Hello All,
Given the lack of meaningful aircraft orders (thanks to the upcoming Farnborough Air Show and endless supply chain issues), we will use US Department of Transportation data to focus on the busiest routes between the USA and Europe. We will compare with 2019 traffic levels.
The seven-digit traffic airport pairs
There were six airport pairs with 1m or more annual passengers: JFK-LHR, CDG-JFK, LAX-LHR, LHR-ORD, LHR-SFO, and EWR-LHR. All city pairs involve either New York JFK’s or London Heathrow’s airport. There were two more airport pairs with 1m or more passengers in 2019: AMS-JFK and JFK-MAD (EWR-LHR did not make the cut back then, but LHR-MIA did).
Ten 1m+ city pairs
The table below shows the traffic for the top 10 city pairs:
| From | To | Pax Traffic (1000s) | Change vs. 2019 |
| London | New York | 4,519 | -109 |
| New York | Paris | 2,412 | 401 |
| Los Angeles | London | 1,682 | -95 |
| Rome | New York | 1,231 | 160 |
| Frankfurt | New York | 1,187 | -1 |
| Boston | London | 1,071 | -86 |
| London | San Francisco | 1,063 | -95 |
| London | Chicago | 1,042 | -259 |
| Amsterdam | New York | 1,016 | -142 |
| Milan | New York | 1,001 | 8 |
| Top 10 | Total | 16,223 | -503 |
Again, all of the routes involve London and New York. New York-Milan and New York-Rome were not in the top 10 in 2019. Along with Paris, the higher traffic ties in with this blogger’s anecdotal evidence of more New York tourists traveling to Paris and Italy.
London-Miami and Madrid-New York were not in the top 10 and dropped below 1 million annual passengers. Milan-New York did not have 1 million passengers in 2019.
Conclusion
The evidence from the busiest routes is that long-haul trans-Atlantic passenger traffic has not recovered to 2019 levels but is getting close. Traffic is higher on leisure-heavy routes but still lower on routes with more business passengers.
EPSILON AVIATION 
Interesting observation.
I’m not familiar with TATL as an Asian, but I did heard AA/BA was big, in particular on LON-NYC. Is it still the case? Or has the higher mix of leisure passengers benefitted LCCs and other JV pairs?
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Yes AA/BB are huge on LON/NYC. AA is a smaller player than DL & UA on all other routes from NYC.
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… are you sure? I thought BA did a booming business LHR LAX…. (but I agree otherwise, UA/AC in particular is dominating international flights from NA)
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I have an impression BA is not only booming in LAX but comfortably serving many secondary cities. LHR is well positioned to capture these transit traffic and perhaps “special relationship” helps.
That doesn’t necessary conflict with AA being weak though – given their adverse attitude in bigger widebodies, and small footprint across the Pacific – they don’t even fly to OW hubs a lot, relying JAL and Cathay for feeds.
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AA struggles for profitability on international long-haul flights (they are behind DL and UA), except for their flights to LHR or their DFW superconnector hub. This explains the strategy to use more feed traffic.
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… am I wrong… all of these top ten city pairs are within range for the 787 10s.
… the chart also shows how distributed the traffic is, no?
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Most modern widebodies, with the exception of early low MTOW A330-300s or 767s, can comfortably fly most of the above routes.
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correct when it comes to passenger loads. The only difference is how much freight you can take on those routes.
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All of those routes (as a matter of fact all of Western Europe – USA) are within the range of the 787-10. The only caveat with the above routes is cargo load restrictions on the London – San Francisco / Los Angeles, which the A350-900 would not have.
I have been pondering how AA will replace its 777-300ER fleet in the 2030s. One option could be to down-gauge to the 787-10. All of AA’s trunk routes operated by the 777-300ER (except LAX-SYD) would work well with a 787-10.
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… Do you mean the 200ERs? With an average age of 23 years at the end of 2023. AA owns 44 and 3 leases. AAs 300ERs average 9.8 years. We have remarked on this before. AA is not currently in great financial shape, and does not have orders for new aircraft to replace older frames.
… Also, AA started a “sunbelt” strategy that has had little success, the thinking being that the southern US states have more growth ahead of them. They just fired the operations guy that implemented it.
… You might be right about the 10s being the best choice. Longer routes with 9s.
… I am just not sure North American carriers can avoid purchasing 777Xs. Some of these routes are just so popular. LAX LHR, JFK NRT… they will need big iron…
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most of the -200ERs will be replaced by the upcoming 787-9s (30 of them). You can think of the 787-10 as a 777-200ER & -300ER replacement.
You rightly point out that the 777-9 (or A350-1000 if they can get over ordering Airbus aircraft) might be unavoidable for some routes otherwise they’ll leave too much money on the table.
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… United has more seats in their 787 10s than AA does in 300ERs. But, AA’s balance sheet is a wreck. Look at AA’s high density in their 787 9s… this is the future for them I think. Perhaps not as dense as AC, but AA’s new 9s are closer to AC with 10 fewer seats…. than UA with a difference of 28.
United Airlines Density
300ER = 350
200ER = 276 to 363
787 10 = 318
787 9 = 257
787 8 = 245
American Airlines Density
300ER = 304
200ER = 273
787 9 = 285
787 8 = 234
Air Canada Density
300ER = 418
200LR = 300
787 9 = 295
787 8 = 255
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AA’s future 787-9s will have I think 244 seats (https://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2022/A-Private-Premium-Experience-in-the-Sky-American-Airlines-Introduces-New-Flagship-Suite-Seats-FLT-09/default.aspx) so the LOPA will be more business-heavy
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… this very low density is a risky strategy for AA because they don’t have the international network that Delta and United have. I would have been more conservative, splitting the difference. If you are a “global citizen” United would be the top choice for Americans for sure. It is those high flyers that are willing to pay the most often for premium seats. AA has a “sunbelt strategy. The ability to charge a premium for business seating within North America is limited compared to transoceanic flights. Keep in mind, American high flyers would still do most of their flights within North America (“road warriors”).
… I think AC has dense planes for flexibility. Twin aisle planes are used transoceanic and within North America. Unlike US carriers, AC runs direct flights between large city pairs, with volume that requires not only multiple flights a day, but using big iron. US carriers want you to go through a hub…
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Wouldnt the 787-10 work OK for AA for Sydney – with the later extra range hold fuel tank or HGW version
““[Deal] also revealed that Boeing is currently designing a new ‘high gross weight’ version of the largest Dreamliner, the 787-10, bumping up its payload and range to make it more competitive against the Airbus A350-900.”
https://leehamnews.com/2022/01/05/hotr-boeing-works-on-hgw-787-10-and-the-787-9/
The 300ER has 304 seats ( incl 1st class) while the 787-9 has 285 but no 1st class. So a 10 ER would be up there over 300 seats
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LAX-SYD is doable in a 787-10 HGW (I did back of the envelope calculations) but you’d be limited to 250-ish passengers and (almost) zero cargo on the flight to Down Under. It would require a BA-style 787-10 LOPA (256 seats). 300 pax is not feasible with a 787-10 HGW on the LAX-SYD segment, you’d have fuel diversions with minimal headwinds. The 787-10 HGW would still be at best 1.5h short on flying time vs the A350-900 in comparable cabin configurations.
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this the post where I did back of the envelope calculation. LAX-SYD is a 7,500-ish nm mission once you account for bad wind days https://epsilonaviation.wordpress.com/2023/11/25/what-are-the-payload-range-capabilities-of-mid-sized-widebody-aircraft/
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Thanks for that. However the Great circle route over open ocean say 6500nm
https://www.greatcirclemapper.net/en/great-circle-mapper/route/KLAX-YSSY/aircraft/235.html#google_vignette
The extra range -10 seems to be suitable for Air NZ and its hub in Auckland and they have much the same direction of flight , but a bit less. They only needed 500nm extra range. The HGW version could make it 1000nm extra which makes it the 7500nm when including head winds
Checking flight aware now shows the longest in air 78X flight is United Chicago-Tokyo at 12 hrs but less than 6500nm.
The existing LAX-SYD AA route (AA78) in a 77W is 15.5 hrs (scheduled) Previous route actual flight time range from 14:40 to 15:20
US routes can be highly seasonal so maybe swap out the 77W for the 78X in the low season
The AA 77W fleet of about 20 planes is maximum age of 10 years, so need to order replacements for another 12 plus years. But swapping out on many routes desirable for seasonal traffic growth reasons
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correct the 787-10 is a far more suitable aircraft for Air New Zealand. With the right LOPA you can reach all current North American destinations except Chicago and New York. This is why they ordered it to replace the 777-300ERs.
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I’m not too convinced AA needs anything bigger than 78J, at least from what I see in Asia. Premium traffic and cargo are better handled by 35Ks from their JV partners JAL, Qantas and BA (with 777Xs in this case).
I doubt it would be a priority for United on 35K/779 either, given it would be years if not decades before them replacing their 20 end-of-life 77Ws. Geopolitical uncertainty in Asia Pacific also makes long term fleet decision difficult. As their current 77W operations are highly concentrated in SFO, I guess for now 78J is still the lower risk, higher return option for growth even if it means leaving some profit on the table. Again ANA can feed them well if necessary.
The same can’t be said for AC and NZ though. Not only because of concentrated hubs, but also their strong export in F&B combined with a higher necessarity to fly their own metal. HKG-YYZ for example is now dominated by Cathay despite AC used to deploy high density 777s to, and that’s irritating. NZ also lease an increasing number of 77Ws lately despite forgoing all existing ones during the pandemic, and they must find a large aircraft useful for their pax and/or cargo operations. 78J is still useful in both cases with or without HGW, just that they need more than that.
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… If we are considering flights between NA and Aus & NZ… the US carrier to watch would be Hawaiian Airlines who placed an order last year for 787s. And with the merger with Alaskan Airlines, Hawaiian will join OneWorld…with Qantas.
… From a fuel consumption perspective, it makes sense to stop in Hawaii. No?
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if you want to maximize the payload you can take on the trip then yes. But if you stop you have extra airport fees and the flight crew costs kills the economics of stopover. flights between the USA and down under used to stop in Honolulu but with increased range (the 747-400 allowed LAX-SYD) that passed.
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OK. However Hawaiian Airlines is based out of Honolulu. They already fly Honolulu to Sydney (as do both Qantas & Jetstar). But of course, Hawaiian also flies to many destinations within the continental US, many more than offered by Qantas. This can make Honolulu a hub for all Asia to connect to the US.
I don’t know how the merger with Alaskan will work in this case. Keep in mind Alaskan has many destinations within the US.
My understanding is the airport in Honolulu is heavily slot restricted. Some people have proposed that Alaskan bought Hawaiian airlines because Hawaiian dominates the slots in Honolulu.
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I doubt Hawaiian would grow significantly even with Alaska onboard, unless Alaska feel the need to expand into intercontinental market. But even in that scenario 787s would be the safer bet that Alaska is more comfortable with, with excellent commonality of their liking. 777X or A350 would be unthinkable for some time to say the least.
Direct flights are highly profitable and actually quite practical, especially with modern twinjets like 777 and in particular A350.
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… we need to think about the practicality of those long haul flights. Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, flying over the pole using Russian airspace made many of these direct flights economical.
… with Russian airspace not likely to be available in the near future, perhaps some of the previously neglected routes become more economical.
… of course, the economics of long haul flights that do not approach Russian airspace remain the same.
… connections between Asia and North America all went over the pole.
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The rule of thumb is around 2h further than they used to. In most cases it merely means A350’s extra payload range over 787s and 777s is no longer excessive, which Airbus took advantage recently. Cathay can comfortably deploy 35K to JFK, the furthest destination their 77W can reach, while still voluntarily avoiding Russia (they no longer do so). Just that IAD and long-rumored MIA should be out of reach in that scenario.
HNL itself is not premium enough as a destination, and is a significant detour for most NE Asia – N America routes. Selected West Coast hubs are benefitted though – AC and UA expanded operations in YVR and SFO respectively, at the expense of YYZ, EWR and ORD. HNL is convinently located between SEA or Australiasia and N America, but effects of Russian Airspace closure are minimal, so again not much prospect for growth. If Alask + Hawaiian is looking into TPAC, trying SEA with 787s may make more sense thanks to its location, booming tech sector, and minimal competition from either fellow OW members or rivals.
Some of the larger widebody customers (ME3, TK, SE Asia carriers) are not that exposed to Russian airspace closure, and / or will not follow the embargo anyway. Others are already pretty restricted before the war, notably Taiwanese carriers and El Al.
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… Regarding expansion of YVR & SFO. I am not sure about the numbers. Indeed there has been expansion. However daily big iron flights continue from ORD & YYZ to Japan. This pattern has existed for a long time, using partner carriers to access SE Asia from Tokyo. This includes accessing HK. I have made that flight, the direct flight is more expensive and can be difficult to book.
…Also, I wonder about the size of the downside to not having access to Russia airspace. What NA airlines love to do is collect PAXs at West Coast hubs… and put them on big iron to Asia. This puts someone from Iowa sitting beside someone from Texas on the way to Hong Kong. And allows more frequent flights as a result.
… AC in particular loves to do this in Vancouver because AC can collect people from all over North America for flights to Asia. The guy from Iowa does not care if his first segment is to SFO or YVR…especially if he can save money. AC talks about this strategy on their investor calls and they consider it successful. In the past I have saved hundreds of $$$ by flying to Asia via LAX.
… On your comments about HNL. You might be right. I was skeptical as well when the merger with Alaskan was announced, as was most of the business press.
…Not sure about Hawaii not being a premium destination. Among the population of the North American West Coast Hawaii is very popular. ANA has 3 x A380s that were purchased only to go back and forth from Japan to Hawaii.
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