American shrinks May schedule, postpones service NEW YORK (Reuters) =97 American Airlines said Monday it will cut its planned= =20 May domestic flight schedule by about 2% and shrink its international=20 schedule by 13%, as the entire airline sector struggles to bring its=20 capacity in line with sagging travel demand. American, the world's largest= =20 air carrier, barely avoided filing for bankruptcy protection last week by=20 reaching tentative agreements with its workers for $1.8 billion in annual=20 cost cuts. But the continued economic slump, along with the war in Iraq,=20 are still beating down demand for air travel. To add to the misery,=20 airlines worldwide are dramatically cutting back on service to various=20 parts of Asia as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a pneumonia-like= =20 disease, spreads across the region and into other areas of the world.=20 American, the main operating unit of AMR Corp., said Monday that it will=20 postpone the launch of its planned service between Los Angeles and Tokyo=20 until next spring. American, which did not cite SARS as a reason for the=20 delay, said it expected "some strengthening of the marketplace" for service= =20 between Los Angeles and Tokyo by the spring of 2004. *************************************************** 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 *********************************************************