American Airlines is returning to Prague with a summer seasonal flight from Philadelphia onboard a Boeing 787-8 starting May 21, 2026.
They’re also returning to Budapest, and Cranky Flier notes that serving the two in tandem makes sense because of “their positioning as starting and ending points on river cruise trips” – indeed, American Airlines Senior Vice President Brian Znotins reports that “25 percent of [American’s joint venture] travelers going into one come out of the other.”
The airline has been on a blitz to promote the new service, across multiple channels like Instagram and a full database e-mail blast.
Vacation in Prague
Wander through Prague’s timeless beauty with castles, cafés and cobblestone streets
Except that image isn’t Prague!. It’s Český Krumlov in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. American’s marketing of “Prague’s timeless beauty” and Prague’s “castles and cobblestone streets” do not show either. Instead, that’s Český Krumlov Castle complex overlooking the Vltava River, with the town’s historic center and signature red-tiled rooftops.
- Prague isn’t even the closest airport to Český Krumlov, since Linz (with good air connections via Frankfurt, train from Vienna, and plenty of low cost carrier service especially seasonally) is much closer. (Salzburg is just as straightforward a journey though it’s a few kilometers farther away. Munich is about half an hour farther away – American already offered equally convenient service to Český Krumlov!)
- If American wanted an image of a castle for their Prague service, then maybe use… Prague Castle? That’s the most the most significant Czech monument. It’s one of the city’s main landmarks, visible from much of central Prague, and the office of the President of the Czech Republic. And it’s actually in Prague!
Prague Castle, Credit: Tilman2007 via Wikimedia Commons
American Airlines hasn’t flown to Prague since 2019, so I guess the folks in marketing don’t know the place very well? Although they promote that their Atlantic joint venture with British Airways (and Finnair, Iberia and Aer Lingus) serves destinations like this just as well. I guess not! There’s just no substitute for being on the ground.
I will admit to the occasional mistake in my own writing, but I’m just me. American Airlines Group employs over 138,000 people, with 106,000 working at mainline. Is this a legitimate gripe on my part, or just my spectrum showing?
I actually think this matters because it represents my exact diagnosis of what’s been wrong at American Airlines: that the details of the product haven’t mattered in a long time. When they developed their domestic product, Chief Operating Officer David Seymour admits they just “tape[d] it out” instead of focusing on the details of how it would work in practice.
A flight attendant asked whether a mockup was ever done of the airline’s Oasis interior before they rolled it out, since it should have been obvious how bad the experience is. There wasn’t. COO Seymour acknowledged, “there were certainly a lot of learning points on that. What should have been done, and a lot of the work we’ve done is collaboration with a lot of different groups there and there wasn’t as much collaboration as we needed to have.”
It was only after screwing up the new domestic product so badly – from the lavatories to the galleys to first class – that they had to re-retrofit planes that had already been retrofitted (Project Kodiak). As Seymour explained in that employee meeting,
We are doing a lot more mockups and there’s a lot more involvement with all of the work groups we have..”In that particular case…I’ll tell you obviously we certified it that way, it was right at the bare bones, it wasn’t practically applied.
…We’re now building those actual mockups, stationary so that we can actually get the flow and see how the carts go through, see how the passengers with their bags go through.
It was a mistake that should not have happened, it did.
Indeed as the CEO at the time put it, “Immediately post-merger we didn’t do a very good job of having a cross-functional group do this work. and it was largely driven by…network planning people, get the airplane to work the best for network planning and seats etc.”
In fairness, Seymour says they did learn from this and started doing mockups instead of just “you know, tap[ing] it out.”
Unfortunately that learning didn’t extend to the rest of the company. For instance, they outsourced wine selection to their vendors. It’s not just refusing to ‘spend a dollar’ they don’t have to in their CEO’s words, it’s not bothering with the details to get the most for the dollars they’re spending. You can get non-horrible and somewhat drinkable wine at the $6 retail price point, but my experience from a flight last week is that they are not getting those.
Seemingly nobody has gotten ahead paying attention to the details of the product, or the details of the marketing. And it’s the small details that add up to a differentiated product and message.
Flying from Philadelphia given the lack of competition in this route from JFK is far more absurd than the photo.
The saving grace about Philadelphia is that the planes fly much less full and it’s much easier to score an award – oddly, practically a sure thing if you are willing to start your journey on an AA bus from Central Pennsylvania.
Page 762 of War and Peace has a misplaced comma. If America Airlines had written it, would you dedicate a blog post to it?
The big picture is AA stepping up their int’l game after years of domestic concentration and int’l atrophy. A representative Czech castle is just fine. Playing Gotcha is below your talent.
River cruises aren’t as popular or prevalent between Budapest and Prague as they were pre-pandemic so it will be interesting to see if these routes succeed and do as well as they did until 2019. As to the castle’s location, it really doesn’t matter. Most Americans don’t even know where either Prague or Budapest are, and likely would not be able to find them on a map. They’ll probably think either are new additions to Epcot.
How… Kafkaesque /s
@GarySTL – “Page 762 of War and Peace has a misplaced comma. If America Airlines had written it, would you dedicate a blog post to it?”
No, but if Tolstoy’s mistress hadn’t objected to “War, What Is It Good For?” as the original title we might not have woundup with “War and Peace” at all!
Is Japan Airlines truly a Japanese airline if the fly planes made in America?
Is United really united all the time?
Is Delta actually the 4th letter in the Greek alphabet or a mathematical function or an airline?
Do the San Francisco 49ers play in San Francisco?
Etc.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel about Delta and United marketing their initial services to PPT with photos of Bora Bora or Moorea?
BOB is farther from PPT than LNZ is from PRG. 😉
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=prg-lnz;+ppt-bob
We’re talking about Americans here. If we’ve seen one castle (probably at Disneyland), we’ve seen them all.
(On the other hand, I would like to visit Doune Castle someday, if only for the opportunity to stand on the parapet and start taunting people…)
You wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something? If you want to go to Český Krumlov, then you are most likely doing it from Prague. So fly AA to PRG and then an easy drive or train ride down to Český Krumlov.
Relax.
Typical AA stupidity. How do you get to Philly from anywhere west of Chicago? I live in Prague part time. Your best choices from the WC are United through Denver/Frankfort or Finair through Dallas and Helsinki. Everything is 16+ hours from the west. Perhaps this route eliminates AA metal to LHR and then BA to Prague that has a crappy 4-5 hour layover but you can’t get to Philly directly from the WC so what a waste. We usually award tickets fly into Munich (great route and low taxes then fly home from Prague through Helsinki as the taxes are under $50 vs over $140 departing from Germany.
I’m waiting for Seattle to Prague over the pole just to fly that route and to save 6 hours seat/connection time.
@paul — AA adds an additional nonstop from the USA (Delta already had JFK-PRG) and your reaction is to complain that it’s not *your* origin city. Sorry. Woe is you.
If you want a US carrier, try Delta for SEA-JFK-PRG; otherwise, there are countless 1-stop options with European carriers. Heck, you could even fly in luxury to Doha or Dubai, then backtrack to Prague. Like, less whine, more wine. Sheesh.
I named my kids War and Peace. Don’t ask, it’s a long story…
@1990
No whining here
I’ve been flying this route for over 20 years on award tickets.
Delta is flying on pesos (over 60k o/w)
United is almost as bad except TO MUC(less than typical 44k)
AA is the cheapest at 30k or less off season
AS tacks on 10k to book Finair flights (40k total)
I’ve flown millions of miles in COACH and this is the best I’ve found to avoid fuel surcharges and German departure taxes.
If you found a better deal give the details- no whining
@Paul
you’re in luck. It’s pretty easy to get to PHL from lots of places west of Chicago.
https://www.flightconnections.com/flights-from-philadelphia-phl
@paul — For award tickets, none of those seem that unreasonable. USA-Europe is usually cash-price around $1,000 roundtrip on average in Economy these days, so if you can find something for less overall value via points, I’d say you’re still way ahead, even if it’s a circuitous route. You get what you pay for.
As for getting to Philly, AA (and AS) fly there from nearly all major West Coast airports (SEA, PDX, SFO, LAX, SAN); so, once AA gets this PHL-PRG seasonal nonstop up and running, perhaps it will work out for your after all.
Otherwise, if you were to drift away from the three major airline alliances, doesn’t Condor fly SEA-FRA? (Pardon, but for some reason I’m thinking you’re based there.) I haven’t flown them, but I’ve seen their striped a339s around. Wild colors. Thought Alaska points can be redeemed with them as well. Just some ideas.
There are two issues here and some posters seem to be confusing them:
1. Does the use of a castle not located in Prague diminish the effect of the posting so far as advertising American’s newest destinations? The answer is No, in the same way as a misplaced comma in War and Peace does not diminish that great novel.
2. Does the use of a castle not located in Prague reflect on the professionalism and quality of work produced by American’s marketing team and/or advertising agency. Absolutely Yes. It would be interesting to calculate the total cost of the preparation for this advertisement (personnel costs/composition/printing-distribution). The fact that someone decided just to use of picture of any old castle (we don’t know if that search was limited to the Czech Republic) and that no one else in the preparation team has the responsibility to fact check the work (that includes photo verification) is the point being made by the poster.
Whoever made that post for AA should be fired. Not sorry, but if you work for a company that is all about flights, you should know your destination and images that portray it. Get more educated employees please American. Where is all our flight money headed to?
@Gary. Yesterday I checked business class award tickets via that route to BUD from a southern US city: 450k. Just like Delta’s Skypesos.
@Kevin — Why always in such a rush to attack workers? Why not blame leadership, as they should take ultimate responsibility. As for where the money is going, think, not the mere entry-level task-rabbits in their marketing department; no, likely padding the golden parachutes for top executives. Isom got +$15 million total compensation in 2024, yet, you’re ready to wreck some random guy earnin’ $55K at an office in Dallas, probably. Like, pick the right battles, Kev.
Or @1990
@Kevin
realize it’s common to market places 150+ miles away from where you’re flying. See post above about Delta and UA marketing BOB airport when they fly to PPT, quite possibly the dirtiest island in the South Pacific — PPT.