South African Airways is cutting up to 25% of its New York flights next month. SAA has taken the decision after experiencing extremely slow bookings for flights to New York next month, amid indications that travellers are shunning the city for fear of a retaliatory attack. Out of the total 60 flights that SAA offer each week, only 40 will take off.
SAA CEO Andre Viljoen said yesterday “the cancellations are temporary and for the month of April only.
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Qantas Airways said it would cut international flights and might not meet analysts’ earnings forecasts as war in Iraq and a killer flu hit demand at Australia’s largest airline, pounding its shares lower.
Qantas Airways said it was also smarting from fears about severe acute respiratory syndrome, which has killed more than 50 people in Asia, and would cut offshore routes by 20 per cent until mid-July.
Qantas Airways, which earlier warned forward bookings may slump due to war in Iraq, said it would cut flights to Europe and the United States as well as suspending services to Hong Kong to 24 from 30 per week from April 1. Chief Executive Geoff Dixon also said the carrier would not meet market expectations for its full-year profit result, in line with earlier guidance that earnings might slip if bookings fell.
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Kuwait Airways said that it would suspend nine flights from India and reschedule existing flights to cope with a drastic fall in passenger traffic following the war in Iraq. The airline would cancel six weekly flights from Delhi against the present seven and all three weekly flights from Chennai to Kuwait from March 29 to April 11, 2003, its senior regional director (Indian sub-continent) Abdulnasser Bahrami said.
“We are suspending these flights as the passenger load factor is very low at only 10 per cent for flights out of India. We will review our decision after April 10, 2003,” Bahrami said.
The airline has also imposed a war surcharge of $25 per flight coupon from March 24, 2003 due to the hike in insurance surcharge for all flights to Kuwait, he said.
He said the existing flights from India might also be cancelled if the present poor passenger traffic scenario continued for a long time. “It depends on the coming situation. If the passenger load factor does not improve, the management will decide whether or not to maintain flights,” Bahrami said.
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US Airways, operating under bankruptcy protection, said it would cut some international and domestic flights. US Airways said in a statement that the cutbacks affect off-peak travel days.
“These schedule changes constitute a less than 5 per cent reduction in available seat miles, or a 4 per cent reduction in total departures,” B. Ben Baldanza, senior vice president of marketing and planning, said in a statement.
US Airways said the cutbacks on international schedules include suspending flights between its Pittsburgh hub and London’s Gatwick airport for the month of April. Domestic schedule changes affect routes via its hubs in Pittsburgh and Charlotte, North Carolina, it said.
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Japan Airlines is temporarily slashing its international flights due to a fall in demand because of the war in Iraq, the company said.
JAL, which is merging with another Japanese carrier to become Japan Airlines Systems Corp, said it will reduce weekly flights on the Tokyo-Honolulu route to 14 from 21 in April. For May, they will be reduced from 28 to 21 a week.
Honolulu-Osaka, Tokyo-London, Tokyo-Hong Kong and Tokyo-Guam flights will also be reduced, the company said in a statement. The seven weekly flights from Osaka to Paris, including three shared with Air France, have been canceled, it said.
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Air France warned it might not meet its profit target for this year due to weak market conditions aggravated by the war in Iraq, as it unveiled plans to slash capacity and delay plane deliveries.
Air France said it would cut capacity for April by seven per cent compared to its original plan and delay delivery of seven medium-haul jets it was due to receive in the autumn.
“Due to a weakening of economic growth, linked to the situation in the Middle East, Air France is no longer certain of being able to meet its target for an operating profit above that of last year,” the company said.
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British Airways said it would cut capacity by four per cent in April and May and speed up an extensive job cuts programme, as the Iraq war worsens a slump in the industry.
“These are clearly tough times ahead and experience has shown us that conserving cash is critical at these times,” Chief Executive Rod Eddington said in a statement.
Air France said North Atlantic, Asian, Middle East and European routes had been particularly hard hit by a decline in travel demand.
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Delta Air Lines said it will cut about 12 per cent of its flights, citing a slump in passenger traffic as a result of the Iraq war. A Delta spokeswoman would not say whether the carrier plans to get rid of planes or whether the cutbacks will result in job cuts for some of its more than 60,000 employees.
Atlanta-based Delta runs 2,101 daily flights and serves 438 cities in 78 countries. It lost $363 million last quarter.
“We are still evaluating the effect on our staffing, but we would discuss any decisions we would make with our employees first,” spokeswoman Peggy Estes said. “As soon as the effects on the military conflict on passenger demand are eased, we would hope to reinstate our schedule.”
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American Airlines said it will cut international flights by six per cent in April to meet a downturn in bookings due to the war in Iraq, and could make additional reductions if traffic remains slow.
“It is clear that people are becoming more tentative about booking international travel,” said Henry Joyner, American’s senior vice- president for planning.
The announcement came the same day that chairman and chief executive Donald Carty met employees in Miami and Fort Worth to lay out the airline’s plans to stem massive losses by cutting costs by $4 billion a year, including $1.8 billion in concessions from labour. American is losing about $5 million a day and is likely to see its financial situation worsened by the war, Carty said.
He added that unions must quickly approve wage and benefit cuts to help keep the airline out of bankruptcy. “Every day we put this off is another bunch of money out the door.”
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Delta Air Lines said it will cut about 12 per cent of its flights, citing a slump in passenger traffic as a result of the Iraq war. A Delta spokeswoman would not say whether the carrier plans to get rid of planes or whether the cutbacks will result in job cuts for some of its more than 60,000 employees.
Atlanta-based Delta runs 2,101 daily flights and serves 438 cities in 78 countries. It lost $363 million last quarter.
“We are still evaluating the effect on our staffing, but we would discuss any decisions we would make with our employees first,” spokeswoman Peggy Estes said. “As soon as the effects on the military conflict on passenger demand are eased, we would hope to reinstate our schedule.”
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Swiss International Air Lines is cutting two of six weekly flights from Zurich to Cairo from Thursday after demand declined sharply, the airline said on Tuesday, in a move seen linked to the Iraq crisis.
Swiss said its Iraq task force was continuously monitoring the situation in the Middle East.
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March 30, 2003 at 12:00 am