American Airlines to turn Seattle into Asian hub

American Airlines (AA, Dallas / Fort Worth) intends to make Seattle Tacoma International its gateway for most flights to Asia, with Washington State’s largest city becoming a second international hub alongside Los Angeles International and Dallas / Fort Worth.

This emerges from the remarks made by Brian Znotins, Vice President (Network Planning), during a recent employee interview, reported the Wing’s US blog View and Executive Traveler magazine.

When asked by ch-aviation, company spokesman Brian Metham said: “We are constantly reviewing our global network to ensure that we are connecting our customers to the destinations that are most important to them from Los Angeles to Dallas-Fort Worth and Seattle. These removals offer our customers better Schedule and improved connectivity.

“American has proudly served LAX for nearly 75 years and remains committed to the Los Angeles market. We are currently investing in the LAX hub through an extensive multi-year construction program that will modernize our terminal and improve the customer experience while making travel easy. ” and comfortable as possible, “he said.

During the staff’s question-and-answer session, the record of which was reviewed by View from the Wing, Znotins responded to questions from a Los Angeles-based pilot about the airline’s plans for Los Angeles.

He said American will use its partnership with Alaska Airlines (AS, Seattle Tacoma Int’l) – which also joined Oneworld in March 2021 – to make Seattle “our predominant Asian gateway instead of Los Angeles.”

The move was motivated by the increasing competition from Asian airlines in Los Angeles. “Los Angeles has been a challenge for us in Asia for a number of years. We faced profitability hurdles as every Asian airline felt they had to serve Los Angeles, and other Asian airlines served those routes as well. And there was way too much capacity in the Los Angeles market, ”he said.

“Normally, as American Airlines, you make a profit by making different flight schedules, the only one non-stop or one of a few non-stops, but in this case we were one of dozens of non-stops,” he explained.

“That’s why we decided to cut down on large-scale flying in Los Angeles. Shanghai moves to Seattle … Beijing will focus more on Dallas. Hong Kong will also focus more on Dallas. We will focus on Alaska Airlines with our partner in Seattle, adding long-haul routes like Bangalore Int’l (India) (scheduled to begin January 4, 2022) and Shanghai from Seattle once the Chinese bilateral route opens. ”

Znotins said Los Angeles will continue to offer flights to Tokyo Narita, Japan, Sydney Kingsford Smith, Australia and London Heathrow, UK, along with domestic flights and “support a number of small (regional jet) routes from Los Angeles to the hub , “because Los Angeles is doing very well as a domestic hub for us.”

However, American’s South America routes from Los Angeles were also below average. “You are just in the wrong part of the country serving South America (from) there [..] Hence, it is also better to focus on Dallas and Miami International on our Latin America points. It’s a competitive challenge for us on the Asian side and a geographic challenge on the Latin side, ”he said.

According to the flight capacity module, American competes with at least 14 Asian airlines in Los Angeles, including Korean Air, which holds a 2.08% market share in terms of weekly seat capacity; Cathay Pacific with just over 2%; as well as Philippine Airlines, Asiana Airlines, Singapore Airlines, ANA – All Nippon Airways and JAL – Japan Airlines; China Southern Airlines; China Airlines and EVA Air.