The Airbus A321XLR isn’t quite the airplane airlines thought they were buying. That isn’t stopping @AmericanAir and @United from putting it to work. American network chief Brian Znotins recently told me the jet’s range “isn’t what we were sold when we bought the airplane from Airbus.” It was a blunt admission, but the route map for summer 2027 shows the XLR still has plenty of utility. American is lining up five transatlantic routes from New York-JFK and Philadelphia, including Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Nice, Porto and Vienna. United has seven planned from Newark and Washington Dulles: Amsterdam, Dublin, Luxembourg, Toulouse, Marseille, Ibiza and Valencia. That’s 12 transatlantic routes between the two carriers, and some of them probably wouldn’t work with a widebody. The XLR may not have the reach Airbus originally promised, but that doesn’t make it a failure. It just limits where airlines can reliably send it, especially with winter winds and a full payload. The real test starts next summer: Can a premium-heavy narrowbody turn thinner transatlantic routes into lasting markets, or will some of these disappear after a season or two? Red: American Blue: United (June 2027 scheduled A321XLR routes. Source: Cirium Diio)