printing press of profit it was pre-pandemic. It is still a major market but there are challenges in running the schedules for all of the US3. AA is more shielded because of the BA partnership and the transit traffic.
Delta’s revenue report this week shows the entire TATL is slowing down in the off season and slowly getting back to a more normal cycle. The post-pandemic boom in demand is slowing considerably.
So 2 unused slot pairs. Wonder who is getting those? Use them or lose them applies to LHR not just US and so something/one must be filling them during W24-25 no?
It wasn’t that long ago that AA was 1x a day year round and 2x summer seasonal to LHR from LAX, so having the third flight drop seasonally isn’t a stretch.
Of course, Tim Dunn quickly forgets that Delta dropped LAX-LHR completely.
Gary, this comes as AF has started Phoenix service. I think AA couldn’t handle the competition as most of us switched to using CDG as a hub over LHR when given the choice.
The hypocrisy is stunning.
Of course AA and BA are in a joint venture but so is DL and VS – and yet multiple people crowed endlessly about DL handing off LAX-LHR #3 to VS
And using the 339 that flew LAX-LHR plus other resources, DL added 2% more capacity across the Atlantic in the 2nd quarter and even more across the Pacific as well as Latin America.
The clear difference is that BA is NOT replacing the capacity that AA is cutting – at least so far. In fact, in LAX, BA is NOT only not replacing AA’s capacity but BA is cutting capacity as well.
AA simply does not make money flying the Atlantic and Pacific and has to cut what doesn’t work. We are simply seeing where that weakness is.
And DL does have access to Europe from PHX via the AF/KL/VS JV. The DL and friends JV allows for all of the capacity and revenue to benefit the whole JV not unlike the AA and UA JVs.
and thank you, Larry, for confirming that UA started BOS-LHR with no hope of making money so they blinked first.
As for the slots, AA can swap or lease them to BA which is exactly what DL and VS do which is why VS is flying more to India and the Middle East and DL is able to connect more traffic via LHR
Tim complaining about hypocrisy is stunning. Pot, meet kettle.
Now Tim will resort to name calling.
And no Timmy, I’m not an AA or UA fanboy like you accuse others of being. Just pointing out that you can’t see beyond your blinders.
There’s a big difference between dl dropping lax-lhr and aa dropping Phx-lhr, tim.
Delta claimed to be building lax and their two competitors aa and ua fly their own metal on lax-lhr. Delta dropped their own metal on lax-lhr implying that their own customer base in la was too weak to support delta metal and their partner, VS, was the carrier with better POS to fly the route from london. Aa has no competition on Phx-lhr whatsoever to leak to competitors. Their customers will either fly BA nonstop or they won’t go nonstop.
Very different scenarios
But again… hypocrisy claims from you? Lol
carry on if you must but it is clear that there was overcapacity in the LAX-LHR market as well as from PHX but that didn’t stop a whole lot of people at throwing shade at DL for swapping out LAX-LHR #3 with VS so DL could put the capacity DL flew on its own metal in another market which is part of the JV.
AA and BA are cutting total capacity.
AA has to turn its international operation around which is still unprofitable across the Atlantic and Pacific. Latin can’t justify the size of AA’s total fleet and international operations. AA will be even smaller flying the Atlantic because there are other routes that very likely bleed more money than LAX and PHX to LHR
UA started BOS-LHR knowing they couldn’t make money according to some here – and they are likely right.
I point out obvious facts which you and others don’t want to hear or see – and you call it hypocrisy.
The only hypocrisy comes from those that jumped all over DL’s decision when it was clear all along that DL was reacting to market conditions and does what maximizes revenue and profits long before AA and UA – but AA and UA ultimately have no choice but to follow.
You mean you want me to quit stating the very inconvenient facts which you don’t want to hear. That is all you really care about
I can participate using voice texting with no keyboards involved
You’re so cool, tim 😉
Great job mastering voice text
Well, Mrs. Woofie will be most displeased since the AA PHX-LHR flight was her preferred mode of travel.
I can only speak to the business cabin, but I am not seeing a lot of business travelers on that flight.
This really seals the AA Exec Plat vs BA Gold question for me. BA it is then, which since I have slagged them off royally for years smacks of hypocrisy, but my sense is they are trying to improve which is more than I can say for AA. As a long time apologist for AA, I am sorry to have them place me in this position, but I am done with them. (My last First flight PHX-LAX-LHR was a total cluster, culminating with us deplaning at LHR down a steep and uncovered stair, where the AA staff left an elderly and disabled gent who was rightly wheelchaired on, struggle down the stairs with his stick by himself. Disgraceful. I took his bag and helped him off the bus. Since I am close to my 3 score + 10 I expect we made a good couple.)
The AF flight to CDG and thence on to BHX is looking better by the day. It will save me ~$400 on taxis.
Interesting, a long time ago, Lord Marshall, then head of BA told me the LHR-PHX route was one of their more profitable due to cargoes of Motorolla chips. Which two yuge new fabs — Taiwan Semi and Intel, one has to wonder if that cargo trade will return
My anecdotal observations have been that the PHX-LHR flight have always been sold out in J and W with variability in Y but usually pretty strong. This drop is a bit of a surprise as the route does very well year-round, even with BA flying alongside AA. My suspicion is that AA needs to drop quite a few routes this fall for 773 refurb program (project Olympus) as it will be going into full swing…
YES, Tim, American is in a JV with British Airways and is thus insulated to a certain extent from the P&L on shared routes. DL and VS — on PAPER at least — may be in a JV, but BA doesn’t own 49% of AA the way DL owns 49% of VS. (This does not include the 20% of AM, 3% of AF/KLM, etc., etc.).
Stereotypically, trans-Atlantic flying is a two-way street — er, route. American tourists fly to Europe in the Summer (and the shoulder seasons of Spring and Fall). The Brits fly south to Spain, Greece, etc. in the warm months. But in the winter, the Brits are “snowbirds,” just like the Canadians, I would *think* a winter flight LHR-PHX would be a more profitable route for BA than PHX-LHR for AA — if true, it shows the benefit of a JV.
Just seasonal shift of flying. So relax. No slots going dormant, no need to reallocate slots. Those trips will come back in the spring.
Dunn is a third rate contributor to a pump and dump site, seeking alpha.
@MAK said this re London: “…and today really only has real gravitas in finance.”
No, even that is gone.
Since Brexit, London found that it could no longer be the financial capital of the EU, since it is no longer in the EU.
Vilnius is where many financial HQ’s have relocated now.
London is a museum.
pilot,
tell us that when AA cuts the capacity every year in a market where it has a JV partner – even though British Airways has signed codeshare agreements with B6 and AS outside of the AA JV.
I know exactly of what I speak.
AA and BA cut alot of capacity from LHR because the market is way overcapacity.
Bummer. That late afternoon flight was the best way to get to the EU from PHX. Sleep on the first leg and then wakeup and take the connection. I’ve take it 2 to 3 times a year in those off peak times and it is always full. It helps that BA has a flight to LHR, and AA now gives full credit for partner airlines. But no way to apply a systemwide upgrade.
Has anyone else noticed that Air France has already upgauged PHX to a 777 starting in Novevember?
In 1990 I had occasion to fly non-stop from London to Los Angeles on Virgin. It was obviously quite a long flight, with time for two full movies and I don’t remember how many meals, and the airline seemed to have the service down pat to make it a pleasant experience despite the length. I have been to London over 125 times, mostly on business with little opportunity to see what London has to offer (besides airports, hotels, offices, the Tube and riding in taxis on the left side of the road), but it surprises me that London has allegedly lost its luster as a tourist destination. One does not have to be an Anglophile to appreciate the concentration of important historical events and sites in London, almost all of which are as accessible in the rainy-but-not-snowy winters there as in summer.
@larry I don’t know where you’re getting your figures from, but no 767-300 anywhere is remotely close to 50 years old. You’re about two decades off. The oldest 767-300 in United’s fleet, N641UA, is a 1991 bird that is currently 33 years old. That’s not young, but it’s also only 3 years before the A330 went into service. Good grief.
Concerning the PHX-LHR flight, some may not realize that when BA first started this route in the 1990s, PHX was an intermediate stop. The routing was LHR-PHX-SAN and SAN-PHX-LHR. It took some years to develop traffic on the route before BA could drop the extension over to SAN and back. It looks like AA is still developing the traffic feed necessary to offer this nonstop year-round.