I wish...

PHL and AA (among the other carriers) have agreed to $900 million in enhancements and renovations to PHL. Including the EWR style iPad eateries, a new central entrance for AA ticketing, and a new control tower to replace the existing 35 year old tower.

What about a Flounge and an inter-concourse train? :D

Flagship is coming to PHL in 2018. I wouldn't hold my breath on a train though ;)

STL? BNA?

BNA has already been announced on BA equipment a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks. I needed a good laugh!!!!

My guess would be STL. I wish it were IND, since they are pushing for a LHR flight heavily, but I don't see it happening on AA.

American cities with nonstop svc to JFK (which don't already have a nonstop flight to LHR):

LAS x2
SEA x2
SAN x2
BNA x2
MCO x2
CLE
AUS
IND
DCA x2
BWI
BOS x2
CVG
CMH
PIT
ORF
PHX x2

AUS/LAS/SEA/SAN/BNA/BWI/BOS/PHX all have (or will soon have, in BNA's case) LHR service on BA. DCA obviously can't. If AA isn't just picking up an existing BA route, but actually providing service from a city with zero LHR service, that leaves MCO (which has LGW service), CLE, IND, CVG, CMH, PIT, ORF.

All of which would be very strange routes to LHR on AA metal, though maybe a 787 could do IND/CMH/PIT?

BA has already announced they'll add a second flight two to three days per week for the summer 2018 season, so unless AA plans to add the other days that seems unlikely. Also Condor has added summer service twice a week between FRA and PHX so capacity next summer has already increased significantly. And the right aircraft for an extra flight would probably be the 788 which does not currently fly from PHX.

That said, wouldn't AA need to cut an existing LHR flight to add one unless the buy another a lot pair?

IND is the largest unserved US market from Europe, and has a high average fare to LHR. CLE was 2, and BNA was third both now have TATL service. If anything I think IND is next. IND officials said this summer TATL service would be announced in a matter of months.

I would be thrilled with any development that results in an IND admirals club :)

I don't understand why AA would fly a non-hub to LHR flight when they have the JV with BA. AA and BA both have aircraft with similar seat counts, so whatever size plane they want they could have with either airline.

While I don't disagree with your main point, there's no CLE-LHR service.

When did AA add JFK - DEN direct flights and if so, when does the route begin ?

But now CLE has two TATL n/s to eat into any BA/AA flight.

JFK-Denver Schedule
 

The new route starts on June 7, 2018

The times are really bad !

JFK-DEN Leaves 8:50pm Arrives 11:00pm
DEN-JFK Leaves 11:50pm Arrives 5:35 am

Thanks but No Thanks.

AA purchased 2 slot pairs at LHR from SAS earlier this year for $75 million. Also, doesn't really matter whether the plane usually flies from that airport - for example, ORD-DUB used to be an A330 deadedheaded / worked by CLT crew.

Oof, why bother? :rolleyes:

And that explains why I couldn't find anything for ski season (other than schedules just not having been loaded).

IIRC AA/BA pool their LHR slots. As long as there is a slot owned by AA or BA available at the desired time, they are good to go from a slot perspective.

But by that logic, why would BA start it rather than AA?

LHR is a hub for AA. They already have service from RDU, which is not a hub. They have a FA base at RDU but not a pilot base. The pilots and the plane rotate through LHR-RDU-LHR from other AA cities (if I recall correctly for a while it was DFW). So the plane would go for example DFW-LHR-RDU-LHR-DFW. This could be replicated for any other spoke city in the east or midwest.

The RDU-LHR flight by AA was and I believe still is "subsidized" by corporate contracts. There are a few Triangle UK based companies that fly that route in premium cabin. I don't see AA creating a non-hub route without first having a similar contract in place.

How does the second sentence have any relationship to the first?

I don't think this will be able to last. Nor do I think the added daily to SEA or SAN will last more than next summer. With Delta adding one extra daily flight also and mint entering these market also, I don't see AA being able to fill FC with paid customers.

I don't think filling FC with paid customers was ever a precondition to the profitability of a domestic route (exception being the significantly less dense premium transcon aircraft configurations).

But filling it with business travelers that skew toward more expensive (i.e., less advance purchase) fares certainly is important, and this schedule is pretty terrible for business travelers (IMO). Not to mention that business travelers want options, not one daily flight.
It's what has skewed me away from AA for years on the secondary transcons (or near-transcons) when I used to do those fairly often for business (e.g., SAN, SEA, LAS until recently, etc.).

Corporate contract is different from a subsidy. AA surely has corporate clients that use RDU-LHR. They used to have a revenue guarantee in place on RDU-LHR from a non-government consortium (also totally different from a subsidy), but a number of published sources and FT threads have repeatedly stated that they never had to invoke it. In other words, the flight is/was generating more revenue organically than had been guaranteed.

Certainly, I agree that any new route to LHR operated by AA from a non-hub would likely coincide with (new?) corporate contracts. It's also quite possible that they could receive incentives from the airport authority (such as waived landing fees).

If there will indeed be a new city for AA to fly to LHR that they don't already, then this list of top 30 AA cities, from a different thread might be relevant.

Someone added clubs to the list of top 30

Quote:Originally Posted by AAerSTL https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/imag...s/viewpost.gif
Sunday, June 4, 2017:

1. AA DFW 761 (CLUB) (AA LHR service)
2. AA CLT 662 (CLUB) (AA LHR service)
3. AA ORD 474 (CLUB) (AA LHR service)
4. AA PHL 384 (CLUB) (AA LHR service)
5. AA MIA 340 (CLUB) (AA LHR service)
6. AA PHX 292 (CLUB) (BA service to LHR)
7. AA DCA 235 (CLUB) (can't do LHR service)
8. AA LAX 208 (CLUB) (AA LHR service)
9. AA LGA 141 (CLUB) (can't do LHR service)
10. AA JFK 97 (CLUB) (AA and BA LHR service)
11. AA BOS 85 (CLUB) (BA service to LHR)
12. AA SFO 53 (CLUB) (BA service to LHR)
13. AA MCO 52 (CLUB)
14. AA RDU 52 (CLUB) (AA LHR service)
15. AA CMH 47
16. AA ATL 46 (CLUB) (BA service to LHR)
17. AA BNA 46 (CLUB) (BA service to LHR)
18. AA LAS 45 (BA service to LHR)
19. AA PIT 43 (CLUB)
20. AA STL 40 (CLUB)
21. AA IND 39
22. AA DTW 38
23. AA DEN 36 (CLUB) (BA service to LHR)
24. AA TPA 36 (CLUB)
25. AA IAH 35 (CLUB) (BA service to LHR)
26. AA SAN 34 (CLUB - CONTRACT) (BA service to LHR)
27. AA SEA 33 (CLUB) (BA service to LHR)
28. AA AUS 32 (CLUB) (BA service to LHR)
29. AA CVG 32
30. AA CLE 31

Seems like highest likelihood for a new LHR citiy would be
1) has a club and
2) is a fairly busy AA city

MCO, PIT, STL, TPA
I'd be shocked it if was PIT, where AA has been shrinking.

My money is on MCO or STL. TPA could be dark horse possibility (It actually has more AA flights than SAN)

Will be interesting to see which one it is

Who flies from CLE to Europe and where do they fly?

It isn't listed on the CLE airport page here:
http://www.clevelandairport.com/flig...on-stop-cities

For years, when CLE was a CO hub, they did have several flights to Europe. Perhaps even shortly after the CO-UA merger. But those have since dropped away.

While not to LHR, MCO does see at least daily and at times more than daily service to LGW on BA. Also MIA has plenty of LHR service and is a pretty easy transfer. If MCO were to gain LHR service it would seem to make more sense for BA to simply switch one of their services to LHR. AA's gates at MCO in Airside 3 are not able to handle international arrivals.

That said, the other options would all be pretty equally surprising.

TPA also has a LGW flight on BA, so same argument re: BA just moving the LGW service if TPA-LHR is desired.

STL? CMH? IND? PIT? Though STL has no JFK flight on AA, so if we're reading into JonNYC's hint properly that would be out...

The point I was trying to get at was that it makes little sense for AA to fly a non hub-LHR route when they have a JV with BA, and BA could fly the route instead. Why have AA worry about rotating a plane/crew around like JFK-LHR-XXX-LHR-JFK when BA can fly a similarly size aircraft in a simple LHR-XXX-LHR routing.

In the past two days CLE got CLE-KEF on WW and CLE-KEF on FI.

http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/cleve...ment/466651034

Furthermore, WW also announced KEF-STL/CVG/DTW, so considering that, IND/CMH look like the best bets for TATL on AA/BA.

But AA does have the 75L which BA doesn't have, and the 75L could be a nice 'starter' aircraft should AA/BA try a new 'thin' Midwest/East Coast-LHR flight such as IND/CMH/CLE/PIT-LHR

With no built in AVOD.

I can easily see how it might have been read that way now, but, no didn't mean to imply that aspect.

Can you provide any further detail? If not, can you at least say that is all you are allowed to say? Thanks for the information either way though!

Was it reported that the new route was from a non-hub? I missed that.

Pretty sure it would have to be. All the hubs already have LHR service to my knowledge.

That list is very helpful. Have to imagine it is either Florida or Midwest at this point, but as others have mentioned TPA and MCO have LGW service.

In the Midwest:

IND has certainly been making a LOT of noise about trying to attract TATL service, with London repeatedly mentioned as top destination. I would be very surprised though given the proximity to ORD (I know people south of IND who regularly drive to ORD for TATL/TPAC), although perhaps they see opportunity to get in as the only TATL carrier (no WW/FI) and poach demand that would be going to other carriers at ORD.

On the other hand, CVG or CLE would be really interesting as DL/UA have drawn down those hubs so much... could be enough to lure major corporate contracts?

CMH seems the wild card to me.