American Airlines has applied to fly non-stop between Los Angeles and Shanghai using their vaunted 777-200ER aircraft.  If permission is granted, it will be the only non-stop flight between the two cities.

I sound like a PR release.  Frankly, I hope AA gets the route and I do hope they actually arrange acceptable slots into Shanghai this time.  You may remember that AA ended up delaying the start of their Chicago-Beijing route because the slots they were given weren’t automatically changed to make them happy when they got closer to their first departure. 

I suspect AA is going to be applying for a lot of west coast to Asia routes in the near future.  The yield is good and so are the loads.  People to tend to fly their national airlines on such routes unlike those from the US to Europe.  It’s notable that this route would originate in one of their declared “core” cities, Los Angeles. 

Lately all the competition talk has been over New York City.  I think LA may end up 2011’s New York City when it comes to competition.  It’s one of the best cities to connect domestic flights to trans-Pacific flights and he who grabs the routes now is likely to keep them in the future.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax