gophish11

American contrasts from United and Delta by having a route network far more focused on domestic flying (supposedly). Well into the pandemic, there were several daily departures from Reno (my home airport) to LAX, PHX, DFW, AUS, ORD, and CLT.

Now that we're coming out of the pandemic, we've lost LAX, ORD, CLT and AUS in the last 12-18 months or so. LAX, ORD, and CLT don't appear to be coming back. AA used to be far and away the leading carrier out of Reno, now is dead-last. We have only PHX and DFW. I'm sure there are countless other small cities feeling this same pain. Meanwhile, UA is still flying to DEN, IAH, LAX, SFO and ORD.

I know the financial situation at American is worse than its counterparts, but the continued route cutting is surprising to me given how many people are flying now. I understand reducing frequencies, but permanently cutting so many routes is notably worse at American.

Maybe this is just a rant, but I'm curious how many on here have been forced to switch loyalty from AA to other carriers due to this dynamic. This is nothing new, but I thought it would be more temporary. Why can United manage to maintain all our connections while American is down to between 4-6 total daily departures, from over 20 as recently as 2021 through the worst of the pandemic? Is there no end to this?

Hoi polloi

I'm curious what the load factors were for the flights that were cut...?

mvoight

You do not have the data AA used to make the decision it made. What doesn't make sense to you, made sense to the people at AA who make such decisions
If the Airlines doesn't meet your needs, then you can choose to use another carrier. As a lifetime Platinum, it would affect me if AA service was drastically reduced at my home airport.
Of course, as my home airport is DFW, that isn't likely to happen in the near future. Of course, there are times when I don't fly AA out of DFW. A few years ago, I flew Lufthansa to Europe, connecting in Frankfurt to get to Venice, because the Economy Plus fare was much lower than AA.

S80

It is all about that data. I can understand the cut to LAX, since they're kind of pulling out, but the rest are likely places where they could use the resources they have better, particularly with the longer flights to ORD and CLT. Even at ORD I'm noticing some cuts, its getting a bit quieter, especially with the capacity shift from Envoy and the other regionals to Air Wisconsin, and the downgrade of some mainline routes/frequencies from 321s to 737s, which is causing me to connect more often in DFW and CLT to get where I am going.

gophish11

The ORD plane was always full with a long standby list. LAX also but they were small planes, but with up to 6 daily frequencies. AUS is usually pretty empty and oddly that’s the one that still shows up on distant schedules. That route is essentially for Tesla employees.

It’s LAX I miss the most for the connection to the 321T to JFK. I sent a message to customer relations so as to scream into the wind.

777lover

RJ service to LAX has been reduced and a lot of hanging of aircraft with the changes/contract cancellation with SkyWest

jhalapin

Here at FSD AA has cut the CLT route all together and reduced ORD, DFW and PHX. I have literally less than 1/2 the flight choices I did 2 years ago and killing CLT makes my east coast trips almost always 3 hops these days.

I've been flying more DL and UA.

OskiBear

As an LAX-based flyer, it's hard to justify using AA when it's a regional jet. The hike out to the Eagle's Nest is a bit of a pain and adds quite a bit of time. For short-haul flying, it's just easier to find an airline with mainline service from LAX or one of our other area airports with nonstops when it's such a short flight.

Also, with Loyalty Points, it's not worth the extra effort to fly AA given the return in terms of miles and LPs is so low.

ttuna3

I'm still trying to figure out why AA dropped the LAX-RNO non-stops. Before they went away every time I was on them there were virtually no empty seats along with a couple people waiting for seats.

I'm guessing a lot it has to do with AA deemphasizing the LAX hub.

gophish11

Go Bears!

Making matters worse, this all comes at the same time that Alaska's RNO-LAX route moved to seasonal. I thought they'd simply leverage the AS partnership with more codeshare options, but no dice. I find myself using B6 more and more when traveling to New York. I prefer the 321T to B6 Mint, but connecting on one ticket is nice.

S80

Supposedly the Eagle's nest is moving to where the current AA hangar is, with a new terminal building, next to the new "midfield satellite concourse", but I don't know how that's going to exactly improve transit times. At least the routes they do have out of LAX are now on Skywest's new 175s over the CRJ (although I did see a CRJ doing a of the Colorado Ski route (I can't remember if it was Aspen or Vail/Eagle) the last time I passed through.
The advantage is for AS fliers, not AA, given the disparity between route networks. It seemed about half of the pax on my last AS flight were connecting onwards in ORD, but I've never found a connection in SEA onto Alaska offered from AA (from my experience at least), it's always routed me via DFW or PHX on all AA metal.

flyexp

tbh i agree with the sentiment on AA being a mostly domestic carrier. Star alliance has been my preference almost all the time when out of the country. Somehow, UA always has better of one of price, availability or times. Ergo, I feel the need to add P1K to my collection haa!

gophish11

That's good news re: Eagle's Nest. It will be a larger space and I could see them reestablishing some of the LAX operations if they're building a new terminal.

I agree with the advantage going to AS customers. I guess our advantage is access to the superior AS lounges and being able to fly direct to PDX or SEA with friendly, efficient service an AS while earning LPs. As EXP, I always am greeted by name and thanked on AS flights; rarely on AA. The only use of connections through SEA that I get are international flights on QR or JL using points, or those that include SEA-LHR on the 772. Only way to get AA metal in there. When AS is running RNO-LAX, you do occasionally get JFK-LAX-RNO, but they do their best not to put connecting pax on the transcon.

BrianV

When did AUS-RNO get killed? I had a flight booked last week on that. I know they axed AUS-DEN on March 1, but I wasn’t aware RNO got cut. That flight is always expensive and relatively full. Lots of back and forth Tesla workers on that flight, I had hoped it would remain as it’s been a handy flight for quick Tahoe ski getaways.

scubadu

Many of the routes added from AUS never made sense (other than in the context of Covid leisure travel) and many more of them will likely get cut over time.

Regards