British Airways is cutting a surprising destination from its network, as flagged by @IshrionA. While the implications here are limited in some ways, I can’t help but find this to be interesting.
In this post:
British Airways hands Dallas route to American
British Airways has long flown between London Heathrow (LHR) and Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), and has even pretty consistently flown the Airbus A380 on the route, which is the world’s largest passenger jet. That’s not too surprising, given that DFW is American’s biggest hub, so there’s lots of connectivity.
Not only are the two airlines both part of the oneworld alliance, but they also belong to the same transatlantic joint venture, meaning that they can coordinate schedules and fares, and share revenue.
With the current winter of 2024-2025 schedule, American operates four flights per day in the market, while British Airways operates one flight per day. However, the summer of 2025 schedule has just been updated, and with this, we’ll see British Airways completely discontinue flying between the two major airports as of March 30, 2025.
Instead, American is adding a fifth daily flight between Dallas and London, timed the same as the British Airways flight that was previously scheduled. British Airways was initially supposed to fly an A380 in the market next summer, then it was downgraded to an A350, and now it has been transfered to American.
It remains to be seen if this will only apply for the summer of 2025 schedule, or if it also gets extended into the following winter. I suspect this is just a summer change, as British Airways probably doesn’t have better places to fly all of its planes in winter.
With joint ventures, there’s supposed to be as much “metal neutrality” as possible, but many people still have a preference to fly one airline over the other, whether it’s because of service, frequent flyer perks, or whatever else (then again, American and British Airways aren’t exactly airlines that people fly because of the service). 😉
What should we make of this route development?
It’s not unusual to see joint venture partners switch around routes and frequencies, to optimize their networks. For example, we’ve seen Delta discontinue its Los Angeles to London route, and hand that over to Virgin Atlantic.
The reason I find this route swap to be quite noteworthy is because American has been dealing with a shortage of long haul aircraft, due to Boeing 787-9 delivery delays. Executives at the airline have repeatedly pointed out that this has limited international growth prospects.
But now American seemingly has the planes to add a fifth daily flight between Dallas and London. It’s yet another reminder that American is basically a huge domestic airline that also has a robust network to London and decent network to Latin America, plus a sprinkling of other service to Europe and Asia.
I suspect American is able to operate this route because it has delayed its Boeing 777-300ER retrofit project, and plans to only commence that in late 2025, after the summer schedule. I guess it was decided that British Airways could better utilize a wide body jet elsewhere, while American will just throw yet another plane at London.
Bottom line
British Airways doesn’t plan to fly between London and Dallas in the summer of 2025, even though it has historically been a route that has been operated by the A380. British Airways is handing the route over to its joint venture partner, American, as the airline will pick up a fifth daily frequency. So much for American having a shortage of long haul aircraft!
What do you make of British Airways cutting Dallas flights?
This actually doesn't seem that surprising. AA and BA are both facing long haul equipment shortages, although AA seemingly prefers to do as little as possible through NYC. This presumably allows BA to add another 777 frequency to NYC where they actually compete with a decent business class and already run the majority of TA flying, freeing up the A380 for another leisure route.
BA using their most hated aircraft on a single frequency to...
This actually doesn't seem that surprising. AA and BA are both facing long haul equipment shortages, although AA seemingly prefers to do as little as possible through NYC. This presumably allows BA to add another 777 frequency to NYC where they actually compete with a decent business class and already run the majority of TA flying, freeing up the A380 for another leisure route.
BA using their most hated aircraft on a single frequency to Dallas where few other A380s fly presumably didn't make competitive sense. Why not let AA own the route, I'm sure American was happy to give away another JFK slot in return.
Regardless of aircraft, AA or BA would both be naturally more competitive in J class hard product than LH, and more reliable than AF, so I am not sure they care too much about service...
Maybe this is the start of a bigger picture
Anyone notice or care that AA has dropped its daytime flight from ORD-LHR? It's not coming back next year.
God Bless Texas
Just a BA fleet issue. And, if you're going to hand something off to AA, makes sense to give AA a DFW flight since it's always easier to source nearly any aircraft out of DFW.
Both have poor service but I would never fly BA. The chance of random industrial action or other failure as a result of their poor management make BA an airline I always avoid.
BA approached AA regarding the ability to fly this route due to ongoing engine issues. The 773’s were scheduled to be under utilized due to the retrofit program schedule (now slightly delayed) so the frequency was able to be picked up.
J award on BA using AA points is 57.5k. J award on AA using AA points is 200k+. Given revenue sharing, the decision is rather transparent.
57.5k plus $$$ though - that's a big difference.
I think it's a combination of shortage of aircraft by BA (they've cancelled a couple of long haul routes for both winter 24 and summer 25) coupled with AA having surplus slots cancelling one ORD-LHR and one LAX-LHR flight each for summer 25.
I don’t fly out of Dallas but too bad for everyone. I am sure that the flying public will learn of this change and throw a fit. For British Airways, not having a presence in Dallas seems crazy. AA and BA are not the same airline.
Maybe BA is taking A380s into the shop for new interiors next year and this is the first of many route suspensions for 2025? They did initially think about using an A350, then dropped it. DFW might come back with shiny new suites in 2026.
Exactly what I thought, the refurb is supposed to start soon on the A380 fleet.
says that the BA name in North Texas has no additive value over what AA can or cannot do.
Unlike Delta cutting Los Angeles to London, of course.
Don’t forget to include the LHR cuts that AA and UA made
you mean the two carriers that still fly LAX-LHR, unlike Delta that has withdrawn from the route twice in recent memory?
Sometimes you just need to move on, Tim.
All the time you need to quit trying so hard to fling poop. Especially since American and United have canceled flights that you are unwilling to talk about.
Feel free to name a single flight I'm "Unwilling to talk about". That's such a stupid thing to say.
I could care less when AA or UA stop routes or lower frequency on existing routes. But I also don't pretend they didn't and fling random irrelevant crap into a conversation, like you desperate to defend Daddy Delta.
Delta is the only US3 carrier that does not fly the biggest oceanic market out of...
Feel free to name a single flight I'm "Unwilling to talk about". That's such a stupid thing to say.
I could care less when AA or UA stop routes or lower frequency on existing routes. But I also don't pretend they didn't and fling random irrelevant crap into a conversation, like you desperate to defend Daddy Delta.
Delta is the only US3 carrier that does not fly the biggest oceanic market out of LAX on their own metal. They've failed twice at LAX-LHR and they handed it off to their lower cost partner, VS.
It's a smart business move because, unlike you, Delta knows their own sales strength in LAX is weak relative to AA and UA (or, at least, AA since UA doesn't have a JV partner to hand off LAX-LHR to) and they didn't want to be the low cost leader on the route. But it also reinforces Delta's own weakness in LAX that they've now canceled the route twice on their own metal.
Try your best to not always defend Delta and you won't have to defend your absurd statements. Delta makes business decisions that expose their own weakness in a market (and yes. Delta is the weakest in southern California vs AA and UA in just about every metric when you're actually considering what matters, loyalty penetration in the area, not pure metal count which seems to be the only thing you know about)
@Tim Dunn, if you want to go that route, you also forget about DL trimming their LAX-CDG-LAX route. Now it looks REALLY bad.
Nothing wrong with logical business decisions, but it does go against and directly contradict the whole "number one in LAX" blah blah blah crap you drivel out.
Oh, and for BA this is a temporary suspension, not permanent like DL.
This is good news. At least I'm guaranteed to get a full dinner regardless of which flight I take.
Not surprised, this is why there are joint ventures. `
Ending DFW, no big deal.
Some 4th grader (year 5) loony apologist would suggest you fly between LHR and DEN once per month because there is "no better carrier".
I wonder who will win this battle.
The "premium" airline or the "no better carrier".
I can understand this operationally. Operating a single A380 flight to a city is challenging in terms of crew rosters, ground logistics etc. For BA, it would make more sense to give this flight to AA, and instead use the A380 take over one of AA's flights from New York to LHR. In theory this should be revenue neutral, but produce cost savings.
So it's probably good for AA and BA, but obviously not so good for consumer choice.
BA have never, and will never use A380s to NYC
BA have never used A380s to NYC because Terminal-7 did not have class-F wingspan capable gates.
Terminal-8 does. They have the option now, if they choose.
Maybe BA will bring the A380 back to Chicago
Doubt it. BA has moved its ORD operations to T3, and T3 doesn't have A380 capable gates.
BA have never flown an A380 to NYC because Terminal 7 did not have class-F wingspan capable gates.
Terminal 8 does. So they now have the option, if they choose.
Most likely a result of BA’s well publicised long haul equipment shortages at the moment, makes sense for AA to pick up the slack on a route like this whilst BA gets grounded airframes back in the air
A huge loss for UK travellers. It's nice to transit in T5 and arrive at home on a domestic flight but now being downgraded to AA and having to change terminals I'll be going via AMS in future.
At this point, just rename it America-to-London Airlines....
Any A380 loss is disappointing too