American Airlines Is Considering Flying to Africa and India With New Dreamliners
Skift Take
Since its merger with US Airways, American has taken a cautious approach with new routes. It has expanded to major Asian and South Pacific markets out of necessity but otherwise hasn't taken too many chances. It is nice to see the airline considering adding India and Africa.
American Airlines, lacking the global footprint of its top two U.S. competitors, may expand to India and Africa once a second batch of Boeing 787 orders starts arriving next year, an executive told Skift this week in an interview in Dallas.
"That's the airplane that is going to take us eventually to India and into Africa, and into markets which are very different from the ones that we have been in historically, but ones we believe will be very profitable," said Vasu Raja, the airline's vice president for planning.
This is a shift in philosophy. American long has been robust in only two international regions — Europe and Latin America. While Delta Air Lines and United Airlines added new global strengths after recent mergers, American did not, as US Airways was predominantly a North American and transatlantic airline.
Post-merger, American has filled some gaps, adding transpacific flights to Hong Kong, Sydney, and Auckland. But for the most part, American has stuck with markets it knew better, adding routes in Europe and South America.
But with 47 new Boeing 787s set to arrive over several years beginning in 2020, in addition to 42 others from an earlier order, Raja said he is thinking bigger, asking wh
