American Airlines adds 5 new European routes, boosts 10 flights for summer 2025
Even though the summer season doesn't officially end for another few weeks, American Airlines is already plotting big moves for next summer.
The Fort Worth-based carrier announced Thursday a big network expansion for summer 2025, which includes five new routes to Europe, a longer season on four key transatlantic flights and much more.
You'll find all the details of American's summer 2025 schedule below.
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Tickets for the new flights will be available starting Monday through American's website and mobile app.
American's 5 new European routes
American expects another busy summer of travelers crisscrossing the Atlantic, and it's meeting that demand with five new routes to Europe, including:
- Charlotte-Athens, Greece, starting June 5, 2025, on a Boeing 777-200ER
- Chicago-Madrid, starting March 30, 2025, on a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner
- Miami-Rome, starting July 5, 2025, on a Boeing 777-200ER
- Philadelphia-Edinburgh, starting May 23, 2025, on a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner
- Philadelphia-Milan, starting May 23, 2025, on a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner
Highlights of the expansion include two new routes from Philadelphia, American's main transatlantic gateway. This summer, American added three new transatlantic destinations from Philly — Copenhagen; Naples, Italy; and Nice, France — and now the airline is adding two more.
American confirmed that all three new summer 2024 destinations, along with the route to Barcelona from Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), will relaunch next summer.
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Notably, American will serve Edinburgh for the first time since 2019. The airline hasn't served the Scottish capital since before the pandemic; it last flew from Philly to Edinburgh in October 2019, Cirium schedules show.
Furthermore, American is adding two new routes to Italy, one of the most popular destinations for U.S. travelers looking for a European summer vacation. In total, American will serve Rome from six U.S. airports in 2025 — Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, New York and Philadelphia — more than any other domestic airline.
American will also serve Athens next summer from four U.S. airports (Charlotte, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia), the most of any U.S. airline.
Meanwhile, the new flight from Chicago to Madrid will be supported by onward connecting traffic across Europe, the Middle East and Africa on board American's Oneworld alliance and transatlantic joint venture partner Iberia.
These new routes aren't as "sexy" as the new destinations American added last year. Asked about the strategy behind these new routes, Brian Znotins, American's senior vice president of network and schedule planning, told TPG that "we really look to where people are going and what we've seen ... I'll use Athens as an example. Despite all the services that have been added to Greece over the course of the last couple of years, including ours, there's still an incredible number of passengers connecting in Europe to get to Athens. And that really signifies that there's demand for further nonstops from the U.S."
In total, American will serve 17 transatlantic destinations from Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) next summer, and travelers will be able to connect to more than 80 U.S. destinations from PHL.
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This continued expansion in PHL comes at the expense of further transatlantic growth in New York, where American hasn't been growing as fast as it has in Philly. (The airline did recently launch flights from New York to Tokyo.)
American's hubs in Philly and New York serve totally different purposes, said Znotins.
"So much comparison has been done on us in Philly and New York, and I think that's only just because they're close geographically. They couldn't be further apart in terms of the way we build our schedules there and the type of demand we go after. ... Whether we're going after connections or local demand, they're on opposite ends of the scale," he said.
Philly's schedules are built to help funnel connections, whereas New York is all about the local market.
4 routes with a longer season
In addition to American's new transatlantic routes, the airline will expand the service window on several transatlantic flights.
The most notable is service from Miami to Paris, which has historically only operated as a winter seasonal flight. Next summer, American will expand this route to daily service in the summer as well.
Furthermore, the airline will start flights from DFW to Barcelona and from PHL to Athens earlier than originally planned. These flights will now commence March 30, 2025.
The airline will also relaunch flights from Philly to Naples on May 5, 2025, about a month earlier than was originally planned (June 4, 2025).
While American is focused on its big expansion, the airline is making one small frequency reduction next summer. The airline will go down from four to three daily flights between Chicago and London next summer.
4 upgauges to Asia
Though much of the focus is on transatlantic expansion, American is also upgauging four of its transpacific flights beginning in late March.
You'll find all of the details below.
| Departure | Arrival | Service notes |
|---|---|---|
| Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) | Tokyo's Haneda Airport (HND) | Daily service on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner |
| DFW | Tokyo's Narita International Airport (NRT) | Daily service on a Boeing 777-200ER |
| DFW | Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG) | Daily service on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner |
| Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) | Tokyo Haneda | Twice-daily service on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner |
2 new domestic routes
In addition to the long-haul expansion, American is growing its hub in Philadelphia with two new domestic routes.
These routes will not only appeal to point-to-point travelers, but they'll also help boost the number of one-stop connecting options the airline can offer travelers who want to connect to its new European services.
American will add service from PHL to Omaha and Des Moines on June 5, 2025. Both routes will be operated twice daily using the CRJ-900 regional jet.
These two new domestic routes join the airline's recently announced new route from Philadelphia to Northwest Arkansas National Airport (XNA) near Bentonville, service that begins Dec. 19, 2024.
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Bottom line
Overall, American's summer 2025 schedule fits with the carrier's recent network strategy of boosting flights to popular European gateways.
"As much as we love new destinations and we love new dots on the map, ultimately our job is to match the capacity to the demand, and the demand is still cranking to Italy and Greece," explained Znotins.
Expanding service to countries like Italy and Greece makes sense. They're popular with Americans and are surer bets than adding unique point-to-point routes to European secondary destinations like Palma de Mallorca and Malaga in Spain.
The latter is a strategy that United Airlines has largely perfected recently, as the carrier has consistently added new (and smaller) European destinations over the past few summers.
American becomes the first U.S. airline to unveil its summer 2025 schedule, and all eyes now turn to Delta Air Lines and United to see what the network planners in Atlanta and Chicago are brewing up.
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