American Airlines Single-Aisle fleet evolution

American was once the home of more MD80s than any other airline—over 300 at its peak. In 2011, the airline threw its fleet cat among the pigeons. At the time, this was a gargantuan order not seen before. The requirement was 460 single-aisle aircraft with options and purchase rights for another 465. This deal was the birth of the A320neo family and, shortly after that, the 737 MAX. It remains an industry watershed moment – after this deal, everything changed. The original Airbus CEO order was only A319’s and A321’s. The NEO order was a family order later reduced from 130 to 100. Here we are, the end of 2023, and what have we seen from that deal? The MD80s are gone along with the E-190s. COVID saw the A330s, 757s and 767s go, too. The airline also changed with the US Airways merger, bringing in a new management team. The first deliveries from the mega order were delivered to an airline undergoing significant changes. The following chart illustrates the size and impact of these changes; the MD80 departure was rapid. But the remaining Airbus and Boeing fleet picked up any slack. [caption id="attachment_79634" align="aligncenter" width="523"] DoT T2; AirInsight[/caption] Notice that even though the mega order was in 2011, it was 2021 before the first MAX8 arrived. The A320neos were switched to A321neo, and the first arrived in 2019. The merger, announced in 2013, helped change American’s Boeing heavy fleet swing towards Airbus. It was several years before the mega-order airplanes started to work for American. The A319 fleet, not typically thought to be the most efficient airliner, grew at American. Notice the swing away from 757s to A321neos. In 2020, the 757 was at 1% of flights, and the A321neo was already at 2%. By 1H23, that has risen to 7.2%. And the MAX? It remains at ~5% of flights. What is happening here? Has American quietly changed its thinking? Airlines have two big input costs: pilots and fuel. The pilot shortage has driven pilot costs to unprecedented rates. Traditionally, fuel costs are the larger of these two input costs. Starting there, we have the following table showing seat miles/gallon. This allows us to compare each aircraft on an equal seating. [caption id="attachment_79635" align="aligncenter" width="443"] DOT T2; AirInsight[/caption] The red box was during the MAX grounding and is best ignored. The bottom line shows that the American’s single-aisle fleet averages around 70 miles per seat gallon, which has improved to closer to 75. Over the period we see a 2.7% improvement. That improvement has not come from the 737-800, A321, A320 or A319s. The MAX8 and A321neo have been driving the improvement. The A321neo offers 6.5% better seat miles/gallon than the MAX8. Look at the following chart. We see the drastic impact of the pandemic and rapid recovery – it was highly desired "V" everyone wanted. American has seen a steady seat/flight number. This is partly from taking its 737s to 172 seats. But as the A321 has become a more significant part of the fleet, it has impacted the trend. [caption id="attachment_79636" align="aligncenter" width="443"] DOT T2; AirInsight[/caption] Given a pilot shortage, focusing on larger aircraft to move the traffic makes sense. The following chart shows that American moved flights that were 757 focused to A321neo. [caption id="attachment_79637" align="aligncenter" width="452"] DOT T2; AirInsight[/caption] Our final data point is this table. These are new deliveries to American from January 2021 through November 2023. MAX deliveries are inordinately slow. Certainly, compared to Southwest, that takes a new MAX every three days! Airbus delivered 65% of the airline's new single-aisle aircraft since 2021. [caption id="attachment_79638" align="aligncenter" width="252"] AirInsight[/caption] We checked with the fleet data at ch-Aviation to check this data point. We discovered that American’s active fleet shows 53 MAX8s compared to 70 A321NXs. The chart looks back to 2000 and lists active aircraft. An interesting item we discovered is American has three ex-Virgin America A321neos. To these will be added the handful of ex-Alaska Airlines A321neos. [caption id="attachment_79639" align="aligncenter" width="580"] ch-Aviation; AirInsight[/caption] American’s move towards the A321 rather than the MAX is clearly impacted by Boeing's MAX delivery difficulties. The numbers for 2023 seem to confirm this, as Boeing delivered many more MAXs in 2023 than in the past several years. The airline’s attraction to the A319 seems to have faded as fuel costs rise along with MRO costs. The following chart offers another interesting perspective on American’s single-aisle fleet. The merger of America West with USAir and then US Airways with American creates a messy picture. [caption id="attachment_79640" align="aligncenter" width="580"] ch-Aviation; AirInsight[/caption] As we close 2023, with deliveries through November, this is the composition of American’s single-aisle fleet. [caption id="attachment_79641" align="aligncenter" width="264"] ch-Aviation; AirInsight[/caption] The table shows that the majority of American’s single-aisle fleet is now Airbus. Back in 2011, Airbus offered American a “most-favored-customer” deal. This was not supposed to happen – Boeing had a 20-year deal with American as an exclusive supplier from 1996. When Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas, the EU requested the removal of this clause to approve the deal. And here we are, American is considering another round of orders for single-aisles.

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