Wendover Mistook Airline Retreat for an American Airlines Victory
American Airlines may have entered Dallas–Reykjavik to defend its Dallas/Fort Worth hub. But Wendover Productions turns that plausible motive into a proven victory: American entered the market, its Icelandic competitors eventually withdrew, and American supposedly captured their passengers.
The evidence does not establish that conclusion. WOW Air was approaching financial collapse, Icelandair had already announced a broader network correction, and American subsequently planned to move its own Iceland service from Dallas to Philadelphia.
The video has mistaken a sequence of airline withdrawals for proof of a successful competitive strategy.
1. Icelandair's withdrawal was already planned
The video says:
"Both of its competitors have since stopped flying to Dallas."
That statement was premature when the video was published on April 2, 2019.
WOW Air had withdrawn from Dallas in October 2018. Icelandair, however, was still operating its year-round Dallas service. Its last scheduled Dallas flight was December 30, 2019.
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More importantly, Icelandair had already documented its intention to discontinue Dallas in its 2018 annual report.
The airline explained that it was correcting an imbalance in its network. For 2019, it planned to increase available seats to Europe by 18%, while increasing North American capacity by only 3%. Dallas and Baltimore were among the destinations being discontinued.
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This was a broader capacity adjustment, not evidence of an airline being driven out by American.
Icelandair was also experiencing considerable financial pressure. Its 2018 annual report recorded a $55.6 million net loss, compared with a $37.5 million profit in 2017. The company identified low fares, fuel prices, carbon costs and higher salaries among its problems.
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Its subsequent annual report confirmed that Dallas was one of five destinations discontinued in 2019 as the airline concentrated on improving network profitability.
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The video omits the airline's own explanation for its departure.
2. WOW Air was fighting for survival
WOW Air's Dallas withdrawal also needs considerably more context.
The airline stopped flying between Dallas and Reykjavik in October 2018. But Dallas was not an isolated cancellation. WOW was also withdrawing from other American markets, including New York JFK, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Miami.
The Points Guy
Its financial position was deteriorating rapidly.
WOW's own financial disclosures for January–September 2018 reported:
- Revenue of $501 million.
- A net loss of $33.6 million, compared with $13.5 million the previous year.
- Negative EBITDA of $18.9 million, compared with positive EBITDA of $8.8 million.
- An equity ratio of just 7%.
The company also disclosed worsening sales, liquidity concerns and difficulties securing long-term financing.
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In December 2018, WOW announced a major restructuring. Its fleet would shrink from 20 aircraft to 11, all single-aisle Airbus aircraft. The company planned to return its A330s and announced 111 permanent employee redundancies.
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On March 28, 2019, WOW ceased all operations after potential rescue arrangements collapsed.
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That was just five days before Wendover published its video.
American's competition might have contributed to WOW's decision to abandon Dallas. I cannot rule that out. But presenting the withdrawal as evidence of American's successful strategy while ignoring the competitor's financial collapse is an inadequate explanation.
A bankrupt airline leaving a route is not the same thing as a healthy competitor being defeated.
3. American eventually moved its Iceland service away from Dallas
Perhaps the most revealing development came later.
American's original decision to launch Dallas–Reykjavik was unusual because passengers connecting from much of the eastern United States would have to travel west to Dallas before flying back across the Atlantic.
The video actually identifies this problem.
But American subsequently made a significant change.
On August 12, 2019, American announced that it would replace its seasonal Dallas–Reykjavik service with Philadelphia–Reykjavik flights for summer 2020.
The Points Guy
American's spokeswoman, Nichelle Tait, explained the reasoning: Philadelphia would allow the airline to capture the substantial volume of East Coast connecting passengers travelling to Reykjavik.
That is particularly revealing.
American was moving the service to a hub that better matched the geography of its passengers. The exact routing problem identified in Wendover's video had become central to American's subsequent network decision.
This does not establish that the Dallas service lost money. The move was a planned network change, not a published admission of financial failure.
But it does undermine the image of American having established a lasting competitive victory in Dallas.
The route-history records show that American's final scheduled Dallas departure was October 25, 2019. Icelandair's final scheduled departure followed on December 30. No airline currently operates nonstop Dallas–Reykjavik service.
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American did not maintain a permanent Dallas monopoly. It planned to relocate its Iceland service.
4. The actual competitive picture was more complicated
The official DFW Airport announcement provides another useful detail.
When all three airlines launched their services in 2018, their planned weekly outbound capacity was:
Airline Aircraft Weekly flights Weekly seats WOW Air A330, 350 seats 3 1,050 Icelandair 757, 183 seats 4 732 American 757, 176 seats 7 1,232American was the largest individual operator by scheduled weekly seat capacity. But the two Icelandic airlines together offered 1,782 seats per week, approximately 45% more than American.
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These are scheduled seats, not actual passengers or occupied seats. Nevertheless, they illustrate the scale of the competition American entered.
There was no simple situation in which American overwhelmingly controlled the available capacity.
The video offers no route-specific passenger figures demonstrating that American subsequently captured the customers previously carried by its competitors.
5. The missing evidence is the alleged victory
There is an important distinction between defending a hub and making money on a route.
An airline might deliberately introduce a service that is not independently profitable to discourage competitors from taking customers away from its wider network.
That is a legitimate commercial strategy.
But proving that it worked requires more than showing that competitors eventually withdrew.
The video needs to establish that passengers who previously connected through WOW or Icelandair subsequently travelled on American's network, and that the resulting revenue justified the cost of the defensive service.
It provides neither.
The US Bureau of Transportation Statistics maintains T-100 aviation data covering passenger numbers, available seats, departures and load factors. However, the bureau explicitly states that this database does not contain airline financial information. Even passenger and load-factor figures alone cannot establish route profitability.
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The video supplies no evidence of:
- American's Dallas–Reykjavik route profitability.
- The number of passengers diverted from competing airlines.
- Changes in American's Dallas-to-Europe market share.
- Additional revenue generated by the alleged defensive strategy.
- The financial contribution of the route to American's wider network.
Without this information, the claim that American successfully drove out its competitors remains an interpretation, not an established result.
There is some evidence supporting the defensive-motive theory. Travel Weekly reported in November 2017 that American intended to defend its Dallas hub against the Icelandic airlines. But when asked whether the route was a response to their announcements, American's spokeswoman declined to confirm it.
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Even accepting the defensive motive does not establish that the strategy succeeded.
Verdict: Three withdrawals do not make a victory
American may well have intended to protect its Dallas hub. The timing of its announcement and contemporary industry reporting make that a reasonable interpretation.
But Wendover goes further than the evidence allows.
WOW Air withdrew during a wider financial crisis and subsequently collapsed. Icelandair had already announced its Dallas withdrawal as part of a broader network adjustment. American eventually planned to relocate its own Iceland service to Philadelphia to capture East Coast connecting traffic.
Most importantly, the video never demonstrates that American captured the competitors' passengers or generated a financial return from its defensive strategy.
A competitor leaving a market is not proof that you defeated it. A competitor going bankrupt is not proof that you made it bankrupt. And an airline withdrawing from a route is not proof that the remaining airline made money.
For a documentary explaining how airlines decide where to fly, that distinction matters enormously.
Wendover has described a plausible competitive strategy. It has not demonstrated a successful one.
References
1. How Airlines Decide Where to Fly — Wendover Productions, April 2, 2019. Original video and transcript. The video discloses CuriosityStream sponsorship; no evidence connects the sponsor to the airline decisions discussed.
2. Three New Flights, Two New Airlines, One New Cool Destination for DFW Airport Customers — DFW International Airport, May 10, 2018. Official aircraft, seat capacity, frequency and seasonal-service information for all three airlines.
3. American Decides to Take on the Icelandic Airlines — Travel Weekly, November 14, 2017. Contemporary reporting on American's possible defensive motive, including the airline spokeswoman's refusal to confirm it.
4. WOW Air Axes New York JFK and Dallas Routes — The Points Guy, October 2018. Documents WOW's Dallas withdrawal and simultaneous cancellations elsewhere in its American network.
5. WOW Air Investor Financial Disclosures — WOW Air, 2018. The airline's own financial results and restructuring announcements establish its losses, liquidity difficulties, fleet reductions and layoffs.
6. WOW Air Ceases Operations and Cancels All Flights — Aviation Week, March 28, 2019. Confirms the airline-wide collapse following failed rescue negotiations.
7. Icelandair Group Annual Report 2018 — Icelandair Group, 2019. Documents the planned Dallas withdrawal, capacity rebalancing and the airline's financial difficulties.
8. Icelandair Group Annual Report 2019: Business Review — Icelandair Group, 2020. Confirms Dallas was among five discontinued destinations and explains the wider profitability strategy.
9. American Airlines Shifts Iceland Flights to Philadelphia from Dallas/Fort Worth — The Points Guy, August 12, 2019. Reports American's planned route relocation and its spokeswoman's explanation concerning East Coast connecting traffic.
10. Air Carrier Statistics (Form 41 Traffic) — All Carriers — US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Defines the available aviation traffic and capacity data and confirms that the database does not contain carrier financial information.
11. Reykjavik–Dallas Route History — DirectFlights, accessed October 2026. Provides historical scheduled-service dates for WOW Air, American Airlines and Icelandair; it does not establish route profitability.