American Adds New Routes (And Quietly Cuts Routes Too)

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Update 29 March 2018: LAX-EZE Schedule Added

American Airlines has announced an impressive looking set of new routes between the US and Central/South America set to start in late 2018/early 2019. What the airline failed to mention in its press release was that the new routes would be coming at the expense of service currently offered on other routes to South America.

American’s New Routes To Central & South America

The biggest news coming out of American is that the airline will offer service between Los Angeles and Buenos Aires 3x/week from 19 December 2018 using its Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.

Here’s the schedule American will offer:

AA991 LAX 16:00 – 09:45+1 day EZE
AA992 EZE 22:00 – 06:05+1 day LAX

Other new routes announced yesterday include:

Dallas/Ft Worth to:

• Oaxaca, Mexico – commences 19 December 2018 (E175)

Miami to:

• Georgetown, Guyana – commences 20 December 2018 (A319)
• Pereira, Colombia – commences 20 December 2018 (A319)
• Cordoba, Argentina – commences 2 April 2019 (767)

Already announced new route:

Philadelphia  to Mexico City – commences 5 July 2018

The services to Buenos Aires, Oaxaca and Guyana go on sale from 2 April 2018, the new service to Pereira goes on sale from 17 April and the Miami-Cordoba service goes on sale from 7 May.

The previously announced route between Philadelphia and Mexico City is already on sale.

At the time of writing American hasn’t loaded the schedules into its systems but these should appear over the course of the next few days.

American Is Increasing Service On Existing Routes

As well as announcing the new routes mentioned above, American has also confirmed that it will be increasing service on a number of its existing routes out of Miami and Dallas/Ft Worth.

Specifically this includes:

• Miami – Caracas – 3 new flights/week from 19 December 2018
• Miami – Antigua – 7 new flights/week from 19 December 2018
• Dallas – Cancun – 7 new flights/week from 7 June 2018
• Dallas – San Jose del Cabo – 7 new flights/week from 19 December 2018
• Dallas – Torreon – 7 new flights/week from 19 December 2018

[HT: VFTW for specifics]

That’s a lot of new service, especially out of Dallas, and it will be interesting to see if American keeps all this service going throughout 2019 or if the airline keeps some of these routes seasonal.

Here Come The Cuts!

Considering the number of new flights announced by American Airlines yesterday there had to be some service cuts made somewhere (American wouldn’t have enough aircraft otherwise) but American failed to mention any of these (anyone surprised?)

These are the services that are being cut or eliminated entirely starting later this year:

• Miami – Sao Paulo – the 12:05 departure operating 5x/week is cancelled from August
• Miami – Belo Horizonte – all service cancelled from August (currently offering a daily service)
• Dallas – Quito – all service cancelled from August (currently offering a daily service)
• Dallas – Rio de Janeiro – the winter seasonal service will not be reappearing on the schedules for 2018/19

Thanks to @JonNYC for the route info.

The cancellation of the 12:05 Sao Paulo service from Miami means that all of American’s flights to the city are now overnight and the cancellation of the seasonal service between Dallas and Rio probably explains where the 767 is coming from to service the new route between Miami and Cordoba.

Bottom Line

It amuses me when airlines appear to think that we’re not going to notice service cuts if they don’t mention them – considering how many people probably fly on the routes being curtailed someone was going to notice 🙂

Of the new routes announced yesterday the biggest is undoubtably the new service between LA and Buenos Aires. The fact that the airline will offer a 787-9 Dreamliner on this route means that we’ll have a Premium Economy cabin to book when upgrades look unlikely and Business Class is expensive but, on the downside, the main Economy Class cabin is still horribly camped with narrow seats and poor leg room.

If you’re booking into Economy Class a Main Cabin Extra seat is definitely your best option as you’ll at least have good leg room even if the seat will still only offer the same width as a regular Economy Class seat.