Seattle, London, Bangalore, Dallas, Santiago and Tel Aviv, Miami, Sao Paolo, and Los Angeles are all being delayed or suspended by American Airlines. Delays in the delivery of Boeing 787-8s are blamed for this, because of production and regulatory issues faced by the airframe manufacturer.
They will be compensated by Boeing for the money they would have made with these planes, and they don't need to fly.
American Airlines dropped Hong Kong, Edinburgh, Shannon, and Dubrovnik from its China schedule.
American's lack of planes was their own fault, I explained two months ago.
It isn’t really true that American ‘doesn’t have’ the widebodies to operate the schedule they’d like. They do have the planes. And [any] lack of aircraft is as much their fault as Boeing’s.
During the pandemic they retired their Boeing 757s and 767s. They retired their Embraer E-190s. And they retired their Airbus A330s. This simplified the fleet. It means they don’t have to train pilots on as many planes, or pay for spare parts on all of these aircraft. But it means they have far fewer planes.
Some of the planes they sold, for instance 767s that now fly for Amazon’s delivery service. American is still paying leases, though, on the Airbus A330s they retired. Pilots are no longer current to fly the planes, but there’d be time to get them ready for summer 2022. American has decided it’s too expensive to return the planes to service.
American didn't have to retire their A330s. They could have flown routes they were hoping to use the Boeing 787-9s for instead of having to cancel flights with the 787-9s in order to substitute aircraft. Even though they offered $10 billion in taxpayer cash, American chose not to remain ready to fly when customers were ready to return.
They didn't spend money on keeping pilots current and ready to fly the planes. They decided not to bring the planes back from the desert and re-train pilots, preferring Boeing compensation over transportation passengers where they had promised to go.
Schedule changes should happen tonight. If you want to book mileage awards on routes that are being suspended, you should expect American to reaccommodate you. Awards can be canceled and mileage redeposited at no cost if things don't go as planned.
There are new long haul routes. American Airlines will fly from New York to the Middle East. That is great for AAdvantage elites who are looking for an upgrade. For most people, the better airline is Qatar Airways. They are adding this flight at a time when they are announcing they lack enough widebody.
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Miami - Tel Aviv will be launched by American Airlines in June. I have been anticipating this route since they ended their frequent flyer partnership with El Al. The new service will operate on three days a week. They have chosen to do so.
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American Airlines is working on a Tokyo Haneda shuttle schedule at Los Angeles after top executives made comments at an employee meeting last week. They are about to send Boeing planes into the Pacific. They are looking forward to new Boeing aircraft deliveries.
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