Originally Posted by volaris
Can't you fly an award in combination with TAM since they're partners? I just flew up there (w/ TAM) but it was with their very cost-effective Airpass for foreigners. $100 ea. way between any 2 cities served by them. Excellent deal. Perhaps thats why AA hasn't pursued this before.
Another city that hasn't been mentioned and should be flown to by AA is obviously Salvador. Considering how touristy it is, I don't see why AA hasn't jumped into that yet.
Salvador and Manaus both already have non-stops to Miami. TAM flies MIA-SSA weekly and LAB flies MIA-MAO 3x a week.
While Salvador da Bahia is very touristy, there is less SSA-originating traffic than they would like. They are aiming to tap into local traffic too, which cities like Fortaleza and Recife better offer.
Manaus, despite having three weekly 767 flights to Miami, is still a priority for AA, because of huge cargo demand and a lot of business/merchant traffic, along with ecotourism traffic. AA actually applied to offer daily MIA-MAO service back in 1999, but lost against Continental's IAH-GRU proposal.
Belo Horizonte is being looked at, but will require a modified 757-200 for the route. AA is currently debating creating a subfleet of 757s that will be modified to open new long-haul flying from JFK to Europe (mainly Germany) and Miami to deep South America. Routes such as New York City-Dusseldorf and Miami-Cordoba.