Does Anyone Know What Is Going on With American Airlines?

Things have not been the greatest for American Airlines recently. Their share price is down over the year and they continue to struggle on several fronts such as the Boeing 737 MAX fiasco and the labor dispute with the mechanics unions. There have been several articles on-line complaining of cramped seats, no more seat-back video screens on most domestic flights, and all-around problematic.

I remember as a kid American Airlines was our go-to airline in the family. We could have just as easily flown with United Airlines as with American but it seemed American always had a better schedule and/or pricing. My first international flight, to London, was with American Airlines. When I lived in Berlin most of the time I ended up flying American Airlines when I flew home. In the last couple of years though it seems like American isn’t so great when you fly internationally.

Ten years ago you can see the intercontinental network of American Airlines from O’Hare was pretty robust. Even though American has never had flights to South America from Chicago, several major cities in Europe and Asia were served year-round. Based on the historic Wikipedia article from exactly 10 years ago today the following intercontinental destinations were served (seasonal destinations are in orange):

Map produced by Great Circle Mapper.

Since then the flights from O’Hare to India and China have been canceled. Today the only two intercontinental flights from O’Hare are to Tokyo-Narita and London-Heathrow. However the flight to Tokyo is 4 days/week and will be totally canceled on Jan 2nd, 2020. That means only London is left as a year-round destination, even if with 4 flights/day this city pair is well served. If you look at the map below of the schedule Summer 2020 you will see what is left.

Map produced by Great Circle Mapper.

It should be pointed out these destinations like Krakow (KRK), Budapest(BUD), and Prague(PRG) will only be on offer for the summer season from the end of May to October. They are really geared to summer tourists and not business travelers. More surprisingly many large airports such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Zurich are totally left off the map. What does this mean if you want to go to Europe? If you want to fly with American and you are not going to a hot tourist destination like Prague or Krakow in the summer you will need either to connect in London onto a British Airways flight or connect in one of American’s other hubs like Philadelphia. With Asia you have to connect in Dallas or Los Angeles because American doesn’t have Chicago-Asia flights beginning next year. It really is amazing how meager American’s network has gotten.

If you compare American Airlines you United Airlines you will notice how much more filled out United’s route map is. United has flights year-round to several European cities, still has flights to Asia, and even a flight to Brazil. This is especially surprising considering American’s market share is not much less than United’s.

Map produced by Great Circle Mapper. Note: São Paulo, Brazil (GRU) has been left off map because it is south of the equator.

American needs to defend their hub in Chicago because it is their only hub left in the Midwest. American being one of the big three global airlines in the US wants to have a hub in the Midwest so they can say they can serve all corners of the country. Giving up market share to United would be fatal in the long-run because worst-case scenario it could shrink to becoming a regional airline with international hubs only in Dallas-Ft. Worth, Charlotte, Miami, and Philadelphia. (I don’t think this would happen though even if they have really struggled in Los Angeles and New York recently.) They keep pushing to add new flights in Charlotte and Dallas-Ft. Worth but I am not sure they have a good plan for Chicago today.