American Airlines has been so busy lately I have not had a chance to catalogue all the upcoming changes. Let’s take a look at the “blitzkrieg” American Airlines has embarked upon.
1. American Airlines Will Make Seattle A Strategic Focus City
American Airlines will inaugurate new nonstop service from Seattle to Bangalore in October 2020 utilizing a Boeing 787-9. It will also add service to London in March 2021 utilizing a 777.
Wait, Seattle? Yes, Seattle. Not that AA has a hub there…or even a focus city (yet). No one guessed that American would announce service from a non-hub to a secondary (but still large) city in India.
Maybe there’s a lucrative corporate contract with Microsoft that will back this route. Maybe Vasu Raja, AA’s Senior Vice President of Strategy, had a few drinks with Patrick Quayle, Vice President of International Planning at United, who has also been known to launch quirky routes (though always from hubs).
The new route is puzzling on many fronts, but it represents a bold new strategy, even if we don’t fully understand yet what that strategy is.
2. American Airlines Will Expand Partnership With Alaska Airlines
For American Airlines, the enemy of your enemy is your friend. American and Alaska were on the verge of further scaling back their relationship, but instead will become closer than ever before.
Look for more codesharing, reciprocal frequent flyer benefits, and a united effort to stem Delta’s rise in Seattle. Alaska and American actually have largely complementary networks and the link-up has the potential to strengthen both carriers.
Is a merger in store? Unlikely. But American’s pair of new longhaul routes in Seattle is also geared toward feeder traffic from Alaska.
> Read More: Alaska Joins Oneworld? Don’t Get Too Excited…
3. American Airlines Will Expand Partnership With Qatar Airways
You would be forgiven for looking at yesterday’s announcement that American and Qatar will resume codesharing and thinking you were in the twilight zone.
In 2017, AA abruptly announced it was ending its codeshare agreement with Qatar Airways, arguing at the time:
“This decision has no material financial impact on American and is an extension of our stance against the illegal subsidies that these carriers receive from their governments.”
And yet here we are, three years later, with a total flip-flop. Qatar Airways has been weakened by the Gulf Blockade and its Air Italy investment just went belly up. American Airlines has been weakened by operational woes and continued disharmony with labor unions. Qatar and American are a like a match made in Wonderland, with Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Addressing the announcement, he said:
“We are very pleased to secure this strategic partnership with American Airlines — an agreement between two successful and ambitious airlines with a shared common purpose to enhance the customer experience.”
Doug Parker, AA’s CEO, now says:
“Our goal is to continue to expand and deepen our global partnerships to complement American’s network and create more choice for our customers.”
As for the 2017 tension?
“The issues that led to the suspension of our partnership two years ago have been addressed?”
In what way? The death of Air Italy?
American Airlines certainly sees Qatar Airways as less of a threat in 2020 and feeding domestic U.S. traffic to/form Qatar’s vast worldwide network is probably more lucrative for American than it is for Qatar Airways.
4. American Airlines Partners with GOL
AA’s on-again-off-again relationship with GOL is on again, after LATAM dumped American for Delta.
With Azul dancing with United and LATAM with Delta, GOL and American were a natural match.
GOL is based in Rio de Janeiro and its network is quite limited compared to LATAM’s vast network in Latin America. Still, GOL still serves 97 destinations and will help to mitigate the loss of LATAM.
CONCLUSION
Now that we know the news, tomorrow I’ll offer my analysis on how all of this fits together.
Some of these developments has been in the works for months, but it seems the shock of losing LATAM to Delta finally woke American Airlines out of its slumber.
As history foretells, however, blitzkriegs can have unintended consequences…
image: American Airlines
The SEA-BLR route is one that has me scratching my head. You have a non-hub city pair with what looks like a negligible amount of O&D traffic – so at first glance, it appears AA is going to be depending on connecting traffic, probably mostly from CA via AS, though it wouldn’t surprise me if the 787 continues as a tag flight to either DFW/LAX/ORD. It still seems like something that’s destined to not end well, though I’ll reserve final judgment until I see the exact schedule.
The thing is, if you want tech hub to tech hub traffic, why not launching SFO-BLR? Alaska has quite a presence in Bay area also… If you count on CA traffic, may as well be from CA
AA does not have any aircraft that can fly that route – it’s too long. Seattle is closer and thus is possible
I think it has everything to do with AA’s new partnership with AS. I’d imagine that AS has a deep relationship with the tech behemoths (Microsoft, Amazon, etc) that call SEA (and to a lesser extent SFO) home and their number one request would be nonstop flights to an underserved Asian tech hub (BLR) and a close second would be to an underserved European financial hub (LHR). I think the fact that AS has no longhaul planes BUT has access to lucrative corporate contracts is the main driver for these 2 new routes. And yes, I agree that AA would be very likely to fly their widebodies to/from LAX/DFW to SEA as tag flights
Matthew,
I think you hit the jackpot when mentioning Air Italy’s death as part of what brought back the resumption of the AA/QR codeshare deal. I was originally baffled by QR’s lack of intent in rescuing Air Italy. However, it all makes very much sense now. QR and AA must have already struck a deal to resume the codeshare relationship shortly before QR pulled the plug on Air Italy. I guess the US domestic feed that AA provides is much more valuable to QR than whatever funds they’ll lost with the failed Air Italy venture.
Dear Matthew, I really enjoy reading your blog! I am with you regarding several non-traveling issues even, but please allow me to just say: as a German, I do take issue with the word „Blitzkrieg“ in this context. It is like some Germans using the expression „bis zur Vergasung“ regarding doing something until exhaustion. I will not get into what this actually meant during the worst of the worst times.
It is simply not advisable to use vocabulary associated with Nazism, especially since in my view it minimizes the horrors of Nazi terror. I know that you did not mean this to be looked at from this perspective, but I would like to please ask you to refrain using this word. Hope you understand I am not writing this as PC police, but as a person deeply feeling hurt by what my own people did to fellow human beings. It brings tears to my eyes every time I think about what Blitzkrieg really stands for.
Thank you for your well-reasoned and thoughtful comment. Going forward, I will be more mindful of using terms that carry negative associations, including Blitzkrieg. Thanks too for reading!
I’m thinking that this will lead to an AA/QR joint venture. That’s probably why AA is thinking of flying to DOH. AA was embarrassed by the loss of Latam, so now they are striking at DL is so many ways, by attacking them in BOS and SEA which are places where DL has little to no advantage. They’d be foolish to fight them in ATL, SLC, DTW or MSP. AA getting more income from AS and QR will help its bottom line. And that leaves them room to fight DL in MIA where AA has 70% market share compared to Delta’s 11.5%. AA is finally waking up, it only took them 6 years.
“Lightning War” is hardly the term I would use to describe American’s recent initiatives, but I’m glad you’re trying to use the new words you’re learning.
I’ve spoken Germany for 15 years…
At the glacial pace American has moved at over the last several years, this is indeed lightening war…
Interesting all these supposed strategic moves but it won’t get the real problem fixed: the people. Unless they get their horrible frontline staff attitude fixed it just remains a mediocre 2* airline.
Great starting point for the turnaround would be MIA. Never seen more totally uninterested front liners than there.