American Airlines is reviving some of its pre-pandemic destinations like Prague and Budapest, Hungary, as international travel continues to hold up better than domestic demand.
Other additions include its first-ever Dallas Fort Worth International flights to Athens, Greece, and year-round nonstop service between Miami and Milan.
American is also extending service for next year’s World Cup, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Dallas and between Dallas and Zurich, where soccer’s governing body, FIFA, is based,. Those flights will run from May 21 to Aug. 4 of next year, a bid for more business travel and sports tourism.
Brian Znotins, American’s senior vice president of network and schedule planning, told CNBC that the airline saw high numbers of customers from Argentina travel to Doha, Qatar, during the 2022 World Cup and that he expects even more to travel to the 2026 World Cup, which will be played in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
He also said the airline is expanding its Europe service in a bet that customers would rather connect in a U.S. hub like Dallas or Charlotte, North Carolina.
“We took a fresh look at where the demand hotspots are in Europe and we continue to see strength in Italy and Greece,” Znotins said. “We continue to see high numbers of travelers connecting in Europe to get to places like Rome and Athens,” so the airline is adding more options from U.S. hubs.
With Prague and Budapest service from American’s hub at Philadelphia International Airport, he said many customers already fly into one city and out of the other for Danube River cruises and other tours.
American’s unit revenue for domestic flights in the last quarter fell 6.4% from 2024, while trans-Atlantic revenue rose 5%.
Many of American’s summer routes were discontinued because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but Znotins said the changes weren’t just a return to that period.
“We’ve redesigned the entire airline based on today’s demand environment and not some desire to get back to 2019,” he said. “Everything has changed.”
American will use Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners for all the new flights except for Zurich to Dallas, which will be flown by Boeing 777-200s.
