US flight cuts due to fuel prices

US flight cuts due to fuel prices

Soaring jet fuel prices have led several airline companies in the United States like the American Airlines and Northwest Airlines to temporarily stop their operations between important destinations. A few others like the United Airlines, the Delta and the Continental Airlines were forced to increase their fares to cope with the situation.

American Airlines, USA's largest airline, has stopped 15 round trip domestic services within the country and between United States and Canada from its two largest hubs -- Chicago O'Hare and Dallas-Fort Worth international airports due to escalation in prices of jet fuel. The cancellations include one roundtrip every day between Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta; Denver; El Paso, Newark, Washington Dulles; Houston Intercontinental, Kansas City, Chicago O'Hare; Toronto, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Tulsa and two each day between DFW and Austin. Not only that, soon it will also cancel one flight to Nagoya, Japan from O'Hare.

All these cancellations will be effective from Wednesday and will continue throughout the month of October after which they will review the situation. The likely date for this review has been given as 29th October 2005.

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"Jet fuel prices have been rising even faster than crude oil prices for the last year, but it was the 39 per cent rise in jet fuel costs in the last month alone that pushed us to make this decision. We have made incredible progress in lowering our operational costs for over two years now. However, skyrocketing fuel costs have eaten up all of those savings and more” said Dan Garton, executive vice-president of the American Airlines.

However, Northwest Airlines assured that although they are reducing the number of flights it will only be a modest decrease. The company will only stop Minneapolis-London and reduce Detroit-Paris flights adding to its already suspended New York – Tokyo nonstop.

United Airlines, country's second largest passenger air carrier, Delta and Continental Airlines have all hiked their fares in the range of $10 for one way trips and $20 for roundtrips.
However, two others – Southwest Airlines and US Airways – have decided not to take any immediate action based on the current fuel prices and will review the situation after sometime.