Airlines cut flights as demand dries up By Barbara De Lollis, USA TODAY No matter how quickly the United States unseats Saddam Hussein, airlines=20 are starting to bet against a fast rebound in international travel.=20 Singapore Airlines on Thursday cut 65 weekly flights =97 including 14 to=20 Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco =97 from April= =20 through May 31. Continental Airlines this week cut its schedule to London=20 and Tokyo from April through May 1. Airlines say international bookings are= =20 off sharply because of travelers' concerns about the war and terrorism. How= =20 fast they rebound is a worry: International flying generates about 30% of=20 annual revenue for some big airlines, and the usually busy summer season is= =20 not far off. More announcements are expected. American says it will cut=20 international flights by 6% in April by cutting selected flights to Europe= =20 and Latin America. It's not just vacationers that airlines are worried=20 about. Many businesses are restricting international travel to "essential"= =20 trips. About a fifth of the 123 large companies surveyed by the Business=20 Travel Coalition have banned international travel for at least awhile. "It= =20 could be well into 2003 before U.S. citizens feel relatively safe traveling= =20 again, and such a scenario would likely portend the collapse of the=20 domestic U.S. commercial aviation system," says Kevin Mitchell, head of the= =20 coalition. Travel agencies say they were flooded with phone calls from travelers=20 considering changing their travel plans, but new bookings fell. TQ3 Travel= =20 Solutions saw airline ticket sales fall 50% from normal volume, Rosenbluth= =20 International saw a 28% decline, and WorldTravel BTI, a 12% drop-off,=20 mostly because of lower demand for international travel. "What we saw after= =20 Sept. 11 is happening now," says Dee Runyan, a WorldTravel executive vice=20 president. "North Atlantic travel is drying up. People don't want to be far= =20 from home." Trans-Pacific travel is headed in the same direction, she says,= =20 because of the mystery illness scare. The World Health Organization issued= =20 warnings last week about a deadly, contagious form of pneumonia that's=20 being spread across the globe by air travelers. Most of the cases have been= =20 in Asia. Some companies are reacting differently: WorldTravel says bookings= =20 are holding for pharmaceutical companies, for instance, as well as for many= =20 companies' sales and consulting divisions. Consulting firm=20 PriceWaterhouseCoopers says bookings are holding steady, despite travel=20 restrictions for eight countries begun this week. Jones Lang LaSalle, a=20 commercial real estate firm, says its international trips are off 20% to=20 30%. Bob Rea, a senior vice president, says he doesn't expect the dip to=20 last long. "We think the risk is greater right now than it's going to be=20 later," he says. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.thehummingbirdonline.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************