American’s New Caribbean & Latin America Routes

American has just announced some route additions as well as expansions for travel to the Caribbean and Latin America. It’s the routes out of New York that I find most surprising (but also logical).

I say these routes are surprising because American has very much been shrinking at New York JFK. They’ve made it clear that JFK is an airport where their primary goal is to serve select premium markets that are frequented by business travelers, and that’s about it. Now they’re doing the opposite, though in all honesty this expansion is logical enough.

American’s new routes to the Caribbean & Latin America

American has announced some new routes to the Caribbean and Latin America for this winter, with the most interesting additions being out of New York, in my opinion.

American is adding the following routes from New York JFK:

• A new daily flight between New York JFK and Montego Bay, Jamaica as of November 21, 2019
• A new daily flight between New York JFK and San Jose, Costa Rica, as of November 21, 2019
• A new once weekly flight (Saturdays only) between New York JFK and Liberia, Costa Rica, as of December 21, 2019

These routes will all be operated by Boeing 737-800s.

On top of that, American is extending or increasing frequencies on the following routes:

• American is extending their daily flight between New York JFK and St. John’s, Antigua and Barbuda, beyond November 21, 2019
• American is extending their once weekly flight (Saturdays only) between New York LaGuardia and Aruba, beyond December 21, 2019
• American is increasing flights between Dallas and San Juan from 1x daily to 2x daily as of December 18, 2019
• American is making their Dallas to San Salvador route year-round rather than just seasonal as of January 7, 2020

Here are the full details of the schedules on these flights:

The expansion out of Dallas isn’t that surprising or interesting, given that it’s a mega-hub for American.

What I find most interesting are their additions out of New York. This does represent a shift for American, given they’ve been so focused on almost exclusively offering business routes out of New York, and cutting everything else.

But clearly these are leisure routes where they see potential, both due to the fares they can attract, and because they think they’re underserved. The winter can be a tough time for airlines otherwise, so adding more sunshine routes makes sense.

Bottom line

American will either be expanding or increasing service to several airports in the Caribbean and Latin America. This includes new routes out of Dallas and New York. Given American’s strategy out of New York as of late otherwise, I’d say that’s the most interesting update here.

Anyone plan to take one of these American Airlines flights?