American to launch nine new routes out of Los Angeles this year

In your experience when do you think they would release award availability for the new lax-gru flight?? Trying to book a New Years flight 🙂

@ Eli -- I would say as soon as the flight is loaded into the GDS. It hasn't been yet, though I'll post once it is. Hopefully they release some award space along with it.

Is there really a lot of traffic between Arkansas and LAX? I would have really liked an AA mainline flight LAX-YVR, but I guess I will stick with AS for now.

The GRU route is interesting, as it will compete with KE. Have they said how frequently it'll operate? KE seems to be MWF, also with a 777-300ER. Is there really that much demand on that route to support two direct flights?

@Andrew: XNA is the closest commercial airport to Wal-Mart WHQ, so there may be enough ex-Asia traffic to support it...(?)

Great news for CMH, we needed some competition w/ the DL flight!

@Jeff.

Yep. Currently you would have to make two stops to go to Wal-Mart's #1 supplier.

Decent amount of traffic too from U of Arkansas, Tyson, JB Hunt, etc.

It's funny, too, because now XNA will have nonstops to LA and NYC, the only airport in Arkansas that has NYC or LA.

This bodes ill for PHX...

What's going to happen when "American Airlines" is flying PHL-TLV? I understand they have some unpaid liabilities there?

I think this is to replace the PHX flights in the future.

MONSTER NEWS for a resident of Bend, OR!!! Always love seeing another airline come into our area. This will be the first AA operated flight out of RDM! Always a good thing!

LAX-GRU-JNB would be a decent alternative to get to Southern Africa from the West Coast.

Big news for Bend and Eugene, neither of which have any AA or US service. Looks like the combined AA/UA is trying to shore up some serious network weakness in the northwest. Interesting that they didn't add Medford too, so I guess AA is happy with the Alaska codeshare LAX-MFR.

excited for CMH, we dont see a lot of anything here!

So glad to see that XNA-LAX is back. Too bad I no longer live in Bentonville or do I fly AA.

For those wondering about LAX-GRU remember that there is no direct option from Asia to South America so LAX is a very reasonable one stop location.

CMH ...finally!....hopefully by 737's not the jurassic MD80's

Still surprised UA hasn't brought back SFO-BDL.

Amazed they do not have Hong Kong. They go to PR China and Japan.

Will anyone (ie AA or UA) ever add sfo or lax to atl?

Note - they are still duking it out with DL (and to a lesser extent US) for award of the 2013 GRU frequencies. There are 14 new weekly frequencies available this November. AA has asked for 7 of them, to permit daily 772 service from LAX. US also wants 7. DL has asked for all 14, arguing that AA is already too dominant at GRU. DOT is considering the applications, and can only approve half of what's been requested. So unlike some situations where "pending government approvals" refers only to formalities, this one is not a done deal.

I wish they would just bring back the DFW-ZRH service they had 4-5 years ago or even the ORD - DEL service they had a until early last year. Both routes were running at or above 60% capacity during the off season.

It's Pittsburgh

There are a lot of missing pieces in AA's Asian and European route network. They really don't have a good Asian gateway for the western half of the country. DFW is at the limit of range, and ORD involves so much backtracking. LAX isn't ideal, either, but it's AA's only potential west coast gateway. However the long flights and competition may not make it lucrative either.

AA may never catch up to UA & DL in Asia.

DL flew LAX-GRU a few years ago and that route did not bode well. We will see if AA can make it work.

And, ugh, why PIT?! I hope this does not cause UA to end their 4x weekly flight on this route...

@ Carl -- Thanks, fixed!

AA's dependency on JAL/Cathay is really starting to hurt them for the Asian markets.

But even with the additional gates going to be allotted for AA at TBIT, I still don't see how these additional routes will fit into the already tight constraints that is LAX.

I flew on the RDU-LAX flight last week. I like the flight time better than either of DL's offerings (either the old 1945 or the new 0700 departure), but those seats on the 738 are horrible in F. The food wasn't that great, but the crew was fantastic. They somehow found out that that flight was going to push me over the EXP threshold and treated me great all the way.

@ Golfingboy - It's true that DL couldn't make LAX-GRU work, but AA should have better feed at both ends, especially with TAM joining OW.

I've been wanting to visit Bend from LAX. Does anyone know if there are any decent hotels for an award stay if I do not want to fork out for the Sunriver Resort?

The KE flight is the only option from Brazil to the US west coast. There are daily flights to ATL, ORD, JFK, IAH, IAD, DFW, DTW, EWR, 5x MIA and 2x MCO. US is launching CLT in a couple of months. And this is only from GRU, so you can see that Dallas is the closest someone can get to the west coast.
The difference from when DL operated LAX-GRU is the Brazilian economy.

I fly the DL CMH-LAX route pretty frequently and it's always been a 737. Never had an MD88/90 on that route.

As I understand it American Airlines flt from LAX -GRU begins Dec.16, 2013. People often talk about it being in competition with KE. However, they really aren't because KE cannot board any passengers in Los Angeles. KE's flight can only let passengers off in Los Angeles, no new passengers may board.

Are you sure that KE doesn't have fifth freedom rights? I'm pretty sure JL once had a route from LAX to Brazil with the rights to carry traffic.

Lucky,
What's going to happen to US Airways Tel-Aviv route once they merge with American. Because as you know, American Airlines isn't exactly welcome in Israel at the moment.

@ Al - That hasn't been announced yet, to my knowledge, though it will certainly be interesting to see what happens!