(From The Jamaica Observer, 16 December, 2002) (Jamaica) American Airlines dropping Kingston/New York flight. American Airlines is cutting its Kingston/New York flight next February in a move the company said is aimed at returning it to profitability. The airline informed local travel agents of its decision last Thursday via e-mail and said the change would be reflected in all Customer Reservations Systems (CRS) this morning. "Effective February 01, 2003, we will discontinue our non stop-service AA flight 645/656 from and between New York JFK to Kingston. This will be reflected in all CRS systems on Monday morning," the American e-mail said. The cut will reduce to five, the number of flights American will operate between Jamaica and the USA - two each on the Kingston/Miami and Montego Bay/Miami route and one running the Montego Bay/New York service. "We had announced earlier that in order to return to profitability we are doing a system-wide capacity reduction," American spokesperson Minnette Velez told the Observer last Friday from her office in Puerto Rico. Velez declined to say whether the decision was based on declining passenger yields on the route. However, travel industry analysts speculated over the weekend that Air Jamaica's introduction of its 294-seater A340 aircraft onto the route was having some effect on American's passenger loads. American, with a fleet of 840 aircraft, is the largest scheduled passenger airline in the world and provides jet service to 172 cities throughout North America, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and the Pacific. Last year, it carried more than 80 million passengers. But, like most other large airlines, American has been losing money, especially since air travel nose-dived after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC. The full extent of American's losses in dollars could not be ascertained, but late last month the carrier announced that it had been aggressively cutting operating expenses and had identified more than $2 billion in savings that are currently being phased in. "The company is actively working toward achieving permanent, structural cost reductions of between $3 billion and $4 billion," American said. It also announced that it was "on target" for eliminating 7,000 jobs it previously announced in August. On Friday, Velez said the airline intends to cut other routes in its global network next year. This was corroborated by the e-mail sent to local travel agents. "As discussed with you in our visits," American said, "there may be changes in our global schedule as we continue with our plans to return to profitability." _________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail