Airline slashes winter flights
DALLAS -- Southwest Airlines Co., which had resisted the kinds of capacity cuts being made by other carriers, will eliminate nearly 200 flights -- including some from Las Vegas -- early next year as it struggles with high fuel costs and a weakening economy.
The move raised doubts about the company's publicly stated goal of growing modestly in 2009 despite the airline industry's troubles.
Now, Southwest will cut 196 flights while adding only six new ones in its schedule that takes effect Jan. 11.
That is nearly 6 percent of the airline's daily schedule of close to 3,400 flights.
Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz said Tuesday that some of the eliminated flights, which span Southwest's nationwide network, could be restored later in 2009. Late winter is typically a slow travel period.
"This is a response to a slower traffic period, and we're giving ourselves some operational flexibility in the winter months," he said.
In Las Vegas the airline will trim 13 daily departures from its 238-flight schedule at McCarran International Airport. The cuts will reduce, but not eliminate, service to Albuquerque, N.M.; Denver, Colo.; Kansas City, Mo.; Oakland, Calif.; Omaha, Neb.; Ontario, Calif.; Orange County, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; Raleigh/Durham, N.C.; Reno; Sacramento, Calif.; San Francisco; and Seattle.
The service reductions in the Las Vegas market are among the most modest.
In contrast, US Airways, the carrier with the second-largest number of Las Vegas customers, will have cut nearly 50 percent of its seats into the market by fall compared to late 2007.
Southwest is better insulated than its rivals from high jet fuel prices because it bought options to get most of its fuel at below-market prices. Still, the airline's fuel bill has been rising, eating into margins at the most consistently profitable U.S. carrier.
Chairman and Chief Executive Gary Kelly said in June that the Dallas-based low-cost carrier hoped to grow modestly in 2009. But he tempered that outlook by saying the expansion plans could be scrapped if oil prices remain high or the economy weakens.
At the time, Kelly said, Southwest still planned to add 14 new planes next year. Mainz said Tuesday that new planes will be added while older aircraft are retired, keeping the airline's fleet "relatively flat." Southwest has about 530 jets, all Boeing 737s.
Southwest is the only major U.S. carrier to earn a profit in the first half of the year -- it has not lost money in a quarter since early 1991. Like other carriers, Southwest has been raising fares to offset rising fuel prices, and Kelly has said more increases are likely.
Southwest serves more than 60 U.S. airports and is not leaving any of them under the new schedule. But it is ending some nonstop service, such as that between Nashville, Tenn., and Oakland, Calif. The carrier is mainly reducing the frequency of flights on routes across its network.
A few routes will lose two daily departures, such as Tampa, Fla.-Philadelphia, which will drop from five daily flights each way to three. On others, like Dallas-Houston, the change will be less noticeable.
"When you have 30 frequencies a day, are you going to miss one or two? Come on," said Tom Parsons, CEO of travel Web site Bestfares.com.
The airline will add six new flights -- round trips between Phoenix and Burbank, Calif.; Las Vegas and Orange County, Calif.; and Baltimore and Orlando, Fla.
Southwest's reduction of nearly 6 percent is still far smaller than capacity cutbacks at other U.S. airlines.
American Airlines, the nation's largest carrier, is cutting about 8 percent of capacity after Labor Day -- and up to 12 percent of its domestic flying. United Airlines expects to cut domestic capacity about 16 percent, and Delta, Northwest and Continental also have announced cuts.
Mainz said Southwest's lighter winter schedule will not bring layoffs, but other airlines are grounding planes and laying off thousands of workers to save money in the face of higher fuel bills.
The Air Transport Association, a trade group for the big carriers, expects U.S. airlines to spend $61.2 billion this year on fuel, up from $41.2 billion last year.
Review-Journal writer Benjamin Spillman contributed to this report.
FAA COMPUTER GLITCH CAUSES FLIGHT DELAYS
ATLANTA -- An electronic communication failure Tuesday at a Federal Aviation Administration facility in Georgia that processes flight plans for the eastern half of the U.S. was causing hundreds of flight delays around the country, including in Las Vegas.
An FAA Web site that tracks airport status showed delays at some three dozen major airports across the country. The site advised passengers to "check your departure airport to see if your flight may be affected."
FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen in Atlanta said there were no safety issues and officials were still able to speak to pilots on planes, on the ground and in the air.
She said she did not know how many flights were being affected, but she said it was in the hundreds. She added that officials might not have total figures until today. Bergen said that in a 24-hour period the FAA processes more than 300,000 flight plans in the United States.
Bergen said the problem that occurred Tuesday afternoon involved an FAA facility in Hampton, Ga., south of Atlanta, that processes flight plans. She said there was a failure in a communication link that transmits the data to a similar facility in Salt Lake City.
As a result, the Salt Lake City facility was having to process those flight plans, causing delays in planes taking off. She said there were no problems landing for planes that were already in the air.
In Las Vegas the FAA initially reported delays of "16 to 30 minutes or longer," before revising the estimate to "15 minutes or less" by midafternoon.
West coast FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said, "we are inputting flight plans manually instead of automatically."
A spokeswoman for Southwest Airlines, the carrier with the most Las Vegas customers, said it was back on schedule within a couple of hours.
