Philly travelers will have new European cities to visit next year as American adds routes from PHL

Philadelphia International Airport is getting three new international routes with American Airlines next year.

The airline will begin flying to Copenhagen, Denmark; Nice, France; and Naples, Italy, next summer as part of an expansion of its international routes out of Philadelphia. It will be the first time travelers will be able to fly to these cities directly from PHL, and the expansion makes the airport the only American Airlines hub to service these cities.

“PHL looks forward to welcoming both an increased number of international guests, as well as domestic passengers making connections to those amazing cities,” PHL CEO Atif Saeed said in a news release.

The new European routes out of PHL will operate daily with the flight to Nice starting in May and the flights to Copenhagen and Naples starting in June. All three flights will operate through October.

“We’re looking to get people from all over the country to these new destinations, and Philadelphia does that better than any of our other hubs,” said Brian Znotins, senior vice president of network and schedule planning at American, in a video on the company’s website.

Over the last few years, American has been adding more international service out of PHL. In 2021, the airline launched a flight to Kingston, Jamaica, and earlier this year the company announced it would extend its seasonal travel routes to Barcelona, Spain, and Lisbon, Portugal, into year-round routes.

And this fall, starting in October, travelers looking to fly to the capital of Qatar or connect through it, will be able to travel to Doha directly with American.

The addition of the Doha flight comes as American is discontinuing that route out of New York City, which launched in 2022.

Qatar Airways already offers a daily flight out of Philadelphia to Doha, with an average of 350 passengers per flight, according to a spokesperson for PHL. The airline did not say if that route will be affected by the new American Airlines flight to Doha.

In Doha, American Airlines travelers can catch connecting flights to Asia, Africa, and the Middle East with Qatar Airways, thanks to a partnership between American and Qatar.

American is also bringing back its domestic flight to San Antonio next year, which hasn’t operated out of PHL since 2020. That flight route will run service from June through September.

The additional routes at PHL come as American Airlines has been winding down its partnership with JetBlue, known as the Northeast Alliance. The agreement allowed the companies to sell seats on one another’s flights and share revenue on flights into and out of Boston Logan International Airport and three New York City airports.

The Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit in 2021 regarding the partnership, and last spring, a federal judge found that it decreased competition among airlines, which can increase costs for customers, according to the Wall Street Journal. American Airlines has stated that the partnership is “pro-consumer” and “pro-competitive.”