American Cuts at Lambert Hit Home This Week

American Cuts at Lambert Hit Home This Week
St. Louis Dispatch, MO

10/26/2003


St. Louis travelers looking for nonstop flights will have fewer seats and
fewer cities to choose from, starting Saturday, when American Airlines
guts its daily schedule here.

The changes will transform Lambert Field from a major hub into an airport
catering mainly to people who live and visit here.

Passengers increasingly will fly in smaller airplanes - and connect
through other cities more often - to reach their destinations.

American, Lambert's dominant carrier, will cut nearly half of its
departing flights. Of its remaining 207 daily departures, only 53 will be
on large jets operated by American. The rest will be on smaller planes
flown by its regional airline partners that fly as AmericanConnection and
American Eagle.

American also is eliminating nearly 1,500 more jobs based here and
canceling nonstop service to 27 cities from Lambert. The moves are part of
the airline's efforts to become profitable again.

But with other airlines adding less than two dozen flights, area travelers
may have to book flights earlier - and may find fewer discount fares.

"There will still be cheap airfares on American, Southwest (Airlines) and
other airlines," said Tom Parsons, publisher of Bestfares.com, an online
travel magazine and travel agency. "The problem is you're going to have to
start thinking further out and lock those fares in earlier rather than
later."

It's a radical change for area travelers, who for decades have had their
pick of nonstop flights to cities across the nation and around the globe.

"The world was literally your oyster here," said Greg LaConte, who logged
200,000 miles a year when he was director of national account sales for
Continental Baking Co. "You could do anything, go anyplace. ... Now,
everything has changed."

LaConte now runs a St. Louis sales consulting firm and travels less these
days. But he figures the emphasis on regional jets and linking flights out
of St. Louis will have some effect on how he gets around. For instance,
regional jets aren't large enough to accommodate some equipment he takes
with him for his job.

"You either roll with it, or you stop working," he said. "I can't afford
to do that."

Starting Saturday, those boarding an American flight here must go through
another airport to reach many destinations, including Detroit and
Cleveland. The option is to choose another airline on some routes.

The first thing people will notice at Lambert next weekend is fewer people
inside the terminals. Roughly 54 percent of the passengers who caught a
plane at Lambert last year were walking from one flight to catch another,
according to a May report that accompanied an airport bond sale.

But with the schedule cuts, there will be fewer of those connecting
passengers. And some of them are not happy.

"I don't fly that often, but it is going to be more time in the air, and
it is going to reduce my choices," said David Anderson of South Bend,
Ind., who was flying through St. Louis on Wednesday to Albuquerque, N.M.,
on two American flights that will cease to exist.

"I'll just find another way. That's all there is to it."

Anderson, whose ailing 92-year-old mother lives in New Mexico, said he
prefers to transfer flights in St. Louis the two times he flies each year.
He once tried another airline, but that took eight hours - compared with
five on American - and it forced him to go through Cincinnati.

While waiting to board his flight inside the C Concourse, he said
American's decision to nix his two favorite flights was puzzling.

There were only a handful of empty seats on his plane from South Bend. The
Albuquerque leg of the trip, he said later, was about 70 percent full.

John McLean of Sarnia, Ontario, found out Wednesday that American has
dropped direct service to Detroit, where he boards a plane for St. Louis
about once a month to visit the DaimlerChrysler plant in Fenton.

McLean has tried other airlines but found American's schedule a better
match with his own. He doesn't relish taking Northwest Airlines - which
has added a flight - because he doesn't like its new terminal in Detroit.

Still, McLean said, the St. Louis schedule cuts came as no surprise.

"Most flights I come and go on are less than at capacity," said McLean, a
quality engineer whose company supplies brake and fuel lines to
automakers. "I have gotten on a plane flying back to Detroit in the
morning and they basically said, 'Pick your seat.'"

Aiming for profitability

The new schedule is a drastic reduction from the 522 nonstop departures
the airline and its affiliates offered three months after buying Trans
World Airlines' assets out of bankruptcy in 2001.

American is digging out from its worst financial crisis, which was fueled
by a recession, the terrorist attacks in 2001, the SARS outbreak and the
war in Iraq.

The airline said it could no longer afford to maintain a major hub in St.
Louis, where the market is growing more slowly than the industry average.

Chief Executive Gerard J. Arpey said last week that the new schedule is
geared toward the 95 percent of the market that begins and ends travel
here. He said it would help American boost revenue throughout its system
and make the St. Louis operations profitable. If American's service here
makes money, the airline would consider restoring some flights, Arpey
said.

Although the airline, based in Fort Worth, Texas, did eke out a $1 million
profit in the third quarter, it did so only with the help of special
charges, including the sale of some airplanes and a summer reprieve from
paying a security ticket tax.

American's new St. Louis schedule is built largely on smaller planes flown
by its regional partners, so future passenger counts automatically will be
smaller. The number of regional jets will grow, while the number of
turboprops used will decline.

Ten gates in the D Concourse that were retrofitted with special jetways to
serve the smaller planes flown by AmericanConnection will be used for that
purpose until February.

J. Kim Tucci, president of the Pasta House Co. chain, said his restaurant
next to gate D-26 will remain open after American's looming service cuts.
When flights from that concourse disappear in February, the eatery may set
up food kiosks in other parts of the airport, where passenger traffic is
still flowing.

The Pasta House has a bar, dining area and a food counter, where travelers
can grab some mozzarella cheese sticks, an Italian sub or penne marinara
for their flight.

Lambert Field Director Leonard L. Griggs Jr. said he has cobbled together
24 new or enhanced flights to begin the slow process of filling the void
left by American. But aviation experts say it could take up to five years
to make a meaningful run at replacing the lost flights.

"In many respects, the city of St. Louis enjoyed significantly higher
numbers of flights than the local economy or local community suggested,"
said Jack Stelzer, president of Worldwide Transportation in Houston, an
airline-consulting firm. "Will it ever get to the point TWA had in St.
Louis? I don't think so."

Behind the scenes, a 17-person task force is looking at the long-term
prospects of Lambert Field, but the group isn't expected to say anything
publicly before mid-November, according to a spokesman for the Regional
Chamber & Growth Association.

Meanwhile, discount carrier Southwest Airlines, which dominates the
airport's East Terminal, is following through on plans to eliminate four
daily flights from the 62 it now offers.

Spokeswoman Christine Turneabe-Connelly said Southwest may consider
reversing course and adding some flights, depending on demand. In July,
Chairman Herb Kelleher expressed interest in expanding flights here.

Many of the airlines that have added flights so far already have gates in
the A Concourse, and Griggs is working with the Transportation Security
Administration to improve the flow of people through the screening
checkpoint there.

Bill Switzer, the federal security director at Lambert, said last week
that there were fewer screeners than a year ago, but that was part of a
national downsizing and not the American Airlines service cuts. He
anticipates no changes at the security checkpoints.

Good people, lost jobs

While travelers try to make sense of the new schedule, hundreds of
American Airlines workers will lose their jobs Saturday.

More than 1,500 workers based at the airport received layoff notices last
summer; some retired or will relocate to other cities to fill openings.
Most of the rest will get severance pay of up to $10,000, said C. David
Cush, vice president of American's St. Louis operations.

About 190 mechanics will keep their jobs for at least another year,
because American reached an agreement with the Transport Workers Union to
move some airplane conversion work to St. Louis.

The union, which represents mechanics and related workers, baggage
handlers and inventory workers at American, has asked an arbitrator to
reinstate the laid-off workers. The union contends that the layoffs here
were not part of the negotiated $1.8 billion annual labor savings that
employees agreed to in April to keep the airline out of bankruptcy.

In response to the struggles of Lambert's tenant airlines, Griggs has cut
nearly 200 staff positions since June. More than half of those cuts were
triggered by American's scaled-back presence in St. Louis.

The ripple effect

Smaller businesses that rely on American's strong presence in St. Louis
also are feeling the pain.

Memphis-based Gate Gourmet, for instance, will lay off 325 of its 375
employees at its flight kitchen near Lambert by Nov. 3, said spokeswoman
Sherry Cox.

The company provides food service to American and seven other airlines
covering 217 daily flights. But that will drop to 70 flights on Saturday.

Spokesman David Milobsky of HMSHost, which operates the food-and-beverage
concession at Lambert, said the company is weighing its options; he
declined to comment further.

Tim Luebbert, president of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees
Local 74, said about 110 of the airport's 450 bartenders, food servers and
cooks employed by HMSHost will lose their jobs by Saturday.

Bartender Daylan Green of Edwardsville, who was working last week in the C
Concourse, will leave Thursday to work in a law office. Green said, "It is
kind of sad ... but it was kind of the push I needed to get out the door
and do something else.

"There are going to be a lot of good people losing jobs."


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