PMMMColonel

I have recently read in the last couple of days that AA CEO said they will expand in Asia and better utilize connections in NRT.

This is a result of JL joining Oneworld and the new relocation to terminal 2.

Any ideas what he is hinting at? The lost the new China route for 2007 and will bid again in 2008.

Will they add NRT flights? Do the have the aircraft? Maybe for a least one or tow routes with changes and loss of China.

Maybe the long awaited flight from MIA to NRT? This has been speculated before?

HKG when they work things out with the pilots from ORD? I think they also need to apply but it is easier than China.

TPE? Low rev I know? More service from ORD, JFK or DFW?

I am interested in what others here think will happen in the next 1-2 years.

As a side note, would JL open new routes with AA numbers?

shoodawg

deleted

georgehf

...and canceled sjc-nrt.

DCAstudent

AA's desire to serve Seoul:

January 16, 2007 12:00 p.m. EST
American Air To Improve Service At Tokyo Hub
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
By Ann Keeton Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

CHICAGO (Dow Jones)--In a move to handle more passenger traffic to Asia, American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp. (AMR), is making changes at its hub at Tokyo's Narita International Airport.

American, the world's biggest airline, expects its Asia business to spike this year when Japan Airlines Corp. (9205.TO) joins AMR in the Oneworld Alliance, a global airline partnership.

American is already a partner with Japan Airlines, the largest Japanese carrier. Their code-sharing now allows the airlines to issue tickets on each others' flights.

But a full alliance partnership typically increases passenger traffic by 20% to 30% on the partner airlines, David Cush, senior vice president of American's global sales, said told Dow Jones Newswires. Advantages for passengers include lower ticket prices on connecting flights, and shared perks for premium customers.

The alliance with Japan Airlines is especially significant, since American has a smaller network of flights to the Pacific region - the world's fastest growing market for air travel - than rivals Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWACQ) and United Airlines, a unit of UAL Corp. (UAUA).

To make travel easier for passengers connecting at Narita, on Jan. 17 American is moving its operations to Terminal 2 from Terminal 1. Gates will now be in the same terminal as Japan Airlines, as well as Oneworld Alliance partners Qantas Airways Ltd. (QAN.AU), Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. (0293.HK) and Finnair Oyj (FIA1S.HE).

Cush said about one-third of American's passengers flying into Narita continue their journeys on other flights, mostly on Japan Airlines. "The move to Terminal 2 allows us to reduce minimum flight connection time from about two hours to just over one hour," Cush said. To give examples, he said the total time for a Chicago-to-Singapore flight will be cut by 50 minutes, and Chicago-to-Seoul flights will be 45 minutes shorter.

In addition, American is nearly doubling the size of its passenger lounge, which can be used by premium passengers flying on Japan or American Airlines. The lounge will also have more capability for wireless computing.

Expanding Service To Asia

Oneworld, the third-largest global airline alliance behind Star Alliance and SkyTeam, now includes eight airlines, and plans to add more members this year. In 2006, it beefed up service to China with the addition of Dragonair, the Hong Kong airline that serves more Chinese cities than any carrier outside of mainland China.

Alliances typically bring in millions of dollars a year in additional income for their members. Oneworld, founded in 2000, doesn't divulge its annual revenue. With expansion this year, Oneworld said it expects to have a 20% share of global air traffic.

As international air travel rises, global airline alliances will become increasingly important, Cush said.

Still, he said, American is intent on increasing its own flights to the Pacific region. Constraints include regulatory agreements. Flights between the U.S. and China are governed by long-term pacts between the two governments that allow slow expansion. American last week lost to United in a bid for a new daily nonstop China flight beginning in March. Cush said American will continue to bid for new China flights as the opportunity arises, and also hopes to add flights to Seoul.

"In some ways, the Indian market is even more exciting than China," Cush said, since there's already significant passenger traffic between the U.S. and India. Currently American Airlines serves India with nonstop service between Chicago and Delhi. Passenger demand to and from India is extremely strong, Cush said, but European carriers today "pretty much have a lock" on international flights there.

Currently, the Indian market is suffering from a lack of airport facilities, which Cush said will take another five to ten years to develop.

But there's another problem with nonstop service: the 16-hour flight between Chicago and Delhi, both northern cities in the two countries "is about as far as a Boeing 777 can go" without stopping for fuel, Cush said. He said neither Boeing nor Airbus (ABI.YY) has aircraft on the drawing board that could make the 18-hour-plus nonstop flights between other key markets in India and the U.S.

zman

AA has almost no latitude to make this happen. Flights too long must be approved by the pilots and that is not going to happen (after the China fiasco). AA has given slots up at NRT so it appears they do not want any more NRT flights. They have also given up NGO, KIK and TPE. So of their 9 use to have flights to ASIA they have given up 4 (45%). Does not sound like expansion to me. TPE is low revenue in Premium due to competition. Maybe ORD to SEL would work but that also has low Premium fares. Everything else is toooo far to comply with Pilot contracts assume they want Hub only traffic. They can not get any China routes due to Government allocation rules and pilot contract issues (from DFW). Also with JAL soon to be part of Oneworld AA will loose some business to the competition due to the perceived superior service.

justageek

Yeah, this sounds like smoke and mirrors to me. If anything, the point of the article is that AA has capitulated on flying more of its own aircraft to Asia, and is just going to throw all of its eggs into the JAL basket. Between the pilot problems and the lack of a partner with a hub there, I don't see them flying to Seoul.

I thought it was interesting that they say they are not going to add any more destinations in India. Sounds like AA's grand plan of sustaining profitability by expanding internationally while contracting domestically may have hit a roadblock here -- China and India are pretty much the most crucial destinations for them to expand, due to lack of partners that fly there nonstop from the US and the exploding economic importance of those two countries.

Thunderroad

I can see how the roadblocks or failure to expand across the Pacific might be bad for AA as a company. But, and I realize I'm going OT here, might it sometimes be good for AA members? You can fly CX, which is a much better airline, and usually get the same revenue miles and EQMs as if you're on AA. And with JAL joining OW, that presents another option, abeit not as good as CX

I can see exceptionsto this rule: you can't use the EP VIPs on partners; or it could still be bad if you have to fly a US carrier (and if a CX codeshare with AA doesn't do the trick); or perhaps for certain routes. But beyond that, I find that AA's arrangement with its Asian partners beats that of UA with its superior Asian partners, since the UA mileage benefits in flying those partners aren't nearly as good.

formeraa

Not true! They have just switched the slots to different cities.

zman

What city did they move the SJC to NRT slot?

UA Fan

What's wrong with UA's mileage benefits? UA can also offer better prices due to control it has over its own flights in Asia as well as depend on numerous codeshares.

martin33

not really easier. The current HKG air service treaty is not much more open to new entrants than the China one.

sipples

NRT-MIA would make sense, but it's a long flight: very close to ORD-DEL. AA would need to work with the pilots on that one.

JAL does almost nothing for AA in terms of India. JAL's only flight to India is to DEL, and it's only 4 times a week (increasing to 5 in October, 2007). JAL might decide to expand in India if there's sufficient oneworld-related benefit, but it hasn't happened yet. BOM and BLR would be obvious candidates. Nevertheless, it's still shorter to fly through Europe from most of the U.S. For example, DFW-NRT-BOM is 10650 statute miles, and DFW-ZRH-BOM is only 9308.

JAL does help quite a bit with China. JAL has substantial service to many cities in China, and it's a more useful partnership than CX because of the better connections and U.S. gateways. However, unless the schedules line up well, AA and JAL may not maximize these benefits. For example, JAL serves Hangzhou (HGH), but not every day and the flight leaves Narita at 9:30 a.m. I doubt AA is going to ever get a U.S. flight into Narita before 8:30 a.m.

ICN has an awful lot of service already from ORD (Asiana and Korean), although I think there's still somewhat of an undersupply of premium cabin seats. If AA is going there it'd be from DFW, I'd guess.

JAL should help AA (already is) with places like SIN, BKK, CGK, and KUL. Maybe even TPE and HKG. For example, if you look at DFW-SIN, AA/JL already have the shortest enroute time (22h25m) with a lovely 1h15m scheduled layover in Narita. Same with Bangkok (1h30m layover).

sipples

CX is a fantastic airline, but where's ORD? DFW? MIA? And, at the other end, HKG is a great hub for some Asian cities but not so great for many others. JAL fills some significant gaps at both ends, but some gaps remain.

ICN is a very well positioned hub for much of the North America-Asia traffic. Skyteam and Star Alliance both have the partnerships at ICN, while oneworld doesn't. JAL will partially remedy that, depending on the destination.

It's unfortunate that JAL's domestic routes from NRT are fairly limited. (Haneda Airport has most of the domestic routes.) But at least JAL can connect passengers to a few big Japanese cities, e.g. Fukuoka and Nagoya.

martin33

That's because Japan and India still have a very outdated and restrictive bilateral treaty in place. Service is limited to a paltry amount per week. Japan and India have at last approved (as of last month) an updated agreement quadrupling service, but not full open skies:

http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=6720

We can probably assume JAL will expand to the extent the treaty permits:

justageek

I agree, JAL and AA really need to work on coordinating their schedules. When I was planning a trip to Asia this past summer, there were at least a couple of major routes (like BKK-NRT-LAX/SJC, and one other XXX-NRT-LAX/SJC I forget) that misconnected by 5-10 minutes, for no rhyme or reason, forcing a 12-hour connection in NRT.