Adios SEA-LHR and AA's Plan for SEA International Flights
 

Man...this partnership just keeps paying dividends doesn't it? In the realm of corporate mistakes, Ben joining OneWorld as a strategic partnership with AA seems to be an absolute dud.

As a Bay Area customer where AS has significantly pared back their offerings the last few years, I was hopeful that we'd see a deeper partnership between the two airlines. While it's great being able to earn AS miles on any AA flight, the lack of codeshares or AS marketing of AA flights hasn't made much of a difference in being able to seamlessly travel from my home airport without relying on a competitor alliance (or Southwest). I realize being in an alliance together isn't the same as a JV, so maybe these things just aren't possible, but this seemingly half-assing of things just doesn't go far enough to make a meaningful improvement. Would love to be able to buy an AS ticket that takes advantage of AA's flights out of my closest airport that lets me mix and match segments between the two airlines.

From the Bay Area, there are so many carve outs that are blocked from code-sharing to get the VX merger approved, that closer co-operation is not going to happen--at least until those expire. AA is not exactly a powerhouse at SFO now either where even flights to hubs like ORD have been cut down a lot. The SEA idea for international service never made much sense. It was good for the press release and that is about it. LHR slots are too valuable for AA to waste on SEA when AA already has a JV partner that is already well established on the route.

If AA/AS got any closer, like the AA/B6 alliance, they would be sued as well and perhaps have the whole partnership be put into question.

What was the other option? Go it alone and get out-competed by DL at SEA? The problem is AA's management is terrible with no vision or even a semi-coherent plan for growth. It's not just SEA, look at what they did at AUS. They grew it almost to the level of a mini-hub and then it all came crashing down the past couple weeks. Before that look at JFK and LAX. Ultimately, my opinion is that AA management were a lot of holdovers from US and they really never let their past go. For example, look at their emphasis on former US hubs instead of the more international connected hubs with better amenities (i.e PHX over LAX and PHL over JFK). They know they cannot compete based on service, so they don't. They put those exact words into press releases when canceling routes. They pull flights from hubs (LAX) or shift to other hubs with no/lesser competition (PHL and CLT). And, let's be honest, SEA-BLR was a pipe dream and BA out of SEA is going to be better than AA most days of the week.

DL chased AA out of SEA, quite wisely IMO. DL and VS are now each flying daily (VS started service during this time) and BA added PDX-LHR during the AA attempt at SEA-LHR. That's 5 flights with the BA double daily, and PDX-LHR bleeding off some PDX connecting traffic. Way too many seats in the PNW-LON market for AA as the new entrant to do much of anything other than get all the bottom feeder discount traffic.

I flew AA 155/156 in the offseason and it was a J award+nonrev delight, or get your own row in Y. No surprises here once DL decided they were not about to have AA muscle in and made sure there was way too much capacity.

I hit the 2 MM threshold just as US was taking over AA, only surprise is that it took this long for the apparent failure in strategic planning, attributed to the extended downturn in business travel.
To be fair, AA has done a good job ramping up international service from fortress hubs DFW and MIA, and to a lesser extent, ORD.
Here is SAN, AS' One World membership provides access to BA's 2x daily service to LHR, JL service to TYO; combined with frequent connections on AA to DFW, OW serves my needs quite well.

Here in SAN, hard disagree. Joining OneWorld was a huge bump in value. Only those that can see the books at AS can determine if it was a dud business wise. But from a passenger perspective, it was a huge win.

They didn't have to do much chasing. It was a losing proposition from the start. SEA was down at the bottom of the barrel of major cities for AA to focus on growing and really makes no sense for them at all now.

Delta's hub at SEA is the worse performing in the system and by some estimates is loosing them money. They were never going to out compete Alaska. They never got close. It really was a glorified temper tantrum about being rejected as a merger. Just about all of the "Alliance" members were already partners with AS. Alaska was doing quite well being independent. Everything since joining has been a downhill slide going lockstep with AA. The entire Executive Team lacks any sort of vision, that has been clear for a long time. AA influencing hasn't helped that either.

As a Shareholder and a Passenger I have to firmly disagree. Stocks are solidly down, almost to Covid lows at this point. Their financials don't actually look all that amazing. Their is a firm lack of long term direction. Ben as bean counter can't focus more than a quarter or 2 out and has not really planned on how he's going to grow the airline other than spending money and buying more planes. As a passenger and FF, their program is turning into a joke. IT investments are clearly lacking still, resulting in a program that may or may not work as designed depending on how the wind blows. While I thought the crew was surly during the VA merger, I'd say the current attitudes are almost worse, again resulting in a subpar onboard experience. About the only damn thing they are kicking ... and leading in is the food catering. Ultimately it comes down to poor management, but the AS of pre merger was much better than what we got from the anchor of AA.

Name a major airline whose IT isn't a joke? I think most US airlines had at least one issue this year.

Yes, SFO-LAX is a glaring example where it would be really nice to take advantage of AS frequencies to connect to AA TATL/TPAC on one ticket. Instead I would need to rely on AAs sparse, and often ill-timed schedule, plus a bus ride from/to the remote terminal at LAX.

By most estimates, DL is losing money at SEA.

All true. And it's proof how weak AA is that it couldn't make a 788 work on SEA-LHR with oneworld partner hubs at both ends.