=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/chronicle/archive/2002/07= /31/BU137792.DTL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, July 31, 2002 (SF Chronicle) Discount airline shutdown grounds SFO passengers Ray Delgado, Chronicle Staff Writer San Francisco -- Waking up at the crack of dawn to catch a flight out of San Francisco International Airport was bad enough. But finding out at the airport that the airline had filed for bankruptcy protection was many times worse for Livermore resident Sue McKinnon, whose vacation was ruined Tuesday when Vanguard Airlines abruptly quit flying. The airline ceased operations Tuesday morning and filed for bankruptcy protection in Missouri, causing havoc for thousands of passengers in San Francisco and throughout the nation. "I'm upset, but I'm not going to waste my energy on being cross and cranky, " McKinnon said. "I'm hoping my boss will let me use my vacation another time." Having spent a bargain $240 on her Vanguard Airlines ticket from SFO to Kansas City, McKinnon decided to cancel her week's vacation with family rather than pay another $400 for a new ticket. The decision means she will miss a family reunion and her godson's baptism. "I'm going to wait and go another time, probably in October," McKinnon said. "The cost of the ticket is quite a bit more than I would normally pay." Instead, McKinnon and her four large pieces of luggage sat in the termin= al until her husband could pick her up and take her home to complete a 10-hour ordeal. "Good thing I brought reading material," McKinnon joked. Other passengers faced an uphill, expensive struggle to get to their destinations. Most of the airlines at SFO offered no discounts for stranded Vanguard passengers, and the few bargain tickets that were available were quickly snapped up. SFO spokesman Mike McCarron said the bankruptcy couldn't have happened at a worse time for passengers. This is the height of the summer travel season, and airlines aren't likely to cut fares on their few remaining seats. "The airlines are concerned that they're not going to get reimbursed" by Vanguard, McCarron said. "There's not a lot we can do to help." McCarron said Vanguard notified the airport duty manager early this morning that the airline would halt flights. The airline, based in Kansas City, Mo., operated four flights in and out of San Francisco daily and served 17 cities nationwide. The airline, which has never shown an annual profit in eight years of operation, said it would fire roughly 1,100 employees and have only a skeleton crew of 60 workers before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. A recorded announcement on its reservation line early Tuesday said that all flights Tuesday and today had been canceled, and that all other flights scheduled after that had been suspended indefinitely. The actions came the same day the Air Transportation Stabilization Board said it had rejected Vanguard's request that the federal government guarantee an $8 million loan for the airline. The board said the airline's "proposal did not provide a reasonable assurance that Vanguard will be able to repay the loan." Vanguard's downfall follows the bankruptcies of Midway Airlines and Sun Country Airlines in the past year and is partly attributed to the financial pressures that airlines suffered after the Sept. 11 attacks. In the second quarter, the nation's major carriers reported more than $1.4 billion in losses. Vanguard officials were not available for comment Tuesday but company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Scott Dickson told the Kansas City Star, "We have done everything in our power to avoid today's actions." Passengers who arrived early Tuesday for Vanguard's 8:10 a.m. flight from SFO to Kansas City were greeted by a photocopied sheet at the check-in counter informing them of the bankruptcy and telling them to call a phone number, which was often busy, or check Vanguard's Web site for further information. "They should have had somebody here to explain this to us," said Brandy Hawkins, who was trying to get home to New Orleans. "I called and confirmed my flight (Monday) night at 11 p.m. and they didn't say anything about this." Although she was frustrated by her ordeal, Hawkins said she was grateful that she had found a one-way ticket home on Southwest Airlines for $420, even though her friend had to take her to Oakland to get it. "That's not too bad," Hawkins said. "I don't have any other options. It's not like I can stay in San Francisco." Laurie Guidry of New Orleans paid almost $200 more than Hawkins to get back home on Frontier Airlines with her grandmother later Tuesday. She said she had learned a valuable lesson about the risks of turning to an airline with ultra cheap fares. "We did the whole Internet thing and (Vanguard) was the cheapest," said Guidry, who had bought a round-trip ticket to San Francisco on Vanguard for $280. "We saved major money, or so we thought." E-mail Ray Delgado at rdelgado@sfchronicle.com., Chronicle news services contributed to this report.=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2002 SF Chronicle