Last week, American Airlines revealed plans to launch a new daily flight between Chicago and Tokyo, which is a route resumption, and also represents American’s return of Asia flying out of Chicago.
While I’m delighted to see American adding new long haul service, this is also about as boring as it gets (which isn’t to say it’s a bad idea, but…). There’s now a further update, as this service is actually net negative, as I see it, as American is simply replacing joint venture partner Japan Airlines on the route (thanks to S_LEE for flagging this). That’s kind of sad, since we basically just get a lower quality option…
American will once again fly from Chicago to Asia
As of March 27, 2027, American intends to launch daily nonstop flights between Chicago (ORD) and Tokyo Narita (NRT). The service will operate with the following schedule:
AA153 Chicago to Tokyo Narita departing 12:45PM arriving 3:30PM (+1 day)
AA154 Tokyo Narita to Chicago departing 5:50PM arriving 3:10PM
The 6,272-mile route is blocked at 12hr45min to Japan and 11hr20min to the United States. The airline will use one of its standard Boeing 787-9s for the service, featuring 305 seats, including 30 business class seats, 21 premium economy seats, and 254 economy seats.
This service technically represents a route resumption, since American last flew this until January 2020. So this wasn’t a pandemic cut at the time, but instead, it was cut shortly before that, as American increasingly retreated out of Chicago.
American otherwise services Tokyo Narita exclusively out of Dallas (DFW), while the airline offers service to Tokyo Haneda (HND) out of Dallas, Los Angeles (LAX), and New York (JFK). This is obviously part of American’s effort to increasingly compete against United in Chicago, given the extent to which United has gained market share there in recent years, and American is trying to undo that.
We recently saw American announce it would permanently cancel its route between Philadelphia (PHL) and Doha (DOH), and would add a new long haul route to replace it. I suspect that this is the route.
More long haul service is good, but there’s a big catch
American’s long haul route network is incredibly uninspiring, especially compared to United, and even increasingly in comparison to Delta. It’s sad, because it didn’t used to be that way.
As I’ve often said, American’s long haul route network is great for Latin America, but beyond that, the airline basically flies to joint venture hubs and does some seasonal summer flying to Europe. That’s of course a slight oversimplification, but that’s how I view it, big picture, in terms of the cohesive strategy.
What do I make of this route? Well, American is adding yet another route that’s simply to a joint venture hub, so it’s hard to get too excited about that. Joint venture partner Japan Airlines already flies daily to Chicago from both Tokyo Narita and Tokyo Haneda, so American is simply replicating what its joint venture partner is doing. Keep in mind the airlines can coordinate fares, schedules, etc.
It actually gets even worse than that, though. Japan Airlines will discontinue its route between Tokyo Narita and Chicago as of the same date that American launches the service. So American is simply replacing its joint venture partner. For what it’s worth, Japan Airlines has operated the route with the following schedule:
JL56 Tokyo Narita to Chicago departing 9:45AM arriving 7:20AM
JL55 Chicago to Tokyo Narita departing 11:35AM arriving 2:45PM (+1 day)
Japan Airlines is unarguably a higher quality airline than American, that can’t really be disputed. Fares shouldn’t change, since the joint venture partners can coordinate that. So I guess this is potentially good if you want to use miles or systemwide upgrades specifically on American, but other than that, this is a net negative.
Yeah, unfortunately we shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s sad how even when American adds a new long haul route, it somehow still manages to be a net negative for passengers.
Bottom line
American Airlines plans to resume daily nonstop flights between Chicago and Tokyo Narita as of late March 2027. This is a route that the airline last operated in early 2020, and when it was cut, it represented the end of American’s service from Chicago to Asia.
With the battle between American and United in Chicago heating up, American clearly feels it needs to fly to Asia again from the airport. I suppose that’s fair, though there’s a big catch, which is that joint venture partner Japan Airlines already operates this route, and will cut the route as of the same day that American launches it.
I’d love to see American actually permanently add long haul service to new destinations, but that’s not really the carrier’s strategy. Heck, at this point I’d settle for even just incremental capacity increases, but this isn’t even that. It’s just switching a route from a high quality airline to a lower quality airline.
What do you make of American adding Chicago to Tokyo Narita flights, and replacing Japan Airlines?