American Airlines Drops Service to Three Cities Over Pilot Shortage and ‘Soft Demand’

American Airlines is dropping service to three different regional airports because of a continued shortage of pilots and “soft demand” in the regions.

The cities are Columbus, Georgia; Del Rio, Texas; and Long Beach, California. American will fly its last routes out of Columbus and Del Rio on April 3 and out of Long Beach on Feb. 28.

“In response to the regional pilot shortage affecting the airline industry and soft demand, American Airlines has made the difficult decision to end service in Columbus, Georgia (CSG), Del Rio, Texas (DRT) and Long Beach, California (LGB) this spring,” American said in a statement to media this week.

“We’re extremely grateful for the care and service our team members provided to our customers in these cities, and are working closely with them during this time. We’ll proactively reach out to customers scheduled to travel to offer alternate arrangements.”

The cuts are relatively small for American’s network—the carrier had been flying two daily flights out of Columbus, three daily flights out of Long Beach, and just a few from Del Rio out of its 5,000 or so global daily flights.

In 2022, American Airlines flew the second-most flights of any North America-based carrier in 2022 (1,076,100 flights) and was ranked 4^th for its on-time performance (78.29%), according to the most recent numbers from Cirium.