Mesaba, Big Sky to cut seat availability by 5% MINNEAPOLIS (AP) =97 Mesaba Holdings said it plans to reduce available seats= =20 on its Mesaba Airlines and Big Sky Airlines subsidiaries by about 5% due to= =20 the weak economy, falling consumer demand for air travel and uncertainty in= =20 the airline industry. The carriers said they would fly fewer flights and in= =20 some cases smaller planes to reduce capacity. "Both of our subsidiaries are= =20 developing individual capacity plans tailored to their specific=20 situations," said Paul Foley, Mesaba Holdings president and chief executive= =20 officer. "Each company's management team is working to reduce expenses to=20 reflect current conditions while maintaining their high levels of=20 operational performance and customer service," he said. Mesaba did not say= =20 what impact the capacity cut might have on employment. Both carriers feed=20 passengers to hubs of Northwest Airlines, which recently announced a 12%=20 reduction in its seat capacity. For the nine months ended Dec. 31, Mesaba=20 carried 4.4 million passengers. Big Sky, a much smaller operation based in= =20 Montana, had 16,610 passengers. *************************************************** 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.carstt.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************