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American Airlines unveils biggest ever Heathrow summer flight schedule

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American Airlines has announced additional flights to Los Angeles and Charlotte for Summer 2023, as part of what it claims is its largest ever UK-US schedule.

There will be 26 daily flights from London Heathrow this summer, serving 11 cities.

The daily schedule will look like this:

  • Boston – 1 flight
  • Charlotte – 3 flights
  • Dallas Fort Worth – 4 flights
  • New York JFK – 4 flights
  • Los Angeles – 3 flights
  • Miami – 2 flights
  • Chicago – 4 flights
  • Philadelphia – 2 flights
  • Phoenix – 1 flight
  • Raleigh-Durham – 1 flight
  • Seattle – 1 flight

It’s a huge schedule, and you have to wonder how the lounge network and other back-end facilities will cope. Unsurprisingly, American is now the largest the US airline operating out of Heathrow.

You can see the combined power of the British Airways / American Airlines transatlantic joint venture here, compared to the relatively modest combined firepower of Virgin Atlantic / Delta Air Lines and of course United Airlines, which has no joint venture partner.

That said, there is increased competition from JetBlue as well as Norse Atlantic from Gatwick – which is set to announce additional UK-US flights soon – and of course indirect flights via European hubs.

It is important to note that American Airlines makes very, very little business class reward space available for Avios. It is not unusual to see zero seats available across the next 12 months on most UK routes. Don’t get your hopes up about finding a business class Avios seat on any of the services above.

Our recent review of American Airlines Flagship business class is here and our review of the (not great) American Airlines Admirals Club lounge at Heathrow Terminal 3 is here. The AA First Class lounge remains closed.

If you want to earn American Airlines AAdvantage miles from UK credit cards, this article looks at your options.

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Category

American Airlines and AAdvantage

Comments (65)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Navara says:
    18 Jan18 January 03:34

    Missed the Emirates deal flying home today

  • Gordon says:
    18 Jan18 January 04:07

    RIP PP….

  • Tim says:
    18 Jan18 January 04:13

    I visited the Bristol lounge 5 days ago and was told on arrival that in the future Priority Pass holders would need to book, because of this new arrangement. I specifically asked if access would still be possible and was told it would be.

    • Blair Waldorf Salad says:
      18 Jan18 January 09:21

      The lounge agent will be thinking of DragonPass or just general pre-booking. I doubt they were spouting a line agreed by Aspire and PP corporate HQs

      • Tim says:
        18 Jan18 January 09:59

        Possibly, but the article isn’t based on a line agreed by Aspire and PP corporate HQs, it’s based on what other people have been told by lounge agents!

  • John says:
    18 Jan18 January 04:25

    United has two transatlantic JV partners serving LHR (LHG and AC). Of course, LHG routes via its hubs only (making it less relevant from LHR and probably what you had in mind). But AC got nonstop TATL flights out of LHR.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      18 Jan18 January 05:17

      Except AC isn’t a US airline and doesn’t fly direct to the US.

      And I don’t believe that UA have a revenue sharing agreement with AC as that’s one of the main definitions of Joint Venture.

      Being in the same alliance isn’t the same thing as being in a Joint Venture.

      • John says:
        18 Jan18 January 05:39

        Nobody claimed that AC is a US airline with direct flights to the US. Typical strawman argument.

        And yeah, UA-LHG-AC have a revenue-sharing TATL JV.

        The article says that UA has no transatlantic JV partners but it does.

  • tony says:
    18 Jan18 January 04:43

    It really does suggest that the writing is on the wall for the independent airport lounge in the UK now. Presumably a bulk deal like this will accelerate a race to the bottom. If the lounge operator won’t be selling on a per passenger basis but instead on a wholesale of as many as you can jam in, the incentive will simply be to cut costs to the bone. I mean it’s not as if OTB can move to the lounge next door at Bristol when the product gets so bad, so even if you can reserve a space using PP you probably don’t want to.

  • Alex G says:
    18 Jan18 January 05:07

    Surprised that AA only operate 4 daily flights from LHR to JFK compared to BAs 8.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      18 Jan18 January 05:30

      That’s probably to meet the demand of those on US government and other corporate contracts that specify a US based carrier has to be used as well as those preferring to depart from T3 rather than T5 because of the lounges!

      • Nick says:
        18 Jan18 January 08:02

        The way AA and BA look at it is that they operate 13 daily flights LON-NYC (including LGW). Within the AJB they see themselves as one airline.

        And Rob, have you seen the size of the AA lounge in T3?! They’ll cope 😄

        • David Wakelin says:
          18 Jan18 January 09:40

          Maybe they’ll open the First / Flagship lounge in T3 this year ???

  • Jan M says:
    18 Jan18 January 05:52

    I wonder if they will pull both Aspire lounges in Bristol together. One of the two seems (is?) permanently closed, the other always at capacity.

    • Paul says:
      18 Jan18 January 12:34

      We were in there December 23rd 8.00am to 9.45am and it was virtually empty.

      We were told the other lounge was closed permanently.

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:
    18 Jan18 January 06:03

    “It’s a huge schedule, and you have to wonder how the lounge network and other back-end facilities will cope.”

    Where are the slots coming from to increase their schedule? Are they slots they’ve always had and leased to someone else?

    I can’t see a problem with lounge facilities as long as AA opens their first class lounge and doesn’t send people to the CX lounge (so only those in the know will go there), if the AA lounges can’t cope then they could always send people to the BA lounge.

    OT: the provider of the Avios Prepaid Mastercard really has adopted BA brand values so well. It’s been a week now that topup hasn’t been working. It’s almost like the product was created by BAs IT team.

    • JDB says:
      18 Jan18 January 08:17

      PFS (Prepaid Financial Services), the BA Avios card provider, had a truly appalling reputation long before this card was launched but unfortunately there aren’t many if any good firms offering this white label product.

      • Save East Coast Rewards says:
        18 Jan18 January 08:56

        Come to think of it didn’t Curve use PFS originally and then brought it in house earlier than planned due to having problems with them?

        • John says:
          18 Jan18 January 09:00

          Thought curve used wirecard

        • Phil W says:
          18 Jan18 January 09:03

          Curve used Wirecard I thought, and then bought the Vault core banking platform from Thought Machine and brought it in-house.

          • Save East Coast Rewards says:
            18 Jan18 January 09:12

            You might be both right. I knew they used to outsource processing card transactions and I knew they brought forward plans to bring it in house because they were useless.

            I had definitely heard of Prepaid Financial Services before the BA card though. So who does use them (or did use them)?

          • JDB says:
            18 Jan18 January 10:09

            PFS provides cards to a lot of local authorities who load them to provide certain benefits to people including asylum seekers who have no bank account. Also some insurers use them and I think they do have quite a lot of branded cards you have never heard of. The product is supposed to be a really simple one, so adding rewards and having a whole lot of people doing strange transactions was perhaps going to be a step too far.

            Curve did use Wirecard but managed to jump ship just days before that blew up for reasons that were unrelated to its technology. Curve customer service may not be great, but the technology behind it is pretty smart, carrying out a series of transactions with different parties almost instantly. If you try and use it for the wrong thing , eg an authorisation hold it will inevitably go wrong, but by and large it works well.

          • Save East Coast Rewards says:
            18 Jan18 January 14:42

            Thanks everyone, you do learn some new things around here

    • dougzz99 says:
      18 Jan18 January 21:32

      AA are leasing some slots from EY for summer 23.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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