American Airlines Hubs and Primary Routes

Dallas Ft Worth is American’s home base and the cause of much griping from frequent travelers who find the airport to be a Texas-sized monstrosity. If you live in Dallas, you’re probably happy that most gates are close to check-in, but if you’re connecting you may find yourself taking a people mover to your far-flung gate and hoping that you’ve left enough time to make that flight to Kansas City.

Chicago O’Hare offers the greatest array of flights to European and Asian destinations, including American’s nonstop service to India. While O’Hare can be a nightmare during the winter storm season, it’s not as bad as you might think considering the amount of snow that falls in the area.

New York-JFK features a growing number of flights to Europe and the Caribbean as well as extensive service to the West Coast featuring 3-class service that harkens back to pre-regulation days of flying (especially if you’re not in Coach). American lives in two terminals at JFK, T8 and T9, the latter of which is amenity rich while the former is about to be demolished – with good reason.

New York-LaGuardia has been developed as a regional focus city, offering regional jet flights around the Northeast, plus nonstop flights to the South and Midwest. American has used LaGuardia to develop point-to-point routes that, in many cases, overlap with other airlines (nonstops to Detroit and Cleveland, for example). Keep in mind that the connection to JFK requires a cab or 20-30 minute bus ride from LaGuardia.

Miami has many flights to the Caribbean and Latin America to serve that population in southern Florida. While you will likely be happy with the variety of destinations served nonstop from Miami, you will have plenty of time to ponder that as you wait in the miserable customs and immigration lines that abound.

San Juan offers an extensive network of flights throughout the Caribbean, including many services not served by any other airline.

St. Louis became an American Airlines hub after TWA was acquired, but over time is has shrunk to a regional focus city, offering regional jet connections to small cities across the Midwest.

American has one of the country’s most extensive international route maps. AA serves many cities in Latin America and the Caribbean that are unserved by other US airlines (though Delta and Continental have made in-roads in the region over the past few years.) AA has also developed a wide-range of routes from Chicago and JFK to Europe and a handful of flights to Asia.

Domestically, they are very strong in the South due to their Dallas hub, and they offer a large number of transcontinental flights (to compete with United’s P.S. service).

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