British Airways Hands Dallas Route To American—The Clever Transatlantic Shift We Should Have Seen Coming – View from the Wing

British Airways is exiting the Dallas-Fort Worth market, at least for the summer season. American adds a fifth Dallas – London flight to compensate. BA is also dropping its second Miami – London flight, in favor of American.

Here’s why this actually makes a lot of sense, since the two carriers are part of an anti-trust immunized joint venture that lets them share revenue and coordinated schedules and pricing across the Atlantic.

• It makes sense for American Airlines to fly internationally from its hubs
• And it makes sense for American’s joint venture partners to fly internationally from their hub

DFW Airport

British Airways flies from London to most of the major cities in the U.S. that are not American Airlines hubs. American doesn’t fly Houston to London, BA does. That’s because American would have to position planes and crew to Houston in order to operate the flight, which is more expensive. For BA, their planes and crew are positioned at Heathrow.

British Airways Business Class

So leaving American’s largest hub to American to operate the London flights, operationally and from a cost standpoint, makes sense. They share revenue on the flights anyway and make adjustments for things like use of slots.

At the same time, this doesn’t make sense to do in every market. There is a loyal British Airways customer base in New York, for instance, and American doesn’t have the aircraft to fully displace BA in any case.

American And BA Terminal 8 At New York JFK

American and BA in New York

Focusing on London flying accomplishes another of American’s goals. They’ve shown an aversion to transatlantic (and transpacific) flying anywhere but joint venture hubs outside of summer seasonal Europe. This lets American hone its focus on BA’s London hub.

• BA is also short of aircraft. They announced last month, for instance, that they were putting off a return to Kuala Lumpur for this reason. Letting American take this flight frees up aircraft.
• And, though deliveries of new Boeing 787-9s have been delayed (production issues) and postponed (American’s desire not to fly long haul!), American has more widebodies than planned with delays in their Boeing 777-300ER retrofit program.

American Airlines Boeing 787

Between strategic objectives, aircraft availability, and cost having American take over Dallas – London flying just makes sense.