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Airlines adding flights
(Tulsa World (OK) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Oct. 30--After much publicized fourth-quarter seating capacity reductions throughout the U.S. airline industry, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines are adding capacity in November at Tulsa International Airport, airline and airport executives said.
The additional seats won't bring seating capacity of the six major carriers serving Tulsa International to the levels of a year ago -- capacity mid-week will still be down nearly 12 percent and weekend capacity will be 22.9 percent lower -- but it could be an indication the airlines are rethinking their strategies, an analyst says.
"We haven't seen falling demand; we've seen falling capacity," said Mike Boyd, president of Boyd Group International, which tracks airline and airport activity.
"All this talk of a financial collapse -- it's just not there."
Falling fuel prices have helped airline finances, particularly during the past eight weeks, but Boyd and others who follow the industry believe solid demand and a series of fees and charges imposed by the carriers may be sufficient to ward off further capacity cuts.
"Airline capacity in the first quarter of 2009 will be just a hair short of 10 percent down from the first quarter of 2008,"
Boyd says in his "Insights & Perspectives -- Hot Flash" published weekly on the company Web site at tulsaworld.com/boyd. "Some media stories would have us believe that another 10 percent is on the way. As of now, it doesn't appear so."
American Airlines spokesman Tim Smith said American is bringing three additional daily flights and 240 additional seats to Tulsa starting Sunday. The new flights will include a 140-seat American Airlines MD-80 and two 50-seat American Eagle Embraer regional jets. Today, American operates 15 flights at day at Tulsa International, Smith said.
"We don't know if they will continue, but (the flights) are in there November through January, which takes us through the holidays," Smith said. "The economy is the big unknown. It's definitely soft. Traditionally, after the Christmas and New Year's holidays, things usually slow down."
Southwest Airlines, which offers 20 flights a day Sunday through Friday and 12 flights on Saturday at Tulsa International, will add two daily roundtrip flights to Denver starting Sunday.
The Denver flights will compensate Tulsans for the three flights a day to Denver the city lost when Frontier Airlines declared bankruptcy and discontinued service in June.
"That will take us through December," said Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz. "Service is a case of matching flights with demand."
Alexis Higgins, deputy airports director of marketing for the Tulsa Airport Authority, said the addition of 500 seats to the market on Saturdays in November was unexpected.
"We will see more seats because of leisure travel at Thanksgiving," Higgins said. "But with the cutbacks, we didn't expect to see Saturday service jump that much. I'm hopeful, as the airlines begin publishing their spring schedules, we will see more of the seats we have lost."
Boyd says he doesn't expect further major capacity reductions in the new year.
"All indications are that the majority of capacity cuts are already registered," Boyd writes in this week's "Hot Flash."
"Depending on the depth of any economic-driven declines on demand, the total enplanement in the U.S. should drop about 7.8 percent in 2009, and then begin a slow upturn."
D.R. Stewart 581-8451
don.stewart@tulsaworld.com
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