August 31, 2019 - After Philadelphia, is an American Airlines connection between Chicago and Dubrovnik on the horizon?
American Airlines connected the United States and Croatia for the first time in almost 30 years with their seasonal service between Philadelphia and Dubrovnik this summer. Recall, the Oneworld member began operations between Philadelphia and Dubrovnik from June 7, which will run until September 27, 2019. The airline will actually add a fourth weekly flight on Sundays in September and already announced that there is no slowing down next year. Thus, American Airlines will operate the Philadelphia-Dubrovnik route daily in 2020, which will commence on June 4, 2020.
“Dubrovnik went really, really well for us. We can connect 95% of the United States over Philadelphia, and [at] none of our competitors’ operations in New York or the northeast can they do anything really remotely close to that,” said American Airlines' Vice President for Network and Schedule Planning, Vasu Raja.
Furthermore, Ex Yu Aviation reports that the Philadelphia connection doesn’t seem to be the only one in the plans for this famous airline.
“As we go and start things in Philadelphia, and they work, it becomes a means to develop routes for Chicago. Barcelona, Venice, Prague and Budapest all started from Philadelphia, and we realized they could all work from Chicago too, given where the traffic was coming from," Raja added, hinting that the airline could launch a service between Chicago and Dubrovnik in the coming years, as its new routes out of Philadelphia are used as a guinea pig for future operations out of O’Hare airport. Furthermore, the airline will launch seasonal flights from Chicago to Budapest and Prague next year, after operating from Philadelphia for the last two years.
However, new connections from the US are no surprise.
"This pilot project with American Airlines will grow over the coming years to include more American cities as well as new airlines. We have been working intensively on the US market for years. The American market is the second most strategically important for us in terms of visitors, just behind the United Kingdom. We expect flights to be extended throughout the season first and then for new routes to be added,” said Romana Vlašić of the Dubrovnik Tourist Board.
The American Airlines service between Philadelphia and Dubrovnik operates using a 209-seat Boeing 767-300ER aircraft with a capacity of 28 seats in business class and 181 seats in economy class, and Wi-Fi services are available throughout the entire flight.
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