I thought US Airways was planning to move to the current AA window of meal service by April, which means timing and length thresholds that equal AA's? A 1,000-mile threshold seems a bit too high, not equalling that of AA's current 600-ish (and is higher than UA and DL's current 800-900ish).
That said, it could be transitional - slowly transitioning US service windows to that of AA's. September is plenty of time away, which gives us a window to give feedback and make sure the new AA will mostly retain it's meal windows and service standards. This also gives crew an opportunity to give feedback and for AA to determine if they feel it is worthy to offer meal service on shorter flight windows after September (paid F revenue, etc). After all, they both are still separate carriers and have their own budgets.
The pemissit in me says this is a subtle effort to downgrade the future new AA's service by not immediately changing the windows.
Time shall tell, indeed.