American Airlines
and its regional unit, American Eagle, will serve 341 airports in October. That finding is based on exploring its full network using OAG data. While it will vary at other times, October’s route map has 223 US airports and 118 internationally, especially in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Europe.
American’s 10 busiest airports: October
They are shown below. Obviously, Dallas/Fort Worth ranks first by flights and destinations. While the Texas hub has the most regional jet flights, mainline service is so heavy that it is proportionally less used than at other facilities—just 37% of take-offs and landings are on RJs.
This contributes to Dallas/Fort Worth’s 137 seats/flight, among the highest of American’s top 10 airports. However, it is overtaken by Miami, Los Angeles, and New York JFK because of fewer RJ flights, greater widebody use, and higher-capacity narrowbodies.
Photo: Markus Mainka | Shutterstock
While American and its regional unit provide a staggering 84% of Dallas/Fort Worth’s services, it is second to Charlotte (87%) for domination. Indeed, only these two airports and Philadelphia (75%) are so heavily controlled by American that they are true fortress hubs.
While definitions vary, 70% is typically used to denote a fortress hub, where operators are so dominant that competition is challenging, such as from a lack of spare gates or slots.
The information, including destinations, is for October only. It will vary at other times. Based on the IATA slot seasons, American’s summer season will end on October 26, with the winter schedule taking effect the following day. This means some routes will only have a few flights, while some routes will begin and others will end.
|
Airport |
American’s average* daily take-offs and landings |
% of flights by American Eagle |
% of airport’s flights by American/American Eagle |
Average seats/flight |
American’s destinations (October only) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Dallas/Fort Worth |
1,701 |
37% |
84% |
137 |
231 (Brisbane and Provo begin; Rio de Janeiro resumes) |
|
Charlotte |
1,345 |
43% |
87% |
129 |
156 |
|
Chicago O’Hare |
732 |
54% |
34% |
113 |
130 |
|
Philadelphia |
613 |
46% |
75% |
120 |
98 (121 when extended to next July) |
|
Miami |
599 |
15% |
67% |
160 |
132 |
|
Phoenix |
514 |
37% |
43% |
135 |
94 (Provo begins) |
|
Washington Reagan |
489 |
68% |
60% |
95 |
84 |
|
Los Angeles |
246 |
23% |
17% |
153 |
43 (Reno resumes) |
|
New York LaGuardia |
237 |
66% |
24% |
106 |
45 |
|
New York JFK |
175 |
35% |
15% |
141 |
35 |
|
* Roundtrip services/31 days |
RJs at Chicago O’Hare
More than one in two American flights at O’Hare use Eagle’s RJs (54%). While that is a greater proportion than any of the other five busiest hubs, contributing massively to just 113 seats/flight, it is a much smaller share than at Reagan (68%) and LaGuardia (66%). That is no surprise at all.
Photo: Wenjie Zheng | Shutterstock
393 daily RJ flights at O’Hare
On a typical October day, American Eagle has 393 roundtrip RJ flights at O’Hare, more than half of which is on Envoy Air and Air Wisconsin equipment. In comparison, mainline aircraft have 339 daily services.
The Embraer E170 is Eagle’s most common RJ at O’Hare, followed by the CRJ200, E175, ERJ145, and CRJ700. This month, they are flown to 88 destinations, with Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Toronto, Madison, and Columbus being the top five destinations to see them.