American Airlines has revealed some major updates to its international network. In addition to moving its Auckland flight from Los Angeles to Dallas, the carrier is also canceling and/or delaying two of its most anticipated planned ultra long haul flights.
In this post:
American scraps Dallas to Tel Aviv route
American Airlines no longer plans to fly between Dallas and Tel Aviv, citing soft demand for the route.
For context, in August 2019 American announced plans to launch a new route between Dallas and Tel Aviv. This would mark American’s return to Israel, which seemed like a huge gap in the network of the world’s largest airline.
As you’d expect, the launch of the route was delayed due to the pandemic. What’s interesting is that American ended up launching a New York to Tel Aviv route as of May 2021, and a Miami to Tel Aviv route as of June 2021. So while the Dallas to Tel Aviv route was the first route to be announced, it was never launched.
American is typically so focused on funneling everyone through major hubs (including Dallas for international, and Charlotte and Phoenix for domestic), yet Israel is a different market. Israel has a ton of demand directly from certain markets, but there’s obviously not as much demand for connecting traffic from between the coasts.
American delays Seattle to Bengaluru route
American Airlines now plans to launch its Seattle to Bengaluru route as the summer of 2023, though no exact date has been provided. American claims that this is due to the closure of Russian airspace, given that this 8,000+ mile flight would ordinarily need to operate through there.
For context, in February 2020 American announced plans to launch a new route between Seattle and Bengaluru. This was part of the carrier’s plan to build up a long haul hub out of Seattle, given the closer cooperation with Alaska Airlines.
The launch of this route was repeatedly delayed due to the pandemic, which is understandable enough, and now you have the issue of Russian airspace being closed, so it’s anyone’s guess when this route will really be practical.
That being said, even taking the Russian airspace issue out of the equation, the economics of this route are highly questionable, based on everything I’ve heard. Essentially the success of this route was based on the assumption that American would get most of the west coast traffic for Bengaluru.
However, shortly after American’s announcement, United revealed it would launch a San Francisco to Bengaluru route, with San Francisco being (by far) the biggest market for Bengaluru demand. American was banking on United not being able to launch this route, but United was able to modify its Boeing 787-9s to make this work.
Personally I suspect we won’t ever see this route launch, but who knows. For that matter, this sure draws into question American’s overall strategy of building up Seattle as a long haul hub. The carrier’s planned Bengaluru and Shanghai flights were both never launched, and the London flight is suspended, so American operates no long haul flights out of Seattle.
Fortunately American has established another link to India since the start of the pandemic. Initially the Seattle to Bengaluru route was supposed to mark American’s return to India, but American ended up launching a New York to Delhi route as of October 2021.
Bottom line
Unfortunately two of American’s most highly anticipated new ultra long haul routes won’t be launching anytime soon.
American no longer plans to fly from Dallas to Tel Aviv due to soft demand, and will instead focus on existing flights from Miami and New York.
Meanwhile American is delaying its Seattle to Bengaluru route until at least the summer of 2023, with Russian airspace closures being blamed. Personally I’d be surprised if that route ever launches, given that United plans to operate a San Francisco to Bengaluru route.
What do you make of these updates to Bengaluru and Tel Aviv flights?
Ben, it is my understanding that AA axed the MIA-TLV route last month (May). You may want to update your post.
American is not currently flying to LHR-SEA. With BA,VS, and DL there isn't a need for a 4th airline in the market.
So, you mean SEA-BLR isn’t starting….yet again. Color me shocked.
Ok…sarcasm over. I’ve been saying from the day this route was announced it would never fly. I still stand by that prediction.
Mmmm surprise, surprise
Ray. How about you focus on FACTS instead unsubstantiated garbage? There has been zero evidence provided that the bullet that killed the reporter was fired by the IDF much less evidence of murder. The reporter was in the middle of conflict zone where the IDF was seeking to arrest terrorists who had murdered 19 Israeli civilians. Palestinian Arab terrorists were indiscriminately firing towards the IDF are for more likely to have fired the fatal shot.
For Ray..your comment did not deal with the cancelled flight, but it did give you an opportunity to show your blind hate for Israel. I doubt if you care, but your obvious ignorance of the "facts " you stated probably indicates you don't want the actual facts to interfere with your bias.
I wish they start flying to Pakistan instead of these other countries. There are so many of us in the US and even more back home wanting to come to the US so business would be thriving.
Flying ro Pakistan would involve getting FAA and other U.S. agency Approval / certification of the airports there and given how they are run, this would likely provide difficult as a first step.
As someone else commented earlier, I was on the last AA flight from SEA>LHR which was on March 25. BA is also down to a single daily round trip SEA/LHR as well. Seems like AA has given up on its Seattle hub (for now at least) leaving little international AA flying from anywhere on the west coast.
Ben,
AA has also dropped it's Seattle to London flight.
Best,
Todd
How come you haven’t written anything about DFW to Lima. That route has been canceled according to some reports
What we are seeing now is a prime example of how route planning is a game of tradeoffs. Send a plane to fly to one place, and it can't fly to another place. In this case, while the world was more closed down and international travel was more limited, flying a 787 DFW - TLV could be justified as a good option given the circumstances.
However, as the world opens back up, and more...
What we are seeing now is a prime example of how route planning is a game of tradeoffs. Send a plane to fly to one place, and it can't fly to another place. In this case, while the world was more closed down and international travel was more limited, flying a 787 DFW - TLV could be justified as a good option given the circumstances.
However, as the world opens back up, and more appealing uses of the plane comes back online (In this case I would think that would mean Asia) combined with existing plane shortages it's not a surprise to see this route scraped.
When it comes to the TLV market - in light of all the new routes that have been launched in the last couple of years - asked yourself what change was there in market demands that justified the new routes. The reality was that while AA's route from JFK - TLV made sense, it wasn't really clear where the demand for a flight from both MIA and DFW would come from.
Over time, I do wonder how long the UA IAD and ORD flights to TLV will stick around. At least when the routes were launched, they flew on alternative days and were basically meant to route connecting PAX away from EWR to allow for more O&D traffic on the EWR - TLV flight.
To be clear though, the TLV market is growing and will continue to grow but sometimes the expansion to in flights from North America to TLV reminds me of the initial swarm of flights launched to Cuba from the USA back in the Obama era. Whatever goes up must come down....
There is actually large local demand from the DC region and from the Chicago region. It's not just connectivity on those routes. IAD launched in 2019, before covid, and well before Chicago started. Chicago started during covid.
When they launched - pre covid - IAD and ORD didn't operate on the same day. While there was certainly some O&D traffic, it was seen as a way to route connecting (and thus less profitable) traffic away from the EWR - TLV flight. While there is still certainly a good amount of O&D on those routes, I'm not aware of any larger changes in demand from those cities in the past couple of years....
When they launched - pre covid - IAD and ORD didn't operate on the same day. While there was certainly some O&D traffic, it was seen as a way to route connecting (and thus less profitable) traffic away from the EWR - TLV flight. While there is still certainly a good amount of O&D on those routes, I'm not aware of any larger changes in demand from those cities in the past couple of years.
Because if there was stronger demand all along, then ask why did it take United so long to launch those flights. The reality was that pre-covid united was running out of obvious money making routes to launch or add frequencies too and of the big 3 carriers, Tel Aviv is the most important to their network so it was a natural fit to make that a destination for further expansion.
There was a demand until people wondered if they can kill a reporter in cold blood and then beat those attending her funeral with zero repercussions, then what will they do to the rest of us?
And American’s long haul network shrinks, surprise surprise.
Excluding much of O&D American has seceded India and Israel service to long haul leader United.
United provides extensive service to both markets, and can feed through SFO, ORD, EWR
Notable how American drops DFW TLV as delta launches TLV service from boston.
There is a very large Jewish community in Boston that could well support a 3x/weekly flight. Additionally, there is a pretty good tech scene in Boston so I would imagine there is some business traffic to capture as well. Meanwhile, the business case for DFW - TLV was always shakier. It seemed more like they had no where else to send their planes/TLV was the best of a bunch of mediocre options in light of...
There is a very large Jewish community in Boston that could well support a 3x/weekly flight. Additionally, there is a pretty good tech scene in Boston so I would imagine there is some business traffic to capture as well. Meanwhile, the business case for DFW - TLV was always shakier. It seemed more like they had no where else to send their planes/TLV was the best of a bunch of mediocre options in light of international travel being more limited these past couple of years. Now that the world is opening up and American has plane shortages, DFW - TLV probably looks a lot less attractive to them.
Wrong. DL’s plan was 2x on JFK-TLV. When AA launched JFK-TLV, DL planned to move 3x weekly frequencies to BOS from JFK. Now they are down to 3x freq at BOS and just 1x at JFK. Clearly, AA has taken up market share from DL.
UA’s ORD and IAD services are just 3x weekly.