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Airlines' Flight Plans Call For Lower Capacity

Tribune file photo by KELVIN MA

American Airlines service representative Tony Buchanon assists Beth Meeker of Tampa, who was traveling to Brazil last week.

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By TED JACKOVICS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 25, 2008

TAMPA Airlines seeking relief from rising fuel costs are trimming flights nationwide or using smaller aircraft. That's resulting in the loss of hundreds of seats on Tampa International Airport flights, compared with a year ago.

Tampa flights are expected to provide 220,073 weekly seats on departing flights in July, down 2.3 percent from the same month a year ago, according to the Official Airline Guide, an Illinois-based company that publishes travel information.

The number of available seats, the statistic airlines use to compare capacity, is likely to decline through the rest of the year, OAG schedules show, although the information is subject to change.

For August, a 7.2 percent drop is expected in Tampa, compared with the same month last year. The OAG schedules also point to declines of 9 percent in September, 6 percent in October, 10.1 percent in November and 5 percent in December, when compared with their respective months the previous year.

That means travelers seeking holiday flights might want to start shopping earlier than usual to get seats, although fewer seats means airlines can seek higher fares.

The good news is that Tampa International retains service to all of its nonstop destinations, airport director Louis Miller said.

"It helps that 30 percent of our traffic is business travelers," Miller said, explaining that airlines will keep certain routes if they can depend on a certain number of business customers to offset declines in tourism.

The cuts could have been worse. The Official Airline Guide shows that Orlando International Airport will lose between 11.9 percent and 13.2 percent of its seats per month between September and December, compared with a year ago.

Delta Air Lines, the No. 2 airline at Tampa International, said last week that it would cancel flights this fall between Orlando and 11 destinations, compared with two out of Tampa - Pensacola and Fort Lauderdale. Those two routes retain other nonstop service.

Meanwhile, Tampa International released May's passenger data on Tuesday. The information showed that the number of departing passengers declined 5.2 percent in May to 817,717, compared with the same month a year ago.

Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at tjackovics@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7817.

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