[And now this is being written about by simple flying. This kind of feels like inception](https://simpleflying.com/american-airlines-losing-money-widebody-aircraft-miami-los-angeles/) in that they link right back to this thread too
Even [OMAAT](https://onemileatatime.com/news/american-loses-money-flying-777-787-domestically/) writes about it and links to this thread. Now this post links back to OMAAT's article too.
Inception!
A lot of people on here are in sales. I don’t know why you would assume anyone is in AA sales. And there are a lot of context clues that indicate they don’t work for AA.
You’d be surprised how easy it is to guess. A lot of execs use the same format as other employees. Could be as easy as [firstinitial][lastname]@aa.com or something similar
This is a great example of customer response and really can build loyalty.
It’s not a generic “we’re always looking to improve” response and even if the customer doesn’t agree with the decision, there’s an understanding of why the company did it and even some numbers behind it to show the scale.
Really cool from the exec.
No they helped me find flights to my wedding. Idk if strings were pulled or if they just assigned someone to Really Look. But they made it happen and I’m grateful
And it combats the idea that American doesn't care about its customers.
What's a person's first response when a widebody is removed from a route? Probably a sense that American is out of touch with its customers and what they want.
This response shows that, in fact, American understands customers want a widebody on the route, but they just can't make it work from a business perspective. Kind of hard to fault them for that. They are running a business, after all.
I probed a bit more into it and he replied again with…
“We have our entire 321T fleet tied-up with NYC/BOS-LAX/SFO, but we do think about the 321XLR on LAXMIA deeper into its delivery stream. Still likely 2026 before we get anywhere near that, though. Airbus is almost as bad as Boeing at getting us our airplanes on-time.
We do need to move widebodies between hubs from time to time, and MIALAX (alongside the reasons I noted before) tends to be a priority for that. So while I can’t guarantee widebodies on the route, there are a number of reasons that they will “end up” there after all of our planning is done. Hopefully that happens frequently!”
I‘ve worked for several large companies. The president and senior execs do sometimes engage with a select number of people. Once you develop a relationship, they might be more inclined to continue the dialogue… especially if you are not just a random customer but someone who has something interesting to ask and some value to add. They are mostly busy, but you have to make sure your questions/comments are worth their time.
If someone is sending just a routine complaint, then there’s a team who is equipped to handle that. If someone wants to engage on business strategy, now you’re talking about something that gets them excited to go to work. I think a lot of execs are also frustrated because there are misconceptions and complexities and nuances, that you generally can’t or wouldn’t talk about with the general public, but they’re genuinely interested in the subject and have found someone who seems to appreciate that. As long as the member of the public doesn’t abuse that, these dialogues can go on for a while.
Every day is 24 hours long, which is really long.
Moreover, people are curious and like to demonstrate their knowledge. Almost everyone, no matter how busy, is inclined to answer interesting questions and continue a dialogue that lets them demonstrate their expertise.
You’d be surprised…a while back I got into a pretty thorough email exchange with the Chief Executive of one of the world’s largest banks.
He was posting anonymously on a frequent flyer forum I used and I had a hunch it was him, then happened to exchange glances with him in BA’s Concorde Room at Heathrow. After a few glasses of champagne I had enough Dutch courage to drop him a direct message to which her responded and we conversed over the space of a few days. Was half jokingly hoping I’d get a job interview out of it 🤣
VPs have more time than most if they are good at delegating and have a good team below them. Their jobs are primarily financial, big picture, as opposed to task based.
Yes! My bro-in-law is a VP, works his butt off during projects, but when there's a lull (or he needs a short break to chill out his brain) he'll be in his office and perusing Cruise Critic boards. He's either reading about or discussing plans for his next luxury expedition cruise, like Galapagos or Antarctica.
if someone writes a letter with thought-provoking questions, and they're genuinely asking for information as opposed to yelling DYKWIA, it's easy to be cordial.
also, this person has probably written these explanations out to dozens of people to jutify it in the first place, so it's just rote at this point
I have a job where a lot of random people send me emails asking about things related to the job. I ignore the vast majority but when someone emails me respectfully, with interesting questions, it can be nice to engage in conversation about something that’s clearly a shared interest. Of course, I’m nowhere near as busy as an AA exec but the point stands.
Sometimes as an executive it’s nice to talk with a customer directly who’s respectful kind and knowledgeable and have a real conversation. Good break from the normal day
His email never said that I couldn’t. Often times emails will have privacy terms below the signature, his did not. As an SVP of a publicly traded company, he’s smart enough to know that a reply to a random person has a highly likelihood to be shared. Also, if you look at the replies, people respect and appreciate his thoughtful reply. It’s having a positive impact on their brand.
Y’all are giving way way way too much credit to this executive. It’s not like he spends his day performing open heart surgery. You shouldn’t even have a title if you can’t quickly fire off an email. He knows the subject matter inside and out. This probably took him less than a minute.
Much better than the standard “we’re prioritizing our customers needs to serve you better” which really is just code for stop bothering me with these questions
It makes sense. Lie-flat isn’t overly useful for shorter flights. JAL uses a lot of wide bodies for domestic flights but they are set up differently than their international version. There is no lie-flat.
As an almost weekly redeye traveler from CA to NC (that got in at 4:35am this morning) I hope at some point the value proposition shifts and I can get real rest on a plane.
But I appreciate their reply and honesty.
>>I hope at some point the value proposition shifts
Me too, but the economics don’t lie. People flying coach are very price sensitive - news at 11, I know- so the passengers who’d otherwise fill those 4 coach seats per lie flat seat on a nonstop are instead flying a two leg layover trip to save $$.
For those who aren’t aware, AA publishes its widebody schedule here (scroll down to see them): https://www.aacargo.com/ship/schedules.html
Much easier than looking elsewhere.
The domestic widebody use is and basically always has been opportunistic in the plan when repositioning to support the international flight plan.
If the international strategy changes they will not hesitate to axe the domestic to serve the international strategy.
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I'm not really sure why people are obsessed with the idea that widebodies are more comfortable than narrow bodies with the seating being equivalent (economy vs. economy, or NB 1st vs. WB business, etc).
I've flown plenty of each, and I guess some of the newer widebodies are quieter, but overall the economy seats are basically the same and I wouldn't want to be stuck in the middle section. Most people have headphones in most of the flight, so I don't even think the noise difference is that important.
I'm as big of an AvGeek as they come, so I'd trip over myself to book a domestic flight on a 777 over a 737, but I don't fault AA at all for not using wide bodies on domestic travel, and I don't think wide bodies outfitted with the same amenities as narrow bodies are really any more comfortable to fly on for a 4 hour flight.
I agree. I love a wide body just because they’re big and cool, but comfort wise coach on the 777/787 is actually tighter than on a 321. It’s great if you’re upfront, but in the back the seats are thinner.
good. American's international network is pathetic compared to UA. I'd much rather they open up some more international routes and use the wide bodies there. The A321XLR could be good for this route in future.
Overall though i always thought these were like repositioning flights or something where like a wide body that was used internationally would need to go to miami and then be used internationally from miami to south america or europe. But that's coming from someone who doesn't know anything lol
Here's a secondary thought...
If you've ever flown plebe level Coach and been upgraded to First Class, you never forget how much nicer everything about the flight is.
Now, imagine taking that First Class feeling and magnifying it to a kiosk/lie-flat, total a**-kiss luxury seating experience. Therin lies the rub in promoting for profit sake, the extreme hedonic difference in the better lie-flat seating versus the lower tier pedestrian/we-still-charge you real money, cramped, no baggage space, utter dogshit seating, especially the dreaded middle seat...
Riots would happen, so they try to keep it hidden a bit to be discreet, which is why there's a hard left turn into heaven's gate seating that's policed vigorously.
I wonder if that changes if they would deploy wide bodies on the red eyes? I would definitely consider paying a premium for a lie flat seat on something like PHX to PHL where three or four hours of actual sleep is possible.
I think aacargo.com still publishes their cargo routes, only 2 months at a time. They fly between hubs with widebody, and when I searched for commerical tickets, sure enough, they were there. But it's very specific dates and times.
I think they will be running a daily Dfw-phx wide body again this winter. Last year they ran it and every time it was full to oversold. Dfw-ord has a daily 777/787 flight to o
I would always choose the 777 on this route, just flew LAX-MIA in fact. It’s such a drag flying so far on a Max or 321. Disappointing to hear about this move.
I feel like they've flip flopped on this multiple times. I fly this route 4-5 times a year and have for the last 4-5 years.
I remember during and immediately post COVID, they had multiple wide body routes per day, with them gradually disappearing until recently. I'm flying LAX-MIA next week and booked the flight maybe a month ago, and was pleasantly surprised to see 1 of these per day. I booked in biz class using miles, and specifically adjusted my plans to be able to fly this route.
Hopefully they don't switch planes last minute- I'll be pissed.
>they had multiple wide body routes per day
Its *way* more expensive to take the larger aircraft back out of storage in terms of inspections & maintenance so airlines tended to keep their larger aircraft in service so they could to minimize costs when things picked back up. They accelerated EOL too, thats why A380's started to be scrapped during COVID.
Also its harder to furlough more senior pilots, who are also more likely to be type rated for the larger aircraft.
>Hopefully they don't switch planes last minute- I'll be pissed.
The only reason they have widebodies on the route at all is they are backup aircraft for international routes. Better to assign them to domestic routes when they don't have an immediate need then let them sit idle burning money. If they need it for an international flight, they will do an equipment change.
I love living in Florida but its also not a BOS/LAX/NYC/SFO with profound amount of highly paying business travelers to support premium seats. Changes in expensing are also screwing things up, I'm equiv to VP level in IC (same travel policy) and have to pay for my own business seat if I want it domestically. International its been a decade since I worked somewhere that let me fly business, always premium economy.
I have to do FL> Austin regularly and they killed the early morning MCO>AUS and late afternoon AUS>MCO that saved me an overnight in January. I wasn't impressed.
No. Miami-California is premium heavy especially to LAX. JetBlue crushes it with Mint out of FLL. It’s the most premium transcon out of LAX after NYC. It’s wild that an article literally written by AI mining data is getting attention. There won’t be wide bodies for the dead of fall during a wide body shortage. It’s happened before. Long term MIALAX will likely transition to all Flagship service with XLRs and wide bodies mixed in (and by the way - same with JFKLAX - they will mix planes with lieflats). BOSLAX will lose Flagship service and go back to 321s/737s.
> I love living in Florida but its also not a BOS/LAX/NYC/SFO with profound amount of highly paying business travelers to support premium seats
Actually not entirely true. There's a lot of demand for premium seating out of Miami
https://viewfromthewing.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Best-Premium-Markets.png
I can't wait until they finally phase out 1st class on the LAX-JFK routes and just add 8 more biz seats per flight. Its brutal gunning for an upgrade on those routes right now and hoping the additional 8 seats per flight will ease it a bit
I'm SVP level at a smallish company (150 people or so) and fly to Asia fairly frequently- minimum 3x year and sometimes 5-6. Been at the same company for 6+ years. About 2 years ago I put my foot down and said I am not going unless it's lie flat biz anymore. Just wreaks too much havoc on my body otherwise.
Domestically I am reasonable and just book economy without a fuss and pray for upgrades
Depending on the date, looks like there's still one - hopefully you're on the 4pm if you're doing the LAX-MIA. Feel free to list your date if you want and I'll check how it looks for now.
Source: Travel agent for 3 decades.
Yep - you’re good! Unless there’s a last min sched change you’ll be in good shape.
You prob fly enough to know but just in case, a pretty good indication is when your seat # suddenly changes. It doesn’t always but happens enough.
Oh And when you check in online take a quick glance at the map to make sure it’s still the correct plane type.
AA is notorious for last minute swaps. Which are always *my* fault, of course. Ha.
It will, people seem to forget that those transcons are also acft repositioning. For example, in 2017 the 772 would go trans pacific to LAX->MIA->GRU->MIA->LAX->trans pacific.
Literally created an account to chime in, but the wide bodies aren’t going anywhere. We just have a default schedule. There will be two on the route again starting November 3 as there always are, once the November schedules are loaded.
“We generally need 4x the fare”
Then why does it always seem way more than 4x the fare? I fly from Florida to the west coast a lot and I’m lucky if regular first, not lie flat, is only 4x lmao
Needing a minimum 4x the fair to not lose money isn't the same concept as "the price should 4x the economy fare". Most companies aren't in the business of selling premium products at the bare minimum break-even price.
I’m guessing because they don’t fill every seat from sales, some people are upgraded or non-revs. So they charge more to account for the fact that not everyone is paying the full price.
Sure but you’re presumably the sucker who is booking into F/J at full ticket price. A good half or more of the cabin is doing app upgrades or — if they’re extraordinarily lucky — elite upgrades or non rev upgrades. On a domestic premium cabin, I’d be shocked if more than 50% of the cabin booked into F/J.
I suppose if they didn't cheapen their domestic services so much, it wouldn't be so bad! I believe there was a time when domestic US flights had better service than internal European flights which back in the 80s were known for being notoriously bad service. Well, we have certainly arrived to the same place/quality where internal European flights are. Sucky domestic service and all that.
I fly American every week. More times than not, the service is great. Airline workers have tough jobs. As a business traveler I empathize with them for the idiots they have onboard daily. I’m happy to see the executive’s response.
It’s the usual cycle.
“Let’s improve our product and we can make more money.”
“Why are we giving these seats away to deep discount corporate contracts and upgraders?”
“Why do we even bother?”
I’m actually on a 772 from MIA to LAX next week
:( bummer they are phasing that out. I search for wide-body domestic flights purposely to get better seats (premium economy, business class, etc.) on the cheap.
Delta flies an A350 configuration between ATL and LAX (and maybe some other domestic trunks) that has only Delta Premium Select hard product (international premium economy) as its highest class, equivalent to domestic first class, and no lie flat Delta One. I wonder if AA would consider having this type of sub fleet or maybe wide bodies are too valuable for international right now and Delta just has excess because of the LATAM A350s joining the fleet.
I just don't see it making much sense.
If I remember right, widebodies are considerably more expensive to operate per block hour than a narrowbody. I'd have a hard time understanding why a US airline would *want* to run a widebody on a domestic route unless they didn't have better alternatives.
In Japan there's a *wild* amount of high-density widebody traffic between like Sapporo and Tokyo, but I get the impression it's because the route demand is insane. Like 40x A350/767/777/787 per day on one route.
And already being thin on widebodies as it is, I'd think it'd be shooting themselves in the foot if AA went and reconfigured some of them for a higher density domestic setup.
They cost more to operate but the CASM on a wide body is less if you can fill it. Particularly on high yield routes like ATL-LAX. Having lie flat on short routes probably turns back around to not being profitable for the space they take up though. But DL is not having any problem filling the first class on ATL-LAX for $2K per ticket round trip which is crazy. Economy nonstop on the same flight is nearly $500.
> They cost more to operate but the CASM on a wide body is less if you can fill it.
That's not how it works.
CASM is CASM. The whole "if you can fill it" comment must be referring to RASM
It is how it works. The larger planes cost more in total to operate, but they have so many seats that the cost to operate per seat is less. Especially on a shorter flight where you only need to pay two pilots.
>I'd have a hard time understanding why a US airline would want to run a widebody on a domestic route unless they didn't have better alternatives.
I think you'd need to talk to Scott Kirby on this one, and ask him why United has a lot of domestic widebody flying (hub-to-hubs, hub-to-major-outstations-like-MCO-and-LAS, and hubs-to-Hawaii), has a subfleet of 23 domestically configured 777-200s, and even the international aircraft with Polaris and Premium Plus see a fair amount of domestic flying.
>And already being thin on widebodies as it is, I'd think it'd be shooting themselves in the foot if AA went and reconfigured some of them for a higher density domestic setup.
Meanwhile United and Delta can do this because they have the frames.
DAL has some excess A350s and the LATAM configurations weren’t great so as they get ready to redo them all, they can use them for this purpose in the mean time.
The bigger issue though is actually gates. The wide bodies require certain gates both in LAX and MIA. That I think is the harder problem currently besides just the revenue management. Even if they could sell it profitably they’d possibly have to move a lot around to be able to fit the plane in the proper gate for a wide body.
DAL basically owns ATL so gates aren’t an issue for them there. I’m not sure AA has the same wide body gate availability at MIA.
This is 100% not true. Please don’t spread bad information.
Every Delta A350 in the fleet has fully flatbed seats. The ones they got from LATAM are not as good of a product as their factory orders but are still flatbeds.
Hey OP - any insight into whether the change in strategy announced after that Bain report could trickle to aircraft choice? In other words, if they decide to resume catering to business travelers, is there a greater likelihood they increase the number of domestic premium aircraft once the XLR start to come online? I'm not allowed to book J domestically but would *absolutely* burn a SWU on a trip or pay a few hundred for an upgrade from the east coast to the west coast.
Widebodies on MIA-LAX have been on and off for a while now, though I did notice they had a red eye flight for a bit which was odd.
I would not be surprised to see it back on next schedule change.
Yeah that’s definitely also an expensive use of a pressurization cycle on a wide body for only a 5 hour flight. So a significant hit to the lifespan of a plane
I assume wide body aircraft’s running LAX/JFK/MIA is so they can reposition for a long haul flight. This makes no sense to be the norm on a domestic flight unless the passenger load is overwhelming always.
They claim that it’s difficult to monetize lie flat beds, yet they’re making a huge fuss about the 321X transcontinental retrofits for those same routes
Maybe it’s hard to get 4x coach on that particular route, but Delta definitely gets 4x coach on JFK–LAX for Delta One, and that’s mostly on their shitty 767-300 no privacy D1 seats.
I fly redeye 1-2x a month when I can't make the 630pm departure.
Like other Redeye fliers, just having that opportunity of an upgrade (and yes I'll pay in app for it) of a Lie Flat or Premium Economy as the secondary choice is worth it.
I've gotten this upgrade on midday afternoon flights before and was frustrated. Not at the upgrade but at the fact the widebody is being used outside of early morning or redeye times. (who needs to sleep at 4pm leaving LA or Chicago??)
I don't expect AA to improve, and remain anxious to try out Breeze once they have a route for me July to try and get a lower cost route with premium seating. Loyalty be damned, I want reliable comfort.
Imagine the entitlement to email an executive whining about which airplane is on the route. What did you expect? They'd take the loss to make you happy when you fly that route a few times a year?
Not at all. I wanted to understand why they made the decision to remove the widebody planes from this route. I fly this route often and I was curious to learn more. Imagine being this cynical and always thinking the worst of people.
I'm impressed an AA executive actually took the time and wrote out a strategic justification/response for you.
Impressed that OP found someone's direct contact info, and that they fielded the question. And a subsequent follow-up!
I’m in sales so finding the email was easy. Writing a compelling email to get a reply from an SVP is more difficult.
Was that Znotins?
Yes
[And now this is being written about by simple flying. This kind of feels like inception](https://simpleflying.com/american-airlines-losing-money-widebody-aircraft-miami-los-angeles/) in that they link right back to this thread too
Jesus they make a whole article about a single email.
Even [OMAAT](https://onemileatatime.com/news/american-loses-money-flying-777-787-domestically/) writes about it and links to this thread. Now this post links back to OMAAT's article too. Inception!
Share your tips friend!
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Yeah I’m sure AA forced a guy who works in sales for some other random company to move to Fort Worth.
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Yes, I can. It seemed clear to me.
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A lot of people on here are in sales. I don’t know why you would assume anyone is in AA sales. And there are a lot of context clues that indicate they don’t work for AA.
You’d be surprised how easy it is to guess. A lot of execs use the same format as other employees. Could be as easy as [firstinitial][lastname]@aa.com or something similar
Yeah what a great and insightful answer that was! Kudos to that exec!
This is a great example of customer response and really can build loyalty. It’s not a generic “we’re always looking to improve” response and even if the customer doesn’t agree with the decision, there’s an understanding of why the company did it and even some numbers behind it to show the scale. Really cool from the exec.
I feel like people would like American a lot more if they did this a lot more.
Totally agree
I recently emailed a VP. I worked hard for SWUs last year to go to my wedding. Couldn’t use any and they helped make it work.
Did they extend them? I needed up using four and giving away two.
No they helped me find flights to my wedding. Idk if strings were pulled or if they just assigned someone to Really Look. But they made it happen and I’m grateful
Wow. Very cool!
And it combats the idea that American doesn't care about its customers. What's a person's first response when a widebody is removed from a route? Probably a sense that American is out of touch with its customers and what they want. This response shows that, in fact, American understands customers want a widebody on the route, but they just can't make it work from a business perspective. Kind of hard to fault them for that. They are running a business, after all.
I probed a bit more into it and he replied again with… “We have our entire 321T fleet tied-up with NYC/BOS-LAX/SFO, but we do think about the 321XLR on LAXMIA deeper into its delivery stream. Still likely 2026 before we get anywhere near that, though. Airbus is almost as bad as Boeing at getting us our airplanes on-time. We do need to move widebodies between hubs from time to time, and MIALAX (alongside the reasons I noted before) tends to be a priority for that. So while I can’t guarantee widebodies on the route, there are a number of reasons that they will “end up” there after all of our planning is done. Hopefully that happens frequently!”
I honestly cannot believe this person is taking the time to write these emails. How do they have time for this?
I‘ve worked for several large companies. The president and senior execs do sometimes engage with a select number of people. Once you develop a relationship, they might be more inclined to continue the dialogue… especially if you are not just a random customer but someone who has something interesting to ask and some value to add. They are mostly busy, but you have to make sure your questions/comments are worth their time. If someone is sending just a routine complaint, then there’s a team who is equipped to handle that. If someone wants to engage on business strategy, now you’re talking about something that gets them excited to go to work. I think a lot of execs are also frustrated because there are misconceptions and complexities and nuances, that you generally can’t or wouldn’t talk about with the general public, but they’re genuinely interested in the subject and have found someone who seems to appreciate that. As long as the member of the public doesn’t abuse that, these dialogues can go on for a while.
Every day is 24 hours long, which is really long. Moreover, people are curious and like to demonstrate their knowledge. Almost everyone, no matter how busy, is inclined to answer interesting questions and continue a dialogue that lets them demonstrate their expertise.
I'm sure he (Znotins) loves his job, and how long does it take to type up this? 5 minutes at best? You can type this up in the bathroom
You’d be surprised…a while back I got into a pretty thorough email exchange with the Chief Executive of one of the world’s largest banks. He was posting anonymously on a frequent flyer forum I used and I had a hunch it was him, then happened to exchange glances with him in BA’s Concorde Room at Heathrow. After a few glasses of champagne I had enough Dutch courage to drop him a direct message to which her responded and we conversed over the space of a few days. Was half jokingly hoping I’d get a job interview out of it 🤣
> He was posting anonymously on a frequent flyer forum I used and I had a hunch it was him WAIT WHAT? Want to name names or?
They’re probably waiting on a FA at DFW 🙄
VPs have more time than most if they are good at delegating and have a good team below them. Their jobs are primarily financial, big picture, as opposed to task based.
Yes! My bro-in-law is a VP, works his butt off during projects, but when there's a lull (or he needs a short break to chill out his brain) he'll be in his office and perusing Cruise Critic boards. He's either reading about or discussing plans for his next luxury expedition cruise, like Galapagos or Antarctica.
Op is the executive/s
if someone writes a letter with thought-provoking questions, and they're genuinely asking for information as opposed to yelling DYKWIA, it's easy to be cordial. also, this person has probably written these explanations out to dozens of people to jutify it in the first place, so it's just rote at this point
I have a job where a lot of random people send me emails asking about things related to the job. I ignore the vast majority but when someone emails me respectfully, with interesting questions, it can be nice to engage in conversation about something that’s clearly a shared interest. Of course, I’m nowhere near as busy as an AA exec but the point stands.
Sometimes as an executive it’s nice to talk with a customer directly who’s respectful kind and knowledgeable and have a real conversation. Good break from the normal day
So refreshing, this communication. Hope there’s more like this.
Nice job!
I’m sure this person loves that you’re directly posting this on Reddit
His email never said that I couldn’t. Often times emails will have privacy terms below the signature, his did not. As an SVP of a publicly traded company, he’s smart enough to know that a reply to a random person has a highly likelihood to be shared. Also, if you look at the replies, people respect and appreciate his thoughtful reply. It’s having a positive impact on their brand.
Y’all are giving way way way too much credit to this executive. It’s not like he spends his day performing open heart surgery. You shouldn’t even have a title if you can’t quickly fire off an email. He knows the subject matter inside and out. This probably took him less than a minute.
Honestly I wish more execs could speak like this. I appreciate the response
Much better than the standard “we’re prioritizing our customers needs to serve you better” which really is just code for stop bothering me with these questions
It makes sense. Lie-flat isn’t overly useful for shorter flights. JAL uses a lot of wide bodies for domestic flights but they are set up differently than their international version. There is no lie-flat.
It's probably more of in response to JetBlue retreating from LAX, which means Mint service is axed on this route. So less competition
Only on LAX-EWR, which AA doesn't do (they do JFK)
For many travelers EWR/JFK serve the same purpose
True esp for those in Manhattan, but it does matter to many (who wants to spend an extra 30min in traffic?)
No, JetBlue used to have LAX-MIA with Mint service.
Oh yeah that
As an almost weekly redeye traveler from CA to NC (that got in at 4:35am this morning) I hope at some point the value proposition shifts and I can get real rest on a plane. But I appreciate their reply and honesty.
>>I hope at some point the value proposition shifts Me too, but the economics don’t lie. People flying coach are very price sensitive - news at 11, I know- so the passengers who’d otherwise fill those 4 coach seats per lie flat seat on a nonstop are instead flying a two leg layover trip to save $$.
For those who aren’t aware, AA publishes its widebody schedule here (scroll down to see them): https://www.aacargo.com/ship/schedules.html Much easier than looking elsewhere.
I would assume the financial facts don’t change for the other wide body domestic use. Those aren’t impacted (possibly yet).
The domestic widebody use is and basically always has been opportunistic in the plan when repositioning to support the international flight plan. If the international strategy changes they will not hesitate to axe the domestic to serve the international strategy.
And the same for the random wide bodies I’ve had to Mexico over the past few years.
That is an impressively detailed response. And it's all true!
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I'm not really sure why people are obsessed with the idea that widebodies are more comfortable than narrow bodies with the seating being equivalent (economy vs. economy, or NB 1st vs. WB business, etc). I've flown plenty of each, and I guess some of the newer widebodies are quieter, but overall the economy seats are basically the same and I wouldn't want to be stuck in the middle section. Most people have headphones in most of the flight, so I don't even think the noise difference is that important. I'm as big of an AvGeek as they come, so I'd trip over myself to book a domestic flight on a 777 over a 737, but I don't fault AA at all for not using wide bodies on domestic travel, and I don't think wide bodies outfitted with the same amenities as narrow bodies are really any more comfortable to fly on for a 4 hour flight.
I agree. I love a wide body just because they’re big and cool, but comfort wise coach on the 777/787 is actually tighter than on a 321. It’s great if you’re upfront, but in the back the seats are thinner.
good. American's international network is pathetic compared to UA. I'd much rather they open up some more international routes and use the wide bodies there. The A321XLR could be good for this route in future. Overall though i always thought these were like repositioning flights or something where like a wide body that was used internationally would need to go to miami and then be used internationally from miami to south america or europe. But that's coming from someone who doesn't know anything lol
Here's a secondary thought... If you've ever flown plebe level Coach and been upgraded to First Class, you never forget how much nicer everything about the flight is. Now, imagine taking that First Class feeling and magnifying it to a kiosk/lie-flat, total a**-kiss luxury seating experience. Therin lies the rub in promoting for profit sake, the extreme hedonic difference in the better lie-flat seating versus the lower tier pedestrian/we-still-charge you real money, cramped, no baggage space, utter dogshit seating, especially the dreaded middle seat... Riots would happen, so they try to keep it hidden a bit to be discreet, which is why there's a hard left turn into heaven's gate seating that's policed vigorously.
Marshall Applewhite nods approvingly
I think half the PHL / LAX routes are 787 right now.
Eh. I just picked a random day out of curiosity and not a single flight was 787. All 737 or A321neo.
Weird l. I flew 788 out and a321 back. This was end of April. But like you said, random day in June, every outbound PHL flight is a321. Bummer
That 788 was probably an emergency replacement or was being transferred.
I wonder if that changes if they would deploy wide bodies on the red eyes? I would definitely consider paying a premium for a lie flat seat on something like PHX to PHL where three or four hours of actual sleep is possible.
Historically they've done that in the winter on that exact route. Probably because they don't know what else to do with them (widebodies)
I think aacargo.com still publishes their cargo routes, only 2 months at a time. They fly between hubs with widebody, and when I searched for commerical tickets, sure enough, they were there. But it's very specific dates and times.
I think they will be running a daily Dfw-phx wide body again this winter. Last year they ran it and every time it was full to oversold. Dfw-ord has a daily 777/787 flight to o
Great response, though.
I would always choose the 777 on this route, just flew LAX-MIA in fact. It’s such a drag flying so far on a Max or 321. Disappointing to hear about this move.
Man, hard to argue with this reply. I’m a quite impressed. You must be a bf deal!
I feel like they've flip flopped on this multiple times. I fly this route 4-5 times a year and have for the last 4-5 years. I remember during and immediately post COVID, they had multiple wide body routes per day, with them gradually disappearing until recently. I'm flying LAX-MIA next week and booked the flight maybe a month ago, and was pleasantly surprised to see 1 of these per day. I booked in biz class using miles, and specifically adjusted my plans to be able to fly this route. Hopefully they don't switch planes last minute- I'll be pissed.
>they had multiple wide body routes per day Its *way* more expensive to take the larger aircraft back out of storage in terms of inspections & maintenance so airlines tended to keep their larger aircraft in service so they could to minimize costs when things picked back up. They accelerated EOL too, thats why A380's started to be scrapped during COVID. Also its harder to furlough more senior pilots, who are also more likely to be type rated for the larger aircraft. >Hopefully they don't switch planes last minute- I'll be pissed. The only reason they have widebodies on the route at all is they are backup aircraft for international routes. Better to assign them to domestic routes when they don't have an immediate need then let them sit idle burning money. If they need it for an international flight, they will do an equipment change. I love living in Florida but its also not a BOS/LAX/NYC/SFO with profound amount of highly paying business travelers to support premium seats. Changes in expensing are also screwing things up, I'm equiv to VP level in IC (same travel policy) and have to pay for my own business seat if I want it domestically. International its been a decade since I worked somewhere that let me fly business, always premium economy. I have to do FL> Austin regularly and they killed the early morning MCO>AUS and late afternoon AUS>MCO that saved me an overnight in January. I wasn't impressed.
No. Miami-California is premium heavy especially to LAX. JetBlue crushes it with Mint out of FLL. It’s the most premium transcon out of LAX after NYC. It’s wild that an article literally written by AI mining data is getting attention. There won’t be wide bodies for the dead of fall during a wide body shortage. It’s happened before. Long term MIALAX will likely transition to all Flagship service with XLRs and wide bodies mixed in (and by the way - same with JFKLAX - they will mix planes with lieflats). BOSLAX will lose Flagship service and go back to 321s/737s.
> I love living in Florida but its also not a BOS/LAX/NYC/SFO with profound amount of highly paying business travelers to support premium seats Actually not entirely true. There's a lot of demand for premium seating out of Miami https://viewfromthewing.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Best-Premium-Markets.png
I can't wait until they finally phase out 1st class on the LAX-JFK routes and just add 8 more biz seats per flight. Its brutal gunning for an upgrade on those routes right now and hoping the additional 8 seats per flight will ease it a bit
I'm SVP level at a smallish company (150 people or so) and fly to Asia fairly frequently- minimum 3x year and sometimes 5-6. Been at the same company for 6+ years. About 2 years ago I put my foot down and said I am not going unless it's lie flat biz anymore. Just wreaks too much havoc on my body otherwise. Domestically I am reasonable and just book economy without a fuss and pray for upgrades
Depending on the date, looks like there's still one - hopefully you're on the 4pm if you're doing the LAX-MIA. Feel free to list your date if you want and I'll check how it looks for now. Source: Travel agent for 3 decades.
I'm on AA 349 June 13 outbound and AA 23 on jun 16 return. Confirmed seats both ways in biz. Still showing as a 777-300ER on both routes on the app
Yep - you’re good! Unless there’s a last min sched change you’ll be in good shape. You prob fly enough to know but just in case, a pretty good indication is when your seat # suddenly changes. It doesn’t always but happens enough. Oh And when you check in online take a quick glance at the map to make sure it’s still the correct plane type. AA is notorious for last minute swaps. Which are always *my* fault, of course. Ha.
Very kind! Thank you for checking!
I guess JFK-MIA widebody is never coming back.
It will, people seem to forget that those transcons are also acft repositioning. For example, in 2017 the 772 would go trans pacific to LAX->MIA->GRU->MIA->LAX->trans pacific.
They have 30 787-9s that will delivered over this decade. You have to put them somewhere in winter
The biggest problem is that AA has a putrid number of widebodies AND planes with flatbed seats compared to UA and DL.
Literally created an account to chime in, but the wide bodies aren’t going anywhere. We just have a default schedule. There will be two on the route again starting November 3 as there always are, once the November schedules are loaded.
“We generally need 4x the fare” Then why does it always seem way more than 4x the fare? I fly from Florida to the west coast a lot and I’m lucky if regular first, not lie flat, is only 4x lmao
Needing a minimum 4x the fair to not lose money isn't the same concept as "the price should 4x the economy fare". Most companies aren't in the business of selling premium products at the bare minimum break-even price.
I’m guessing because they don’t fill every seat from sales, some people are upgraded or non-revs. So they charge more to account for the fact that not everyone is paying the full price.
Sure but you’re presumably the sucker who is booking into F/J at full ticket price. A good half or more of the cabin is doing app upgrades or — if they’re extraordinarily lucky — elite upgrades or non rev upgrades. On a domestic premium cabin, I’d be shocked if more than 50% of the cabin booked into F/J.
I suppose if they didn't cheapen their domestic services so much, it wouldn't be so bad! I believe there was a time when domestic US flights had better service than internal European flights which back in the 80s were known for being notoriously bad service. Well, we have certainly arrived to the same place/quality where internal European flights are. Sucky domestic service and all that.
You should ask him to bring back the A330s
He's not in charge of that. He's network planning, no influence over that decision
I fly American every week. More times than not, the service is great. Airline workers have tough jobs. As a business traveler I empathize with them for the idiots they have onboard daily. I’m happy to see the executive’s response.
It’s the usual cycle. “Let’s improve our product and we can make more money.” “Why are we giving these seats away to deep discount corporate contracts and upgraders?” “Why do we even bother?”
I’m actually on a 772 from MIA to LAX next week :( bummer they are phasing that out. I search for wide-body domestic flights purposely to get better seats (premium economy, business class, etc.) on the cheap.
Delta flies an A350 configuration between ATL and LAX (and maybe some other domestic trunks) that has only Delta Premium Select hard product (international premium economy) as its highest class, equivalent to domestic first class, and no lie flat Delta One. I wonder if AA would consider having this type of sub fleet or maybe wide bodies are too valuable for international right now and Delta just has excess because of the LATAM A350s joining the fleet.
I just don't see it making much sense. If I remember right, widebodies are considerably more expensive to operate per block hour than a narrowbody. I'd have a hard time understanding why a US airline would *want* to run a widebody on a domestic route unless they didn't have better alternatives. In Japan there's a *wild* amount of high-density widebody traffic between like Sapporo and Tokyo, but I get the impression it's because the route demand is insane. Like 40x A350/767/777/787 per day on one route. And already being thin on widebodies as it is, I'd think it'd be shooting themselves in the foot if AA went and reconfigured some of them for a higher density domestic setup.
They cost more to operate but the CASM on a wide body is less if you can fill it. Particularly on high yield routes like ATL-LAX. Having lie flat on short routes probably turns back around to not being profitable for the space they take up though. But DL is not having any problem filling the first class on ATL-LAX for $2K per ticket round trip which is crazy. Economy nonstop on the same flight is nearly $500.
> They cost more to operate but the CASM on a wide body is less if you can fill it. That's not how it works. CASM is CASM. The whole "if you can fill it" comment must be referring to RASM
It is how it works. The larger planes cost more in total to operate, but they have so many seats that the cost to operate per seat is less. Especially on a shorter flight where you only need to pay two pilots.
>> but the CASM on a wide body is less if you can fill it. The "fill it" part of your comment would be referring to RASM.
>I'd have a hard time understanding why a US airline would want to run a widebody on a domestic route unless they didn't have better alternatives. I think you'd need to talk to Scott Kirby on this one, and ask him why United has a lot of domestic widebody flying (hub-to-hubs, hub-to-major-outstations-like-MCO-and-LAS, and hubs-to-Hawaii), has a subfleet of 23 domestically configured 777-200s, and even the international aircraft with Polaris and Premium Plus see a fair amount of domestic flying. >And already being thin on widebodies as it is, I'd think it'd be shooting themselves in the foot if AA went and reconfigured some of them for a higher density domestic setup. Meanwhile United and Delta can do this because they have the frames.
DAL has some excess A350s and the LATAM configurations weren’t great so as they get ready to redo them all, they can use them for this purpose in the mean time. The bigger issue though is actually gates. The wide bodies require certain gates both in LAX and MIA. That I think is the harder problem currently besides just the revenue management. Even if they could sell it profitably they’d possibly have to move a lot around to be able to fit the plane in the proper gate for a wide body. DAL basically owns ATL so gates aren’t an issue for them there. I’m not sure AA has the same wide body gate availability at MIA.
This is 100% not true. Please don’t spread bad information. Every Delta A350 in the fleet has fully flatbed seats. The ones they got from LATAM are not as good of a product as their factory orders but are still flatbeds.
That's not true. All Delta A359s have Delta One. Those A359s flying ATL-LAX are doing so for both premium domestic traffic as well as equipment moves.
I have been on this aircraft many times. Look it up on Aerolopa seat maps. It definitely does exist: https://www.aerolopa.com/dl-35l
That's an ex-LATAM aircraft, so hasn't yet been refitted.
this is amazing
Hey OP - any insight into whether the change in strategy announced after that Bain report could trickle to aircraft choice? In other words, if they decide to resume catering to business travelers, is there a greater likelihood they increase the number of domestic premium aircraft once the XLR start to come online? I'm not allowed to book J domestically but would *absolutely* burn a SWU on a trip or pay a few hundred for an upgrade from the east coast to the west coast.
Widebodies on MIA-LAX have been on and off for a while now, though I did notice they had a red eye flight for a bit which was odd. I would not be surprised to see it back on next schedule change.
Yeah that’s definitely also an expensive use of a pressurization cycle on a wide body for only a 5 hour flight. So a significant hit to the lifespan of a plane
I get responses from the executives at Jetblue every so often (I send a couple emails a year).
Wow! A nice and honest answer. But I do love domestic wide bodies.
And then there is United charging 10x coach seats for lie flats on transcons
I assume wide body aircraft’s running LAX/JFK/MIA is so they can reposition for a long haul flight. This makes no sense to be the norm on a domestic flight unless the passenger load is overwhelming always.
What widebodies you do see on MIA-LAX are likely equipment moves.
They claim that it’s difficult to monetize lie flat beds, yet they’re making a huge fuss about the 321X transcontinental retrofits for those same routes
I have never had a response from a major company's CEO. It was interesting and thoughtful.
Maybe it’s hard to get 4x coach on that particular route, but Delta definitely gets 4x coach on JFK–LAX for Delta One, and that’s mostly on their shitty 767-300 no privacy D1 seats.
I fly redeye 1-2x a month when I can't make the 630pm departure. Like other Redeye fliers, just having that opportunity of an upgrade (and yes I'll pay in app for it) of a Lie Flat or Premium Economy as the secondary choice is worth it. I've gotten this upgrade on midday afternoon flights before and was frustrated. Not at the upgrade but at the fact the widebody is being used outside of early morning or redeye times. (who needs to sleep at 4pm leaving LA or Chicago??) I don't expect AA to improve, and remain anxious to try out Breeze once they have a route for me July to try and get a lower cost route with premium seating. Loyalty be damned, I want reliable comfort.
Already seen a wide body from PHL-MIA a few times this year. Can’t imagine how much money was lost from those flights.
Why do you care?
Imagine the entitlement to email an executive whining about which airplane is on the route. What did you expect? They'd take the loss to make you happy when you fly that route a few times a year?
Not at all. I wanted to understand why they made the decision to remove the widebody planes from this route. I fly this route often and I was curious to learn more. Imagine being this cynical and always thinking the worst of people.
Because it's summer and no one is in Miami anymore. Hamptons/Europe, etc...