The power of the AA/BA NYLON route is substantial. And it's been said in a number of places that it's the most valuable premium int'l route in the world by a significant margin. Cutting back doesn't necessarily directly impact that golden goose... but if AA shrinks too much out of NY, it will have a secondary effect. Those premium cabin ticket buyers flying on finance company dimes are accumulating a ton of AAdvantage miles -- easily 50k a trip.

If they can't spend them for leisure redemptions, it'll annoy them. I know it has come up at my company quite a bit lately. And if it inspires people who'd been using those miles for their family winter holiday trip every year to, say, try flying another airline, it could really have an impact. British Airlines' fleet of wifi-free 747s with 2006 biz class seats might not look so good after trying a Polaris equipped United flight... or the seriously great Virgin Atlantic lounges....

It's a risk, but I suppose it's one American has decided to take.

About 14%.

AA also carries about 70% of all passenger traffic at PHL, which is pretty crazy.

Carrying 70% of the passenger traffic at a major connecting hub is actually not that crazy or unusual. Remember that only 14%36% of that is O&D. I don't think that's unusual for a connecting hub; what's unusual is JFK, where the O&D fraction is much higher. So of the total PHL traffic:

• 0.7*0.64 = 45% of the traffic is AA connecting
• 0.7*0.36 = 25% is AA O&D
• 30% is other airline (presumably mostly O&D)

So that suggests that AA only has about 45% of the O&D traffic at PHL. That makes them clearly the largest single O&D carrier, but hardly dominant. I'm actually surprised that their O&D is that weak. (Again, assuming your numbers are correct.)

Getting back on topic, it looks to me like AA actually isn't hugely more dominant in the O&D numbers at PHL than they are in NYC, and the PHL traffic is much more optimized for connections. PHL can presumably relatively easily handle a few more connections that currently go over JFK.

ETA: Oops; misread what that 14% means. Looks like, as of 2010, 64% of US's PHL traffic was connecting. Updated numbers to reflect that, for posterity.

I think the 14% number was percentage of total passengers who are traveling internationally, not O&D.

Oops; thanks!

Well your instincts re: being surprised at weak O&D were at least correct! :)

It looks like as of 2016,
~62% of PHL's total traffic is O&D
59% of PHL's international traffic is connecting

Not the raw data, but a city source
http://www.phila.gov/rfp/PDF/PHL_REI...ions_final.pdf

Anyone noticing an increase in upgrade percentages out of NYC?

No, but I notice a decrease in my purchase of AA tickets out of NYC. :eek:

Interview with AA's VP of planning. Definitely a confirmation that only business markets are getting served from NYC and smaller European markets from PHL.

See "American Has Not Given Up in New York":
https://skift.com/2018/02/12/america...-long-flights/

As an NYC AA Plat I feel AA has given up on me. Seriously thinking about going to DL.

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing.

Interesting. So AA is focusing on business markets from NYC, but to AA, this means London and Spain. They are giving up Zurich, and have no interest in FRA (you can take AA to LHR, go through the hell of security there, and then take BA to FRA). I'm just not seeing it.

In any event, at this point, count my husband and me among those who have shifted business over to DL, and will continue to do so. AA out of NYC no longer makes sense.

"Not given up"... sure

I mean, I guess I understand the desire to go after business markets, but I think we're getting to the point where the everyday traveler doesn't think of "American Airlines" when they think of JFK. Delta's had relative success out of JFK, and unfortunately, AA never really capitalized on leisure/"smaller" markets out of JFK.

I wouldn't be surprised if they transfer the remaining JFK-MAD flight to IB -- provided that a 777 isn't viable.

My biggest issue is I've seen a significant scale-down of RDU-JFK flights. There were some E-175s mixed in with E-145s through last year, but now they've moved to E-140s and the occasional E-145. Now, it's fewer seats per day than in the early 2000s IIRC. To me, this means they've "given up" on JFK as a connecting point and are trying to route traffic through PHL.

Slightly off topic, I am surprised they haven't gone into detail about the 757L being deployed on those other mentioned routes, SAN, PHX, etc.