Leaked: American Airlines Plans New A321XLR Base At JFK

American Airlines has opened schedule bidding for pilots on the Airbus A321XLR from New York JFK Airport. In a leaked internal memo first reported by aviation watchdog JonNYC, the airline says that the bid status will be effective with the February 2026 crew month, for flights to begin in March. American Airlines has 50 Airbus A321XLR aircraft on order, and took delivery of its first example last month.

American has planned to deploy its initial A321XLRs on US transcontinental routes, but what routes will come after that? The airline has been more reticent to share details about potential international destinations, saying to Simple Flying earlier this month that it “anticipates that the XLR will debut on transcontinental routes out of JFK. We don’t have any specifics to share about its transatlantic deployment.” This new revelation sheds a lot more light on its plans to Europe with its latest narrowbody.

Setting Up An A321XLR Base At JFK

Photo: Markus Mainka | Shutterstock

New York JFK already has numerous transatlantic routes using A321s, including JetBlue (London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Edinburgh), Aer Lingus (Dublin and Shannon), SAS (Oslo), Iberia (Madrid) and TAP Air Portugal (Lisbon). So it is no surprise that a large US carrier with a substantial A321XLR order book would join the fray. What is somewhat surprising is how soon American Airlines is choosing to do it.

Photo: JonNYC

The internal memo makes it clear that the schedule bidding opened yesterday for the February crew month. It states that the new status is “being introduced to support the strategic deployment of our A321XLR sub-fleet, with trans-Atlantic flying expected to commence in March 2026.” The initial objective is to award at least 40 pilot jobs by March, and the airline promises to provide the training for pilots to obtain the necessary Atlantic European (AE) qualifications, including Long Range International Qualification (LIQ) training.

American emphasizes that the “primary mission of the bid is to support transatlantic operations” (as opposed to its transcontinental plans), and reinforces that it expects to see ongoing growth at the new JFK base. The only part missing was any clarity on new A321XLR destinations from JFK:

“While specific routes within the Atlantic/European theater have not yet been finalized, this base will play a key role in aligning our network with the capabilities of the A321XLR. The base will grow steadily over time as additional aircraft are delivered.”

The A321XLR As Part Of American’s Transatlantic Plans

Photo: Airbus

American Airlines’ transatlantic routes to Europe from New York are a shadow of its US rivals. It offers seven routes, with only four of them being year-round. By contrast, Delta Air Lines operates 27 routes to Europe from JFK during its summer schedule, and United Airlines has 32 from its hub at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Delta and United’s transatlantic advantage stems from their decision during the pandemic to hold on to older aircraft such as their Boeing 767s and 757s. By contrast, American retired five aircraft types in a day back in 2020, including all of its 767s, 757s. Perhaps most controversially, it disposed of its full fleet of 25 A330s, which included 15 A330-200s that were just 6-8 years old at the time. Ever since, American has suffered from a lack of capacity to be truly competitive with its rivals across the Atlantic.

The A321XLR promises to at least partially alleviate this issue. American will be able to add secondary European cities, such as Edinburgh, Geneva, or Lisbon, and do it with reduced risk compared to assigning one of its much-larger 787s to the route. The question is which routes it will start flying from March 2026, and will it be able to obtain a steady delivery of A321XLRs from Airbus to allow it to drive continuous growth.

Transcontinental A321XLR Routes As Well

Photo: Jack Hough | Unsplash

The decision to start building an A321XLR base at JFK is not surprising. Industry pundits have long expected that American will use the A321XLR from its east coast hubs, including Philadelphia International Airport and Charlotte Douglas International Airport, on long-and-thin transatlantic routes. What is slightly surprising is the timing.

IATA Code

AA

ICAO Code

AAL

Year Founded

1926

American has maintained until now that its initial focus with the A321XLR would be to deploy them on US transcontinental routes, such as New York to San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. The carrier currently uses a sub-fleet of 15 specially configured A321Ts on these routes, which have 102 seats in a four-class layout consisting of:

• 10 fully lie-flat Flagship First suites (1-1 configuration)
• 20 fully lie-flat Flagship Business seats (2-2 configuration)
• 36 Main Cabin Extra seats
• 36 Economy seats

American has been using the A321Ts for over a decade, but with the impending arrival of the A321XLRs as replacements, has been planning to re-configure them to the standard domestic A321 layout. It will be interesting to see if its aspiring transatlantic plans delay the transcontinental strategy.

Of course, the first priority for American will be to actually get its hands on the new A321XLRs. While it has technically taken delivery of its first example, the aircraft remains in Europe while it waits to have its seats installed. Not only are the seats delayed due to supply chain issues, but they also still need to be certified by the FAA. The airline hopes to have its first A321XLRs carrying passengers by the end of the year, but there is a clear risk that entry into service could be pushed back to next year.