American Airlines to Australia & B777-300ER Sydney Flyover

[Stefan Perkas]

Evening all,

Big news from American Airlines, Announcement at 3pm (PDT). Judging by their clues on their twitter page, Australia (not sure which city) is the next destination...

https://twitter.com/AmericanAir/stat...50045289238530

Maybe take over QF on the JFK-LAX-SYD run???

[Rowan McKeever]

DFW-BNE, or maybe MEL...???

[Justin L]

I would suggest it would be LAX-SYD. For market entry, it's a flagship, high profile route and AA gets a comprehensive QF domestic and NZ feed from SYD. May also allow QF to reallocate capacity to other routes also.

[Rowan McKeever]

Then I'd suggest if it were LAX it'll be either LAX-SYD (enough frequency to allow QF to move MEL-LAX to double daily, or LAX-MEL on the days QF95/96 don't operate.

I'm still thinking DFW-BNE but we'll see in an hour and a half

[Rowan McKeever]

Confirmed... AA to fly LAX-SYD daily with B777-300ER from 17 December 2015.

It gets bigger & better though, as QF to operate SYD-SFO from 20 December 2015 with B747-400 (A380 style cabins). SFO service to operate "on peak days" but moving up to 6x weekly from January 2016.

http://hub.aa.com/en/nr/pressrelease...ralia-6-9-2015

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...300096385.html

[Justin L]

The closer and more integrated relationship also provides opportunities for future growth into trans-Pacific markets not currently served by either airline, such as New Zealand.

Could this quote from the AA press release potentially mean that AA may enter (or QF re-enter) the LAX-AKL market in the future, re-establishing a OneWorld connection on that market and connecting with QF/JQ for services to Australia and within NZ? I see the QF/AA JV will change to a revenue share model, so this may make such a routing more viable now?

[Alex T]

Sorry this may be a little off topic,

AA use 10 abreast seating (17" width) in Y on the their new 77W's, for a 12-14hr flight that would be torture IMHO... I'd prefer to stick with VA, UA & DL who use the more humane 9 abreast seating (18/18.5" width) in Y. It does seem that 10 abreast seating in Y is becoming more prevalent in many 777 operators globally. Having said that I have to admit AA's new J product on the 77W's is miles ahead of the MKII Skybeds used on the A380's & refurbished 744's.

It's still great to see AA back in YSSY with their new livery too!

[Terence W]

Originally Posted by Alex T

It's still great to see AA back in YSSY with their new livery too!

Absolutely! I saw one of their 777s at Heathrow earlier this year. Nice looking livery.

[Adam W]

The trade off according to The Qantas Source is that QF will reduce SYD-LAX from 14x weekly to 10x weekly to free up an aircraft to operate SYD-SFO.

[Rowan McKeever]

QF's own press release says that, as well as MEL-LAX reducing to 9x weekly from 10x.