I don't see the doom and gloom, yes PHL suffers from weakened O&D due to proximity to NYC's airports with cheaper fares, but AA will not reduce PHL to a focus city any time soon. Philadelphia is a huge city and metropolitan area, and AA still sends a ton of connecting traffic through - where else is it going to go?

Pulling back to six banks instead of eight makes sense. AA admits that their "first of the day" flights (leaving outstations sometimes as early as 5:30am) just aren't successful, so they are pulling those back.

This should, however, be a wake-up call to airport management that relying on AA and not offering incentives to other airlines (particularly European carriers) has been a mistake. It's no wonder you are seeing a Frontier build up (hiring 100 flight attendants in the region) and Icelandair starting service. I suspect we'll see an even bigger Frontier push next spring/summer.