American to stop Boston-San Francisco service this fall

Seat capacity for nonstop flights between Boston and San Francisco have nearly doubled in the last decade with the addition of low-cost carriers JetBlue and Virgin America. While this is great news for customers, it is really bad news for airlines.

That’s because with more airlines offering the same route, ticket prices lower due to competition. However, it still cost the same for airlines to maintain a cross country flight and with people paying less, airlines see less profit.

So it did not come as a complete surprise today that American Airlines would be discontinuing twice daily nonstop flights between Boston and San Francisco, effective November 18.

With AA out, this would leave only United Airlines, JetBlue and Virgin America on the route. United has been serving nonstop flights between both cities since 1998, while Virgin came into the market in 2009 and JetBlue began offering year-round flights in May of last year.

American decided that it would be wise to turn their focus to more profitable hubs such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Miami.

Source: Wall Street Journal