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American Airlines rolling out bigger planes for one of its SLO routes

American Airlines has nearly doubled the number of people it can transport between San Luis Obispo and Texas after rolling out new, larger planes at San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport, the company announced Thursday.

The twice-daily flights to Dallas-Fort Worth will now use Airbus A319s, which at 128 seats are nearly double the capacity of the previous planes, Embraer E175s, which have 76 seats, according to an airport news release.

The larger planes also offer three classes, with eight first-class seats, 24 main cabin extra and 96 main cabin seats, according to the release.

“American is excited to introduce mainline service between San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport,” American Airlines Director of Short-Haul Network Planning Philippe Puech said in the release. “We’re eager to serve SBP with an Airbus A319 aircraft twice daily starting this month. The American team looks forward to connecting more customers to San Luis Obispo County with enhanced service.”

Service from San Luis Obispo to Dallas began in 2019.

According to the release, the expansion comes at the start of the regional airport’s high season “and will help support the record number of passengers traveling through the airport.”

2022 is expected to be “the busiest year in the airport’s history,” according to the release.

Data available on the airport’s website shows more than 349,300 travelers have passed through the San Luis Obispo airport in 2022 as of August. That was up significantly from the roughly 240,800 who had used the airport in that same time period in 2021.

Kaytlyn Leslie
The Tribune
Kaytlyn Leslie writes about business and development for The San Luis Obispo Tribune. Hailing from Nipomo, she also covers city governments and happenings in San Luis Obispo. She joined The Tribune in 2013 after graduating from Cal Poly with her journalism degree.
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