The long American winter that began in 2001 is over. The world's biggest carrier, American Airlines, is leading the way out of a decade and a half of austerity in the US air travel business caused by terrorism, high fuel prices and the global financial crisis with a raft of new international services, many of them linking America with the Asia-Pacific.
In the space of just six months, a combination of plunging fuel prices and new aircraft technology have enabled AA to launch new non-stop services from its Los Angeles hub to Australia's biggest city, Sydney, New Zealand's business capital, Auckland, and Tokyo's downtown airport, Haneda.
In September, the focus shifts to China with a new daily non-stop from LA to Hong Kong and American has applied for rights to fly LA to the Chinese capital, Beijing, daily from December.
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The Sydney flights and the new Hong service, which joins a 16-hour daily service from American's headquarters in Dallas, Texas, to Hong Kong launched two years ago, are being operated by the ultra-long-range Boeing 777-300ER.
But American is using a large order for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner for the flights to Auckland and Tokyo and plans a number of new long-haul services with aviation's other glamorous hi-tech new jet, the Airbus A350.
With American carriers now profitable again, they're also pouring resources into fixing one of the black spots legendarily associated with US airlines, the catering.
In conjunction with its Australian partner, Qantas, with its strong emphasis on the onboard experience, American Airlines has overhauled its catering on all its long-haul routes, while also upgrading its airport lounge network.
And American's designation of Los Angeles as its major US west coast hub means it has also supercharged its domestic non-stop flying from LAX – now covering more than 200 daily flights to more than 70 cities – to install itself as the No.1 airline at LAX.
Part of the airline's new infrastructure is a new express connection between American's domestic Terminal 4 at LAX and the Tom Bradley international terminal where all the airline's Asia-Pacific services arrive and leave from.
That means a transit of as little as four minutes between the two terminals via travelators, with the requirement to clear security twice – once for domestic and once for international – abolished.
Because of a shortage of airport security staff at the US government's Transport Security Agency, American has also spent millions of dollars of its own money hiring private contractors to speed up the process.
And it has been trialling new security screening technology at its major hubs in LA, Dallas and Chicago.
"We've been lobbying the TSA pretty hard," says American's general manager of sales for Australia and New Zealand, Simon Dodd. "A lot of our senior leadership team have been at various congressional hearings testifying about the impact (of delays) on our customers.
"For the customer (the new technology) means it's going to be easier to get through the process and more reliable and more consistent while maintaining a secure environment."
American had been absent from Australia and New Zealand for more than two decades before last December's resumption of services.
"American Airlines was last in the south-west Pacific in 1992 with DC10 services from both Sydney and Auckland to Dallas-Forth Worth via Honolulu," says Dodd.
"To be able to do it non-stop (to LAX) with our new 777-300ERs and 787-8s, it's a different customer proposition than it was back then. We have the right partner (Qantas) and the right offering on board.
"Essentially we've torn up our previous menus and this long-haul flight (LAX to Sydney and Auckland) is now the benchmark in our business for what our customer experience on board will look like."
Dodd says AA has followed Qantas's redesign of its long-haul economy-class dining experience about two years ago. "The look and feel and the size of the meal on board American is aligned with that," he says.
"We have some items across both airlines where a customer flying Qantas one way and American the other will have common things like(beef) sliders and hot dogs if you're awake at 3am.
"We have different caterers, but we have worked very closely together to design those menus."
Qantas and American Airlines have dispensation from regulators in Australia and New Zealand to operate a joint services agreement, under which committees of specialist managers from both airlines coordinate sales, distribution and marketing are allowed to pool revenue for services on which they code-share such as Sydney to San Francisco (operated by Qantas), Sydney to Los Angeles (operated by both Qantas and AA) and Sydney to Dallas-Fort Worth (Qantas A380).
"We're constantly evaluating options," says Erwan Perhirin, American's vice-president for Asia-Pacific. "Those network decisions across the Pacific are made jointly. So we look at our fleet plans, they look at their fleet plans and we jointly decide what the next best opportunity is.
"Similar to Qantas, we are receiving new long-range widebody aircraft over the next year or so. Those include A350 and the 787-9, which is a longer range and larger variant of the 787-8, and those two aircraft lend themselves well to those types of routes.
"I think that's all we can say publicly. We're very focused on executing and making those routes work well and stand by for more."
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has already let the cat out of the bag about the likely new routes across the Pacific in conjunction with American Airlines in the next five years as the Australian carrier takes delivery of new ultra-long-range 787-9s.
First cab off the rank is likely to be Melbourne to Dallas, a distance of nearly 14,500 kilometres and 17 hours flying westbound which accesses AA's vast US east coast network, allowing passengers to and from the Victorian capital to skip the extra hours involved in transiting through Sydney.
Joyce is also considering launching the first non-stop service between Sydney and Chicago, a distance of 14,800 kilometres taking as long as 18 hours westbound, shaving two to three hours off the journey via Los Angeles.
