Delayed Delivery Of Boeing 787s Forces American Airlines To Cut International Flights

American Airlines Group AAL is planning to reduce its international flights next summer as a result of Boeing Co.’s BA delay in delivering new 787 Dreamliners.

What Happened: According to a Wall Street Journal report sourced from unnamed “people familiar with the matter” and an internal American Airlines memo, the carrier was banking on the Dreamliners to reanimate its COVID-19 pandemic-induced challenges by replacing its aging aircraft. But Boeing halted Dreamliner deliveries in October 2020 and has been dealing with several production defects while trying to secure approval from federal aviation regulators for pre-delivery inspections.

To date, American only received one new Dreamliner earlier this year. The company was expecting 11 more to be delivered by the end of the year, but it is uncertain when the delayed 787s will be delivered.

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What Happens Next: As a result of the absence of the new Dreamliners from its fleet, American will not schedule summer 2022 flights to Hong Kong; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Shannon, Ireland. The carrier is not resuming seasonal flights serving Prague, Czech Republic, and Dubrovnik, Croatia, and previously announced new routes including Seattle to Bangalore, India, are being postponed. 

American is also reducing the frequency of trans-Pacific flights to Beijing and Shanghai, China, and Sydney, Australia. But it will still proceed with a new route from New York City and Doha, Qatar.

“Without these wide-bodies, we simply won’t be able to fly as much internationally as we had planned next summer, or as we did in summer 2019,” Vasu Raja, American’s chief revenue officer, wrote in the draft internal memo.

Without the new Dreamliners, American will be flying at 80% of its pre-pandemic international flight rates. Boeing expects to resume Dreamliner deliveries by April 1, 2022, at the earliest.

Photo: American 787 Dreamliners courtesy of Boeing