AA Claims Capacity Cuts Could Ease Delays
American Airlines yesterday said its planned withdrawal of New York LaGuardia Airport departures later this year could be a shot in the arm for chronic delay problems as the carrier detailed schedule changes to facilitate its previously announced fourth-quarter mainline domestic capacity cut of up to 12 percent.
Among those, American Airlines and its regional subsidiary American Eagle plan to eliminate a total of 42 departures from LaGuardia Airport, which, along with the other two major New York-city area airports, have come under increased Department of Transportation scrutiny for triggering nationwide airline delays.
American said its schedule changes at the airport, "coupled with appropriate government action, could allow the airport to operate with less chronic disruption and improve customer experience at one of the nation's most congested airports."
American's version of the appropriate government action includes asking FAA to further reduce the number of hourly operations by 15 "until FAA airspace redesign efforts, ATC modernization and other steps increase the level at which LaGuardia can operate reliably." American today said it has yet to file an official request with DOT.
LaGuardia already operates under flight caps, though a recent FAA proposal to auction some of those slots at the three major New York-area airports has drawn further criticism from airlines.
"If American is going to make a unilateral change, they don't want people to backfill where they've essentially abandoned slots," said Robert Mann, president of aviation consultancy R.W. Mann & Company. "It's kind of ironic in a sense that these are the same folks who have been fighting the thing all along. The further irony might be that FAA says, "These are slots we were looking for. Let's go sell them."'
The other legacy carriers all have revised capacity forecasts, but not all of them have detailed specific schedule adjustments. "When we see others put specifics to their capacity reduction plans, we'll probably see far more frequency pulled out of LaGuardia, which will have the effect of actually reinforcing whatever benefits American thinks will be there from reducing the number of operations," Mann said.
In addition to its planned pullback at LaGuardia, American is planning other service changes for the second half of the year. The carrier is closing operations out of Oakland, London Stansted and Barranquilla, Colombia, while its American Eagle subsidiary will shut down service to Albany, N.Y.; Providence, R.I.; Harrisburg, Pa.; Samana, Dominican Republic; and San Luis Obispo, Calif.
American and American Eagle also plan to reduce Chicago departures by 28 and 34 flights, respectively, while St. Louis will see a total decline of 43 departures from American and affiliates. American and American Eagle will reduce a total of 42 departures from their Dallas/Fort Worth hub.
The carrier and its regional affiliate said they still are assessing the overall impact on employee layoffs, saying it plans "to offer voluntary programs before moving to involuntary separations."