Impact on UA of AA’s decrease in INTL flying
 

American announced that they are going to cut back on international flying due to delays receiving Dreamliners from Boeing. Do people think UA could be better-positioned to take a larger share of market share permanently as a result? It seems like AA is going to have to cede a number of European leisure markets next summer, which UA has been very aggressive on.

Not until they get those PW 772s back in the air.

And stop flying so many folks between the Mainland and HI....

David

December arrivals are 22% lower than Dec 2019 - and on the polarized 772 flights and 773 flights - they go with plenty of empty seats (and often sub $300 airfare to the West Coast) - I'm guessing they have some lucrative cargo contracts to justify those planes or they will indeed be redeployed. OGG is starting to get MAX heavy soon.

I think UA will wait and see if the European leisure markets they've announced actually make money before doubling down with even more international leisure routes. Who knows.

777s are more profitable flying international than domestic/HI. I’d guess that if the demand is there and borders are open for international travel, the lieflat 772s will be put back to international use primarily. They can always make up the domestic capacity with more narrowbody flights as demand warrants.

Skeptical part of me wonders how much of this this announcement is more to put pressure on Boeing/help AA in negotiations over comp. I’m sure there’s more follow up to this announcement at some point.

United is in a better position that DL/AA simply because UA stored (instead of retiring) large portions of their fleet.

But UA also has grounded 777s right now.
And these 787 delays hitting AA? United is waiting on overdue 787 deliveries, too ...

Late delivery of Dreamliners is in part a convenient excuse. AA will put its available fleet to best use, and the least beneficial routes to AA turn out to be these new international leisure routes. The international routes out of PHL really surprised me, PHL is not a big connector hub for AA and PHL as a market bleeds traffic to EWR. With DP's resignation, we can look forward (hopefully) to some new ideas about where AA is headed with routes, aircraft and onboard product.

Not sure this means much for UA.

perhaps BOS-LHR really will launch after all.

PHL is a large hub for AA and is their largest TATL hub.

Now that I read the article, it looks like AA was planning to fly 89% of their pre-pandemic INTL schedule. That struck me as a high figure. Anyone know UA’s current summer plans for INTL?

The routes being scaled back are to the Czech Republic, Croatia, Scotland, and Ireland. UA probably is covering Ireland pretty well next summer and maybe Scotland (not sure). Would they have much interest in the other two anyway?

Current schedules show: EWR-PRG, 4x weekly EWR-DBV, 2x daily EWR-DUB, EWR-SNN, EWR-EDI, IAD-DUB, and IAD-EDI. All flights daily unless otherwise noted.

While the current S22 international schedule is very much subject to change, I'll note that PRG and DBV were recently added back to the schedule, and EWR-DUB was loaded with a 50J 772 and a 752. Both are signs that we're not looking at the placeholder schedule that UA thoughtlessly extends every day as the new booking window advances (which does not feature PRG or DBV); rather, UA has taken a first cut at loading a realistic (as of now) S22 schedule, and will continue to tweak as needed in the coming months.