American Airlines' SVP of Network Planning, Brian Znotins, has reportedly left. Here's why his exit could eventually shift American's focus from domestic flying toward long haul routes.
A picture of how leadership at AA views their customers— that guy and his wife physically pushed past me and other pax to rush a check in line. (Late opening line at an outstation.)
Yes, him. Spring 2025 and SYD – LAX was canceled. Rescheduled the next day as a rescue flight, leading to the unusual departure time and delayed check-in. Half the plane was milling around while they set up stanchions and when flagship first check-in opened, Znotins and his wife literally physically pushed past people to be first in line.
I took a deep breath to let it roll off my back, knowing I was going to be in an 8 person cabin with these self-important schmucks for 14+ hours. But when I realized he worked for the company, in any capacity, I was pissed. So started looking in to who he was.
Znotins' network planning alienated me and was one of the key reasons I left AA. When you have to go from JFK to DFW to get to Frankfurt, or something similar, something is fundamentally wrong.
As a New Yorker I don't want to disagree, but is that actually true? Lots of people live closer to DFW.
Psh. What kind of New Yorker are you, s94ff? Upstate? C'mon. Former Key is right; no one in NYC is back-tracking to DFW to get to FRA. (PHL, ok, maybe, but even that is not ideal.)
Not sure how much International expansion AA can do in the next five years. They do not have the planes and have no immediate plans to beef up widebody stock. New orders would take five years to procure. Unless AA goes into the used market for planes.
Even if AA had the planes, it needs to choose international way-points. The network needs work. AA still has unused lots at JFK. They really need to rethink JFK. And, if AA wants to reenter the TPAC market, they really need to rethink LAX.
AA needs to add more premium seats on the 787-8's which mostly fly out of PHL, ORD, etc. They reduced the number of J seats to 20 - and when you fly out of PHL in the summer with lots of delays and misconnects - the flights are going to Europe sometimes with only 10 J passengers.
Pieper will ultimately be the next CEO. In order for American to achieve its lofty goals of closing the gap with its peers (10 years late), it needs to overhaul its c-suite. The "sunbelt" strategy was not the answer. The money is in big coastal and midwest cities, not in Charlotte, Chatanooga, or Greenberg Spartanburg. American is turning around, slowly but surely, but it is executing a lot of change amid high fuel prices, a looming US debt crisis, and a likely recession in 2027.
I worked at UA in Network as BZ just left and Patrick started. Funny take that BZ only focused on domestic, as the criticism at UA was that at the time he completely neglected domestic in favor of long haul. Never the less, he was just kind of conservative, not the guy to change the status quo at AA.
For what it’s worth, Patrick was chasing shiny objects in terms of international routes regardless of whether they made business sense. Many of the exciting sounding routes were unprofitable or barely profitable, though perhaps that’s changed with how loyalty has grown in importance… regardless all of that has worked better because UA improved domestic connectivity and capacity. Can’t fill a long haul flight without great connectivity!
It is great that AA is finally realizing the error of its ways for more than a decade but they could not have chosen a more difficult environment to execute a turnaround.
Jet fuel prices are over $4.60/gallon in the US, WN is committed to becoming the fourth "legacy like" global carrier, and AA has the most total debt of any US airline with UA not far behind. Spending a bunch of money on fleet when AA is expected at best to break even this year and fuel prices aren't expected to come down in 2027 makes alot of AA's strategies perhaps too little too late.
AA had the highest domestic growth strategy coming into the 4th quarter and high fuel prices will undoubtedly force them to pull back alot of that capacity growth which will make them overstaffed. Part of cleaning out AA's C Suite right now could be a recognition that AA is getting dangerously close to losing investor confidence and they have to start making more dramatic moves to show a change in leadership. AA isn't alone - B6 and F9 are also very fragile financially; the latter two led the US airline industry's stock declines yesterday as analysts now believe that higher inflation including of energy will reduce the viability of some airlines.