Amdist talks and uncertainty regarding the demand for flights between Canada and the United States, American Airlines’ schedules revealed that the airline has planned significant growth across the border, including on specific routes, such as between Los Angeles and Vancouver.
Switching aircraft types
Data from the aviation analytics company Cirium’s Diio Mi airline planning tool showed that between June and August, compared to the same three-month period in 2024, American Airlines flights between Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Vancouver International Airport (YVR) will have more seats.
This is underscored by the fact that instead of the Airbus A319, which exclusively operated the route during the three summer months in 2024, the carrier will primarily utilize the Boeing 737-800, which has more seats onboard.
According to its website, its A319s are equipped with 128 seats, namely eight First, 24 Main Cabin Extra (economy with more pitch), and 96 Main Cabin seats, with the airline either offering seatback screens or providing entertainment via passengers’ personal devices on the aircraft.
Meanwhile, the 737-800s have 172 seats: 16 First, 24 Main Cabin Extra, and 132 Main Cabin without seatback entertainment.
As a result, year-on-year (YoY), the airline should offer 21.4% more seats on the route that will be served by the 737-800 between June 5 and August 5.
On August 6, American Airlines will switch back to the A319 on its daily flights to the Canadian city, Cirium’s Diio Mi showed.
Capacity growth
In general, during the three summer months in 2025, the carrier’s capacity to Canada, in terms of seats, will grow by 14.6% YoY, including massive growth on specific routes, such as flights from Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) to Calgary International Airport (YYC) and Québec City Jean Lesage International Airport (YQB).
In addition, American Airlines is still planning to operate routes that it did not during the same period in 2024, including flights from Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) to Halifax Stanfield International Airport (YHZ), from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) to Québec City, and from New York LaGuardia Airport (LGA) to Calgary.
WestJet, which also planned to operate the latter route, U-turned on its plans and confirmed to Simple Flying that it would no longer launch the once-per-week flights connecting Calgary and New York-LaGuardia.
Rebuffing statements about demand collapsing
On March 26, the travel data company OAG published an update on the Canada to the US market. Citing “forward booking data from a major GDS supplier,” the company concluded that the data showed that between April and September, forward bookings were down more than 70% during each month.
However, in response, Air Canada outlined that the data did not reflect the airline’s booking patterns or the state of the market, which was based on information available to the Canadian carrier.
“While we have experienced a softening in the transborder market – and have shifted a limited amount of capacity to adapt to it as previously announced – the decline Air Canada has experienced is not of the magnitude cited in the blog. According to our information, when aggregating all indirect and direct booking channels, the decline is significantly less.”
Air Canada’s spokesperson reiterated that the airline will share more information during its quarterly earnings call, but the company has yet to schedule its Q1 2025 call. In 2024, it held its Q1 call on May 2, 2024.
