In recent years, summer demand for travel between the United States and Europe has been through the roof, so we’ve seen US airlines add as much capacity there as possible. Every year, we see airlines tweak their European route network a bit, based on both capacity and demand, and announce new services.
Continue reading: American Adds “New” Europe Flights, To Budapest, Prague, And More
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I get their constrained, but would like to see better international strategy out of ORD, CLT, and JFK for AA
It’s a shame JFK is not growing. Was hoping to at least see the HND flight go back to the 777-200. Perhaps waiting on the 321XLR for JFK-Europe growth. I was on the JFK-BUD inaugural on the 767. LHR connections are getting old.
ORD, they just lost a bunch of gates to UA. I think clawing back takes time.
CLT is CLT. I think they just need to put a few dots on the map, and it'll make some money. I'm guessing the aircraft or CLT capacity constraints are the problem here.
JFK should have opportunity. I read that they have something like a dozen or two unused JFK slot pairs.
Hah! By the end of September, I will have flown to all 5 cities in 2025. None with AA. 🙂
Especially given the time it takes to connect thru LHR which is often getting on a bus from your flight, getting on another bus to go to another terminal, and then going thru security. With a little delay it makes the connection a pain
Are they fighting back for those slots vs UA? I thought I read AA thinks they shouldn't have lost them (who knows who is right)
Exhausting. They continue to half ass every major market they need to stop from sinking.
Idk if CLT can take much more widebody flying. I suspect we won't see any XLR routes announced until summer 27 routes are announced.
As much as people want to argue, this shows again that American not competing at JFK is a choice they are making, not something that is forced upon them by slots, market structure, or whatever. Maybe they believe they can make more profits by allocating these flights to other gateways. But American could clearly make a better go at JFK if they wanted to - they just don’t.
Do they have the slots? Surely they could cut back on some of the ones from US cities to international ones, but not sure what their slots look like.
The airport is in bad need of a new terminal or rennovation. Etihad is making it work but I think the time is less than ideal.
According to yoloswag earlier in the comments, they have a dozen unused JFK slots.
American Airlines: connecting middle America to cruise and other tourist destinations via Dallas.
There’s nothing like a Jet2 holiday!
It is interesting (with Budapest and Prague getting flights) that none of the US airlines yet serves Warsaw in Poland. There are direct flights to the US, by just LOT Polish Airlines (I believe UA might code-share them too but nothing beyond that!)
People who go to Budapest in the summer are idiots. I live not-too-far-away and I use all my available time and money to go up north in the summer to escape the unbearable heat. This year is relatively mild but I wouldn't count on it continuing into the future. Prague is a little better but not much, I remember spending basically entire week outdoors and in the parks (which are nice but not worth TATL travel) in the summer of 2020 because it was too hot for anything else.
I am a bit surprised at the route announcements at this stage. I was under the impression demand was softening. Maybe not to Europe?
Polish aviation market is a bit different. Intra-European travel is pretty much dominated by Ryanair and Wizzair who for all intents and purposes are the dominant airlines of Poland. Outside of the EU, the Polish US market is pretty much tapped up with the combination of LOT already serving New York and Chicago direct Warsaw and Krakow as well as Lufthansa and KLM essentially grabbing up the remaining traffic with flights to just about every largish secondary Polish city (think Poznan, Wroclaw etc).
Equally even though LOT is in Star Alliance there’s no longer a codeshare with United.
The real issue is whether all of the changes to US law esp. regarding visitors will make a lot of summer seasonal routes no longer viable; airlines indicated that the second half of the summer for international is softer because of weaker inbound US demand. Many international routes just don't work on US outbound demand which peaks in the first half of the summer. The weaker dollar impacts some American's ability to travel.
The 787-8 is AA's go-to airplane for new markets but it is an expensive aircraft on a CASM basis. and AA still makes routes work from DFW even though it misses half of the country depending on whether the route is to Europe or Asia.
Good to see Tokyo demand is strong; they have had several capacity increases. The US-Japan market is very different than it was pre-covid.
Should also mention Warsaw airport is at capacity and has been for some time. Until the airport is expanded which won’t be ready until 2029 and/or the new airport is Baranow is built, there’s not much room for more major expansions
I think equally concerning is the lack of announcements around seasonal flights that would cater to the World Cup next year hosted in the U.S. Is demand really expected to be that soft in the future?
Still no Manchester - Ben, do you think it's realistic that MAN will ever be served again by any US carrier, or are those days over? Could the A321XLR change this?
Exactly. Just flew AMS-DFW and let’s just say the pax were very different than what I typically see out of JFK and LAX…
Aer Lingus serves it I think. American could do a codeshare. But AA metal unlikely. Best bet is probably United from Newark.
Yes, I believe AA flies 80 something flights during its peak periods. However, AA has 105 slot pairs, meaning that it could operate something like 20 more flights if they wanted to. Instead, they are already flying random low yield regional flights to squat on whatever slots they can.
AA seemingly has no idea what they want to do in JFK. NYLON is the only route AA is competitive on.
Glad they brought back daily MIA-MXP.
Until Covid messed everything up, both AA and now-defunct Air Italy served the route. Pretty solid evidence that there's sufficient demand to fill a 787-8.
I guess the question is what routes are these planes coming off of to work the new routes? Are 787-8's being freed up by the new 787-9 deliveries?
AA has mentioned that it plans to add MAN likely from either ORD or PHL with the A321XLR - it's important to note that this announcement only mentioned the B787-8's primarily which is likely the result of the new B787-9Ps coming into service (5 already delivered (1 scheduled for tmrw) with the expectation of 11 total this year). I would think it is likely AA metal will serve MAN at least from one destination on the XLR - UA has also mentioned interest in this.
AA expects 5 A321XLRs this year (has one already delivered in storage) and ~15-20 next year, but given the seat constraints there was no announcement likely due to uncertainties on when these could come into service. There may be a second announcement later this fall when there is more certainty.
These are all ESTA eligible destinations. And in any event I expect most of the passengers to be American tourists.
And as always American forgets about PHX...so sick of AA as our supposed hometown airline...they're a joke and always have been.
The most long haul allergic big airline in the world...its almost like they're still America West.
American is missing out by not launching JFK - BUD. Thousands from the Jewish community of NY travel to Hungary every year for pilgrimage trips.
I was there recently and it looked like in the evening that all the gates were full on the main concourse. Maybe it’s not always like that, but looking at the carriers at the terminal, the evening looks pretty full. My guess is that while AA may have slots (haven’t checked schedule), it doesn’t have gates for widebody aircraft during the peak time. From there, it may be that unless AA is going to do off-peak Europe or Asia morning flying, the XLR is really the only way AA can expand long haul at JFK.
In the press release AA mentioned that the DFW-ZRH addition and DFW-EZE service in the summer is specifically for the World Cup. In addition AA is adding a MIA-EZE frequency to 3x daily.
I'm sure we will see more additions / charters as we get closer to the WC as well as similar additions from DL and UA.
Why would DFW-ZRH be for the World Cup? AA has no connecting traffic in Zurich, and the Swiss aren't confirmed yet as a team. Madrid or Barcelona would make more sense because AA could get IB / Vueling connecting traffic.
CORRECTION:
AA last served BUD in 2019 (& 2018… & 2011).
For S20 they announced both daily PHL to BUD, AND 3-4x/weekly ORD to BUD!
Same happened with PRG. And ORD was also going to get KRK S20.
FIFA is headquartered in the Zurich area and Qatar Airways/AA are the "official airlines" of the World Cup, and Dallas is supposed to be where the international broadcasters will be based for the tournament (both the Olympics and World Cup usually have a centralized IBC). So there will likely be all sorts of official traffic related to tournament organization/logistics, etc. Then from DFW, everyone can make a connection to Mexico or Canada on AA as needed too.
I'm surprised there isn't PHX to DOH and more PHX to Asia (especially with semi conductors)
"The airport is in bad need of a new terminal or rennovation."
AA has to be very careful there. Charlotte is what it is, because it routinely has the lowest cost-per-enplanement of any major hub in the US. It also has (by far) the highest ratio of transfer passengers to origin passengers.
Construction can suddenly drive Charlotte's enplanement costs way up, both by increases fees/costs to pay for it, and by creating gate scarcity that limits AA's ability to ram the hordes through it. The two combined can very easily upset the balance on an airport with relatively low origin passengers, making it more cost-efficient to route those passengers elsewhere, and creating a snowball effect where it costs more and more to service the origin passengers that the airport does have.
That's why both American and Charlotte's airport authority are so reluctant to change or renovate anything, despite knowing that the airport has been in need of it for so many years.
"I'm surprised there isn't PHX to DOH and more PHX to Asia"
Why? Despite a growing Taiwanese patronage, Phoenix doesn't have much overall demand to Asia at all.
As of 2023, Orlando has much higher demand, but doesn't have a single east Asian nonstop. And Vegas completely dwarfs them both (in total numbers to east Asia) but only has a single Asian carrier (Korean) whereas Phoenix will be getting two.
So really not sure what you're complaining for.
"I think equally concerning is the lack of announcements around seasonal flights that would cater to the World Cup next year hosted in the U.S."
Wait, what?
No airline is going to make an entire schedule around a 30-something day sporting season. That hasn't happened before, so I don't know why you find it "concerning" now. They'll do like they ALWAYS do for World Cups, Olympics, Super Bowls, etc, and announce a few select charters, at a relative short time before each game commences.
DFW-ZRH is interesting. Perhaps the Swiss will have been beat iinto submission. NYT this afternoon:
Swiss Businesses Fear Being ‘Annihilated’ by One of the World’s Highest Tariffs
Goods shipped from the country face a 39 percent tariff in the U.S., which companies warn will have dire consequences if President Trump cannot be quickly dissuaded.
Our Great Leader... into a depression
Clearly this is just a conservative first round. AA will have at least 11 perhaps 12 new 787s for next summer. With perhaps a couple of 777-300s at a time out of service getting refurbished that still leaves them with 4 or 5 additional routes they can expand on beyond those detailed today, probably through increased frequencies to existing destinations. With the current world state of affairs second guessing the travel patterns for next summer is a world away to conjecture.
I go to Budapest every summer and I don't consider myself an idiot. If you call that heat unbearable, what about Greece or South Italy?
I would be thrilled to find a "wide body" flight from LAX to MIA......not that hard to please.....(sigh)
part of that is on them for not expanding T8 more when they did the reconstruction a few years ago. they could probably rejigger some timings and get some more WBs out - esp. once CX moves to T6 in a year or two
Yes, AA supposedly didn't even know they had unused slot pairs until recently, so clearly they didn't account for the additional needed capacity in T8 for the renovations.
The international hubs are better. Just as a case of enjoying your job and doing more revenue it makes sense.
People used to say that in business and public life, there are three topics that you should always avoid: politics, religion and sex. Things that everybody has, and nobody else needs to be involved in if they aren't already.
TIL that there are some conservative groups that rate American businesses according to risk factors for persecution and harassment, and American Airlines is on the list. So are some of the others. I gather that most of the apolitical people are paying the premium to fly domestically. Internationally, I already have some airlines that I like. When you wear a uniform, you represent all of the people who wear the uniform.
The airports in Europe are going to have to start reinforcing their runways to handle all the extra weight from these middle America flights.
I‘d love to see DFW-ZRH coming back, I flew it frequently until 2007 when it got discontinued and I really miss it.
But with the 39 percent tariff we will see a 60-70 decline in pax numbers … not a exactly the moment to launch new routes.
CLT will never amount to anything within the AA network. The CLT demographic is not that culturally or travel thirsty to go far beyond CONUS. If it’s Vegas, Cancun or the Bahamas these folks will pack their bags!! You’re not going to see a large demand for anywhere in Europe that will support year round service from the folks that live here so, AA just makes due as a strong domestic hub to feed passengers to the gateway cities. For those living in the Queen City that are adventurous (mainly transplants) it’s either fly to PHL or MIA to catch a flight or be bussed to LHR to be dumped on the BA network.
CLT, the Greyhound bus terminal for AA served proudly by former surly Airways staff…