FORT WORTH -- American Airlines will trim its flight schedule by 1 percent in the first half of November as it works through operational problems that have caused thousands of delays and cancellations in recent weeks.
The Fort Worth-based carrier said its on-time performance has improved the past few days but still isn't back to what customers expect.In an interview with the Star-Telegram, American Chief Executive Tom Horton said the schedule reductions "give us more fleet and crew flexibility.""We've disappointed our customers and that's not acceptable," Horton said."The way to make this company successful starts with doing a good job for our customers, and we all know that, especially in a time of restructuring. I regret that we've let them down, and they have every right to be disappointed."Horton said the delays and cancellations have affected revenue but would not discuss financial figures. Next week, American's parent company, AMR Corp., plans to release its third-quarter financial results.The capacity cuts, a continuation of a reduction to the October schedule, will not affect Thanksgiving service, the company said.In an internal note sent to American's managers Thursday, the company said it has reduced its cancellations by 27 percent and has improved its Transportation Department on-time rating by 16 percent."We are encouraged by the improvements we are seeing in some of the performance metrics we use to measure our operation, with some showing better trends than others," the letter said.The cuts "will give us additional time to ensure the operation returns to a more normal pattern," it said.Thousands of flights have been delayed or canceled the past few weeks, partly because of last-minute maintenance requests by pilots, the carrier said.The pilots union says it has not been organizing a work slowdown. The company also canceled dozens of flights last week to make repairs on half its Boeing 757s to prevent seats from coming loose.The airline, which has been in bankruptcy protection since November, saw its on-time performance decline to 59 percent in September, according to Flightstats.com. Its competitors, such as Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines, posted on-time rates above 85 percent in that same period.American's on-time performance has improved in the past week as the pilots union and the company's negotiators restarted contract talks.On Thursday, American's on-time arrival rate was about 77 percent, Flightstats.com said, and the carrier had canceled only two flights.The problems moved American from the business pages to late-night comedy shows."American Airlines has a new slogan," Jay Leno said on NBC's The Tonight Show. "Your seat is free to move about the cabin."Some travel experts advised booking on other airlines to avoid getting stranded on American. Low-cost rival Spirit Airlines picked on American with this ad: "We let low fares loose, not seats."Robert Mittelstaedt, an aviation expert and dean of the business school at Arizona State University, told The Associated Press that American must show more empathy for passengers."The biggest problem they have right now is the potential to lose their most-frequent fliers," he said.American has offered passengers a refund if their flight is delayed more than two hours and they choose not to fly.They can also switch to another American flight at no charge or fly on another airline if seats are available.The report includes material from The Associated Press.Andrea Ahles, 817-390-7631Twitter: @Sky_Talk
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Transcript: An interview with Tom Horton
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