American Airlines Abandons Seattle Long Haul Flights

While American Airlines had already suspended international service out of Seattle, it looks like this isn’t just temporary. Has American had a bad strategy in Seattle, or just bad luck?

American’s Seattle international gateway aspirations

Prior to 2020, American spent years growing its long haul service out of Los Angeles (LAX), as the airline was increasingly making that its transpacific gateway. Those plans changed in early 2020, when American announced it would launch long haul flights out of Seattle:

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• American announced it would strengthen its relationship with Alaska Airlines, which would also join the oneworld alliance
• American planned to start operating long haul flights out of Seattle, with the first three destinations being Bangalore (BLR), London (LHR), and Shanghai (PVG); other destinations were planned beyond that

The timing for this announcement wasn’t exactly great. American revealed these plans in February 2020, and then a few weeks later the world shut down:

• The London service launched as of March 2021, but was suspended for the winter 2023/2024 season
• The Bangalore service was supposed to launch in October 2020, but has since been scrapped; this was first due to lack of demand due to borders being closed, and now due to the closure of Russian airspace to US airlines, which makes this route even more challenging
• The Shanghai service was supposed to launch in March 2021, but has been postponed indefinitely

As you can tell, American’s international “hub” in Seattle hasn’t actually amounted to a whole lot. It has just consisted of one daily flight to London. But even that isn’t operating this winter.

American cancels Seattle to London route

In April 2023, American updated its schedule to reflect that the Seattle to London flight would be suspended for the winter 2023/2024 season. This was just supposed to be a temporary suspension just for the season, but that’s no longer the case.

As flagged by @IshrionA, this route has now completely been removed from American’s schedule, so American no longer has plans to operate this route. Previously, the plan was for this to resume as of the summer 2024 season.

Practically speaking, the implications of this one route being cut aren’t huge. American and British Airways have a transatlantic joint venture, and British Airways will continue to operate the route. Given the revenue sharing agreement and reciprocal perks between the two airlines, this isn’t that major, aside from avoiding fuel surcharges on award tickets, or being able to waitlist systemwide upgrades.

However, bigger picture, it reflects that American has completely given up on its Seattle long haul flight strategy.

Did American have a bad strategy or bad luck?

Is American fully retreating from its Seattle long haul service a sign of bad strategy or bad luck?

American has definitely had bad luck, given that these plans were announced just a few weeks before the pandemic shut down global travel. The Shanghai service wasn’t practical due to travel restrictions, and the Bangalore service wasn’t practical due to Russian airspace closure.

Meanwhile I think the London service just probably hasn’t proven as lucrative for American as planned for a few reasons:

• American doesn’t have much brand recognition, loyalty, or corporate contracts, in Seattle; broadly speaking, the more long haul flights you operate out of a city, the better you’ll do filling each plane with decent yields
• While leisure travel demand has come back quite strong since the start of the pandemic, pure business demand just hasn’t fully recovered; I get the strong sense that the Seattle hub was based on the assumption that there would be pre-pandemic business demand (given the companies based in Seattle), and that hasn’t materialized
• Seattle has become an increasingly competitive market, and at a minimum, there are aspects of Delta’s hub there that aren’t performing well

So I don’t really judge American for discontinuing the London route, in the sense that I think bad luck is largely to blame.

Has American had a bad strategy, though? Well, I’d say that more accurately, American has had no real strategy when it comes to its international network. American has a robust domestic network that’s all about Charlotte, Dallas, and Phoenix.

Meanwhile American’s long haul network strategy seems to be both conservative and random — the airline tries stuff and sees what sticks. Unfortunately not a whole lot “sticks,” aside from London and summer leisure demand across the Atlantic.

American seemed to first have the strategy of growing out of Seattle in partnership with Alaska. Then the airline seemed to be more focused on growing out of New York in partnership with JetBlue. However, that partnership has ended, due to the DOJ suing to block the Northeast Alliance.

Now American has no “real” long haul hub west of Dallas. Sure, American has Los Angeles, but it’s a market where American has retreated quite a bit, and long haul service is primarily to some joint venture hubs, like London, Sydney, and Tokyo.

Bottom line

American Airlines seems to have permanently cut its planned long haul service out of Seattle. The airline never launched Bangalore and Shanghai flights, and has now axed the London service beyond just a seasonal suspension.

What do you make of American’s Seattle strategy? Do you think the airline has given up on Seattle, or will see eventually see this international hub plan happen?