This will make AA's already industry trailing IRROPs recovery even more difficult.
“With nine hubs and gateways and nearly 7,000 daily flights, we have more ability to re-route our customers during operational disruption than any other airline in the world.”
This is my favorite quote I think. Okay AA, if that's the case then why are you so AAwful at it to begin with? This isn't really a merger casualty either. AA's IRROPs handling has, in recent history at least, never been up to the level one would hope. At least before the merger and the banked hub fiasco, we didn't see quite as many misconnects. By removing a third of the options when it comes to recovery flights, this is going to negatively affect AA's IRROPs handling in a major way, despite the corporate nonsense that Casey Norton has said to try and smooth this over.
This is just a case of #cheAAp at the expense of the consumer.