American Airlines is betting big on more European, Caribbean travel

The airline's head of network planning talked to TheStreet about routes and plans.

Apr 5, 2025 - 23:48

American Airlines is betting big on more European, Caribbean travel

While the period between November and March sees travelers lusting after warm destinations like Mexico and the many nations across the Caribbean, the summer months have in the last five years become "go to Europe" season.

For the 2025 season, American Airlines (AAL) launched a spate of new routes to smaller European capitals like Edinburgh and Naples, as well as new flights to capitals such as Rome and Athens, from both major and secondary U.S. cities — examples include Chicago for the former and Philadelphia and Charlotte for the latter.

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Athens, Edinburgh and the Amalfi Coast: American Airlines exec talks 2025 demand

"Chicago to Madrid is a great example of how we look at connecting folks around the world," Jason Reisinger, American's managing director of global network planning, told TheStreet in an interview. "Chicago is a huge city and Spain's Madrid is also a big city, so there's obviously a lot of demand between the two."

Reisinger said American travelers who frequently visit Europe have increasingly been looking for ways to fly directly to smaller cities like Marseille, Porto, and Malaga. At the moment, this is possible through American's codeshare partnership with Iberia, but the airline periodically crunches numbers to see which cities have the highest demand for seasonal summer routes.

The airline's new flights to cities like Edinburgh, Barcelona, and Naples are set to start in May and go on until late September or October — although, as Reisinger said, this period could be pushed forward for the following year as rising temperatures and crowds lead larger numbers of tourists to travel to the same cities during the off-season.

"The first part of August is still somewhat peak but the second half is less now, so it's almost like the whole calendar moved up two to four weeks," he said. "We'll probably see things like that change, whether it's school calendars or people trying to avoid crowds, but that's our job. We try to spot these trends."

When it comes to winter Caribbean travel, the region that airlines dub MCLA (Mexico, Caribbean, and Latin America) is a perennial focus. But, according to Reisinger, travelers are also looking to spice up been-there destinations with new and increasingly off-the-beaten path locations that often had been accessible only by regional or charter airline.

American recently started running a flight to the smaller South Caicos island.
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'We do try to find such pockets of demand'

Plans for the 2025-2026 sun-seeking season include launching five new routes to Cancun and upping Punta Cana service to 20 daily departures from 11 U.S. cities, as well as adding new destinations like the South Caicos island. The XSC airport first opened to commercial traffic earlier this year.

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"Another one is Jamaica's Ocho Rios," Reisinger added. "There are a lot of nice resorts there but a lot of people [have previously had to] go through Montego Bay while some go through Kingston. It's a lot more convenient to fly to Ocho Rios than to take a three-hour bus or taxi ride through Montego Bay. We do try to find such pockets of demand."