American Airlines has reduced operations at the St Louis hub it inherited with its $742 million purchase in 2001 of TWA, halving its 417 daily flights there and relegating it to regional jet service.
As of November, American, American Eagle and American Connection carriers will eliminate 210 flights, leaving 207 services a day to 68 cities. The airport will cater primarily to travellers who live and work in the St Louis area, rather than functioning as the flow and connection hub that American intended when it took over TWA. Flights will be redeployed through American's hubs at Chicago O'Hare and Dallas-Fort Worth. The St Louis strategy under former American chairman Don Carty was to use the TWA hub to relieve its other Midwestern hubs.
New American chief executive Gerard Arpey said the carrier also will retire 57 aircraft from its fleet by next summer, and that the airline would probably close its Kansas City maintenance base later this year. It will also close the reservations office in St Louis, but will keep its pilot and flight attendant bases there. In all, more than 2,000 jobs are to be eliminated, in effect eliminating most vestiges of the TWA purchase.
However, airport officials at Lambert St Louis International are proceeding with a $1.1 billion expansion, which is supported by Southwest Airlines, the number two carrier in St Louis.
Source: Airline Business
