Airline downsizing means more hassles, fewer choices for travelers

Airline downsizing means more hassles, fewer choices for travelers

As noted in an earlier AskEd & AnswerEd, most of the U.S. legacy lines
are downsizing in an effort to cut costs. Depending on circumstances,
the impact of this downsizing on individual travelers could range from
none to huge.

A reader recently noted a problem due to Delta's downsizing. "Delta
has always been my best bet for early morning flying from Tulsa to the
West Coast, arriving by 9:00 A.M. (via a Salt Lake City connection) in
most major cities. I've been trying to book travel next April and
noticed that Delta will no longer have that early morning flight from
Tulsa to Salt Lake City. It was always full, so I don't know why Delta
would discontinue it. Is there a chance that another carrier will pick
up Delta's early morning route to the West Coast? Are these routes
'sold' to other airlines?"

To answer the easiest part of that question first, deregulation ended
the sale of routes between domestic airlines. Any U.S. airline can fly
anywhere it wants, so route authority no longer has a monetary value
to either buyer or seller. What does still have value is access to
landing and takeoff "slots" at a few busy airports, but that applies
to neither Salt Lake City nor any West Coast city.

Downsizing to cut costs

Whether bankrupt or not, the giant "legacy" airlines?American,
Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, and US Airways?are cutting back
on the size of their domestic operations. The driving reason is to cut
costs, which means cutting out as many unprofitable services as
possible. In some cases, low-cost lines are ready and able to offset
any cutbacks by the legacy lines, but not in others. Here's my take on
likely developments.

Smaller planes: The most benign form of downsizing is replacing
mainline airplanes such as 737s, A320s, and MD80s with smaller
regional jets (RJs). This sort of replacement doesn't cut down on the
number of flights at all; it just results in use of smaller planes.
That saves money because (1) the smaller planes use less fuel for a
given flight and (2) RJ pilots and other aircrew are usually paid far
less than mainline crews. While most of us find those RJs to be
cramped and uncomfortable, at least they keep up the schedules. You'll
be lucky if that's all that happens on the routes you fly.

Fewer flights: In addition to switching some flights to smaller
planes, several of the legacy lines have sharply reduced the total
number of flights at some of their hubs. You can expect:

* Fewer flights on busy routes where airlines figure their
remaining flights can take care of the traffic (at higher load
factors). Routes linking hubs with regional "spoke" cities will be
hardest hit.
* Total cancellation of routes that don't produce enough of a
profit.

American's recent announcements provide perfect examples of both
approaches. American temporarily cancelled some flights from Chicago
and Dallas (Ft Worth) to cities where it still has lots of other
flights to satisfy the demand; it cancelled its entire nonstop
schedule from Chicago to Nagoya, Japan, presumably because of weak
traffic.

Continued...

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http://www.smartertravel.com/advice/askanswer/advice.php?id=96416&source=dealalert&value=2005-10-13&u=SL4F6B4DC5


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