American Airlines will begin new service to Buenos Aires and Cordoba in Argentina from this winter, as it grows its already leading Latin America presence.
The Oneworld Alliance carrier will begin new three-times weekly service to Buenos Aires from its Los Angeles hub on 19 December, and add Cordoba to its map with four-times weekly service from Miami on 2 April 2019, it says today. The Los Angeles-Buenos Aires flight will operate on a 285-seat Boeing 787-9 and the Miami-Cordoba flight on a 209-seat Boeing 767-300ER.
In addition, American will begin daily service from Dallas/Fort Worth to Oaxaca with a 76-seat Embraer 175 on 19 December; and four-times weekly service from Miami to Georgetown, Guyana, and three-times weekly service to Pereira, Colombia, both with 128-seat Airbus A319s on 20 December.
"As the largest US carrier in Mexico and South America, we are committed to offering more choices with the best schedules for our customers in the region,” says Vasu Raja, vice-president of network and schedule planning at American, in a statement. “As we look to strengthen our network, we’re excited to add more nonstop flights to places like Buenos Aires, maximising connections across our network.”
The new routes are part of a larger expansion to Latin America by the airline. Other increases include a new Philadelphia-Mexico City flight that begins in July, as well as increased frequency and aircraft gauge to Cancun, Caracas and Los Cabos.
Not everything is growth. American will end service to La Paz, Bolivia, which it has served since 1990, due to weak demand in July.
The carrier plans to grow system capacity by roughly 2.5% in 2018.
The additional service comes as American waits for antitrust approval of its proposed joint venture with LATAM Airlines Group, the largest carrier in South America. Executives at LATAM have said they expect the final approvals to be in place for an early-2019 launch. The planned joint venture will cover Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.
American will compete with Surinam Airways between Miami and Georgetown, FlightGlobal schedules data show. No airlines operate on the four other new routes.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
