American Airlines will be relying on Philadelphia instead of New York in the future. From March 25, 2018, Zurich-Philadelphia will be served non-stop every day instead of the Zurich-New York JFK connection. This route was previously served daily by US Airways for several years. After the merger of US Airways and American Airlines, the connection was maintained seasonally for some time. In 2016, the AA discontinued this route in favor of Zurich-New York JFK.
New York is a hotly traded route from Zurich: Swiss and Delta serve the mega-city every day, Swiss even flies twice a day. For American Airlines it is now more or less going back to old paths.
But not because the connection would not have been profitable, says Markus Boecker, Country Manager Switzerland / Germany at American Airlines: “We had strong demand for this route, especially from business customers, and in no way had to hide from the competition. In terms of market share after JFK, American was clearly number two behind Swiss. The only thing we didn’t have: hub connecting flights to the North American area in JFK. That was our weakness, which we are now compensating with Philadelphia. Philadelphia is a significantly larger hub for the American airline than New York. From here we have four times more connections than from JFK. ». The airline is primarily concerned with becoming much more profitable – and there is clearly more to it with Philadelphia than with New York JFK.
–
