AA JFK-MXP & BCN + AA JFK Expansion Announcement 8/29?

I noticed a lot of rumors swirling about a major JFK expansion announcement by AA on Wednesday to coincide with the dedication of Phase II of Terminal 9. Even the Mayor's office put out a press release:


Major Global Tourism Announcement by the City of New York Scheduled for Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Friday August 24, 10:51 am ET

- Announcement by high ranking federal, state and city elected officials along with the CEO of a major airline carrier will be held at JFK International Airport on Wednesday before Labor Day weekend -

NEW YORK, Aug. 24 /PRNewswire/ --

Date: Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Time: 11:00 AM

Location: John F. Kennedy International Airport,
Terminal 9 at Gates 14-16

Event: On Wednesday, August 29, 2007, elected and appointed leaders of
the City of New York, joined by the CEO of an international
airline carrier will lead high ranking federal and state
officials in announcing a new global tourism initiative for
NYC.

From the tone and the reference to "global tourism initiative," it sounds less like an expansion of service to me than it does some kind of sponsorship or partnership between AA and the city/state entities. One thing that comes to mind is that NYC & Company (the tourist board) has been lacking for an airline sponsor recently, although it used to have a rather visible partnership with (i.e. sponsorship by) Delta and before that (I think) CO, so I am guessing it has more to do with AA joining up to promote NY around the world than it has to do with any new services or destinations.

Haven't heard even slightest hint of a rumor about any announcements at all, sorry.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070827/lam035.html?.v=100

Announced today:

JFK-MXP
JFK-BCN

With a few more domestic routes rumored to come.

AA has a great opportunity here to take a stab and steal allot of Delta's customers with its expansion. The new AA terminal is really fantastic and unlike T2/3 can handle the increases passenger traffic. It would be nice to see AA expand their domestic routes from JFK, I'd much rather fly out of JFK then LGA.

Oh btw, these aren't new new routes to Milan and Spain, these are former TWA routes AA bought when they aquired TWA. Like the Rome route AA has now that to was a former TWA route AA got during the meger. Nice to see these old Euro routes come to life again.

Yes Tommy, these are all the routes TWA had that Carl Icahn had a contract to sell discounted tickets on which helped TWA go under. Now that his contract is expiring, look for AA to relaunch old TWA Int'l routes. Tel Aviv is rumored too. A number of my Italian friends are wishing AA would launch FCO-MIA for both the excellent connections to Latin America and for MIA o&D

It seems AA may become NYC's official airline.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nycfly75

It seems AA may become NYC's official airline.

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Well AA was founded in NYC, be nice to see them grow here again.

Tel Aviv is a total no-go. Despite the ability of El Al and Continental to essentially print money on the NYC-TLV route, American has a huge liabilty in Israel with regard to money owed to ex-TWA employees. Apparently, there's some kind of judgment in the Israeli courts that will allow the seizure of any AA assets (like a 767) in the country. Plus, there are already 3 airlines in the market, and AA might not even want to be #4.

It's a bit confusing because there are two announcements, one from AA and one from NYC. The release from AA is on AA.com and announces the grand opening of the 'new' terminal, but does not make reference to the NYC initiative which is actually the global initiative mentioned in the teaser.

http://www.aa.com/content/amrcorp/press ... ning.jhtml

It's not at all mentioned in the release from AA, but the "global tourism initiative" story turned out to be that NYC used the occasion of the official "opening ceremony" of the terminal to announce a new tourism marketing campaign from NYC & Company called "Just Ask the Locals," which features celebrities like Jimmy Fallon.

Release from the mayor's office with details here.

http://www.nycvisit.com/content/index.cfm?pagePkey=1994

Yeah it was more hype than actual substance, but glad to see AA is becoming more committed to NYC.

Well they did a good job hyping it up...hopefully we'll see some attractive options from AA now that they have the entire terminal open.