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This is a brief post to highlight a few changes to American Airlines’ operations that I’ve noticed mentioned on Routes Online in the past few days. American Airlines’ customers flying in/out of New York or Vancouver may wish to pay special attention.
American Airlines Route Cancellations/Reductions
The grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX has seen American Airlines forced to shuffle its fleet around and we’ve seen a number of routes canceled as the airline finds itself short of aircraft to operate its full schedule.
As of 14 July, American Airlines has once again pushed back the anticipated return to service of the 737 MAX and, as such, has been forced to extend the cancellations of a number of its domestic routes.
The following routes were scheduled to return on 19 August but have now been canceled through 2 November 2019:
- New York JFK – San Diego
- New York JFK – Seattle
- Philadelphia – San Antonio
- Dallas/Fort Worth – Oakland
The following service is now canceled through 3 September 2019:
- New York JFK – Washington Reagan
Please note that these are not the only American Airlines route cancellations as a result of the 737 MAX’s grounding – these are just the latest schedule changes put through by American Airlines.
As well as the route cancellations noted above, American Airlines is also suspending two of its services to Vancouver.
The daily Chicago O’Hare – Vancouver service will be suspended from 4 September 2019 and the daily Phoenix – Vancouver service will be suspended from 21 November 2019.
As things stand both routes are scheduled to restart from 4 June 2020.
Both of these routes are currently operated by Boeing 737-800 aircraft so aren’t directly impacted by the grounding of the 737 MAX, but it’s possible that the 737s operating these routes are needed to cover MAX routes elsewhere in the system.
Bottom Line
Throughout the 737 MAX debacle, American Airlines has insisted on remaining overly optimistic about the aircraft’s re-entry into service but, as we’re seeing, reality and the stated opinion of American Airlines management can be two very different things.
The latest route cancellation extensions are the third time American Airlines has had to push back the MAX’s re-entry into service and there is no reason to believe that this will be the last time we see this happen – if you need to fly on any of the routes on which American plans to operate its 737 MAX aircraft it may be wise to consider booking with another airline, if possible.
