As we enter the third quarter of the calendar year, which will run from July 1 to September 30, American Airlines is set to have a busy summer on the long-haul front. Indeed, compared with the same period in 2025, American will operate seven new or returning long-haul routes this summer, according to schedule data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company.

The bulk of this expansion has come in the form of transatlantic flights to Europe, although there is also one notable South American addition. Elsewhere, American Airlines has also cut two long-haul routes this year that were scheduled to operate in the third quarter of 2025. Still, its overall intercontinental capacity remains on the rise, albeit with the caveat that seat capacity is not growing at the same rate as flight capacity.

Intercontinental Expansion

Credit: Great Circle Map

As seen in the map above, American’s southernmost long-haul expansion this Q3 serves Buenos Aires from Dallas/Fort Worth. This route will be served from May 21 to August 3, primarily using the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. As it happens, DFW is home to a second long-haul expansion for American Airlines this summer, with the carrier also serving Zürich from May 21 to August 4.

Elsewhere, the airline has also added flights from DFW to Athens, while, in terms of its other hubs, Miami International Airport (MIA) has a new link to Milan Malpensa, and Edinburgh is now served from New York-JFK. Philadelphia has also boomed as a long-haul hub, with new flights to Budapest and Prague. Cesar Marchese, American’s Vice President of Operations and Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), spoke about its network​​​​.

“We’re proud to serve as a key gateway and connection point to Europe, now with two new iconic destinations that strengthen our robust international network.”

Two Routes Have Been Cut

Credit: Great Circle Map

With that being said, it hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows for American’s long-haul network in the third quarter of this year when compared to 2025. Indeed, two intercontinental routes it served last year have not returned this time, including one from Miami to Paris (CDG). Despite serving this route since 1992, demand dropped over the years, and the last AA round trip operated in late March.

Further afield, as detailed in the video below, American Airlines has also ended its Philadelphia-to-Doha Hamad International Airport (DOH) route in Qatar, despite the Pennsylvania hub’s burgeoning long-haul significance. As Simple Flying reported at the time of the cut last month, American had temporarily put the route on hold due to the Iran War but planned to resume service in 2027. Now, however, it will not do so.

However, that does not mean all hope is lost for nonstop aerial connectivity between Philadelphia and Doha. Indeed, following AA’s departure from this corridor, its fellow oneworld Alliance member, Qatar Airways was quick to swoop in and take its place. The carrier plans to serve this route daily from August 1, using Airbus A350-900 widebody twinjets with QSuite seats and Starlink WiFi.

American’s Intercontinental Q3 Capacity Is Up Overall

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Looking at the wider intercontinental picture for the third quarter of 2026, Cirium’s scheduling data shows that American has scheduled a grand total of exactly 21,000 one-way departures from the US to destinations outside of North America in Q3 this year. Collectively, these services will offer 4,186,997 seats, compared to 4,147,684 across 20,510 departures in Q3 of 2025.

As such, while the number of flights has risen by 2.4%, seat capacity growth has not kept pace, coming in at only 0.9%. A key reason behind this is the increased deployment of lower-capacity aircraft on these routes, in the form of the narrowbody A321XLR and the premium-heavy 787-9P. However, the 777-200ER remains as American’s top long-haul widebody aircraft.