American Airlines Announces LAX Service To Hong Kong

Updated: 9 March 2016

American Airlines has officially announced the long anticipated service between Los Angeles and Hong Kong. It was widely expected that the Airline would announce this route earlier in the year when it held a big press event in Los Angeles but, rumors say, the announcement was cancelled due to route timing issues.

Earlier in the day the LAX-HKG route appeared on an American Airlines webpage (with minimal information) before being taken down a few hours later. Here’s what that page looked like:

Now the route has been announced via a press release and all is official.

Andrew Nocella, chief marketing officer for American Airlines is quoted as saying:

We announced new domestic Los Angeles routes at the end of January, and customers let us know they wanted more great service to even more destinations.

This route connects customers in Los Angeles with one of the world’s most important business markets and provides convenient connections to important business and leisure destinations across the Pacific

What We Know

Starting 7 September 2016 American Airlines will operate the Los Angeles – Hong Kong route using its 3-class Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.

The route schedule is as follows:

LAX 01:55 – 08:10+1 day HKG
HKG 20:20 – 18:40 LAX

As things stand there doesn’t appear to be any mention of frequency but it would seem unlikely that the service would be anything but daily and the route doesn’t appear to have any flight numbers yet either.

Update 9 March: American Airlines will open reservations for this route on 20 March 2016.

It looks as if American Airlines has rushed out this announcement after accidentally posting it to the website earlier today. I get the feeling the general public were not meant to know about this just yet……a bit like we weren’t meant to know about the devaluation to British Airways earnings on American which they accidentally published in September last year, then denied, and then went ahead with anyway a few months later.

Still, this isn’t exactly the first time in recent months that American Airlines has released half-baked information before they have all their ducks in a row. I’m starting to wonder when they last made an announcement with all the required information in it.

Bottom Line

American Airlines is in the middle of making a big play for the Los Angeles market and this route, alongside their Sydney and Auckland routes is a big part of that.

American Airlines will be going up against a OneWorld partner (Cathay Pacific) on this route so it will be interesting to see how that plays out. Cathay’s all around premium product is vastly superior to that of American’s and premium cabin passengers are who American Airlines is after. Will they upgrade their service like they’re trying to do on the Sydney route (promises of better food/drink & PJs in Business Class) or will they hope for the best? I guess we’ll find out soon enough.