American Airlines is launching a new long haul Pacific route, Dallas to Auckland, complementing Qantas Dallas – Sydney service. They won’t restart Los Angeles – Auckland, though, and they’re dropping the idea of Dallas – Tel Aviv. The long-expect Seattle – Bangalore flight, which was supposed to be American’s first return to India, won’t happen until (at least) summer 2023 if it comes to fruition.
There are several more route changes as American adjusts its international strategy as well.
- Seattle – Bangalore won’t start until (at least) summer 2023. They blame Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but they’re still short planes (their own fleet retirements and Boeing delivery delays), still-limited business travel, and United’s planned San Francisco – Bangalore flight presents real competition from a hub with more local demand. American’s New York JFK – Delhi service continues to sell well, though, despite challenges posed by the lack of access to Russian airspace.
- Dallas Fort Worth – Tel Aviv eliminated this was supposed to be American’s first flight returning to Tel Aviv since the old US Airways Philadelphia route. However their New York JFK service is doing well. Evangelical demand in the Midwest turns out to be not as a good a business as New York (or for that matter Miami) at least compared to pre-pandemic bets.
- Los Angeles – Auckland dropped Joint venture partner Qantas hasn’t brought this back into their schedule either. I wrote in the fall that American would no longer view LAX as their Asia gateway and would likely only operate international long haul departures to partner hubs with limited competition – London, Tokyo, and Sydney.
- Dallas – Auckland new service. American certainly has more connecting opportunities through Dallas compared to Los Angeles, and less competition.
- Dallas – Beijing and Seattle – Shanghai won’t restart until summer 2023. Presumably China will be out of lockdown by then, since the 20th Peoples Congress will have happened and President Xi will have been re-elected unless a whole lot of out of the money puts pay off.
- 3 more routes cancelled Dallas – Lima, New York JFK – Cali, Colombia, and New York JFK – Medellin, Colombia. New York is doing far better for American than it used to, bolstered in part by their joint venture with JetBlue but mostly by a renewed commitment to the region. However not every flight will work. And Lima has always been a low yield play for American.
It’s disappointing to see Seattle take a hit both with Shanghai and Bangalore, not so much for those flights (where not serving the routes at this time makes sense) but because they have represented the potential of using Seattle and the Alaska Airlines partnership for a new gateway to Asia – as Los Angeles has been de-emphasized for that role.
And it’s disappointing to see the first Tel Aviv idea fizzle, but American now serves Israel from both New York and Miami. So it isn’t too disappointing. And seasonal New Zealand service out of Dallas is something the market doesn’t already have. As for Shanghai they really can’t expect to ask crews to layover in this. American will continue their current flight via Seoul, however.
Use of the term ‘evangelical’ is disconcerting a better term would be religious tourism or pilgrimage if you want. Evangelical is a term for ‘spreading good news’ and IMO often misused to refer to fundamentalists xians when there is little ‘good’ in the ‘news’ they spread
More significant is that AA execs are FINALLY admitting that their widebody buildup of the last decade at LAX was a financial disaster, something that those of us that do analysis of the industry said years ago.
Well I am an evangelical and the news I spread is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which I would never force on anyone but I’m always ready to share the reason for the hope that is inside of me. I too have concerns with the misuse of the term or misapplication which then makes it seem dirty …same with fundamentalist views and so forth, the word means a central or primary rule or principle upon which something is based…again often misused but that rule or principle can be wrong in some cases. I also hate the word religious because it is often misused. In the end people misuse terms applying to other people’s beliefs purposely or ignorantly …I wish people that likely have their own views or beliefs where they are frustrated by others lack of understanding would do unto others but today that seems to not be the core principle many espouse.
I would say that any AA service competing against airlines with larger aircraft on these long haul flights would be my last choice. AA being the largest US carrier has no real jumbo aircraft…..for the really long hauls I’d rather be on the 380 or 747-400 or 747-8 so there can be ample offerings of higher classes of service. Just not enough space on the 787 and while their 777-300 is quite large it is still small compared or sitting next to a Quantas 380-800…pulled into a gate in Dallas once and when you see them side by side it is obvious. Clearly the 380 has its place and AA should put their hands on a few if they want to compete in the ultra long haul market meaningfully.
@Tim Dunn – AA itself was pretty clear back in 2018 that they were losing tons of money on their China flying. Pre-pandemic LAX-HKG wasn’t as bad as you’d expect since the incremental add on top of DFW-HKG required only one aircraft. At least it was efficient, but operationally it was a disaster and frequently weight restricted. They never did *that much* Pacific flying from LA though.
But LUS management came in, Parker told LA-based pilots the airline would start flying to Asia *from Phoenix* which was even dumber [and of course never happened]
Paging Tim Dunn https://twitter.com/drbcb/status/1530164039954878468?
My point isn’t that Delta is worse than others, it’s that if the gap between Delta and others narrows that’s a problem for Delta.
When will the DFW-AKL flights be loaded in AA’s schedule and ready to book? Any ideas or guesses?
Gary,
do you not even have the self-control to discuss the topic of Delta’s operations in the thread YOU started?
And I said years before 2018 that American lost billions flying the Pacific – because the DOT provides the data that airlines provide to them about revenue and costs.
the cost of an aircraft won’t make or break an international route.
And, yes, American operated more longhaul international routes from LAX than any US airline has in a very long time, if ever. It was an epic fail and they finally acknowledged what many of us knew all along.
because they didn’t add PHX to Asia doesn’t make their LAX losses any less real but the fact that Parker even suggested it highlights how badly out of touch he was – and Isom knew it and now has the chance to run AA the way it should be.
For everyone that thinks all I do is push DL, I happen to think AA is doing some very good things these days and is on a solid track to improvement.
Please invest in Grammarly. There are at least 4 errors.
“A long-expect Seattle – Bangalore flight,”
Ask Tim Dunn to create his own blog so can ignore him over there
or reply to what he accurately and factually presents.