Bigger jets coming to Fresno’s airport this summer. Here’s where they’ll be flying
American Airlines already introduced larger Airbus A321 jets for some of the flights on its route between Fresno and Dallas. That was accompanied by an increase in weekly flights coming in April.
This summer, American will boost its capacity further, adding even more flights on a seasonal basis starting June 1 and exclusively using the 190-seat Airbus A321 aircraft on the route through mid-August.
American currently offers 22 flights each week between Fresno Yosemite International Airport and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, using a mix of Boeing 737-800 jets that carry 172 passengers and the larger Airbus jets. Between the two types of aircraft, the airline has a total of 3,838 seats available each week.
The airline’s schedule already calls for increasing the use of its Airbus jets to make up 17 of the 24 weekly flights it will offer starting in April.
Starting June 1, American will increase its flights to 33 round-trips each week between the two airports – five daily Thursday through Monday, and four flights on Mondays and Tuesdays – all aboard the Airbus 321s. That will result in a seasonal increase from the current weekly seat capacity of more than 63% – 3,838 to 6,270.
A spokesperson for American Airlines declined to address questions from The Fresno Bee about the airline’s rationale for increasing the number of flights and using the larger jets, or whether the increase would be permanent or seasonal.
But according to the company’s online booking tool, the capacity boost will be relatively short-lived. The schedule shows that American will scale back its Fresno-Dallas service starting Aug. 15, when the Airbus jets will give way to the Boeing 737-800 aircraft on a four-flights-per-day schedule.
Still, American’s schedule at that point will provide more weekly flights than the current levels – a total capacity of 4,816 seats.
American Airlines flights carried almost 174,000 passengers from Fresno to Dallas in 2022, according to data from the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics. That’s up from about 152,000 passengers from January through December 2021.
Passenger volume from Fresno to Dallas in the 12-month period was second behind only Las Vegas. The Fresno-Las Vegas route is served by two airlines, Southwest Airlines and Allegiant Air.
