Originally Posted by
elc2414
AA only flies direct to ATH from PHL.
The flight was available on the website and in November when I booked it and continued to be on aa.com until last month. They most certainly did show flights on dates that were not within the period of operation as admitted to by AA customer service. Don't know if that technically qualifies as a schedule change as much as a schedule screw up. Not sure what you are implying.
I tried to get them to change my tickets to dates the flight does operate, but they claim they can't because there is no availability.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't a "screw up". While it might be satisfying to assign some nefarious intent on AA's part, it does simply appear to be a schedule change. I believe that it was around the end of January that AA changed the start of the PHL-ATH flight. Likely why you hadn't received a notification yet. It just happened within the last couple of weeks.
Anyway, if you can find paid availability on a different, obviously later, date, I would push AA to open award space on their own metal. Keep in mind they cannot force it on partners so if you find a routing that includes someone other than AA and there's no award availability, AA probably won't be able to do anything. If you cannot go after AA starts the PHL-ATH service, then unfortunately you won't have much choice but to take what's available and pay whatever fees are associated with the new ticket. May not seem fair but it is what it is.