American Airlines' New Flights to China Boost Traffic Numbers in 2014

American Airlines launched first nonstop service from Shanghai, China and Dallas, the U.S., with a Boeing 777-200 aircraft touching down at Shanghai Pudong International Airport.

New American Airlines routes from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to Hong Kong and Shanghai boosted 2014 traffic for the airline, though overall load factors declined slightly.

Revenue passenger miles for flights over the Pacific Ocean were 8.3 billion for 2014, a 5.7 percent increase over the previous year, according to traffic data released Monday. Available seat miles are calculated by multiplying the total number of paid seats by the miles traveled.

American added the Shangai and Hong Kong routes in June and expects to add service to Beijing this summer. Next, American wants to take over Delta's route into Tokyo's Haneda Airport for daily nonstop service from Los Angeles International Airport.

Overall, revenue passenger miles were up 1.1 percent for Fort Worth-based American. Looking at available seat miles, total capacity multiplied by miles traveled, flights to the Pacific were up 7.1 percent, the largest increase.

That means the world's largest airline has increased capacity on that route. Domestic flights as well as Atlantic and Latin America flights also added capacity and miles. Total available seat miles were up 2.2 percent.

Load factors were 82 percent for 2014, down nearly 1 percent for American. The biggest drop came from flights over the Atlantic Ocean, which fell 4.5 percent. Load factors are calculated by taking the revenue passenger miles divided by available capacity.

Total traffic for American was 197.3 million passengers, up 1.9 percent.

The airline also released December numbers.

Revenue passenger miles for Pacific flights were up more than 24 percent in December compared to the same month in 2013. Available seat miles was up 31.2 percent while load factors declined 4.5 percent, which is typical if an airline adds that much capacity.

Total passenger traffic for December was 16.5 million, up 1.1 percent. Revenue passenger miles were down .4 percent for December.

By Nicholas Sakelaris,Dallas Business Journal

Photo:Marcelo Fouquet de Biasi - JFK