American Airlines to cut international flights due to Dreamliner delivery delays

American Airlines is cutting a handful of international flights next summer because of delivery delays for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliners.

American Airlines Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja on Thursday told employees in a memo provided to The Hill that the company will not offer flights to Edinburgh; Shannon, Ireland, or Hong Kong next summer, and will “significantly” trim the number of planes flying to Shanghai, Beijing and Sydney temporarily. 

“We’ll continue to evaluate these routes as more aircraft become available and would like to be able to serve them again in the future,” Raja said. 

Additionally, the airline said it will not be resurrecting routes to Prague or Dubrovnik, Croatia, which were in operation in 2019, and it will push back the launch of new service routes, including a flight route from Seattle to Bangalore, India.

Raja said the changes are due to a delay in outstanding orders for Boeing 787 Dreamliners, including as many as 13 aircraft that were supposed to be in use this winter.

“Boeing continues to be unable to deliver the 787s we have on order, including as many as 13 aircraft that were slated to be in our fleet by this winter. Without these widebodies, we simply won’t be able to fly as much internationally as we had planned next summer, or as we did in summer 2019,” Raja wrote in the memo.

He told employees that the 787 Dreamliners are “an important part of our fleet,” adding “Despite this delay, we still have great confidence in the Dreamliner and continue to work with Boeing on when these planes can be ultimately delivered to us.”

He also said Boeing has told American Airlines that the company will offer compensation “for their inability to deliver the aircraft.”

In a public statement on Thursday, American Airlines said: “Continued delivery delays of Boeing 787 aircraft have provided unique challenges in planning international flying months in advance,” which led to the service changes for next summer.

Boeing is expected to resume deliveries of the aircraft by April 1 of next year, but no earlier, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal, which first reported American Airlines’ schedule changes.

Despite the delivery delays, however, American Airlines said it expects to still operate a full schedule to London, Dublin and Madrid “as soon as we are able to,” and it is planning to add a route from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to Doha, Qatar, this summer, according to Raja’s memo.

He said the flight from New York to Qatar will “build on our partnerships and grow our presence in Africa, India and the Middle East.”

 A Boeing spokesperson told The Hill in a statement that the company “deeply regret[s]” the impact delivery delays of the 787 Dreamliners are having on customers.

“Our team is continuing comprehensive inspections and rework, as needed, on undelivered airplanes, while holding transparent discussions with the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration], our suppliers and customers,” the spokesperson said.

“We respect the role of our regulator and their rigorous reviews of our processes. We will take the time needed to ensure conformance to our exacting specifications. While this has near-term impacts, we are confident this is the right approach to drive stability and first-time quality across our operations and position the program for the long term,” the spokesperson added.