British Airways is cutting a surprising destination from its network, as flagged by @IshrionA. While the implications here are limited in some ways, I can’t help but find this to be interesting.
British Airways hands Dallas route to American
British Airways has long flown between London Heathrow (LHR) and Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), and has even pretty consistently flown the Airbus A380 on the route, which is the world’s largest passenger jet. That’s not too surprising, given that DFW is American’s biggest hub, so there’s lots of connectivity.
Not only are the two airlines both part of the oneworld alliance, but they also belong to the same transatlantic joint venture, meaning that they can coordinate schedules and fares, and share revenue.
With the current winter of 2024-2025 schedule, American operates four flights per day in the market, while British Airways operates one flight per day. However, the summer of 2025 schedule has just been updated, and with this, we’ll see British Airways completely discontinue flying between the two major airports as of March 30, 2025.
Instead, American is adding a fifth daily flight between Dallas and London, timed the same as the British Airways flight that was previously scheduled. British Airways was initially supposed to fly an A380 in the market next summer, then it was downgraded to an A350, and now it has been transferred to American.
It remains to be seen if this will only apply for the summer of 2025 schedule, or if it also gets extended into the following winter. I suspect this is just a summer change, as British Airways probably doesn’t have better places to fly all of its planes in winter.
With joint ventures, there’s supposed to be as much “metal neutrality” as possible, but many people still have a preference to fly one airline over the other, whether it’s because of service, frequent flyer perks, or whatever else (then again, American and British Airways aren’t exactly airlines that people fly because of the service). 😉
What should we make of this route development?
It’s not unusual to see joint venture partners switch around routes and frequencies, to optimize their networks. For example, we’ve seen Delta discontinue its Los Angeles to London route, and hand that over to Virgin Atlantic.
The reason I find this route swap to be quite noteworthy is because American has been dealing with a shortage of long haul aircraft, due to Boeing 787-9 delivery delays. Executives at the airline have repeatedly pointed out that this has limited international growth prospects.
But now American seemingly has the planes to add a fifth daily flight between Dallas and London. It’s yet another reminder that American is basically a huge domestic airline that also has a robust network to London and decent network to Latin America, plus a sprinkling of other service to Europe and Asia.
I suspect American is able to operate this route because it has delayed its Boeing 777-300ER retrofit project, and plans to only commence that in late 2025, after the summer schedule. I guess it was decided that British Airways could better utilize a wide body jet elsewhere, while American will just throw yet another plane at London.
Bottom line
British Airways doesn’t plan to fly between London and Dallas in the summer of 2025, even though it has historically been a route that has been operated by the A380. British Airways is handing the route over to its joint venture partner, American, as the airline will pick up a fifth daily frequency. So much for American having a shortage of long haul aircraft!
What do you make of British Airways cutting Dallas flights?
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