American Airlines is set to have a record-breaking summer as far as its transatlantic flights to Europe are concerned. Indeed, according to scheduling data made available by Cirium, an aviation analytics company, the Fort Worth-based US ‘big three’ legacy carrier and oneworld founding member has penciled in a grand total of 6,532 one-way departures on routes to Europe in Q3 of this year. This works out at 71 a day on average.
All in all, this impressive figure represents a 5% increase compared to the third quarter (July to September) of 2025, and it is even 2% higher than its previous record total for Q3, which it achieved back in 2019 during the airline industry’s pre-pandemic peak. Let’s dive into the data and see where it’s flying this Q3.
Philadelphia Has The Most European Flights
A good place to start is by looking at the various US hubs from which American Airlines is operating its record-breaking amount of flights to Europe in Q3. All in all, 10 American airports will handle such services, with Boston (BOS), Phoenix (PHX), and Raleigh/Durham (RDU) each seeing a sole daily flight for a total of 92 Q3 departures apiece. Meanwhile, Los Angeles (LAX) has two (for 184), and, after that, the numbers really start to pick up.
Miami (MIA) will see 460 services, followed by Chicago (ORD) and New York (JFK) on 897 apiece. Charlotte (CLT) sits third with 920, followed by Dallas (DFW) with 1,173, but Philadelphia (PHL) is by far the dominant hub, with 1,725 flights and 414,925 seats. While perhaps not the airport you’d expect at the top of the list, it is one where AA has added multiple new routes, with Brian Znotins, its SVP of Network and Schedule Planning, saying:
Dominated By Boeing Widebodies, But Times Are Changing
Historically speaking, long-haul flying on the transatlantic corridor to Europe has long been the domain of widebody aircraft, with quadjets initially assuming this role before more efficient twinjets took their place. This is reflected in the breakdown of American Airlines’ European operations in Q3, with twin-aisle aircraft from the Boeing 777 and 787 families accounting for almost the entirety of its presence on its routes to and from Europe.
According to ch-aviation, AA’s current widebody fleet consists of four different Boeing models: the 777-200ER (47 jets), the 777-300ER (20), the 787-8 (37), and the 787-9 (33). Of these, the Boeing 777-200ER is set to operate the most Europe-bound flights (2,404) in Q3, which is what you would expect given its larger subfleet. Meanwhile, the Boeing 787-8 will account for 2,172, followed by the 787-9 on 1,152 and the 777-300ER on 712.
However, these will not quite be the only aircraft that American Airlines flies to Europe this summer. Indeed, the daily route from New York JFK to Edinburgh Airport (EDI) in Scotland will be served by the 155-seat Airbus A321XLR, a European-built narrowbody twinjet that is set to make a big impact by opening up long-haul corridors with lower demand. Needless to say, this aircraft type will only have more of a role to play as time goes on.
Credits: American Airlines
