An American Airlines Boeing 787 lands at DFW in undated photo.
At every opportunity, American Airlines executives declare that they want to grow in the Sunbelt, particularly in their largest hubs – Charlotte and Dallas. The strategy reached new heights in recent months, but it also underscores a weakness in the carrier’s network.
American is strong in the Sunbelt and not so strong to the north and on the West Coast. That’s a disadvantage in the competition with Delta and United, its peers. And American’s regional focus is becoming more pronounced as its two key hubs grow.
At Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, American now operates the largest single airline hub in the world, with 925 daily departures. At Atlanta this summer, Delta operates 830 daily departures. Before the pandemic, Delta routinely operated about 1,000 daily Atlanta departures, easily the most in the world. The third largest single airline hub is Charlotte, where American has 690 daily departures.
At all three airports, the size of the mainline aircraft is generally larger than pre-pandemic, as the Airbus A321 and newer Boeing 737s have replaced smaller models, so passenger count has generally increased. Also, the Charlotte and Dallas hubs have higher percentages of regional jets than Atlanta does. Atlanta remains the world’s largest airport by passengers, with 102 million in 2023, compared to 78 million at Dallas.
Last week Charlotte and Dallas were both busy adding gates or planning to add gates.
American will add four gates at Charlotte, as the airport is opening a new Concourse A section, part of a $3.1 billion improvement project. (American gets gates vacated by Delta, which got new gates.) With the new concourse, Charlotte will have 123 gates, with American using 91 of them. But why stop there? Last week Charlotte City Council approved a plan to add seven more Concourse A gates in 2029.
More gates are needed because in 2027 the airport will open a fourth parallel runway.
Currently, Charlotte can accommodate 87 arrivals and 87 departures each hour. The new runway will allow for at least 20 additional arrivals and departures, possibly even more, depending on “achieving additional airfield efficiencies, such as runway usage or enhanced taxi patterns on the airfield surface,” said Jack Christine, airport chief infrastructure officer, in a recent interview. Even an increase to twenty means a 23% increase in airport capacity.
Meanwhile, DFW on Thursday celebrated the start of major work on $9 billion in planned improvements on terminals, roadways and the airfield. “As we grow closer to serving 100 million passengers each year, it’s time for DFW to enhance our remaining legacy terminal and imagine brand new ones.” said CEO Sean Donohue in a press release. Early steps will add four gates to Terminal C and five gates to Terminal A. At a ceremony, an American executive referred to the airport as “a connection factory for travelers around the world,” underscoring the critical role of major hubs in U.S. commercial aviation. DFW currently has 169 gates, of which American uses 131.
American executives have emphasized their focus on Charlotte and Dallas on every earnings call for several years. The second quarter call in July was no exception, as CEO Robert Isom declared, “We’re very pleased with our positions both in DFW and Charlotte. You’ll see that the majority of our growth this past year has been in those hubs.”
American’s Sunbelt dominance is not limited to Charlotte and Dallas. The carrier also operates 380 daily departures from its hub in Miami, an international gateway that serves three continents, and 260 daily departures from the Phoenix hub.
Unfortunately for American, its Sunbelt strength is not matched in the rest of the country. It is said that American has its New York hub in Philadelphia and its California hub in Phoenix. Moreover, it is locked in a permanent standoff with United at Chicago O’Hare, the premier northern mid-continent airport. United dominates at ORD with 500 daily departures to American’s 400. United offers more destinations and more seats. In San Francisco, United has the only real West Coast hub.
In New York, American has 215 daily departures and accounts for 35% of the traffic at LaGuardia and JFK. Delta and United are both bigger in New York. The planned “Northeast Alliance” would have enabled American to partner with JetBlue to establish a larger New York presence, but a federal judge rejected the effort, denying New York consumers the benefit of a strong third option.
Dennis Tajer, spokesman for Allied Pilots Association, which represents American pilots, said the carrier faces the danger of becoming a “super regional” carrier that lacks strength outside the Sunbelt. “American’s network plan is to focus on a southern domestic route structure,” he said. “We just have to make sure that the profits don’t continue to head south.”
While American has built a strong Sunbelt presence, where its hubs generally provide the best options for passengers in outlying cities, “What lures people to fly on a network is the ability to fly across the globe, not just to Destin and El Paso,” Tajer said. “You’re not going to be able to attract premium and frequent flyer customers if they can’t use their points to fly to international destinations. The answer to American’s revenue problem lies offshore, not on the beaches of Florida and the Gulf coast.”