St. Louis blues: More American cuts

The people who run Lambert Field, the main airport in St. Louis, have a bond sale set for Monday. Nothing earth-shattering about this deal but its timing: it comes just as American Airlines says it will again slash its service at Lambert for the second time in less than a year. This cut, which starts to take effect in August, trims its total daily departures from 101 to 83, including all non-stop service to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and San Diego.
The totals may not seem drastic until you consider that back in 2001, when American bought St. Louis-based TWA, the carrier had about 415 daily flights at Lambert; within two years, that total had been cut to 207 daily flights, a total that has shrunk steadily ever since. Fitch Ratings airport bond analysts had already moved to downgrade the existing bonds issued by Lambert for renewal and enlargement because any replacement of the lost airline service "is uncertain in the near term."

(Photo: C. Williamson, Flickr)

Mergers, buying and selling

What a bad week - again. Layoffs and route cuts at American and Delta, a plea from US Airways. Some of it seems like a rerun, but this time there is something different. and it's not the repeated prediction/plea from the US Airways chief executive, Doug Parker, who again urged merger and consolidation throughout the industry. Parker has previously urged this course of consolidation, and went so far as to do one of the industry's few big mergers, the takeover of US Airways by Parker's America West.
But when you mention that, you pretty much have to mention the aborted merger of the old US Airways into United Airlines. Didn't happen (twice), ain't gonna happen. That's the difference: the other big voice for industry consolidation, United Airlines chief Glenn Tilton, has been quiet and his actions speak louder than words.
Tilton moved the other week toward making a major aircraft purchase, a multi-billion move that would effectively take United out of the running as a merger partner. (You don't buy a new fleet if you're going to merge because you have to know what kind of planes your merger partner flies.) Tilton may have other motives, including waving a really big pacifier before his unhappy pilots, promising them new planes if they'll just deal. But Tilton's big buy, even if you have some doubts about how real it is, seems to be United's declaration of independence.
(Illustration from the Association of Flight Attendants, which has some strong feelings about mergers and consolidation.)