Rumor: American Airlines Adding Seattle Flight Attendant Base
Just as the pandemic was starting, American Airlines inked its West Coast Alliance with Alaska Airlines. This was supposed to support American’s international flying.
- After Alaska acquired Virgin America, American saw them as more of a competitor than partner. They had a change of heart. They were bleeding on Pacific routes from Los Angeles. (They’ve since given up on LAX as a Pacific hub, opting to fly long haul only to joint venture partner hubs from LA.) They saw an opportunity to shift their West Coast long haul to Seattle.
- Alaska for its part eyed joining oneworld. They didn’t want a weaker partnership with American. They want international partnerships especially, in order to sell customers more than just their own domestic network. Delta had encroached upon Seattle and had the ability to sell both. Notably, Alaska’s deal to acquire Hawaiian brings with it Pacific routes.
However the pandemic came. Asia flying was slower to recover. Russia invaded Ukraine, which eliminated the ability of U.S. airlines to overfly Russia making many flights longer and more expensive to operate.
American had planned to fly Seattle to Bangalore and to Shanghai. Neither flight materialized. American isn’t even flying Seattle – London this winter. They aren’t operating long haul at all from Seattle. So it’s been a question mark whether Seattle would actually be a long haul city for American at all – whether their ‘L.A. replacement’ wasn’t one after all, and the airline would just shrink in the Pacific.
So I was surprised by the rumor – not necessarily endorsed – that aviation watchdog JonNYC passes along about the airline adding a flight attendant base in Seattle.
..observe that you don’t hire this many people unless -something- is coming– be it the LHR flight, JFK (just dumb guesses on my part,) really dunno.
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) March 2, 2024
I have 3 reactions to the notion,
- Normally I would think that they would use base expansion as (one one small) carrot in getting a deal done with their flight attendants union. But they gave out mid-contract raises which made it harder to get a mechanics deal done before the pandemic, so it wouldn’t be uncharacteristic.
- We have seen nothing to suggest they’re growing Seattle flying (especially without Russia overflight).
- I suppose it’s possible that new Boeing 787s in New York free up Boeing 777s that could go to Seattle, funding at least Heathrow for the long term. Perhaps as China flights inch back they need to squat on route authority and do Seattle – Shanghai? Alaska filed to codeshare on the route last year.
