American Airlines is eliminating service entirely to Long Beach, California; Columbus, Georgia; and Del Rio, Texas. American Airlines is the only carrier serving Del Rio. This is the result of losing Mesa Airlines as a regional partner.
While American had apparently planned to load these changes over the weekend, news was broken by aviation watchdog JonNYC.
So far, Long Beach (LGB) and Columbus airport in Georgia. AA exiting.
I’m pretty sure they are getting offered jobs at LAX or another AA airport in the case of LGB.
— 🇺🇦 JonNYC 🇺🇦 (@xJonNYC) January 5, 2023
According to an American Airlines spokesperson,
In response to the regional pilot shortage affecting the airline industry and soft demand, American Airlines has made the difficult decision to end service in Columbus, Georgia (CSG), Del Rio, Texas (DRT) and Long Beach, California (LGB) this spring.
We’re extremely grateful for the care and service our team members provided to our customers in these cities, and are working closely with them during this time. We’ll proactively reach out to customers scheduled to travel to offer alternate arrangements.
The airline’s only Long Beach service was from Phoenix, operated by Mesa Airlines. Their Dallas – Columbus service was also operated by Mesa, though Charlotte – Columbus was flown by wholly-owned regional carrier Piedmont.
Del Rio, Texas which is on the Mexican border at one point had ExpressJet (United Express) service to Houston. However, American’s Dallas service has been its only commercial operation for some time. That’s been operated by SkyWest. American isn’t able to fully replace its Mesa flying with SkyWest, so the priority for SkyWest’s Bombardier regional jets (and pilots!) is elsewhere.
Mesa didn’t have the pilots to operate all of its commitments, and it was losing money. Its deal with American ran through the end of 2025, but the two carriers terminated their deal early. American claimed they wanted to terminate because Mesa was unreliable. Mesa says this is false and that American actually wanted to extend their deal. American would have been happy to keep paying money-losing rates to Mesa! United entered into a new deal with Mesa, and received 10% of the business.
Mesa has a reputation as the bottom-feeder of the regional industry, derisively known as ‘Messy’ for the poor condition in which some of their cabin interiors are kept. Their flying for American has generally been scheduled to end April 3. Moving to other carriers is better for American’s passengers where it’s possible, but it isn’t always possible. So American drops its least profitable routes, and that’s bad for passengers in those cities. Columbus, Georgia at least still has Delta service to Atlanta, while Del Rio will need to open a checkbook and look for an airline.
This is another example of what occurs when there is too much consolidation in the airline industry. The federal government was lax in enforcing the antitrust laws after the last series of consolidations. The obvious result of this is the loss of service to small communities across the United States. The DOJ and the administrations (past and present) are to blame.
Simply put, small communities will lose service because its not profitable to operate. As labor costs surge, either ticket prices rise to compensate or small regionals go out of business. Why should airlines be expected to service markets that are not profitable? Its simple economics. To counter the point on consolidation, despite the fact that there are only a few major players left, inflation adjusted airfares are some of the WORST performing goods and services, which is opposite of what everyone fears from consolidation.
Maybe if the airlines hadn’t paid $20,000 entry level wages for decades, there would be more pilots in the pipeline.
Moreover small city service should be MORE viable, not less, when there’s less competition. If several airlines have to battle it out in small city, none can make any money. If American couldn’t make enough money to operate AS THE ONLY AIRLINE THERE then there’s no world in which multiple airlines would have made money!
And in fact, consolidation lets fewer airlines operate on routes which stretches out the pilot supply and makes it possible to serve more cities! More airlines would mean more carriers serving New York and Los Angeles, and far less service possible to smaller cities.
Southwest serves Long Beach from Phoenix. Columbus is closer to Atlanta than it is to Charlotte. So there’s no big loss in those places. Maybe Mesa will fly to Del Rio from Houston.
LGB = presumably makes sense because there are so many other options in the area.
CSG = probably not worth it to compete that deep into DL country, when driving to ATL (~90 min) is a real option for any flight of significance (e.g. intl).
DRT = wondering if this is an airport that is heavily industry-linked. Was that a market where they could get big fares from oilfield folks, and has that cooled off some?
American Airlines won’t honor it original promotion for a new Visa card with 2 tickets to any us destination. Now with no deadline to use my nearly 68,000 miles from about 5 years ago: Advantage miles will only provide me with 1 round trip ticket to LAX or 1 ticket to Pam Springs CA. Essentially, my ability to use my miles had deteriorated the value of the Advantage mileage.
In addition to the fact that these miles expire if not used before it’s 2024 deadline- doesn’t honor reward miles lifetime, like many other airlines. I will have to pay for an additional ticket for about $1000 for an additional RT ticket to Southern California.
I am very. Disappointed and will not fly American Airlines ever again after I use the miles for only one Rt ticket.
The new CEO has not improved this situation and don’t want to honor their original promotion to me.
This is what the Post Office should be doing – but they have no “profit motive” but the backing of a big, corrupt, congress to bail them out.
The service to Columbus was subsidized locally. AA didn’t go there because the market itself was attractive.
Delta was operating 4 50-seaters a day to ATL before Covid. Then 3. And now somedays only 2.
Delta will be shifting to 2 70-seaters a day when they phase out Skywest 50 seaters, so CSG will have 140-seats a say, down from 150.
So none of this has anything to do with greed and anti-trust and blah, blah, blah.
It’s just a lousy market as is Del Rio, one of the poorest places in the US.
Long Beach is an expensive place to do business and without Mesa, AA doesn’t think it’s worth mainline.
United pulled out of LGB ages ago.
@CW, yes, DRT is industry-linked, but not from oil, from the Air Force. It is the home of Laughlin AFB, a UPT base. I was stationed there as an ATC in the 80s and we were Del Rio Approach Control, at the time the busiest RADAR facility in the Air Force. As goforride says above, it is very poor, always has been. When I was there, Border Airlines used to fly to SAT from there and Continental used to fly Saabs there from IAH when they had them. It is a 2+30 hour drive to SAT from there.
Joe B and family can have their free fares on Air Force I & II. He’s not the least concerned about what the major cost increase in jet fuel does to the peons.
Cary Selby, use AA shopping Portal to Extend your miles. Very easy to do. Even Walmart participates.
Unfortunately, gone are the days of the mom-and-pop airlines. If there was still a way to do a mom-and-pop airline, then DRT would still have it. What would it take now to get a mom-and-pop airline running today?
I worked for Piedmont in PHL for years inside at the gates. I read quite a few of the posted comments. However, I didn’t see any referring back to American saying that Mesa is unreliable. This is one of those times when I absolutely agree with corporate. My only question is why did it take so long?
@John – Mesa wanted out of the deal, not American, though.
SkyWest also flys to LGB for AA, not just Mesa. I love that overnight though, if AA is pulling out Seal Beach will be missed!
This service go through the right area of that customer.
I think same thing happened to AA from LAX to Reno. Got me a RT ticket from Reno to Bangkok for June 12 to 28th. AA changed the completely canceled my return from LAX to Reno with NO alternatives. Called Expedia and was told airlines can not do partial refund. 1 cancel and rebook or 2 find my own way back from LAX to Reno. Booked in Sept and canceled in on November 6th. Expedia still has not refunded the 14k for the air for 3 people. Had to call Wells Fargo credit on December 6th 2022, as of today 1.6.23, still no refund