Bozeman/ Yellowstone (BZN) Summer Schedule shows American Airline’s unique Reliance on their Domestic Partnerships in the Northwest

For years Delta and United have consistently been the two main players at Bozeman's Airport. Looking at a July Saturday, schedules show each carrier with 10 departures with United having 1,320 seats and Delta having 1,434.

The Northwest has been a weak spot for American’s network and Alaska joining the One World alliance helped close their most significant domestic gap. While AA unlocked more flights to destinations in the Northwest, many of them only had service to the west coast, creating ominous connections to the rest of the country. Since American started flying to BZN in 2016 the airline hasn't had as robust service as Delta and United. Once with seasonal service to Charlotte and Philadelphia, the airline now only regularly serves Dallas/Fort Worth, Chicago O'Hare, and limited service to Austin and Los Angeles. On the peak summer Saturday used for this data (7/15/23), AA offers just 3 flights to DFW and 1 to ORD making it BZN's 5th largest carrier by seats with (688) and departures (4).

When combined with their One World partner, Alaska Airlines, and Codeshare with jetBlue, American Airlines frequent flyers have 1,548 seats across 13 flights to choose from, besting both Delta and United. Just 7 years ago American Airlines frequent flyers had no options and had to look to other airlines to fly to BZN.

With this growth, and strong partnerships, leaves the question, what’s next? Alaska provides broad coverage of the west coast and jetBlue has 4x weekly to Boston, and 3x weekly to New York’s JFK. Although offerings seem plentiful, there are apparent gaps in AA’s strategy at BZN.

The first gap is no flights to their closest hub, PHX. Southwest does not serve this route and Allegiant serves Phoenix/Mesa a few times per week. With connections and O&D traffic, seasonal regional jet service to PHX makes sense.

The second, and larger, gap is to the east. Outside of jetBlue’s service to BOS(Mo,We,Fr,Sa) and JFK(Su,Tu,Th) and AA’s single daily to ORD, there are no options east of Dallas. Delta and United both have more options for customers traveling to the east. Delta has 3 daily flights to MSP, 1 to ATL and is relaunching Saturday service to DTW. United flyers can choose from 2 daily flights to ORD and 1 to EWR, plus new weekend service to IAD. All these flights in conjunction with the airlines’ short connections through SLC and DEN offer many more options and quicker trips to the east when compared to AA’s slim offerings.

Bottom line

Is it time for AA to restart BZN to CLT and/or PHL service? At one time AA served both cities direct with the 737-800. It would be nice to see both return to some capacity. AA’s CLT hub’s sheer size can support seasonal daily 737-800 service. For PHL, AA could fly less-than-daily A319 or E175 service like what Delta is flying to DTW and United is launching to IAD respectively. In the end, AA has a gap in service to Bozeman and these resumed flights could vastly improve options to Southwest Montana and strengthen their network.