The Winter Cutting Season Is Upon Us

Airlines are starting to go through another round of rationalization and cuts.

AA who last quarter cut a number of operational people is going to shut down its maintenance base in MCI. For those of you who are historians or just a little sentimental this was TWA's base. This is for me personally sad since I worded for TWA/PARS during the 1980s in MCI. AA is eliminating about 700 jobs in total most of them in Kansas City. This is on top of a number of customer service and flight attendant jobs in the last quarter.

US Airways is also cutting a little piece of history. It is essentially throwing in the towel on the LAS hub. The whole cutting of the former HP hub started at the height of the fuel crisis last year when they canceled the night hub. With a significant cut back in traffic to LV - the local Tourism is going to take a hit. The carrier cutting 1,000 jobs next year, shifting virtually all of its flights to its three hubs and suspending several international routes. “It’s a major retrenchment,” said Chairman Doug Parkers. The airline will also deploy smaller aircraft on the shuttle runs.

There will be more.

Tonight they turn out the lights HP-US

So names change and things pass but tonight will see the end of an era when America West goes away for good. At the same time the last vestiges of the "old" US Airways will also disappear as the reservations cut over from Sabre to EDS-SHARES is completed. The last bank of flights on the midnight runs from Las Vegas will be handled essentially manually but from tomorrow Sabre Airline Soluutions has one less customer for its core airline hosting services.