American Airlines Trims 2022 International Schedule
American Airlines was expecting to receive as many as 13 Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft by Fall 2021. That never happened, which means that the airline now needs to adjust its international schedule.
American thought it would have the aircraft in time for the return of international travel on November 8th. But the delivery is now expected to come through sometime in 2022 instead. Boeing is expected to resume deliveries of the aircraft by April 1st.
American Airlines Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja on Thursday told employees in a memo obtained by The Hill that the company will not offer flights to Edinburgh; Shannon, Ireland, or Hong Kong next summer, and will “significantly” trim the number of planes flying to Shanghai, Beijing and Sydney temporarily.
“Boeing continues to be unable to deliver the 787s we have on order, including as many as 13 aircraft that were slated to be in our fleet by this winter,” American Airlines Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja told employees in the memo. “Without these widebodies, we simply won’t be able to fly as much internationally as we had planned next summer, or as we did in summer 2019.”
Some of the destinations American plans to cut are Edinburgh, Scotland; Shannon, Ireland; and Hong Kong, as well as cutting back on flights to Shanghai, Beijing and Sydney.
Meanwhile, American’s new Northeast Alliance partner JetBlue Airways announced this week it was extending its codeshare agreement with Aer Lingus to provide flights to several cities, including Shannon.
“We’ll continue to evaluate these routes as more aircraft become available and would like to be able to serve them again in the future,” Raja wrote in the memo.
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The memo also mentioned starting flights from JFK-DOH.