A quote from Cranky Flyer article:
The nascent recovery of US carriers stalled in late June, as demand plateaued owing to a surge of COVID-19 cases. A Goldman Sachs analysis presented by Airlines4America (A4A) in July, projects passenger volume in 2020 free-falling 56% below 2019, and it isn’t forecast to recover to 2019 levels until 2023.
Average capacity in available seat miles (ASMs) as of early July was down 70% year on year, with traffic depressed by 80% in revenue seat miles (RPMs). Network planning departments are under siege by the virus as route networks pruned dramatically. And with the dynamic daily, almost daily changes in the COVID-19 story, what is true today, often is not tomorrow.
All airlines have downsized their hubs, though few have permanently closed them outright. For example, American Airlines (AA) has kept its Los Angeles (LAX) hub intact for now. However, with Seattle (SEA) picking up some of the Asian routes and Dallas/Ft. Worth (DFW) becoming the airline’s major Asian hub,
LAX’s international long-haul status for the airline is over. END OF CF QUOTE.
With the large Asian population in the LAX basin, I'm surprised that LAX is being "de-hubbed" as far as Asian flights are concerned. Has AA simply decided there's not enough LAX to Asia business to justify competing for it? Lord knows, I almost didn't get to go on my New Zealand cruise because the 1-flight/day LAX-AKL kept filling up and bumping non-revs off the flight. I ended up flying to AKL 5 days before the start of my cruise. (Which means that thanks to the International date line I actually left LAX 6 days before, arrived in AKL 5 days early. Upside: Auckland is a great city to visit and explore!)