Originally Posted by
laviation
If it isn’t 24 due to aircraft delivery delays it will certainly be 2025 when the A321s start coming online
Please stop being certain about wishful thinking.
On the examples you gave, some are Oneworld hub to Oneworld hub :
CLT-DUB/MAD and DFW-DUB so not comparable.
American used to have a massive European network, the biggest of the US airlines and they dismantled it on their own to funnel traffic across LHR when they got the metal neutral JV. United and Delta need to serve EDI on their own, AA can easily serve the market via BA with one stop to DFW/ORD/JFK/PHL/CLT/ SEA/LAX/BOS.
Would I like to see AA at EDI? Yes. Do they need to serve EDI on their own metal to hold market share? They had reasons of their own for running down MAN from 4 x daily ORD/JFK/PHL/CLT to nothing and then not hanging onto EDI-PHL.
Any return of American is likely the point that someone else downsizes, net new can't go on forever, bubbles tend to pop.