AirTran dropping route between Wichita and Chicago WICHITA, Kan. (AP) =97 Optimistic economic forecasts helped bring AirTran=20 Airways to Wichita in May, but fiscal reality has prompted the carrier to=20 drop one of its routes. AirTran will discontinue its two daily flights from= =20 Wichita to Chicago in February, airline officials and Mayor Bob Knight said= =20 Friday. "Chicago is a risky market because it is outside our network, but=20 it was something we thought was a reasonable risk," said Kevin Healy, vice= =20 president for planning at AirTran. "It just didn't work." AirTran was wooed to Wichita by the city's Fair Fares campaign, a program=20 under which area businesses pledged about $3.7 million in travel with the=20 airline. For its part, the city pledged $4.5 million in subsidies against=20 the airline's losses over two years. Five months after the AirTran began operation in Wichita, businesses have=20 spent about $885,000 of the money they pledged to spend in the first year.= =20 The airline used its $3 million first-year subsidy from the city in its=20 first four months of operation. Healy declined to comment on how much of=20 the losses could be attributed to the Chicago route. "For a variety of reasons, it is not economically feasible to continue the= =20 service (to Chicago)," he said. AirTran will continue its three daily=20 flights from Mid-Continent Airport to Atlanta. Healy said he expects the=20 number of passengers on that route to increase in February when the airline= =20 adopts more convenient departure times. Flights to Chicago will continue=20 through Feb. 4, but travelers no longer will be able to book a direct=20 flight on AirTran from Wichita to Chicago. City officials said losing the=20 route did not mean the Fair Fares campaign had failed. Knight called the=20 campaign and the city's partnership with AirTran and Frontier JetExpress,=20 which flies to Denver, a success. "This community identified high airfares= =20 as one of its most significant problems," Knight said. "The low prices are= =20 here because of AirTran and Frontier. If we lose those two airlines, which= =20 I don't think we will, we will lose those low fares." Since AirTran started= =20 in Wichita in May, fares at Mid-Continent have dropped 60 percent to 70=20 percent, Knight said, and there was a 36 percent increase in passengers=20 this November compared to November 2001. Healy said AirTran's venture in=20 Wichita has not done as well as anticipated, but he noted that expectations= =20 were based on economic forecasts that were too optimistic. "Most of the=20 experts were forecasting improvement in the summer of 2002, and that didn't= =20 happen," he said. The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site: Roj (Roger James) *************************************************** escape email mailto:ejames@escape.ca Trinbago site: http://www.tntisland.com CBC Website http://www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ The Trinbago Site of the Week: (TnT News) http://www.tntmirror.com/ (TnT News) courtesy of Roj Trinbago Website & TnT Web Directory Roj's Trinbago Website: http://www.tntisland.com TnT Web Directory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************