American Wants to Be Something Special Again

One year after American Airlines merged with US Airways, Chief Executive Officer Doug Parker has settled on his most important destination: Asia. American is playing catch-up with United Continental and Delta Air Lines in the growing market for air travel in the region. Its share of U.S.-Asia flights has grown to 12 percent, from 10.6 percent in 2013, but still lags behind the 45 percent held by United and 36 percent for Delta. In a Jan. 27 earnings call, American President Scott Kirby called Asia “the one area that we’ve been outperforming the industry by a pretty wide margin for the last year.”

American, which emerged from bankruptcy in December 2013, is making its biggest play in trying to serve Tokyo’s Haneda airport. Its executives have asked federal regulators to strip Delta’s rights to fly to Haneda from Seattle and let American operate a Los Angeles-Haneda route instead. “It’s important for us to get in there,” Kirby said on the January earnings call. “It’s also important for customers, and that’s a valuable asset, a slot at the premier airport in Japan.”