American Airlines Forced to Trim 2022 International Flight Schedules

Back in the summer and early fall, American Airlines was hopeful that it would soon receive as many as 13 Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircrafts.

It didn’t.

Nor did American receive any of the airplanes from the manufacturer in time for the November 8 return of international travel.

Now the carrier has been forced to make some adjustments as it looks like Boeing won’t be able to come through for a few more months.

According to a memo obtained by the Washington D.C. publication The Hill, American will trim some of its international flights for the summer of 2022 due to the Dreamliner delivery delays.

“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,” American Airlines Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja told employees in the memo. “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.”

Among the destinations American plans to cut are

Edinburgh, Scotland; Shannon, Ireland; and Hong Kong, as well as cutting back on flights to Shanghai, Beijing and Sydney.

Ironically, American’s new Northeast Alliance partner JetBlue Airways announced this week it was extending its codeshare agreement with Aer Lingus to provide flights to several cities, including Shannon.

Flights that were originally on American’s schedule in 2019 to Prague and Dubrovnik, Croatia, will not return.

“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 wrote.

Boeing is expected to resume deliveries of the aircraft by April 1, 2022.

A Boeing spokesperson provided a statement to The Hill saying “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.”