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American Airlines to end flights out of T.F. Green

10:34 AM EDT on Thursday, June 26, 2008

By Paul Grimaldi
Journal Staff Writer

Between flights, an American Eagle turboprop plane is parked on the ramp at Green Airport in Warwick.


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Providence Journal / ANDREW DICKERMAN

American Airlines will stop its regional jet service at T.F. Green Airport on Nov. 1, airport officials confirmed, pulling out of the airport it has served since 1984.

American Airlines and its American Eagle regional unit will end service to Green and seven other airports and drop flights at others as the airline grounds planes and lays off workers because of rising fuel prices. AMR Corp., the airline’s parent company, this week provided details of the cutbacks it had previously announced in May.

American, the world’s largest airline, and Eagle, will cut 62 departures from Chicago, 43 from St. Louis and 42 each from Dallas-Forth Worth and New York’s La Guardia airport, the company said yesterday in a statement. The reductions amount to 12 percent of service at American and 11 percent at Eagle.

Green will lose three daily departures to Chicago when Eagle leaves in the fall for the last time. Capacity on the regional jets is 44 seats.

At one point, Eagle had five daily flights from Green to Chicago and one daily flight to Dallas, according to Patti Goldstein, an airport spokeswoman.

“They have been reducing capacity for quite some time,” she said.

Fliers will still be able to travel to Chicago from the Warwick airport, noted Kevin Dillon, president of the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, which runs T.F. Green.

“We have good service into Chicago both from Southwest and United” airlines, he said. “There’s capacity . . . to pick up those passengers.”

The cutbacks are another result of the rising fuel costs pinching the airline industry and the country as a whole, driving up costs and keeping Americans closer to home.

Rising oil prices have drained profits from the airline industry, forcing carriers to cut jobs, ground less efficient planes and slash the number of flights in hopes of boosting air fares.

Airline fuel prices are up 91.5 percent from a year ago, according to the International Air Transport Association.

A number of smaller carriers have filed for bankruptcy protection or ceased operations, including Frontier Airlines, ATA Airlines, Skybus Airlines and Aloha Airlines.

U.S. airlines are trimming at least 11,850 jobs and taking 413 aircraft out of service.

The airlines recently began charging for a number of previously free services and added ticket surcharges to offset higher fuel prices.

American Airlines started the movement when it decided to charge passengers $15 to check their first bag. United Airlines said it would add a $15 fee for passengers flying on leisure fares booked in advance and a $25 fee for checking a second suitcase.

US Airways said it would begin charging a $15 first-bag fee July 9.

Passenger traffic at T.F. Green was 1.9 million during the first five months of this year, off 2 percent from the comparable period last year. American handled 30,067 passengers at Green during the period, placing it seventh among the airlines servicing the airport. American’s passenger count was down 2 percent from the comparable period a year ago, when it handled 30,785 passengers.

Along with the charges have come cutbacks in routes.

“The airlines are going to cut capacity,” Dillon said. “It’s a reality of the industry.”

That leaves him with the task of positioning Green as a cost-effective airfield for airlines trying to trim expenses, he said.

“We want to make it difficult for the airlines to cut capacity here,” Dillon said.

While it’s likely some American Eagle employees stationed at Green will lose their jobs, the airline’s announcement is not expected to translate into job cuts in the airport corporation staff, Dillon said.

AMR, based in Forth Worth, Texas, has yet to detail the “thousands” of jobs chief executive officer Gerard Arpey has said will be part of cutbacks at the airline company.

American Eagle also will end flights at Albany, N.Y.; Harrisburg, Pa.; San Luis Obispo, Calif.; and Samana, Dominican Republic. Eagle also will close a maintenance base at San Luis Obispo.

American will end flights to Oakland, Calif.; Barranquilla, Colombia; and London’s Stansted airport.

This is not the first time American has pulled out of Green. The airline took a five-year hiatus from serving the airport from 1979 to 1984.

With reports from Bloomberg News

pgrimald@projo.com

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