After acquiring US Airways in 2014 which had a route from Philadelphia to Tel Aviv, American Airlines removed the route in 2015. Since then American Airlines has not had any direct flights to Israel.
At the time, Douge Parker, the CEO of American Airlines explained the move as follows:
“We pulled out because we weren’t making money. At US Airways we flew Philadelphia – Tel Aviv. Try as we might we couldn’t make profits on that route. And they were getting worse not better. A different time, that was several years ago. That’s the stop, no other reason.”
“I’ve heard some of these weird theories but there’s nothing else to it. We made the choice. We love flying there to. I like you made the trip there, it was one of the highlights of my life. .. It was one of our worst days when we decided to pull that flight for all of those reasons, but it was entirely because of that. But Vasu’s now here scheduling a bigger airline. How does Tel Aviv look one day in the future?”
American Airlines has now announced that it will begin flying to Israel by the beginning of next year. It is assumed that this move is in hope of catching the slack which ElAl has left by canceling its routes. This additional route has been announced with other routes as well most of which have destinations in Africa.
