ccengct

All of them, although a few were leased out short-term until Fedex could take them. Fedex got some AA D10s too.

FWAAA

Well, that's among the reasons, but not the primary one.

The list of important destinations not served by AA metal is long, and most of them are not home to a state-owned LCC that's ranked among the world's most luxurious airlines. An LCC that has ordered 90 A380s and dozens and dozens of B777s and A350s. ORD, DFW and MIA can be reached via LHR on BA at minimal distance penalty (less than 2%) over the nonstop great circle distance.

And yes, besides the hometown competition in EK, there is that failure by AA to ever fly its metal to CAI or TLV or any other city anywhere in the region. And all of a sudden, it's essential that AA fly to DXB to keep up with DL and UA? I'll believe it when the flight is loaded.

MAH4546

Yes, all of the "sudden" it is, because all of a sudden AA is the third largest airline with an incredibly weak and pathetic long-haul network compared to its peers. It either competes, or gets ready to lose corporate travel contracts and favor in the coming years.

Tel Aviv, Lagos, Hong Kong, Dubai, Moscow - these aren't markets AA can afford to ignore.

AA just instituted its ATIs with other airlines, so I understand why it has been so far behind, but as it learns to better cooperate with BA, IB and JAL, it also needs to see how those profit-sharing joint ventures can be used to expand the AA-metal network non-stop from the United States. The world isn't going to keep connecting through Tokyo and Madrid.

The landscape of the domestic airline industry has change all of the sudden in just the past few months, and AA is so far behind its not even funny.

Its time for AA to work on using its strengths - easily the best premium service and best FF program among U.S. airlines - to expand its brand's reach, or else it has an extremely rough decade ahead of itself.

N830MH

There is correct. UA has already existed service from USA-TLV/DXB/KWI/BAH. Soon UA will inauguration for EWR-CAI goes on effective May 2011, if necessary. DL is already still existed service for ATL-TLV/DXB & JFK-TLV/AMM/CAI and no one anything else. I remember there is one of few routes has been discontinuation service ATL-KWI due to weakest demands. The seats availability is zeros ouit. Unfortunately, DL couldn't workout very well. It was so much more tougher competitions against UA from IAD-KWI.

malcolmkettering

They tried Moscow/DME last year or the year before and pulled out, did it even last a full calendar year??

TLV can be so easily reached from AMM with RJ, connections at AMM are super easy. Maybe LAX-AMM would work, also bringing DXB that much closer. Maybe since UA and DL are already serving DXB along with mega-service from Emirates, AA could look at AUH instead. Might be kind of visionary since to many DXB has kind of 'peaked' and the real $$ is really in AUH and DOH (and K.S.A.) going forward.

LOS and HKG, who knows? AA seems uninterested in HKG apart from code-shares.

Here's an excerpt from that previously-quoted airlineforums.com thread:

"... guess on new destinations include BOM, NYC-China, LAX-PEK, NYC-India along with the usual suspects like ICN, SYD (much less likely), JNB or CPT (also much less likely) and DXB (probably never on AA metal)."

MAH4546

Yes, but it was also during one of the worst trans-Atlantic travel periods ever and before ATI and S7 joining OneWorld.

So? Other airlines can take you there non-stop from the United States, US Airways included.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if Royal Jordanian stepped into LAX/MIA-AMM in the coming year or two. Decent sized local market and even better local market beyond from both cities to BEY/DAM/TLV.

gegarrenton

I see a massive underestimation of demand for DXB from several here, and also a gross underestimation of the stability of Dubai. It seems that many have never been there.

I really don't get what Emirates has to do with any of it, AA would not be competing with them whatsoever.

Jacobin777

As I have mentioned a number of times, I was emailing AA since 2005 to start ORD-DXB. That was 6 years ago!

Even the recent global economic turn-down, I would not be surprised if this route would have been a very well established route for AA.

Jacobin777

Even with AA waiting for JV/ATI with BA/IB/JL, I see no reason why AA could not have started many other routes. Once the various ATI's were in place, AA could have adjusted its routes/schedules.

I see this simply as a failure by AA's management.

That being said, its never too late, thus even as of February 1, 2011, AA can start servicing the aforementioned locations.

DL has cut a few routes and have adjusted a few routes, but that is the nature of the beast. There are other DL routes which have done quite well.

EK for the most part is irrelevant (at least as of today). ORD-DXB is a route which EK doesn't even serve and could have been well established for AA by now. Actually, I don't expect EK to start ORD for another 2-3 years, that certainly gives AA the opportunity to start the route and get it established!

bernardd

I assume EK have picked markets with lots of valuable O&D traffic - that's presumably why they operate to JFK & LAX, plus IAH is presumably for the premium fare oil-related traffic. Presumably AA could feed an ORD-DXB flight from a large part of the US and wouldn't be as reliant on O&D traffic, however could they compete effectively for paid premium passengers originating in NYC or Houston or on the West Coast? Isn't that the key question because without those key passengers it's hard to make money?

Jacobin777

EK have been on record stating that had their A380's not have been delayed, they might have already started ORD (I'll try finding the links/quotes). Probably with a B777.

While ORD-DXB probably wouldn't be as high yielding as say IAD or IAH, I do believe that O&D as well as a lot of connecting pax numbers would be there.

Look at how well EY has done in 15 months since starting AUH-ORD. They have gone from 5x/weekly to daily in just a few months. This is during one of the toughest economic periods in recent memory.

I can't say how yields are, but running some numbers on l.f. it seems EY is running at about (as of July 2010) 80.3% ORD-AUH and 91.4% AUH-ORD. That's over 85.85% (86%) l.f. averaged out...now that's not bad one bit!

gegarrenton

Yes!

n710dn

Just really curious, when and how will AA announce such new routes? AFAIK Arpey presents these info at what I call "the annual route announcement" around fall of every year

bernardd

If I have this right it looks like EK is stepping up the IAH service to twice daily. I guess it must be working well for them.

Hyperacusis

In fact, EK added the second flight back on November 1. I can't complain - I prefer the new DXB-IAH flight schedule, and the additional seats have added more upgrade inventory to the route.

And even despite the additional seats, I was opped up J to F on a recent DXB-IAH. On a Y ticket that was upgraded to J with miles. Looks like they're doing just fine on loads.