RIC to lose two daily nonstop flights to St. Louis
Richmond International Airport will lose its only two daily nonstop flights to St. Louis next spring under changes American Airlines is making to its hub network.
"We hate to lose access to any particular market," airport spokesman Troy Bell said.
However, "when you consider the state of the airline industry and the economy," he said, "the reality is there are going to be route adjustments."
Because of flight-schedule changes and financing arrangements announced yesterday, American Airlines passengers will see big changes from the nation's second-largest airline.
American will increase its flying in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami, but have fewer flights at Raleigh-Durham Airport in North Carolina, and at St. Louis, where American is giving up ground to Southwest Airlines.
American will drop the Richmond-St. Louis round-trip flights in April, Bell said. Regional carrier Chautauqua Airlines provides the service as AmericanConnection using 44-seat jets under contract to American Airlines.
"They're falling in line with all the other legacy carriers," George E. Hoffer, an economics professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who specializes in the transportation industry, said about American's changes.
"They are strengthening their 'fortress hubs' at the expense of any secondary operations they have."
St. Louis was RIC's 13th-largest market last year, Bell said, with 51,000 passengers traveling between the two cities, whether by nonstop or connecting flights.
Richmond passengers can fly nonstop to 19 destinations in the U.S. and Canada now.
About 3.35 million travelers used Richmond International last year, down 7.8 percent from the year before.
American Airlines is making a potentially risky move by taking on significant new debt at a time when revenues are being hammered.
The $2.9 billion in fresh financing and flight-schedule changes announced yesterday should quiet concerns -- for now -- that it is in danger of a cash crunch and a bankruptcy filing.
AMR Corp., parent company of American Airlines, said the extra funding it has received includes $1 billion in cash from an advance sale of frequent-flyer miles to Citigroup. The company is treating that money as a loan.
The Fort Worth, Texas-based company said it also has received $1.6 billion in sale-leaseback financing commitments from GE Capital Aviation Services, a unit of General Electric Co., and $280 million in cash in a loan from GE Capital Aviation Services secured by aircraft.
The "announcement positions our company well to face today's industry challenges and allows us to remain focused on the future and on returning to profitability," said Gerard Arpey, chairman and CEO.
Contact Peter Bacqué at (804) 649-6813 or
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Reader Reactions
ddub28:
I would not read the attempted acquisition of Frontier by Southwest an indication of interest in Atlanta specifically. With the failure of the acquisition, I don’t think you’ll see much interest from Southwest in ATL for a long time.
SWA was interested in Frontier primarily to ramp up their operations in DEN, Frontier’s hub, much more quickly than they can on their own. DEN has proven to be profitable for SWA and United has not shown the wherewithal to beat them back at their hub there. Had SWA managed to acquire Frontier, I expect that they would have shed many of the routes that were not in their current flight system from the schedule as they would not have the planes to put more flights to other non-DEN destinations from the outlying new airports. That goes against the SWA model. Say SWA wanted to keep ATL. It would not have wanted to fly ATL-DEN only. It doesn’t operate that way. They would have almost certainly wanted to open a station at ATL with ATL-BWI, ATL-LAS and ATL-MDW in addition to ATL-DEN. Even with the Frontier acquisition, SWA would not have had the planes to do that. Besides, it’s likely that SWA would have moved quickly to sell Frontier’s Airbus equipment and replace it with 737’s to maintain their maintenance and training efficiencies, further crimping equipment availability to sustain a station in ATL that was not already in the system. So the Frontier acquisition was much more about expanding their operations at DEN to add more flights within the current SWA route structure than it was about creating a toe-hold against Delta and AirTran at ATL.
High speed rail is fine for a relatively short commute. You could theoretically eliminate flights to IAD, CLT, PHL and maybe the New York airports. Except it doesn’t work that way in reality.
People who were going to fly to those airports as their final destination could benefit from the train. But most of the travelers to those locations are actually transiting to connect to flights to other locations. Take IAD, for an example. Almost NO ONE who flies RIC-IAD does so with IAD as their final destination. Driving would be more efficient. So most of those passengers are connecting to other flights which makes flying there, for many, more convenient, especially if they are visiting RIC rather than returning there.
That means, to make the high speed rail eliminate the flights, the train needs to stop at the airport or very, very close to it, or people are going to find it highly inconvenient to transfer from rail to the hub airport. I cannot imagine there will be a high speed rail line within 30 minutes of IAD, which is the closest major international gateway to RIC and a fortress hub for United. So those flights will continue. And which NY airport would get the line? LGA? Then your international travelers need flights to EWR and JFK. EWR? Would give Continental a huge advantage in the market as it is their fortress hub and damage every other airline at JFK. JFK would put Continental at a major competitive disadvantage and Congress would never allow it. And travelers to mid-town would still use LGA. If the rail line ran past PHL and/or CLT, you might be able to eliminate some short-haul flights from RIC to them.
So the number of flights being reduced is minimal. Few are likely to take a high speed train to farther points if a non-stop flght is shorter.
The fact is that high-speed rail is ideal if the trip is under 400 miles for point-to-point travel. However, for connecting travel, unless the station is in the airport, it won’t work. It will not eliminate flights outside the radius, even if the station IS in the airport. I don’t see taking high-speed rail to DFW over flying there non-stop from RIC on AA’s three flights a day, for example. In fact, there are a number of non-stops from RIC that, even with high-speed rail stopping at my gate in the destination airport, are not realistic options: DFW, MIA, BOS, IAH, MSP, FLL, MCO, ORD. Others, like CVG, are theoretically competitive by high-speed rail. But no one has proposed a high-speed rail line that connects Richmond with Cincinnati directly. The minute you add in a change of trains, the non-stop flight becomes more desirable at that distance.
So, the idea that high speed rail would make RIC unnecessary is complete unrealistic. It would reduce the need for a handful of flights per day AT BEST. You could ditch a few flights to LGA for people going into Manhattan maybe. Some of the PHL flights, perhaps. A CLT flight or two IF high-speed rail were even proposed to go there from here. And that’s it.
Oh and to do that, the train would have to be cheaper too. The cost per mile of trains thus far have not been cheaper than the cost of air travel, especially relative to speed of travel, since deregulation. Given the massive capital investments necessary to build high-speed rail, I cannot imagine it will be cheaper to take the train to NYC than it is to fly their on Jet Blue for most travelers, unless the government owns the rail and subsidizes it heavily. Then it would be high-speed Amtrak. Even the current Acela Express, if extended to Richmond, would not cut it for eliminating much of this handful of flights.
BINGO!
With high speed rail, and a little common sense, we would not need a bunch of airlines serving Richmond. We need to stop airline service to every little crossroads in America, especially one that is 100 miles from Washington, DC.
Brillant bholl… by your logic they should also get rid of the flights to DC, Philly, Charlotte… I mean, it’s only a 2 to 5 hour drive to get to those places. Heck, why not get rid of New York or Atlanta too. It’s only a few more hours. Then you can just shut down the airport b/c there isn’t many other places to fly!
You couldn’t pay me enough to fly Cattle Herd Air. The most uncomfortable flying experience in air travel.
Oh, forgot to mention the 40.00 plus tip cab ride into town each way from the airport in PGH.
Duh, even more….drive.
Pittsburgh by car. Six hours, $50.00 in gas and tolls. No brainer.
By Plane: six+ hours, 450.00 and treated like a criminal or an ememy.
Duh, drive.
Actually you can’t even get to Pittsburgh on a non-stop flight from RIC now! How ridiculous!
We need fewer airports and airline flights and more high speed trains.
It’s too bad. Flying non-stop to St Louis is a nice flight. Now travelers will need to stop at a hub (most likely Atlanta, Pittsburgh, or Detroit) before heading to St Louis.
So a 2.5 hour flight turns into an all day travel affair.
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