St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 8

A8 A 4 om www.STLtoday.com ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH EWS THURSDAY, JULY 17, 2003 DRASTIC CUTS I AMERICJiH AIRLINES REDUCES ST. LOUIS PRESENCE "When the cuts started, they kept going and kept going. Gerald Greenlee, a fleet service clerk who has worked for TWA and American for 13 year HOW CUTS WILL AFFECT AIR TRAVEL 4 I err "in i -V jrTii'iii'iiMi ii i i J.B. FORBES POST-DISPATCH A flight-line worker waves to a pilot after he helped tow an American Airlines plane away from its gate Wednesday at Lambert Field.

Former TWA employees recall hope at time of American sale Now, many of them face loss of their livelihood; "It's just devastating" GABRIEL B. TAIT POST-DISPATCH Federico Cuadros of Santiago, Chile, waits Wednesday at Lambert Field for an American Airlines flight to Chicago. American will continue nonstop flights from here to Chicago even after cuts that take effect Nov. 1. ByTimO'Neil Of the Post-Dispatch How big is American Airlines' cutback in St.

Louis? On Nov. 1 American will cut more than half of the flights it offers in and out of St. Louis. It is eliminating nonstop service to 27 cities. And because proportionately more of its remaining flights from Lam- bert Field will be on smaller aircraft, the number of airplane seats it will offer St.

Louis travelers will drop by considerably more than 50 percent. What are the numbers? At present, American and its regional partners send about 417 flights out of Lambert each day. Of those, 213 are on full-sized airliners, meaning MD-80 series jets or bigger. The rest go on regional jets or commuter turboprops. Come Nov.

1, American and its American Eagle and AmericanConnection partners will send out 207 dailies from Lambert, and only 53 of them will be on big jets. Another 85 will be on regional jets, which seat about half as many passengers. The rest will be on even smaller craft. How will this affect nonstop service from Lambert? American is ending nonstop service to 27 cities, 18 of them larger destinations. Competing airlines fly to some of those cities, but St.

Louis will lose nonstop air service to 15 locations, including these eight major cities or airports: Anchorage, Honolulu, New York-Kennedy Airport, London, Portland, San Jose, Sacramento and Vancouver. Lambert also will lose direct service to places such as Sioux Falls, S.D., Shreveport, and Moline, III. Do other airlines fly nonstop to the cities that American wont serve with nonstops anymore? Yes, especially Southwest Airlines, which serves 1 1 of the 18 major airports that American is dropping, including Kansas City, Salt Lake City and Tulsa. Travelers from St. Louis will have two airlines to choose from heading to Cleveland (Southwest and Continental), Detroit (Southwest and Northwest) and Houston (Southwest and Continental, although different airports).

How will American's service continue to compare to other airlines that fly into St. Louis? Its role as the big bird of Lambert is in peril. American and its regional partners will continue offering ttv. most flights and serving the most locations 36 major destinations and 32 smaller regional cities. But Southwest actually will have more daily flights on big jets 67 nonstop dailies to 19 cities on its Boeing 737s, compared to American's 53.

Other major airlines offer only limited direct service from Lambert. United Airlines, for example, flies only to Chicago and Denver, and Northwest Airlines serves Memphis, Minneapolis and Detroit. Overall, airlines that serve St. Louis will offer nonstops to more than 50 medium-to-large cities, and flights to roughly 30 smaller regional locations. Connecting flights, primarily through Chicago and Dallas, will be needed to go elsewhere.

Will Lambert still be an "international" airport? Barely. American will fly from here to Cancun, and Air Canada now goes to Toronto. But American will end its direct service to London, the last nonstop to Europe. What about air fares at Lambert? They probably won't climb much, said Tom Ffcrsons of Bestfares.com and Ellen Mughal, a vice president of Maritz corporate-travel division, TQ3. Ffcrsons doesn't expect Southwest to raise its fares by more than a few dollars, if it does at all.

But because American is dropping so many flights and cutting service on big jets, the numbers of cut-rate deals and cheap seats available in St. Louis will fall. Parsons and Mughal suggested that St. Louis travelers make their reservations earlier and more carefully plan their trips. American says it will reschedule many flights to make same-day round trips easier.

If American customers have bought tickets for flights after Nov. 1 to the affected cities, what should they do? American will inform customers in advance of the new routes they will take through connecting cities. Anyone who doesn't want to wait for the mail should call the airline. Of the 27 cities that will lose American nonstop flights, only South Bend, will not have any connecting service. Reporter rmPNei EhuI: toeiliost-ditpatdioni Phone: 314-340-8132 By Elizabethe Holland and Doug Moore Of the Post-Dispatch Throughout Lambert Field on Wednesday, American Airlines employees felt compelled to talk about the latest hit on their livelihood.

Some employees treated the news matter-of-factly. Some were shocked. Others, bitter. "I can't tell you what I'd like to say," one American employee said just before reporting to work. "They'd fire me." Gerald Greenlee, a fleet service clerk who has worked for TWA and American for 13 years, said he had high hopes when American bought TWA.

"We thought that it would bring the airline back to where it originally was," said Greenlee, 52, of Bellefontaine Neighbors. "Morale was real high. But as time went on, it came to be the worst thing that could happen to us. When the cuts started, they kept going and kept going." He cites himself as among those affected. Last month, American changed his status from full time to part time.

Before long, he expects his job will be among those lost. "It's just devastating," he said. Tony Augusto, a fleet service clerk with 16 years at TWA and American, says he understands that business decisions must be made. "But be fair systemwide," he said. "I don't like the idea that they're not doing the same to their three big stations (in Chicago, Miami and Dallas)." A mechanic with 34 years' experience with TWA and American said he and his co-workers had known for a few weeks that a decision about St.

Louis' future was coming. But they never expected such deep cuts, said the mechanic, who requested anonymity. "I'm right on the fence," he said. "This is no way to end a career. I'm just not old enough to retire, and I'm not ready to retire.

It's depressing. It's demoralizing. "Everybody thought that American would be the one that would pull us through and get us through this, but it's devastating for the employees, and it's devastating for the city." Travelers at Lambert took note of the cuts, too. if! r-i-' 'Jt 7f-' in -1 GABRIEL B. TAIT POST-DISPATCH A passenger waits with his family's luggage for an American Airlines flight Wednesday at Lambert Field.

On Nov. 1, American will cut more than half of the flights it offers in and out of St. Louis. Chicago. Although she understands business decisions, she said, she was shocked to learn that direct flights to Omaha and Kansas City would end.

"I can see reducing the number of flights, but to cut them is stupid," she said. "Those flights are full." Norm Parish, Hannah Bergman and Eric Heisler of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report. Allison Kieffer and Bryce Schmidt of Sioux City, Iowa, fly American direct from Omaha, to St. Louis for their work for Tyson Foods Inc. If their work in St.

Louis is not finished before the cuts take effect, they will have to fly Northwest Airlines from Sioux City to Minneapolis to St. Louis. Kim Nentwig said she travels nearly every week to Omaha, Kansas City or Despite cutbacks, Lambert Field retains its hub status, local leaders insist Lambert Field gates American Airlines, the largest carrier in St. Louis, announced Wednesday that it will drop more than 30 of the gates it occupies at Lambert Field and reduce the number of flights in and out of the city. Most other competitors "would die for" operation here, Fleming says 2 cff "rf AMERICAN'S GATE BREAKDOWN Aniffnf West SOUTHWEST The airport's second-largest carrier has 12 Kates.

1 The airline currently has 49 gates 3 gates in and concourses: i 2 gates Gates at of Nov, 1 Comair Continental Delta KLM with Northwest 8 jet gates. Carrent gates 35 jet gates, 14 regional 10 regional I FIELD 3 gates 2 gates 2 gates 3 gates 3 gates Northwest gates how an airline uses it. Federal regulators classify hubs based on the number of passengers who board planes at the airport By that measure, Lambert has historically been a large hub airport, said Spencer Dicker-son, senior executive vice president for the American Association of Airport Executives. If American still provides connecting flights in St Louis, even if those flights include the regional partners, local leaders insist that makes it a scaled-back hub. "The end of the day even with these cuts we will have a hub that most of our competitors around the country would die for," said Richard Fleming, president and chief executive of the Regional Chamber Growth Association.

United USAirway Z3 Skrnfl 3 113,65 Bote SofwotR and, as a result, was "very lucky," Griggs said. Not only did it have TWA and later American, but travelers also could fly on Southwest Airlines. The competition kept fares lower. On Wednesday, American Airlines said it would keep a small vestige of that operation at Lambert The airline is cutting half of its overall schedule at Lambert, including its regional partners that fly under the name AmericanConnection and American Eagle. Its own flights, though, will shrink by 75 percent "That is a hub mat has almost become a nub," said Rowan Raftery, a longtime opponent of Lambert Field expansion who has tracked the sagging air traffic volumes at Lambert for years.

But aviation officials say an airport can remain a hub even when it loses so many flights because it really amounts to share Dermal artnts LI MAM TERMINAL Sources: American Airtines, Lambert Field HCM irowaaPOST DISPATCH NOTt Gj tunavfs lew to ofanfirfxxt pturti IP lantorl tt ute By Ken Leiser Of the Post-Dispatch More than half of the people who catch flights at Lambert Field aren't stopping by St. Louis to gaze at the Arch, eat toasted ravioli or pay homage to the Mississippi River. Instead, most airline passengers at Lambert merely walk from one gate to another before leaving for their final destination. Usually, they'll spend 45 -(- minutes or so in an airport concourse between flights. That describes a hub airport usually a strategically locat- ed airfield through which banks of commercial flights are Tunneled to increase the number of markets they can serve on any given day, according to experts and industry publications.

"The hub-and-spoke is an outgrowth of deregulation and the Transport Association, the hub-and-spoke system linking smaller markets helped fill seats, which kept operating costs down. St Louis long had the benefit of being the midcontinental hub city for Trans World Airlines airlines' desire to dominate the market in a network format," said Lambert Field Director Leonard Griggs. "So when you were lucky enough to be a hub city, you capitalized on it" According to the Airline Handbook published by the Air Uertengsott iinthh.t 314-140-811.