JetBlue Airways, US Airways cut flights

Many airlines in the United States are cutting domestic flights and routes nationwide with a view to reducing losses incurred by the enormously high prices of aviation turbine fuel.

Aviation fuel price leads to more flight cuts

JetBlue Airways, the low-cost airline headquartered in the Forest Hills neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens, the United States, is doing away with one daily flight from Syracuse to Fort Lauderdale from January 5, 2009.

JetBlue Airways is the only airline that offers direct flights between Hancock International Airport, located 4 miles north-east of Syracuse, in Onondaga County, New York, and the south-east vacation spot of Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

JetBlue Airways has John F Kennedy International Airport as its home airport. In 2001, JetBlue began a focus city operation at Long Beach in Los Angeles County, California, and another at Logan International Airport, Boston in 2004. It also has focus city operations at Fort Lauderdale, Oakland International Airport, and at Washington-Dulles, as well as Orlando International Airport. The airline mainly serves destinations in the United States, along with flights to the Caribbean, the Bahamas, Bermuda, and Mexico.

JetBlue Airways started the Syracuse-Fort Lauderdale service in November 2007, but it proved to be very seasonal, with seats filled during the winter and empty in the summer and fall, according to a spokesman of the company.

He explained: “The company is cutting the route because of high fuel costs and it is an underperformer. With the unprecedented spike in fuel costs, we have to look at every route and pare them down where we can.”

However, he said JetBlue Airways “would consider bringing back the Syracuse-Fort Lauderdale service, perhaps on a seasonal basis, at a later date. This is a relatively new route that, with time, we feel would be quite successful.”

JetBlue operates 5 other daily flights from Syracuse’s Hancock International Airport: four flights to John F Kennedy International Airport in New York City and one flight to Orlando, Florida.

In August 2008, American Airlines had announced that it would cut direct service between Hancock International Airport and Dallas starting in October 2008.

According to JetBlue Airways, in contrast to Fort Lauderdale, its Orlando service has attracted a significant number of business travellers year-round and that the airline may consider adding Orlando flights in 2009.

JetBlue Airways had recently reported that it lost $7 million in the second quarter of 2008, compared with a profit of $21 million in the same quarter in 2007.

In another cut in flights by a United States-based airline, US Airways has decided to stop its direct its flights from Pittsburgh to Florida from January 5, 2009.

US Airways said it was resorting to this extreme step on one of its most popular routes because of high costs of fuel.

A representative of US Airways, according to media reports, also confirmed the elimination of the airline’s 24 weekly non-stop flights to Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa.

Once these flights are stopped, passengers of US Airways travelling to Florida will be routed through Philadelphia or Charlotte.

US Airways, the low-cost airline owned by US Airways Group, is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, the United States, and is the sixth largest airline in the United States. The airline, which flies to destinations in North America, Central America, the Caribbean, Hawaii, and Europe, operates hubs in Charlotte, Philadelphia and Phoenix, maintains focus city operations at Washington Reagan National, New York LaGuardia, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh and Boston.

At present, Southwest Airlines, AirTran Airways and USA 3000 Airlines run non-stop flights to Florida from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. AirTran has announced plans to increase traffic to Florida in September 2008.

Air traffic handled by US Airways accounts for a third of the passenger load at the Pittsburgh International Airport.

According to a statement from US Airways, the company is in the process of making Pittsburgh its worldwide centre for operation control, with construction on the facility expected to be over by the end of 2008.