Q4 Revised by OAG Reveals Deeper Cuts

The latest scheduled uploaded to the Official Airline Guide (OAG) forced the company to revised its report on airline cuts and reveals that continuing problems within the U.S. economy are impacting airline operations with worse than expected declines in airline capacity this winter. The number of domestic flights is set to fall by almost 11 percent and capacity by 9 percent in the 4th quarter of 2008 compared to a year ago.
The U.S. domestic market will account for 21.4 million of the cutback in available seats, or 46 percent of the global decline, and a staggering 59 percent of the global drop in frequencies with 265,000 fewer flights. Some 219 of the world's airports are losing scheduled air service altogether, compared to the August figure of 275. Of these, 33 are in the U.S. which is 15 percent of the global total.
"The scale of the decline in the U.S. market is worse than the previous schedule analysis showed, with airlines taking 265,000 flights out of operation this quarter said Steve Casley, chief operating officer of OAG. “When you consider that the combined cuts from all the world's airlines totals 451,000 flights, then it really puts America's domestic capacity decline into perspective. For a complete report see the next issue of Regional Aviation News.