With the soaring fuel prices and the barrel at 150 USD, American Airlines is in the process of renewing its fleet of over 600 aircraft, making it more efficient by reducing the number of fleet types and phasing in new fuel efficient aircraft. American has drastically reduced the number of aircraft types in its fleet since the terrorist attacks of 2001, it was the time when D Carty was the CEO. The airline lost a tremendous amount of money since 2001, not only that it was hit by the events of 9-11, it bought defunct carrier TWA.
The new CEO, G. Asprey took drastic measures by not adding any new type, cutting flights and capacity as well as charging for food and non alcoholic drinks in economy class. American has since then parked a number of older jets including MD-80's and Boeing 767-200's in the desert, those were introduced in the 1980's when R. Crandall was the then CEO. The fleet renewal plans include phasing in newer Boeing 737-800's replacing the oldest MD-80's in the fleet as well as phasing out the Airbus A300's. The Boeing 737-800 is 25% more fuel efficient than the MD-80 is, the latter is what makes half of the total mainline fleet. The 34 A300's currently in service with American serve the East Coast and Caribbean markets, some of the aircraft are owned but some are to be returned to the lessors when the lease term expire. Measures to save money include not adding any new type for the time being, not adding any sub fleet type (I mean, no 737 other than the 800 Series), concentrating assigning aircraft types on selected markets. What I mean is not every major hub sees all aircraft types in the fleet. MIA no longer sees the Super 80 and ORD no longer sees the B737-800. DFW never saw the A300 and it never will.
Gone forever are the B727's, the MD-11's, the Fokkers, as well as the MD-90's inherited from Reno Air. Gone also are the ex-TWA B717's and B757's which were PW powered, the latter went to Delta. All of American's 757's are factory fresh delivered and RR powered. It looks like what is going to happen in the near term future is that we will see part of the 757 fleet moving to selected markets in the East Coast and Latin America, taking over the A300's, leaving some of the 757 routes within the domestic system to new 737's which are scheduled to be delivered in 2009 and 2010.
An order for the all new B787 Dreamliner is a likely possibility but near term plans are reducing number of types in the fleet and capacity, so adding the Dreamliner to the fleet isn't in the near term future plans, although still possible for the coming years ahead.
The A300 will be phased out in the near future, despite its large cargo capacity needed for the markets it serves, not only to reduce capacity and simplify the fleet, it is the most expensive aircraft in the fleet to maintain. I think that following the disagreements with Airbus Industries after the crash of flight 587 in New York, American will not consider buying additional aircraft from Airbus. The new A350XWB would be a nice addition to the fleet, but that's very unlikely.
The fleet in the near term future (early 2010's) is likely to be as follow:
Boeing 737-800 (domestic and some Latin America markets)
Boeing 757-200 (domestic, transcon, Latin America and Hawaii markets)
Boeing 767-200ER (selected transcon flights only: JFK-LAX and JFK-SFO)
Boeing 767-300ER (selected transcon flights, Europe, Latin America and Hawaii markets)
Boeing 777 (London, Latin America, India and Asia)
MD-80 (domestic routes only)
The three mains hubs will still be DFW, ORD and MIA. LAX and NY JFK/LGA combined will remain secondary hubs. The STL hub inherited from defunct carrier TWA will vanish, as did the RDU, BNA and SJC hubs previously.
American has no plans on merging with another airline, no growth plan for the near term future. There were talks about selling the regional affiliate, American Eagle, plans of selling Eagle are dropped but the regional fleet will also diminish in size.
