By Susan A. Baird
PBN Web Editor
FORT WORTH – American Airlines and regional affiliate American Eagle will end service to eight hubs, including Warwick’s T.F. Green Airport (PVD), as part of a nationwide cutback by both airlines.
“The changes are being instituted to reduce costs and create a more sustainable supply-and-demand balance in today’s high fuel-cost environment,” the airlines said in a joint announcement last night.
American will reduce daily departures from Chicago by 28 flights; New York’s LaGuardia by five flights; Dallas/Fort Worth by 19 flights; and St. Louis by eight flights. Meanwhile, American Eagle will reduce daily departures from Chicago by 34 flights; Dallas/Fort Worth by 23 flights; and LaGuardia by 37 flights; while it and sister airline American Connection will trim service from St. Louis by 35 flights.
American – besides eliminating service to Oakland, Calif., and London Stansted airports, which the airline previously had said it would terminate – also will end service to Barranquilla, Colombia. American Eagle – besides ending service to Samana in the Dominican Republic, as previously announced – will stop flying to San Luis Obispo, Calif., where it also will close its local maintenance base; Albany, N.Y.; Harrisburg, Pa.; and T.F. Green.
Historical data indicate that American Eagle has been losing both passengers and market share at the Rhode Island airport.
Last month, the airline’s local total was 6,506 passengers, or 1.5 percent of all passengers who passed through T.F. Green in May, according to the R.I. Airport Corporation’s monthly air-traffic report. (READ MORE) That represented a 6.6 percent decline from American Eagle’s 6,965 local passengers in May 2007, when it had a 1.6-percent market share at the airport. By comparison, total passenger traffic at T.F. Green fell 3.3 percent year-over-year.
The new cuts – grounding 189 flights nationwide – will take effect in November. They come on top of the service reductions announced last month, which will take effect in October.
The cuts at LaGuardia Airport were spurred in part by what Bob Reding, American’s vice president of operations, described as “dependability and delay issues … [the] have reached a crisis point and have a daily negative impact on the overall customer service and performance for every airline with flights at LaGuardia.”
Inbound delays now affect four of every 10 arrivals at the New York City airport, while flight cancellations average more than 5 percent, American noted. The airline called on the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Department of Transportation to institute a 20-percent cut in the number of flights allowed at LaGuardia, pending airspace redesign, air-traffic control modernization and other improvements.
“American and American Eagle regret the potential impact these schedule changes will have on its people,” the airlines added. “The company is in the process of determining the overall impact on its employees, and it is the company’s intent to offer voluntary programs before moving to involuntary separations.”
Meanwhile, budget-conscious Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) – the largest passenger carrier at T.F. Green, with a market share (54.1 percent in May) consistently higher than 50 percent – today announced plans to add two round-trips per day from the Warwick airport, beginning Nov. 2.
Both will be to Florida: One to Orlando, giving Southwest six daily departures from T.F. Green to the home of Mickey Mouse; and one to Fort Lauderdale, doubling the airline’s daily flights from T.F. Green to that South Florida destination.
“Although these are challenging times in the industry, Southwest has responded to the demand for additional flights,” RIAC President and CEO Kevin Dillon said in a statement. “We are pleased that they continue to add service and to recognize the potential for further growth to some of the top destinations from Green.”
The new additions will bring Southwest’s total daily flights from T.F. Green to 33, an increase of 6.5 percent.
The R.I. Airport Corporation is a quasi-public organization, based at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, that oversees Green and the state’s five general aviation airports. Additional information is available from RIAC at www.pvdairport.com.
American Airlines – a subsidiary of AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR), a Fortune 500 company with annual revenue of $22.93 billion and assets valued at $28.57 billion – is the nation’s largest passenger airline. For more information about American Airlines and its regional carrier American Eagle, visit www.aa.com.
For information about Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV), visit www.southwest.com.
QUIET ROCKLAND LANDS ALL KEY FAA BOBBY STURGELL INTERNET DOMAIN-NAMES
QRNewswire/Rockland County, NY ? September 29, 2008:
In a tri-partite deal with a New England-based seller and Herndon, VA Internet domain-name registrar Network Solutions,
http://www.networksolutions.com
suburban New York anti-FAA aero-activist group Quiet Rockland today announced its acquisition of the 3 most critical Internet Uniform Resource Locator (URL) domain-names relating to failed FAA Acting Administrator Robert Allan (?Bobby?) Sturgell:
http://www.bobbysturgell.com
http://www.bobbysturgell.org
http://www.bobbysturgell.net
The transaction was handled by Quiet Rockland co-founder John J. Tormey III, Esq., and his law practice, John J. Tormey III, PLLC:
http://www.tormey.org
The arrangement with Network Solutions accords Quiet Rockland the unilateral option of an up-to-100-year extension of each domain-name registration term. Further specifics of the purchase remain undisclosed.
Said Tormey:
?Today Quiet Rockland strikes another blow for justice, fair treatment of air traffic controllers (ATCs), and historical accuracy. In the last year at the helm, Bobby Sturgell ?piloted? his Tombstone Agency FAA directly into the ground ? abusing his ATC workforce, continually threatening our safety, and putting us Americans all at risk while doing so. We therefore return the courtesy to him and his awful FAA. Quiet Rockland today dedicates these 3 permanent First Amendment-protected electronic-memorial reciprocal-tombstones to Bobby Sturgell?s abysmal, morally-bereft legacy of putting profits over people and failing the American citizenry. Now, election-result irrespective, whether or not Bobby Sturgell follows through on his earlier-stated intention to quit his post by November, each person accessing the Internet worldwide who searches Bobby Sturgell?s name at any time in the next 100 years, will be virtually-certain to take heed of Sturgell?s well-earned agency cyber-posterity heritage of FAAilure. This is Quiet Rockland?s virtual parting gift to Bobby Sturgell.
?Quiet Rockland also intends this action to be a warning to those other aero-head officials, misguided enough to think of threatening our interests in the future. As but one additional example, we expect that FAA NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign Project Manager Steven (Steve) Kelley will now want to carefully review the website at the also-newly-acquired URL
http://www.stevekelleyfaa.com
This site permanently chronicles Steve Kelley?s own role in the 1985 Fairview, NJ aircrash killing 6 people ? an event which Steve Kelley himself worked as an ATC. We look forward to exercising our 100-year option on that URL filing as well.
?More communications will follow. Our rock-solid foundational message is clear. Whether a federal official, or anyone else ? if you threaten Quiet Rockland?s interests or those of any ATC, expect a response ? and expect that response to follow you throughout your career, your life, and perhaps beyond, in, at minimum, electronically-memorialized posterity. We have the resources. We have the technology. And, we have the will. FAA management will be repopulated with responsible personnel. The NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign will be defeated.