As is happening everywhere, Huntsville will lose some flights
By MARIAN ACCARDI
Times Business Writer
marian.accardi@htimes.com
October to have 6.5% fewer flights out of Huntsville
The scheduled cutbacks that airlines have warned for months were coming will hit Huntsville in three weeks.
Delta Air Lines, which has flown nonstop from Huntsville International Airport to Orlando, Fla., since December 2002, will end that service Sept. 30, airport officials told the Huntsville-Madison County Airport Authority Tuesday morning. That will leave Huntsville with no direct flights to Orlando.
"That's a big loss for us," said Barbie Peek, the airport's marketing director. Orlando "is both a leisure and business market for us."
In other local cuts, American Airlines will drop one of its two daily nonstop flights to Chicago and two of its five daily nonstops to Dallas. American's new schedule also takes effect Oct. 1.
Carriers have cited soaring jet-fuel costs and record losses as reasons for cutting flights this fall, after the traditionally busy summer travel season.
Huntsville's October schedule will have 6.5 percent fewer flights, Peek said, adding that "the industry average for capacity loss is 15 to 20 percent."
Peek noted, however, that the airport actually will gain 1 percent more seats in October compared with a year earlier. That's because some airlines are switching to bigger planes here.
For example, American is switching from three regional jets and two larger jets for its flights to Dallas to three mainline jets and no regional jets, Peek said.
"We like the larger equipment, but the disadvantage is less frequency," she said. "The biggest impact of capacity loss is for the last-minute traveler. Seats become a premium."
Delta is discontinuing all of its point-to-point regional jet service to Orlando, Peek said, and Huntsville is one of the last five cities to be halted.
Passenger traffic at the airport fell 7.6 percent in August, compared with a year earlier, but traffic year to date is up 5.1 percent from 2007.