Well Steve, everyone has different perceptions of reality. And there is reality and there is bias. AA flies to less than 7 TA destinations from NY, and the only frequency on any is LHR, conbined airlift of all NY TA flights is less than 3000 seats a day. Delta flies to something like 35 TA destinations from NY, with more than 40 flights a day, with more than 10,000 seats a day. CO flies to over 20 TA destinations from EWR, with airlift of about 5000 seats per day. With only one notable exception (DL to CDG) I am not including any codeshares in these calculations. Also one can assume that the ratio of premium to non-premium seats is the same. Also, load factors in the back and the front over any 3-5 year period among these three carriers are generally within 3-5 points of eachother.

Therefore of appx 18,000 seats a day across the pond on US carriers from the NYC metropolitan region, we see that AA accounts for appx 3000. So this of course would probably mean that in Steve's world people not flying to London, would prefer to connect through there, while in the real world the other 5/6 of people would fly direct to their destinations - this is a gross over-simplification, but I think people will get my meaning.

BTW, when one applies the same methodology to AA against these same carriers from just about anywhere in the US against AA, with the possible and lonely exception of ORD (where they have their own UA competition) one sees AA as a non-TA airline other than for flying to LHR, and the entire industry has decimated the multiple connection LHR thing over the last 15 years.