Unlike Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, American Airlines hasn’t operated a flight to Israel in over two years, and hasn’t announced plans to resume these flights. However, there’s a hint that this might be changing…
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American hiring Hebrew speaking flight attendants
It’s normal for airlines to hire flight attendants who speak the languages for the destinations they serve, given that there need to be a minimum number of “language speakers” on each flight. Along those lines, the always observant JonNYC flags how American is now hiring Hebrew speaking flight attendants.
That’s in addition to flight attendants speaking Czech, Dutch, Greek, Hungarian, and Italian, all of which makes sense, given that they represent destinations that American serves or intends to serve.
So we’ll see what comes of this, but with there now being a ceasefire (let’s see how things evolve, though, from a security standpoint), this seems like the right time for American to start thinking about resuming flights to Israel.
American has taken a different strategy than Delta and United during the war, as Delta and United kept operating flights when it was possible, and then suspending flights when it wasn’t possible. It’s hard to say which strategy was better. On the one hand, Israel can be a lucrative market for airlines. On the other hand, when you can’t operate service reliably, the economics are challenging, since network planning is a long term project.
American’s interesting history flying to Israel
Prior to the pandemic, American didn’t fly to Tel Aviv at all. Now, predecessor US Airways did fly there until 2013, but those flights were discontinued when the merger happened.
However, in May 2021, the airline launched a New York to Tel Aviv route, and then in June 2021, American launched a Miami to Tel Aviv route. Then in June 2022, American was supposed to launch a Dallas to Tel Aviv route, but that never ended up materializing, due to delays with new aircraft deliveries (or so American claimed).
It’s weird, because for some time, it looked like American was going to become a real competitor in Israel. But then we saw American cut its Miami to Tel Aviv route in March 2023 (before the war started), and also continue to push back its Dallas to Tel Aviv route, before just suspending it indefinitely.
So I have to imagine that if American is going to return to Tel Aviv, New York is the most likely airport out of which that service would be offered. After all, it seems like there can never be enough capacity between those two markets. Then again, I was shocked when American couldn’t make Miami to Tel Aviv work, since you’d think that would be a strong market.
In terms of the competitive landscape:
- United has historically been by far the strongest US carrier in Israel, and has operated by far the most service
- Delta has operated a limited amount of service to Israel for a long time, but also has a relatively new partnership with EL AL, which has a lot of potential (I have to imagine there will eventually be an investment from Delta)
- American doesn’t have either of those advantages, but it is part of the oneworld transatlantic joint venture, and no other airline in that joint venture flies between the United States and Israel
Bottom line
American Airlines is currently hiring Hebrew speaking flight attendants, which sure suggests that American is likely planning a return to Israel. The airline has had quite the interesting few years with Israel service. The carrier only started flying to Israel in 2021, then planned to add two more routes, but quickly cut one of those routes, and never launched the second route.
I have to imagine that a New York to Tel Aviv flight will return sooner rather than later. To what extent American serves Israel the next time around remains to be seen.
How do you see American’s Israel strategy evolving?
"It’s weird, because for some time, it looked like American was going to become a real competitor"...stop there because that statement could apply to any destination except Charlotte and DFW.
People of all backgrounds and religions visit Israel from around the world. Airlines make route decisions based on demand and financial opportunity. The woke mob-turned pro Hamas needs to take a look in the mirror and see they are actively promoting the antisemitic hate they once stood against. It’s curious that people are able to separate war crimes by Putin from average Russians or people with Russian heritage, yet they are unable to separate Netanyahu’s...
People of all backgrounds and religions visit Israel from around the world. Airlines make route decisions based on demand and financial opportunity. The woke mob-turned pro Hamas needs to take a look in the mirror and see they are actively promoting the antisemitic hate they once stood against. It’s curious that people are able to separate war crimes by Putin from average Russians or people with Russian heritage, yet they are unable to separate Netanyahu’s war crimes from people with Jewish heritage around the world, including liberal American Jews, who have always defended civil and equal rights but are now being attacked for something they have nothing to do with.
I've often wondered - do FAs that speak additional languages receive any pay differential when flying these type of routes?
@Lucky,
Re: competitive landscape JFK-TLV
Arkia also flies 3x weekly on that route, with a leased Gullivair a330-200. It’s not the swankiest plane, but there is a flat-bed business class, and it seems to be keeping El Al’s prices on the route in check.
Maybe an article about how bad the citi elite strata experience has been? That is if it doesn’t violate your agreement with them. The WSJ has one out that looks like Citi played games with people such that they missed the bonus offered.
What would be great would be if AA ever resuscitated the PHL to TLV route that was originally flown by US Airways. I'm surprised they're not considering that over Dallas.
Hopefully they bring Miami back. There’s so much competition already on the NYC route
Israel is a "must fly" if you want to be a global carrier from NYC
that said, just flying to TLV doesn't mean AA can regain the corporate travel it has lost from NYC - just that it cannot regain it if it doesn't fly to TLV.
@ Tim Dunn -- I promise I won't give you a hard time about corporate traffic out of NYC when a certain airline drops BRU, GVA, and MUC, and instead focuses on OLB and MLA. :p
This made me giggle.
you don't have to.
BRU and GVA are predominantly NGO traffic and both are part of JVs with Euro carriers that have hubs in those cities
MUC is much more of a corporate travel but also is a Star partner hub.
and JFK-MUC was never additional frequencies for DL; it was borrowed from DTW where it was returned.
If you really are interested in discussing why airlines do what they do, you should...
you don't have to.
BRU and GVA are predominantly NGO traffic and both are part of JVs with Euro carriers that have hubs in those cities
MUC is much more of a corporate travel but also is a Star partner hub.
and JFK-MUC was never additional frequencies for DL; it was borrowed from DTW where it was returned.
If you really are interested in discussing why airlines do what they do, you should be asking yourself and your readers why UAL's profit YTD trails DAL's by $1 billion. For years, we have heard that UA is closing the gap with DL financially - but the gap is as wide as ever and UA already warned costs will go up in the 4th quarter even as it clings to brining in more premium revenue.
UA simply has thrown too much capacity into the market, is flying a lot of trash capacity, is focused on share and eliminating competition more than running a best-in-class business (or airline) - none of which is sustainable if UA wants to be in the same class of business as DL.
I have been saying for years that UA is more interested in running other carriers out of business and focusing on share and exotic destinations -and UA's 3rd quarter results prove I am right.
UA clearly needs to drop a few routes, no actually a lot. And quit trying to run AA out of ORD and chasing LCCs and ULCCS which aren't going anywhere including NK which has more overlap with AA and DL than UA.
I know you need a 200 reply article to make your page view goals for the week but how about we focus on the fact that UA's 3rd quarter financials can be called nothing short of an unmitigated revenue disaster from an airline run by people who claim that revenue and network is their specialty?
Illegally Occupied Palestine, not Israel.
The flights should stop via The Hague
There is not and has never been a country called “Palestine.”
Recently, a number of countries formally recognized Palestine as a country.
Why? Put the corporate issue to the side. To be a global carrier from NYC, why must an airline have service to Israel? Of all places? Given that the UN is headquartered in NYC and the EU is headquartered in Brussels, one would think to be a global carrier from NYC, an airline would have non-stop service between the two. And, given that the US's European headquarters is in Geneva, non-stop service between NYC and...
Why? Put the corporate issue to the side. To be a global carrier from NYC, why must an airline have service to Israel? Of all places? Given that the UN is headquartered in NYC and the EU is headquartered in Brussels, one would think to be a global carrier from NYC, an airline would have non-stop service between the two. And, given that the US's European headquarters is in Geneva, non-stop service between NYC and GVA.
Separately, is not having non-stop service from NYC to Frankfurt at all. Or, only seasonal non-stop service to Rome, Barcelona, etc. The point is that airlines that are in fact global and they pick and choose which markets they think make sense. To mandate Israel into a categorization of "global" seems to come from a dogma and is likely not widely shared.
Lee
If you don't understand the demographics of high net worth people in NYC, then I can't help you.
and flying between NYC and GVA and BRU is not the definition of global; it just means that carrier has an inside track to US-EU business.
and, if being a global carrier requires serving NYC-GVA and BRU, it is doubtful that AA will ever be global
and, just to reiterate, AA, DL and UA as...
Lee
If you don't understand the demographics of high net worth people in NYC, then I can't help you.
and flying between NYC and GVA and BRU is not the definition of global; it just means that carrier has an inside track to US-EU business.
and, if being a global carrier requires serving NYC-GVA and BRU, it is doubtful that AA will ever be global
and, just to reiterate, AA, DL and UA as well as most global carriers, are for-profit companies.
UA just posted an absolutely abysmal 3rd quarter with RASM change in every region including domestic down far more than DL, the only other carrier that has reported. UA threw capacity out there that many people thought would be hard for the market to absorb and I was right that the market didn't like UA's results - the stock is down double digits over the past two days.
AA and WN and several other carriers are expected to post better revenue metrics - esp. RASM change - than UA.
UA could stand to drop a few routes - but when you are focused more on adding dots to your route map, including by flying MAX 8s across the Atlantic even though those planes have no business class cabin and a domestic first class cabin instead of a premium economy as UA has on its widebodies, it is not a surprise that RASM is down and will keep going down.
I understand the demographics. But, why does the definition of "global" hinge on this one destination?
I think it’s most likely American will relaunch the New York service, it’s the safest bet and shortest flight.
For bespoke destinations, American chooses their costal getaway cities such as LA and NYC to service Delhi, LA to Sydney.