Fewer Flights To Be Offered At LAX

(KFWB) 10.16.01, 9:55a --

United and Delta airlines both announced cutbacks in service at the Los Angeles International Airport today.

United Airlines, LAX's no. 1 carrier, plans to offer 40 percent fewer flights than pre-September 11 levels, when it carried more than one of every five passengers at the airport and employed 8,500 employees.

Starting December 1, Delta Air Lines will eliminate nonstop service from L.A. to Nagoya, Japan and Tokyo. Some Delta employees will be affected. It is unclear how many, and if they will be fired.

The number of United flights leaving from LAX are already lower, from 178 to 144 daily departures. By October 31, the airline will offer only 104 flights.

"We're in a fight for our survival plain and simple," Alan Wayne, United's spokesman in Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times. "So we're trying to match capacity to demand. The key thing here is that there are fewer frequencies, we can't deny that. But we're still operating in all these markets."

United had fought for years to be the biggest airline at LAX, the world's third-busiest airport.

-- PHO (owennos@bigfoot.com), October 16, 2001