There’s mystery surrounding the unexpected cancellation of service between Miami and Tel Aviv on American Airlines, but I have a theory: too much competition as American Airlines continues to struggle with a widebody aircraft shortage.
American Airlines Cancels Miami – Tel Aviv Route After Moving It From 4X Weekly To Daily
We have seen a huge growth in transatlantic travel to Tel Aviv over the last few years. United Airlines, for example, serves Tel Aviv from Chicago (ORD), Newark (EWR), San Francisco (SFO), and Washington (IAD). It used to just be Newark. Delta Air Lines serves Tel Aviv from Boston (BOS) and New York (JFK) and will add service from Atlanta (ATL) this spring.
Tel Aviv may not be the most premium market, but demand is strong and therefore it was no surprise when American Airlines announced it would launch service from Miami (MIA) to Tel Aviv. Not only did it launch service in June 2021 with four weekly flights, but made the route daily in October 2022, which typically indicates the route was performing well. More recently, though, American Airlines downguaged the route from a Boeing 777-200 to a Boeing 787-8, which features only 20 seats in business class.
In a statement concerning the route cancellation, American Airlines said:
As part of the continuous evaluation of our network, American Airlines has made the difficult decision to discontinue its Miami (MIA) – Tel Aviv (TLV) service effective March 24, 2023. We will continue to operate daily service to Tel Aviv from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK). We’re proactively reaching out to customers affected by these changes to offer alternate travel arrangements.
So what caused this cancellation?
We book a lot of Award Expert clients to Tel Aviv and have noticed that fares over the last year have been suspocpisly attractive. This is anecdotal, not quantitative data, but my hunch is that American Airlines saw the expansion from Delta and United (and Israeli flag carrier EL-AL too) and thought that its aircraft could better be utilized in other markets.
With China re-opening and demand and fares high, my prediction is that we will see more Mainland China service from American Airlines, a comparatively more profitable route (for the time being, at least).
The Aircraft Shortage Continues
During the pandemic, American Airlines moved swiftly to retire its Airbus A330 and Boeing 767 fleet, a move that increasingly appears foolish in retrospect. In its defense, American Airlines had planned to receive more Boeing 787 Dreamliners but has encountered delivery delays which have frustrated plans for longhaul expansion.
Dreamliner deliveries resumed in August 2022 after a 15-month delay, but American Airlines still is waiting for 34 (including 30 787-9 deliveries). In 2024, AA will introduce a “high-J” configuration of the the 787-9 featuring 51 seats in business class and closing doors.
I’m not convinced that Tel Aviv was unprofitable, only that it was not profitable enough. I expect if AA had the aircraft capacity, ti would continue to run this route.
CONCLUSION
In a surprise move, American Airlines is canceling its service between Miami and Tel Aviv. Impacted passengers will be re-booked via New York on American or from Miami on British Airways or Iberia. While AA has not offered specific reasons for its route cancellation, my hunch is that with so much competition to Tel Aviv, the route was not profitable enough.
Why do you think AA cut its MIA-TLV route?
image: American Airlines
I’m sure some will blame it on anti-semitism. Cue the ADL!
Airlines cancel routes when they’re not profitable or dont see profitability in the near future or ever. Case closed.
suspocpisly attractive
downguaged the route
AA’s new travel agency strategy is most likely the reason for cancelling the route. There are a handful of places, TLV included, that have an outsized amount of traffic brought through travel agency bookings. You either play ball with their demands or they will book their traffic on other carriers.
JFK works because there’s so much demand in the city that books on their own that cheap fares can attract those passengers. AA probably couldn’t fill MIA-TLV consistently with $5 fares without travel agency bookings.
AA should just surrender the entire market to Kirby. Cut JFK too. Long haul international is a joke these days at AA.
Speaking of China, I’ve seen reports that UA is going to go all in China, and their full 2019 schedule to China is starting in March, does anyone know if that’s true? Seems a bit aggressive, but I guess it makes since if the Chinese people are desperate to travel after being locked up for 3 years.
Also, I heard the Polaris ice cream cart is coming back in Feb, does anyone know when in Feb? I’m flying to London on Feb 1 and would love to see it on that flight haha.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnFa2CBrpFp/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=
Yeah I saw that, does that mean Feb 1? It doesn’t specifically say when in Feb.
Now that’s what I call some serious ice cream cart!! Fanbloodytastic!! It took them forever though!!
Yeah it looks fantastic, I just hope that cart makes it on my Feb 1 flight to LHR. I would feel better if I was going a week later and not on day 1 haha but hopefully I get it.
Fingers crossed Jared, you get what they call a Soft Opening Debut! Lol.
Came in from Brussels to IAD on 1/12/23 and was told by FAs that ice cream cart is operating on some San Francisco outbounds and should be restored to other stations in February.
After an adventurous few years adding all kinds of thinner international routes (and some really bold experiments like Bologna and the never-launched Krakow), American seems to retrenching to their Arpey-era belief that there are only six overseas cities that exist in the world: London, Paris, Madrid, Tokyo, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires.
I’m being a little hyperbolic, but they’re short of airframes (retiring those A330s was, let’s admit it, a real doofus move) and the ones they’ve got aren’t optimized to meet the premium demand that’s come back so strongly in the last 12 months. The 787-8s, when originally delivered, had 28 J seats. I’m sure AA wouldn’t mind having some of those seats back.
Less executive tolerance for risk-taking + suboptimally configured aircraft + not enough aircraft + competition that has its act together = AA’s longhaul route map contracts to just handful of cities where they know they can make money. We saw this movie before, under Gerard Arpey.
American aka red neck airlines will never compete United in terms of international. This is not surprising at all 🙂
*with 🙂
AA cannot afford any long haul route that is not making money, and large amounts of money. They are essentially running a bankrupt airline.
For people who were supposed to fly in later months from Miami does the airline rebook? A lot of Jews were probably going to fly the route in April for Passover.
Yes, but as I motioned above not on EL-AL. You’ll be rebooked via JFK on AA or via MAD on IB or LHR on BA (or you can request a refund).
AA with lot’s of publicity announce Philadelphia Bologna same was in Italy and the mayor of the city plus the press everybody was super excited and one day to another AA change there minds canceling the flight without an explanation’s that was very rude and irresponsible