American Airlines no longer operating most transpacific flights from LAX

Real World Aviation
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American airlines will no longer operate transpacific flights from LAX.

They will use Seattle as the hub for transpacific thanks to the Alaska Airlines partnership. There will still be routes like Auckland, Sydney, Tokyo, and London. These will be the only long hauls from AA out of LAX.

  • Los Angeles to Beijing
  • Los Angeles to Buenos Aires
  • Los Angeles to Hong Kong
  • Los Angeles to Sao Paulo
  • Los Angeles to Shanghai
    Will be cut/moved to Seattle.
Credit

https://onemileatatime.com/american-airlines-cuts-lax-transpacific-hub/

Vasu Raja, the Vice President of Planning at America Airlines said, “COVID-19 has forced us to reevaluate our network, American will have a significantly smaller international network in the year ahead, but we are using this opportunity to hit reset and create a network using the strength of our strategic hubs that we can build and grow upon and be profitable on in this new environment.”

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I think we all thought Seattle to Bangalore was a one off, but I think it’s clear with this that in cooperation with Alaska, and presumably other OneWorld partners American has big plans for Seattle, especially in the Trans-Pacific market…

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You can’t be profitable if what’s causing your trouble is still running rampant 😉

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I think this is less cutting routes because they were unprofitable, Airlines have very very few profitable routes right now, I think this is (especially given the way the AA exec words his statement) more of a jump forward in time to something that was probably going to happen anyway, that is the routes that move to SEA. I’m sure many of these cut routes will be back sooner or later, probably many being double run at LAX and SEA, but evidently the plans for SEA were larger than we all initially thought, and I think they just used this as an opportunity to jump start plans that were probably previously on a multi year timescale. AA has a significant presence at LAX, I’d go so far as to say it’s there West Coast home, but I think they, like delta, have struggled to create a proper west coast presence because of United’s major SFO hub, and Alaska’s dominate domestic west coast route network. AA I think clearly now plans to build on that not fight it, and I’m intrigued to see where this goes. If these routes were simply changed because of a profitability problem they would have done that long ago…

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Oh man, cliffhanger:

“Will Delta take over LAX? And what will happen with AA, will they still be making profit at LAX with Delta having a hub there too? You’re all gonna see it in next episode”

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Good lord! Seattle Tacoma airport does not have the kind of room to have another airline base there, won’t they need to expand terminal S?

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I feel like I hear rumors like every other year that SEA is trying to get funding to expand. I wouldn’t say it’s out of the cards that’s for sure…

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Actually now it sounds like they want to build a second airport is Seattle, so idk, but I think airport expansion in the Seattle area is virtually inevitable…

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I have never seen you post without a “…” somewhere in there lol

Hopefully Delta will capitalize on this 💪 then again professor @Ishrion will probably point out a huge roadblock in the way.

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Now that you mention it, I do use ellipses a lot(…) 😂

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I find it interesting that AA has decided to cut down on their international flights at LAX. Although, that’s just more room for Delta and United to expand. We’ll see how this plays out, especially with the impact that COVID-19 has made on the aviation industry.

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United has actually been shrinking their LAX base, the only flights they’ve added recently are to Tokyo (Haneda I think?)

Other than this they’re cutting down the widebodies they fly there, so it’s unlikely they’ll be expanding more.

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Nah COVID-19 happened. When they announced their initial partnership in February, they said LAX would complement SEA, so they both should’ve grown alongside each other.

“Beginning West Coast international service from Seattle will complement American’s strong existing international network from LAX,”

That’s possible, but PEK and PVG will be tricky. Years ago AA fought Delta hard for the LAX-PEK slot. Now they just straight up dropped LAX-PEK and didn’t even request a dormancy waiver.

United/Delta may go for this open PEK slot just to secure it for the future. Both of them already requested to take over AA’s old ORD-PVG slot with United applying for a second daily EWR-PVG and Delta applying for MSP-PVG.

I wouldn’t be surprised if AA completely drops China from LAX (for 10+ years) and eventually shifts LAX-PEK/HKG to Seattle in the future. There’s also potential in a few years for China Southern to launch PKX-LAX and AA slaps their passengers onto that flight.

LAX will probably become an Oceanic gateway, with both Sydney and Auckland still set to resume in 2021. LAX to Christchurch is currently in limbo and may inaugurate in winter 2021, but that’s doubtful, unless they’re mandated to launch it…

In terms of long-haul, AA actually still offers the largest capacity at LAX even after dropping these 5 routes.

Taken from Forbes:

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image788×678 59 KB

But for overall international capacity, Delta remains the largest thanks to its short-haul international flights.

Overall, the future of AA at SEA is gonna be really fun. I could see them or JAL try to kick Delta out of routes like Seattle to Osaka.

But the more they expand, the more they’d have to shift their network. Currently the Seattle to Bangalore flight with the 787-9 originates and terminates in Los Angeles, and Shanghai will likely do the same.

I’m personally betting on AA launching Seattle to Doha, Beijing, Hong Kong, Manila (if PAL doesn’t gain authority), and Sydney (unless Qantas does it).

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this could also be a bit tough with all of the stuff going on in China and all of the US China travel bans.

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KSEA is definitely expanding, when at the garages you can a new high rise walk way

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Yields to China have been very low over the past several years. There are some routes were the North American carriers can compete with a superior product and FFers, but the yields were precarious at best. Leisure yields to Europe are largely consistent whereas Asia is essentially a game of roulette. As North American carriers downsize their fleets, do not be surprised to see some carriers trimming the fat in their Asia operations (excluding Japan). AA and UA are especially vulnerable to this as there are a lot of seats in their 3-4-3 777s that need to be filled.

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Feel like delta has dominated the trans-Pacific area, just doesn’t make sense of AA to fight against a top notch contender.

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Actually, I’d say that United is currently dominating the trans-Pacific market with their hub in San Francisco and possibly Newark or Chicago. They’ve been operating large widebodies with high load factors, and some services (including their flagship route, UA1 to Singapore) have even been made double daily, due to demand in Asia rising pretty consistently. Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore (and Guam) have been United’s focus for a while in Asia, though services to China have also been increasing with them adding larger aircraft to these routes.

If you mean Seattle specifically, OneWorld has control of most of the city especially now that Alaska is there. Cathay Pacific, American, Alaska, Japan Airlines, and British Airways (which operates a transatlantic flight). The only route I find odd is the one to Bangalore, especially since their prices are terrible.

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I mean, makes sense considering possible transfers crom Calgary, etc. Goign to LAX is too far.
Who even serves LAX now? Just United?

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This is a good question. I think that AA’s recent actions in SEA will probably choke out DAL from maintaining a major base there. While they might still keep a small domestic base they will likely end up moving. Some possibilities would be PDX, LAX or, the least likely, SLC.

  • DAL could likely move the SEA operations to PDX due to its relative location to Washington. While it doesn’t have as large a population as Seattle, Portland is still in reasonable distance to the area that people may be willing to drive or take a connecting flight.

  • DAL could likely choose LAX due to two reasons; 1 being that they already have a strong presence at LA and 2 being that AAL would be leaving a gap to be swallowed by UAL which is kind of unlikely due to their near by SFO base or DAL.

  • The least likely option would be for DAL to move their SEA operations south-east to SLC. This could be a possibility due to DAL’s heavy domestic presence at SLC, however Salt Lake City itself has a very low population and is one of Delta’s most neglected hubs in the long haul market. Another piece that could better the chance of a move to SLC would be the rebuilding of the airport, the first phase of which (a new terminal) should be completed sometime late 2020 or early 2021. As much as I’d like to see this third option happen, realistically it is the least likely of the three.

Note: the above statements are merely my own personal analysis and are base on my observations. They are in no way statements from the likes of Delta Airlines, the airports of Portland, Seattle, Los Angels or Salt Lake City or new outlets such as Simple Flying or The Points Guy.