Considering that AA continues to operate SSA and REC as a circle flight which boards about 70 passengers per day from each city, I would not call AA's expansion outside of Rio or Sao Paulo smashingly successful financial. CNF is probably close to profitable with fares now close to comparable to Rio. You do realize that the top O&D on AA's CNF is not MIA but BOS, don't you?
The notion that AA's MIA hub is necessary for Latin service has obviously not been heard at CO, DL, or UA who all manage to get average fares and loads higher than AA to some of the same destinations in Latin America.
Now that UA and CO have MERGED (get that Mikey?) and are now hafl the size of AA in Latin America, they have the potential to rearrange some share in the region - although anyone who lacks a MIA gateway to latin America will be at a disadvantage.
Also, according to DOT data, DL's MAO flight delivered yields as high as AA's flights to CNF - but with loads around 60% which DL decided it wasn't
Make no mistake, MIA is still the largest single Latin market.. .but to argue that airlines can't make routes work including secondary cities without MIA is just not supported by current evidence.
Further, DL's BSB flight is delivering very healthy average fares... it's no surprise that AA saw the same DOT data I have seen and decided they need to get in on the action.
The whole reason why BSB and MAO will work for both AA and DL is because of the Gol codeshare which both have now.... I have seen itineraries from both AA and DL that are being sold w/ connections over BSB to help make that flight work.... and to the extent that MAO can create connections - and G3 has connections there as well - that flight will work - which is why DL is venturing back in.
We just saw on AA's financials that they underperformed the industry in every global region including their own "backyard" region of Latin America where AA added capacity which couldn't produce sufficient yields... and thus AA's RASM was half of what DL and UA both reported.
AA is in a market share battle to protect its core markets in Latin America.