American cuts a whopping 21 Austin routes in major network shake-up

06.11.2023 - 14:59 / thepointsguy.com / Brian Znotins

Maybe Austin wasn't as hot as American Airlines had expected.

Over the weekend, the airline filed a major schedule change for service at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), and the details aren't pretty.

American is slashing a whopping 21 routes from Austin, Cirum schedules show, effectively reversing much of the carrier's growth in the Texas capital that was announced during the pandemic.

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You'll find the full list of cuts in the table below, and they're all depicted on the map as well.

American confirmed the cuts with the following statement.

After these changes, Austin will be left with American service to most of the carrier's hubs (except for Washington Reagan National and New York LaGuardia), as well as a handful of point-to-point destinations, such as Aspen, Colorado; Nashville and Las Vegas.

While the sheer number of routes getting slashed is noteworthy, American says that it'll still offer 53% more daily seats and 19 additional daily departures next year, compared to 2019.

Notably, almost all of the routes getting cut were operated by regional affiliates on behalf of American Eagle. Ever since the changes were first filed, there's been talk among aviation insiders that the carrier needed to scrap these flights due to scope clauses with its mainline pilots.

These scope clauses are typically designed to limit how much regional flying American can do. Regional operations are typically lower cost than service operated by American's mainline pilots and flight attendants, so these contracts are designed to limit the incentive to outsource flying to regional affiliates.

Of course, some of the routes that were slashed were operated on American mainline jets, so no matter how you cut it, Austin seemingly wasn't working for American.

That's especially surprising because American spent much of the pandemic doubling down on service to Austin, leading some to wonder whether the airport would eventually become a focus city for American.

The airline kicked off the Austin growth in March 2021 with 10 new routes. Just three months later, the carrier followed up with 14 more new routes there, including a mix of domestic and international destinations to cities in Mexico, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.

"We were thinking about this move pre-pandemic. All the elements of the pandemic came together to help us launch service now. But we are certainly thinking long-term here. We are at the front-end of our growth in Austin," Brian Znotins, American's network chief, told TPG at the time.

Since then, the carrier added a mix of both business- and leisure-focused routes in a long-term play for capitalizing on the