As social media feeds make their seasonal shift from the Parthenon to pumpkin patches, airlines are busy preparing for the 2025 Europe travel season, a bet that strong demand for international travel will continue next summer.
American Airlines on Thursday unveiled new routes to Europe for spring and summer next year. The carrier rolled out nonstop service from Chicago to Madrid starting March 30; Philadelphia to Milan starting May 23; Philadelphia to Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning May 23, back for the first time since 2019; Charlotte, North Carolina, to Athens, Greece, beginning June 5; and Miami to Rome from July 5.
Rivals United Airlines and Delta Air Lines are expected to release their 2025 travel plans in the coming weeks.
American said its trans-Atlantic capacity next summer will be up low-to-mid-single digits over this year, with executives confident that consumers will continue to prioritize travel.
“In ’23 when people saw this demand to Italy and Greece, some people speculated that it was a one-year thing. But then this year, that strength just kept going and our flights are full and the yields are strong,” said Brian Znotins, American’s senior vice president of network planning. “More capacity is warranted to address the demand.”
American’s data shows that travelers, including on other airlines, are often connecting in Europe to get to Athens, in particular, Znotins said. Next year, American said it will have four daily nonstops from the U.S. to Athens from “more U.S. airports than any other,” and that more travelers will be able to connect through American’s hubs like Charlotte.
The carrier is also bringing back other Europe flights from its Philadelphia hub to Naples, Italy; Nice, France; and Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as extending winter seasonal service between Miami and Paris into the summer season.
Boeing’s delivery delays of 787 Dreamliners over the past several years prompted American and other carriers to rethink some of their flying and cut certain international flights that the long-haul airplanes serve. American is also in the middle of reconfiguring some of its older Boeing 777s to build a bigger business class cabin.
Znotins said he and his team drew up next year’s map with both things in mind.
“There’s some level of uncertainty obviously in the aircraft delivery world and there’s a level of uncertainty with our reconfigurations,” Znotins said. “We’re confident we’ll be able to fly these routes as we’ve published them, but in an uncertain world it’s always nice to have a backstop” like other hub cities serving Athens, for example, should a passenger need to be rerouted.
