On the night between Aug 24th and 25th 2009, flight AA 1908 bound from Miami FL (MIA) landed in New York's John F Kennedy International Airport (JFK) at 121 am local time. This was the last official Airbus A300 flight at American Airlines.
American started operating the Airbus A300 in revenue service on May 10th 1988. It looked at the Airbus A300 while at the same time it launched and ordered the Boeing 767-300ER, both models had the capacity and range American wanted for its international networks but the Boeing jets could not all be delivered as quickly as the Airbus jets could, so an initial order for 25 Airbus A300-600's was placed and those were delivered in the late 1980's. A further 10 aircraft were ordered and delivered between 1991 and 1993. All Airbus jets were assigned on East Cast flights and Latin America flights in the beginning, but in the late 1990's part of the fleet was reconfigured in an F/C/Y class layout for international operations, those were also used on trans Atlantic flights between JFK and LHR, but they were quickly removed from trans Atlantic operations once the Boeing 777's arrived and took over the JFK-LHR flights. The Airbus jets were reconfigured in a two-class layout and all were assigned on the East Coast and Latin American networks, they were based in MIA and JFK.
American suffered one major disaster with the Airbus in November of 2001 when flight AA 587 crashed in the New York City area shortly after take off out of JFK. Rudder malfunction is thought to be the cause of the crash but the disaster turned out to be a major disagreement between American Airlines and Airbus Industries. They blame each other for the disaster in the training of the pilots and the maintenance procedures of the aircraft. This disaster lead to a deteriorated relationship between the airline and the manufacturer, this is one reason why American has never ordered any other Airbus model since then. No more than 34 Airbus aircraft remained in the fleet between 2001 and 2009.
The decision to retire the Airbus A300's was made following three reasons:
1 - Cut capacity, given the troubled economy of the United States all airlines cut capacity, retired older aircraft sooner than originally planned and deferred deliveries of new aircraft.
2 - They face more maintenance issues than the Boeing do, hence more delays and grounding of equipment. They are more costly in maintenance and take longer in being serviced than the Boeings do.
3- Simplify the fleet by reducing the number of aircraft types and lowering the average age of the fleet. The A300's were older than most aircraft in the fleet, the only aircraft at American older than the A300 is the Boeing 767-200ER still in operation on long domestic routes. The Boeing 767-200ER's were delivered between 1985 and 1987.
American has drastically simplified its fleet. Only five types remain in the mainline fleet, all Boeing types: B737-800, B757-200, B767-200/300ER, B777-200ER and MD-80. The Airbus A300 has been in service with American for 21 years, it was American's only Airbus product. All former A300 routes are now flown mostly with Boeing 757 and 767 equipment.
