<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by LLZ:
AA has always had an aversion (post 707 days) to four-engined aircraft.</font>
With respect to LLZ, that comment/statement is frequently mentioned in FlyerTalk but is
ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE.
http://airtransportbiz.free.fr/Networks/AAAsia.html
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">[American’s]first significant attempt to crack the Asian market was in 1989, when the airline filled an application for the new frequencies for flights on the lucrative Chicago-Tokyo route. At the time only Northwest Airlines had authority approval to fly between the two airports. As a part of its proposal to the Federal Aviation Administration, American Airlines inked an agreement that committed itself to two 747-400 delivery slots intended for Canadian Airlines – if it won the go-ahead for the route. United Airlines was flying 747-400s and American wanted to avoid being ruled out on the basis the airline would fail the "utilization rate" United was offering of the authority because it could only position smaller airplanes on the routes.</font>
* AA even offered CP
twice the list price for the B744s, in order to have them in time for the proposed ORD-NRT service.
The reason AA doesn’t operate B744s is because their network doesn’t support them. B744s offer too much capacity domestically (they’d also lose money), transatlantic flights (too much competition = too much capacity) and Latin/South American flights (not enough traffic). They’re best fit for transpacific flights (including Asia and Australia) but AA has a weak transpacific network – they posted a 75.4% load factor in January, pretty bad when you consider AA’s B772s only hold 223 passengers. Compare that to NW’s 84.1%, UA’s 82%, DL’s 79% and CO’s 65.3%. In fairness, the load factor would jump quite a few points if it weren’t for JFK-NRT, which is doing poorly.
The article above, by the way, puts to rest many other FlyerTalk myths -- AA flew a fully-load B772 ORD-HKG successfully; their B772s are capable of serving Asia.
[This message has been edited by IndustrialPatent (edited 02-11-2003).]