American Airlines has cancelled some routes for next year and amended others, and this time it’s not a result of the pandemic.
Instead it’s because plane manufacturer Boeing inability to deliver enough B787s for American to honour its 2022 schedule commitments.
American had expected Boeing to provide it with 13 B787s this winter but this will not be possible.
Quoted in the Seattle Times, chief revenue officer Vasu Raja said in a memo to the airline’s employees, without these planes, “we simply won’t be able to fly as much internationally as we had planned next summer.
“Boeing has advised us that they will compensate American for their inability to deliver the aircraft.”
One must remember that the affected routes are all long-haul and therefore three or more aircraft could be needed to maintain a daily service (on a single route).
The routes which will cancelled altogether are those to Edinburgh, Shannon and Hong Kong.
There will be fewer flights to Asia and Australia and these destinations include Shanghai, Beijing and Sydney.
However in the case of Edinburgh, we find the Scottish capital to be linked by rival United in 2022.
The new service linking Seattle with Bangalore (one which has received interest from our Forum contributors) will be delayed.
The good news is that American expects to resume a full service to Mexico, the Caribbean, Latin America, London, Dublin and Madrid.
I say “expects” because I know from experience that further changes could occur owing to the pandemic and economic conditions around the world.
