American Airlines drops several international destinations amid Boeing 787 shortage
Eve Chen
American Airlines will discontinue service to several international destinations in 2022 amid the ongoing shortage of Boeing 787 aircraft.
"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's Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja said in an internal letter to employees. "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."
The airline plans to stop serving Edinburgh, Scotland and Shannon, Ireland, next summer and will discontinue service to Hong Kong – which has not been offered since July 2020 – due to soft demand. The airline will reevaluate its routes as more planes become available in hopes of resuming flights to those cities.
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However, a number of European destinations offered in 2019 will not return next summer.
European destinations not returning summer 2022
- Berlin
- Budapest, Hungary
- Dubrovnik, Croatia
- Prague
- Reykjavik, Iceland
Raja said the airline is also "temporarily, but significantly," reducing the frequency of flights to the Asia-Pacific region, including cities like Shanghai and Sydney, which have largely remained closed to nonessential travel by foreign nationals.
Several South American destinations will see less frequent flights as well.
South American cities with fewer flights
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Rio de Janereiro
- Sao Paulo
- Santiago, Chile
Additionally, the launch of American's route from Seattle to Bangalore, India, will be pushed back to fall.
"Despite this delay, we still have great confidence in the Dreamliner and continue to work with Boeing on when these planes can be ultimately delivered to us," Raja said, adding that Boeing plans to "compensate American for their inability to deliver" the planes.
The airline will launch new service from New York’s JFK International Airport to Doha, Qatar, in partnership with Qatar Airways.