American Airlines Outlines October Service Cuts
American Airlines Outlines October Service Cuts
August
20, 2020
By:
Michael Gutta
American Airlines today announced the “temporary”
suspension of service to 15 destinations beginning October 7th,
after the federal CARES Act financial agreement ends. As announced, this
suspension of service would last through November 3rd, but the
resumption of service for many of these destinations would very much be in
doubt beyond that date.
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| American Eagle (Piedmont) ERJ-145 with registration N691AE at CLT lined up for takeoff on Runway 18C on 12/1/2019 (Michael Gutta) |
From the table below showing all 15 destinations,
four cities being suspended currently have American service to multiple hubs:
Joplin, New Haven, Roswell, and Sioux City. Rather than a reduction of service
to a single hub, American has completely axed these destinations. After the service
cuts go into effect, eight of these cities will have no airline service at all,
1 city will have only seasonal service by a commuter airline (New Haven, CT), 3
cities will have service by a single competing airline, and 3 cities will have
service remaining by multiple airlines. All of this is of course contingent on
what the other airlines decide for schedules by the time CARES Act provisions
expire on September 30, 2020.
Of the service cuts announced today, I tallied
the cuts by hub city. Dallas-Fort Worth sees the most cuts, losing service to
seven cities. In second, Charlotte loses service to five cities. These are
American’s two largest hubs, so in one regard have the most to lose. It is also
interesting that none of the service cuts are point-to-point routes serving
non-hubs. Furthermore, several hubs saw no service suspension in the
announcement today: Los Angeles (already reduced previously), Miami (people
still want to go to Florida), New York City, and Washington, D.C.
The final breakdown of these service suspensions
was by sector length. The average length of these routes was 294 nautical
miles, or approximately a 1 hour flight time depending on routing. The minimum
length route was only 86nm which was from Charlotte to Florence, and the longest
route was 571 miles from Sioux City to Dallas-Fort Worth.
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| American Airlines route suspensions on October 7, 2020. Map generated by the Great Circle Mapper - copyright © Karl L. Swartz. |
While this announcement from American Airlines is just more bad news resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic for the travel industry, some of these destinations may be picked up by other airlines or resumed by American at a later date. Several of these cities have service remaining by other airlines and this reduction in competition may allow service by the other airlines to continue. Let me know your thoughts on this blog post and potential future topics involving American Airlines, service and fleet cuts due to COVID-19, or anything aviation related.
The American Airlines’s press release:
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