United has all the airplanes. Well, the deliveries, anyway.

Despite our concern that United was committing to more airplanes than it could handle, the airline has certainly jumped ahead in long-haul seat share.

To be fair, the delivery delays for Boeing and Airbus equipment have worked to prevent the large spikes in deliveries originally promised by United, but why choose between luck and skill when you can have both?

We looked at the long-haul international markets for the big three U.S. airlines and how they’ve grown capacity and seat share over the years. United has certainly pulled ahead since the pandemic by combining new widebody capacity originally meant to replace old aircraft with an extension of the old aircraft. Or, as we call it on the farm, the ‘ol two-fer.

While United’s growth has been a distinctly post-pandemic phenomenon, its share in the market isn’t necessarily new.

Looking back to 2011, United had roughly the same seat share connecting transatlantic, transpacific, and South American flying - about 43%. The anticipated loser in these markets since the pandemic has been American. Yet, American retains higher share in these markets than it did as a combined American/US Airways airline in 2011.

Interestingly enough, it is the drop in share by Delta Air Lines, not American, that has defined the shifting long-haul international market since 2011. How can this be?

Northwest Airlines. That’s how.

Remember that Delta and Northwest completed their merger in 2008. Since that period, Delta has gone a long way in dismantling much of Northwest’s former international strengths, particularly across the Pacific.

A consistent reduction in capacity for Delta into Asia, the South Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East took place during the 2010s. Meanwhile, Delta’s stronghold across the Atlantic grew, only to be rivaled by United recently.

Of interest to us, as well, is American - particularly in South America. While we only considered deep Latin America flying to the southern continent, American continues to own both long-haul and short-haul Latin America with its presence in Miami. However, this presence is significantly lower than in the mid-2010s. Even with the LATAM defection to Delta in January 2020, American did little to backfill the lost LATAM lift. In fact, Delta only moderately boosted South American capacity since.

But we find American’s shift in South America most interesting. Despite the drop since 2014 highs, a notable new pattern is forming: seasonality.

The relatively consistent lines for American Airlines into South America have shifted into a regular wave of peaks and troughs, similar to that across the Atlantic - but with one variation. The peaks in American flying to South America come during the troughs in flying across the Atlantic.

This clues us in to three possible conclusions for American:

1. American doesn’t have sufficient widebodies to be competitive in all long-haul markets

2. The airline is becoming more adept at managing seasonality by moving fleets to peak regions

3. Some combination of both

Our money is on number 3.

One other interesting point of note: the trend in transatlantic flying is up and to the right for all three airlines… except last winter.

Even though summer peaks are inbound for all airlines, winter troughs were year-over-year. Even though the earnings commentary has been positive, we are keeping an eye on this. Higher highs may be great, but lower lows can quickly offset.

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