American Airlines' Phoenix Hub is Still Growing; Carrier Adds 3 New Routes

American Airlines will add new seasonal service from its Phoenix hub to two cities in the US heartland plus New Orleans this winter.

The Oneworld Alliance carrier will add daily service to Cedar Rapids (CID), Iowa; New Orleans (MSY) and Wichita (ICT), Kansas, from on Dec. 18, reports the Phoenix Business Journal and confirmed by American. The first two routes will operate through April 6 and the latter through May 6.

American will use Airbus A319s for the New Orleans service and Bombardier CRJ900s for Cedar Rapids and Wichita.

The new routes are the latest additions by American in Phoenix. The airline added flights to Raleigh/Durham (RDU), North Carolina, in May and will begin service to Rapid City (RAP), South Dakota, in September. Flights to Chihuahua (CUU), Mexico, launch in December.

The airline is also adding seats in Phoenix with the introduction of its new Airbus A321neo that, with 196 seats, is American’s densest narrowbody. The company began flying the aircraft to Orlando, Florida, in April and has scheduled it on flights to cities including Anchorage, Alaska (ANC); Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) and Washington Reagan National (DCA).

American plans to grow system capacity by roughly 2.5% in 2019. Phoenix capacity is scheduled to increase 2.9%, according to Diio by Cirium data.

On the competitive front, Southwest Airlines also serves New Orleans and Wichita from Phoenix while Allegiant Air serves Cedar Rapids and Wichita from nearby Phoenix/Mesa (AZA), Diio data shows.