AA really has given up on SFO-based flyers
 

Was checking, out of curiosity, AA’s sked SFO-ORD. Down to just 2 flights in October, both at god-awful times: 6am and 1145pm. Returns at 830am and 145pm, with nothing later. So much for serving business travelers/commuters wanting to travel between SFO and the upper Midwest.

AA can't realistically compete for O/D traffic on a route between two of UA's largest hubs. Now that ORD is basically just a domestic hub, AA can just as easily route connecting pax via DFW, even if it adds a some travel time.

At least the partnership with AS provides quite a few nonstops that previously were unavailable to AAdvantage loyalists.

I have an aunt that spent her entire career based in Chicago and would always have millions of AA miles from constant work travel to all over Europe during her working years (she was in international finance). Guess this wouldn't have been possible for her a generation later; just browsed the O'Hare Wikipedia article to look at the airlines & destinations section and sure enough, London is the only listed year-round non-North American destination for AA, contra United.

My bet is that AA drops from 3x to 2x on SFO-ORD because they are resuming 1x SJC-ORD in October. AS also flies 1x SFO-ORD, but AA does not codeshare on it. It does seem hard to compete with UA, who has 9x on that route with half on widebodies.

Quite a few on AS? One a day, looking out in the future. AA 'realistically" competed for years. Sad.

I do think AA is giving up SFO-ORD route.

I originally had a mid-day non-stop booked, then was cancelled. AA rerouted me via PHX. :td:

Debating if I should switch to the late night non-stop. Painful either way!

OP is looking at Tu/We/Sa schedule when loads are weaker (it's fairly common for airlines to run fewer flights on these days). Su/Mo/Th/Fr schedule still has 3 daily flights in the Fall.

It's pretty tough to compete with UA at SFO, and it's not like AA has any really compelling advantages to overcome the built-in UA advantages, except arguably on the premium t-cons. AA has also given up on SFO-LAX, and they're falling further behind on SFO-PHX. In fact, I've pretty much given up on AA for PHX-SFO - the schedule sucks, they're flying mostly the old 319s and 320s with 8/12 F, and I much prefer PHX T3 to T4.

We might see an uptick in AA volume with further Asia reopenings, leading to more feed to CX and JL.

ORDeals such as this will drive most everyone to UA or WN (MDW), and the fares absurdly high on AA or AS for those who must or insist on flying those two carriers.

I wonder what UA's schedule is like into DFW, MIA, PHL. Probably only a few too.

Just hop down to LAX and go from there. (I remember the days when SFO-HNL existed too! But competition is fierce.)

Can speak to the years I frequented between Chicago and South Florida, UA indeed only runs two turns a day between ORD and MIA -- but there's also if memory serves three turns a day between ORD and FLL and where I was near downtown Miami, that was convenient enough. I would guess maybe similar for PHL given proximity to EWR and even BWI, not sure what the true O-and-D market is between Chicago and North Texas to speak to how much capacity UA would put on ORD<>DFW against AA (or even against WN between MDW<>DAL)

SFO traffic is still down 25% vs. 2019 and is probably the capital of workers fleeing to work remotely so we should not be surprised by light schedules.

I meant AS offers quite a few new nonstop destinations that were previously not available to those who wished to stay loyal to AAdvantage.

Just picking random days, UA's schedule looks to be typically 9 nonstops on a mix of 739's, 753's and 772's. - some days having 3-4 777 flights. Guessing the juice just ins't worth the squeeze for AA when you're up against that.