American Airlines cuts could further affect the Caribbean
DALLAS – American Airlines’ decision to cut another eight per cent of its workforce could further affect the Caribbean, airline and tourism industry officials said.
America’s biggest airline announced last Wednesday that over 6,000 employees may be heading for the breadline as it tries to grapple with record high fuel costs.
The Dallas, Texas-based, airline notified its flight attendants union that it will cut up to 900 jobs, effective 31 Aug.
The airline also said it expects to cut about 6,800 jobs, including some at its sister airline, American Eagle.
American plans to cut domestic capacity 11 per cent to 12 per cent this fall.
Overall, including international flying, that translates to a pullback of about eight per cent, the airline said.
Jeffrey Brundage, senior vice president of personnel at American parent AMR Corp., said jobs reduced will “commensurate” with the overall eight per cent cut.
American Eagle also announced a reduction in its Caribbean schedule from 55 to 33 daily departures out of San Juan from 3 Sept.
American Eagle said it would eliminate daily flights from San Juan to Aruba, as well as to Samana in the Dominican Republic. Both destinations will continue to be served daily from Miami.
The airline said its 33 daily flights to a number of Caribbean destinations would now include Anguilla, Antigua, Barbados, Bonaire, Canouan, Dominica, Martinique, Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Nevis, St. Croix, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Thomas, Tortola and Trinidad.
As a result, Caribbean tourism ministers, who met in Antigua last Thursday, announced a plan to set up several committees to deal with four critical areas – marketing the region, financial guarantees for airlines, issues concerning regional carriers, and hubs.
antiguasun.com
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Comments
I live in the eastern Caribbean. This whole song and dance of AMR is a bunch of baloney! Why can't people figure this out, it's just common sense! If a variable cost of operating a business goes up, you don't scale back your sales, you raise prices!
Let's analyze this. Let's say you make cough medicine, and sell it nation-wide. The cost of your formula goes up by 40%. Do you now sell in only 32 states, instead of 50, to save money? How ridiculous!!!
AMR is lying, or else they are going for a short-term boost to the financial statement, to keep stockholders happy. That will not work in the long run. What happened to the customer? I think AMR is counting on the government giving them another handout when customers run screaming to their representatives in government.
American owns all the Caribbean because they shoved out all competition. Well, I hope AMR goes bankrupt, they are a lousy company that treats their customers terribly, and doesn't deserve to be in business.
Now we here in the Caribbean have all these hotels and charterboats, and people have no way to get here for their vacation. (The flights were always sold out, all season!) Tourists would much rather have paid another $200 for their airline ticket, than not come at all!!!
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