American Airlines May Fly Nonstop From Los Angeles To Singapore—Taking On Rivals It Once Said It Couldn’t Beat

Last week, American Airlines Chief Commerical Officer Nat Pieper dropped the hint that the airline was looking to reinvigorate its Pacific flying, tied to new Boeing 787-9P aircraft coming into the fleet. Now aviation watchdog JonNYC says one of the rumored routes is Los Angeles – Singapore. so….. this many years later.. and, no, I personally don't get it, one hears faint rumors of AA LAX-SIN again. — JonNYC (@xJonNYC) September 14, 2026 Pieper’s suggestion was rebuilding Los Angeles – Asia flying. Previously the airline dismantled Los Angeles as its Asia gateway, saying that the markets were just too competitive. As Senior Vice President of Network Planning Brian Znotins put it at the time, they don’t make money when they have to compete – especially against Asian carriers. LA has been a challenge to us to Asia for a number of years. We have faced profitability hurdles because every Asian carrier feels like they need to serve LA so even though we were serving Hong Kong and Beijing and Shanghai prior to the pandemic. They all underperformed for us because every other Asian carrier served those routes as well. And there was far too much capacity in the LA market. Normally the way you generate profits as American Airlines is that we differentiate ourselves through different schedules, being the only non-stop or one of a few non-stops but in this case we were one of dozens of non-stops. Singapore Outside of Dallas, they focused Asia flying on joint venture partner hubs and their South America franchise, though they pulled that from Los Angeles too. The plan had been to run Asia from Alaska’s hub in Seattle, but that never took hold. The Alaska Airlines partnership with Singapore Airlines was dismantled so at least they’re no longer competing with Singapore for Alaska’s feed, whether out of Seattle or Los Angeles. Singapore Airlines has the ability to connect passengers beyond Singapore to other destinations in Asia, though it isn’t as geographically well-located for this as Hong Kong (since for many Asian destinations that requires backtracking). American doesn’t have any partnerships on the other end to connect passengers beyond Singpaore. American has only limited long haul flying beyond seasonal Europe without connecting partnerships at the destination. Singapore Changi Terminal 4 Nonetheless, Singapore is a premium destination – more so than Manila where they have an incoming oneworld partner but they’ll see competition from Delta. Delta also plans Singapore but hasn’t said whether that will be from Seattle or Los Angeles. The value in a broad international network isn’t just the direct revenue and expense of the flight itself. In retrenching at LAX, American ceded the leading position in the market. That now belongs to Delta. With it, their credit card franchise has taken a back seat. It’s likely that Los Angeles wasn’t the (significant) money-loser they thought it was when properly accounted for. Still, Singapore seems like a possible real gamble and I haven’t heard specifically that it’s back on the table. It’s certainly an obvious one to consider as the airline plans to ramp back long haul Pacific service – alongside, perhaps, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Bangkok and Seoul. Taipei is most saturated. Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Bangkok are less premium than Singapore but Manila has a partnership. With Korean swallowing Asiana, though, I’d potentially see an opportunity from that consolidation in Seoul. But that’s not informed beyond anything more than first principles, and they’d be at a disadvantage relative to Delta-Korean on the route because of traffic they have flowing over Seoul to the rest of Asia. I’d absolutely love to see American Airlines in Singapore. I’m not a local and so I don’t experience Singapore the way that locals do. Here are their complaints about life in Singapore, set to song, the Singapore Complaints Choir: We get fined for almost everything Drivers won’t ‘give chance’ when you want to ‘change lane’ The indoors are cold, the outdoors are hot; And the humid air, it wrecks my hair It’s really a marvel of a place, and I find it endlessly interesting. Most of the time that I transit Singapore I try to stay for a few days, and I’ve enjoyed my time every time. Topics on this page