American Airlines
is about to fly passengers to California for the first time on a skinny, long-range plane that it hopes will change air travel. The airline’s head of network planning now has to decide where else it should fly.
The first Airbus A321XLR for a U.S. airline is scheduled to take off from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Thursday, bound for Los Angeles International Airport.
The XLR stands for extra-long-range, and with the ability to go up to 4,700 nautical miles, the plane can fly much farther than cross-country, though New York to Los Angeles is a highly lucrative route.
American will focus on routes to smaller European cities from its Philadelphia hub or from New York City that might not warrant the planes in its fleet that are larger and more expensive to operate, like a Boeing
