American Airlines pulled out of Israel after merging with US Airways. US Airways had flown Philadelphia – Tel Aviv. I expected American to continue and grow there when they dropped El Al as a frequent flyer program partner.
After looking to fly to Tel Aviv again they agreed to Israel’s largest-ever route subsidy to launch Dallas Fort-Worth – Tel Aviv. That flight will presumably come, bringing Christian missionary business from the middle of the country.
As part of their soon-to-launch relationship with JetBlue, American will begin New York JFK – Tel Aviv, the most crowded Israel market but also the biggest.
Now they’ve announced the route that seemed to make sense six years ago when it looked like they’d go it alone to Israel: Miami – Tel Aviv. They’ve also announced six other new international routes, and two domestic Saturday-only regional jet routes. To several Latin cities they’ll be bigger this summer than they were in 2019.
Here are the new international flights:
| From | To | Days | Start Date | Departure | Arrival | Aircraft |
| Miami | Paramaribo | M-T-Th-Fr-Su | 1-Jul | 5:30pm | 11:30pm | A319 |
| Paramaribo | Miami | M-T-W-Fr-Sa | 2-Jul | 1:45am | 5:05am | A319 |
| Charlotte | Samaná | W-Sa | 5-Jun | 9:45am | 1:05pm | E-175 |
| Samaná | Charlotte | W-Sa | 5-Jun | 2:00pm | 5:30pm | E-175 |
| Miami | Tel Aviv | W-Fr-Su | 4-Jun | 8:00pm | 3:10pm+1 | B772 |
| Tel Aviv | Miami | M-Th-Sa | 5-Jun | 11:55pm | 6:25am | B772 |
| Dallas | St Maarten | Saturdays | Jun 5 – Aug 14 | 8:50am | 3:15pm | A319 |
| St Maarten | Dallas | Saturdays | Jun 5 – Aug 14 | 2:35pm | 7:14pm | A319 |
| Dallas | St. Lucia | Saturdays | Jun 5 – Aug 14 | 8:40am | 3:40pm | A321 |
| St. Lucia | Dallas | Saturdays | Jun 5 – Aug 14 | 2:30pm | 7:22pm | A321 |
| Dallas | Mérida | Saturdays | Jun 5 – Aug 14 | 10:55am | 1:37pm | E175 |
| Mérida | Dallas | Saturdays | Jun 5 – Aug 14 | 2:17pm | 4:51pm | E175 |
| Los Angeles | Cancun | Saturdays | Jun 5 – Aug 14 | 8:45am | 3:36pm | A321 |
| Cancun | Los Angeles | Saturdays | Jun 5 – Aug 14 | 4:40pm | 7:46pm | A321 |
American will also operate Miami – Little Rock, Arkansas and Portland, Maine Saturdays between June 5 and August 16. And they’re adding capacity out of Miami,
- Port-au-Prince (PAP) goes 5x daily plus an additional Fort Lauderdale – Port-au-Prince flight in April
- Santiago (STI) and Santo Domingo (SDQ) go 4x and 7x
- More flights to several Latin American cities this summer versus 2019 (they no longer have a LATAM partnership for feed): Bogota (BOG); Medellin (MDE); Cali (CLO); Guayaquil (GYE); Quito (UIO); Lima (LIM); and Santiago (SCL) plus Port-au-Prince.
Flights go on sale February 15, so that’ll be a good time to check whether award availability exists up front on the new Tel Aviv flight.
I’m personally looking forward to the new Merida flight which would be a nice add coming from Austin, though I wish it wasn’t Saturday-only. It’s a better jumping off point than Cancun for Chichen Itza and the legacy Starwood Haciendas that have been on my radar for awhile.
Great……Now if only they would make Aadvantage seats available without having to pay double points.
Merida is farther than Cancun from Chichen Itza and Cancun has great bus service. Why would Merida be preferable to get there?
@Christian – Gary is saying that Merida is an objectively better place to visit, not that it’s the quickest point from which to get to another destination. People love the place (of course, that’s likely to change if nonstops bring a deluge of tourists).
@CW – We ran the Merida Half Marathon the other year and was very disappointed with Merida. With all the design hype in magazines, we expected more.
I agree that more non-stops into a quiet place changes the place dramatically. One of the best parts of San Miguel dA is that it takes 45 mins to reach Leon and Leon only has flights thru Dallas (from us on the east coast).
All 3 of these new TLV routes will not last if they even make money. AA has a knack for chasing after the shiniest new object and throw way too much capacity into the market, only to sabotage their own success.
Re-entering TLV is necessary for AA’s network – if it can make even one route work.
Trying 3 new routes in one year is unprecedented even in the best of times – and shows why it is highly unlikely that AA will succeed with all 3 TLV routes.