US Airways is the latest carrier to announce drastic measures in the face of the oil price crisis ” it will cut domestic mainline capacity by 6%-8% in the autumn, jettison 1,700 staff and introduce a fee to check in a first bag and redeem frequent flier points.
Cuts to Las Vegas services are the only details on routes, with daily departures from the city plummeting from 141 last September to 74 by the end of the year. The airline is returning ten aircraft ” six Boeing 737s and four Airbus A320s ” to leasing companies and lightening orders for the next two years.
From 6 August, it will close the US Airways Clubs at Baltimore Washington International and Raleigh-Durham International airports, and drop its arrivals lounges in Munich, Rome and Zurich.
New revenue initiatives include: a $15 charge for checking in a bag for tickets booked after 8 July; a $25 and $35 service fee respectively (both up from $15) for domestic and international tickets bought through its call centre; $35 and $45 fee (up from $20) for tickets purchased at offices; $25/$35/$50 redemption processing fee on Dividend Miles award tickets issued after 5 August, dependent on destination; cancelling the bonus miles programme for Preferred status Dividend Miles members.
”Our industry is profoundly challenged by the dramatic increase in fuel prices, and we must write a new playbook for running a profitable airline in this new and challenging environment,” said US Airways chairman and CEO Doug Parker, who added the carrier”s 2008 fuel bill has ballooned by $1.9bn above last year”s.
Staff cuts will include around 300 pilots, 400 flight attendants, and 800 airport employees.
Continental has released details of the cuts announced earlier in the month ” it will drop 11% of domestic mainline capacity in the fourth quarter.
Services at Houston drop 7.9% from 3 September, where discontinued routes will include Washington Dulles and Reno, Nevada. From Newark Liberty it will halt services to destinations including Cologne in Germany, Salt Lake City in Utah, San Jose in California and Tucson, Arizona. And from its Cleveland Hopkins hub it will stop flights to Austin and San Antonio in Texas, Detroit, Memphis, Omaha in Nebraska, Ottawa in Canada, San Diego and Washington Dulles, among others.
Virgin Blue is reining in its planned capacity growth for 2008/09 by 6%, and dropping its weekly Sydney-Proserpine rotation from July and its thrice weekly Darwin-Melbourne rotation from August.
It is also raising ticket prices by an average $5 across around half of its Australian domestic routes, with immediate effect.