American Airlines pulling out of Oakland International Airport from September 3

16 May, 2008: American Airlines, based in the United States and the largest carrier in the world, has decided to withdraw from Oakland International Airport, California, the United States, from September 3, 2008, after operating there for over 60 years.

The airline, owned by the Fort Worth-based AMR Corporation, cited high prices of jet fuel as the reason for pulling out of Oakland International Airport.

At present, American Airlines operates three daily non-stop flights between Oakland International Airport and Dallas-Forth Worth International Airport – accounting for about 1.5% of passenger activity at the Oakland Airport.

Marilyn Sandifur, American Airlines’ spokeswoman fore Port of Oakland, was quoted by San Francisco Chronicle as saying that pulling out from Oakland International Airport was a part of wider changes.

She explained: “American Airlines carries only 1.5% of the Oakland airport’s passengers – 216,000 people fly from Oakland to Dallas-Fort Worth annually. Other airlines, Continental Airlines and Southwest Airlines, may help offset the loss, and Southwest is starting Oakland-to-Austin flights this weekend.”

Because of the high costs of fuel, Aloha Airlines and ATA Airlines had stopped flights to Hawaii out of Oakland Airport.

The website mercurynews.com quoted Tim Wagner, spokesman for American Airlines, as commenting on the airlines’ cancellation plan: “Oakland is a victim of very, very high fuel prices.”

Earlier, American Airlines had said that it would reduce its domestic flying by 5%.

Wagner said American Airlines would do its best to accommodate passengers with flights out of Mineta San Jose International Airport and San Francisco International Airport. American Airlines currently has 36 daily departures out of San Francisco and 15 departures out of San Jose.

American Airlines is also doing away with daily service between Austin and Orange County, California; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; and Seattle. It also is stopping service from San Antonio to Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

That’s not all. American Airlines is reducing flights from Dallas-Forth Worth to Boston; Charlotte, North Carolina; Washington’s Reagan National Airport; Denver; Portland, Oregon; San Jose, California; San Francisco; and Tampa, Florida.

At the same time, American Airlines is adding one daily flight from Dallas-Forth Worth to Austin and San Antonio – raising the number of flights to each city to 16.

A statement from AMR Corporation said traffic at both American Airlines and American Eagle fell in April 2008 compared to a year earlier.

Traffic in April 2008 at American Airlines dropped by 6.6% to 10.79 billion revenue passenger miles from 11.55 billion revenue passenger miles a year before. (A revenue passenger mile is one passenger flown one mile.)

Also, the April 2008 capacity at American Airlines declined by 4.3% to 13.46 billion available seat miles.

The slump in both traffic and capacity in April 2008 was on account of a week-long cancellation of flights at American Airlines to inspect its fleet of MD-80 jets, the statement from AMR Corporation said.