In recent years, airlines from both sides of the Pacific Ocean have opened up new, direct routes connecting cities between North America and Asia. Travelers now have a wide selection of options to choose from when crossing the Pacific with airlines based in both continents.
In recent years, airlines from both sides of the Pacific Ocean have opened up new, direct routes connecting cities between North America and Asia. Travelers now have a wide selection of options to choose from when crossing the Pacific with airlines based in both continents.
From North America, United leads the way with trans-Pacific flights while Delta has focused its connecting traffic to Asia through its joint venture with Korean Air. Meanwhile, Air Canada has stepped up its presence in Asia going beyond Japan and Korea by launching new flights to cities in Southeast Asia including Singapore, Bangkok, and Manila. Meanwhile, noticeably quiet is another North American-based airline – American Airlines.
For an airline among the world's biggest, it does seem odd that American Airlines lacks the network of direct flights to cities in Asia compared to its fellow North American counterparts. However, it has not been for a lack of trying. Instead, American has faced challenges such as a lack of history in the region and intense competition on routes from the North American West Coast air hubs.
American's Network in Asia
From its US hubs, American operates flights to five cities in five countries in Asia and the Middle East. The main focus in Asia for American is at Tokyo, Japan where the airline operates flights to both of the Japanese capital city's air hubs – Haneda and Narita. Most of American's operations in Tokyo are based at Haneda – the closest hub to Tokyo's city center - where the airline operates direct flights from Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, and New York-JFK. At Narita, the airline operates direct flights to Dallas-Fort Worth. American is the only US-based airline offering flights between Haneda and JFK Airport.
Beyond Tokyo, American's other Asia/Middle East destinations are served from just one of their US hubs – Seoul Incheon and Shanghai Pudong (from Dallas-Fort Worth), Delhi (from New York-JFK), and Doha (from Philadelphia). With a 16-hour flight time, the JFK-Delhi route is American's longest on its network. American operated flights to Hong Kong and Beijing before the pandemic. As of the writing of this article, the routes to the two cities have not been resumed.
American's network in Asia pales in comparison to its US-based counterparts such as United and Delta. United network covers 14 cities/15 airports in Asia including three cities in Japan (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya), and two in China (Beijing, Shanghai). United is also the only US-based airline to operate direct flights from at least one its US hubs to Singapore, Manila, Delhi, and Dubai. The Chicago-based airline has a small hub on Guam in the Western Pacific. Delta operates flights to four destinations in Asia – Taipei, Shanghai, Seoul Incheon, and Tokyo-Haneda, though like United the Atlanta-based airline offers flights to multiple US hubs from Haneda and Incheon.
Smaller Footprint in Asia
One of the big reasons for American's lesser footprint in Asia is the airline does not have a long history in the region compared to United and Delta. Much of the success and the current expansion in Asia United has done can be traced to the airline inheriting two former airlines - Pan American's presence in Tokyo and Continental Airlines' operations to/from the US western Pacific territory of Guam. Delta inherited its presence in Tokyo through its merger with Northwest Airlines in the late 2000s.
For American, its presence in Asia began later when it introduced flights to Tokyo from Dallas in 1987. The Dallas-Fort Worth-based airline would later launch flights in the 1990s to Tokyo from San Jose, California and Seattle. Services would be launched to China and India after its acquisition of TWA in the early 2000s. Meanwhile, the former airlines that have been integrated into the modern United and Delta (Pan American, Northwest, Continental) have been serving cities in the region since the 1960s. As a result, American does not have much of the local knowledge and established connections for operating within Asian countries beyond Japan and Korea compared to United and Delta.
Lack of US West Coast Gateway
As it takes the lead for US airlines on trans-Pacific flights, much of United's direct flights to Asia depart from San Francisco though the airline has also successfully launched more routes from hubs across the US including Los Angeles, Washington-Dulles, Newark, and Chicago. Delta has also used its hubs in Los Angeles and Seattle for its own trans-Pacific flights. Meanwhile, American lacks a US west coast hub for flights to Asia. Instead, American operates its flights to Tokyo, Shanghai, and Seoul from its main base at Dallas-Fort Worth. Dallas is further from Asia compared to the cities along the US West Coast, yet American has had a difficult time to establish trans-Pacific routes from cities close to Asia such as Los Angeles and Seattle.
On paper, Los Angeles would be an ideal base for American to expand its presence in Asia. However, it is a competitive market for US airlines for domestic and international flights. In addition to the US-based airlines, Asian airlines looking to expand in the US often picks Los Angeles for their first destination in the country. This has to lead to an oversupply of flights between Los Angeles and Asia which, in a report of an American Airlines employee meeting by View from the Wing in 2022, stated the airline was losing money on international flights from the Los Angeles specifically on long-haul flights to China and South America - even before the pandemic.
The report cited Brian Znotins, American's VP of Network Planning remarking on the losses in Los Angeles during an employee meeting saying: “The rest of the hub actually did fairly well. So flying to China, flying to South America, that was tens of millions of dollars in losses.”
Znotins further addressed the airline's position and the oversupply of flights between Los Angeles and Asia saying: “And what we found is that LA to Asia is almost in a perpetual state of oversupply because of all these foreign flags that need to be in LA even if the capacity isn’t warranted. And so flying to Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, all of these routes were very challenging for us to turn a profit.”
From Los Angeles, American's lone route to Asia is to Tokyo Haneda.
American would later shift its focus to develop a new international hub in Seattle, where it had a partnership with now oneworld partner airline Alaska Airlines.
Znotins said: “And then furthermore if we can take some of the airplanes that we do want to fly to China and fly out of Seattle instead where we have less of an oversupply situation, a great partnership with Alaska who can help feed those airplanes not just from connections but from the local traffic the Microsofts, and the Amazons of the world who need to go to China, we can build up a bit of an Asian connecting operation.”
From Seattle, American had plans to launch long-haul flights to London, Shanghai, and Bangaluru, India. However only one of the routes – to London-Heathrow was launched – as the plans were stiffled by the COVID-19 pandemic. Russian airspace restrictions would then make operations of routes to Asia from Seattle much more difficult.
Reliance on Airline Partners
While trying to grow its network in Asia, American Airlines has encountered challenges – some of which beyond its control such as the pandemic and the Russian airspace restrictions – that have hampered its plans in the region. Despite lacking in direct trans-Pacific air routes, American Airlines' customers are able to take advantage of the airline's oneworld alliance partners for travel between North America and Asia such as Japan Airlines (JAL) and Cathay Pacific.
American will likely continue to rely on its airline partners to serve its customers traveling to Asia while the airline continues to focus on where its competitive such as within the US and on trans-Atlantic flights. Though if the airspace restrictions over Russia are eased, it could lead to American to consider resuming flights to cities such as Hong Kong and Beijing.
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