Oct. 09--Several weeks of flight delays and cancellations, caused in part by increased maintenance issues, pushed down passenger traffic at American Airlines by 2.8 percent in September, the airline said Monday, but its top executive says operations are improving.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Tom Horton said the Fort Worth-based carrier is working through a host of issues that emerged after a bankruptcy judge approved new cost-cutting contracts for some workers and allowed the company to reject its pilots contract. Most recently, the carrier was forced to inspect its Boeing 757s after rows of seats came loose during flight.
"Unfortunately for a couple of weeks there, it was very difficult on our customers," Horton said. He said the company's operating performance is "not yet back to the level we think our customers deserve and expect from American, but it has improved significantly since the period right after the contract rejection."
The airline, which has been in bankruptcy protection since November, saw its on-time performance drop to 59 percent in September, according to Flightstats.com. In that same period, Delta, Southwest and U.S. Airways were all above 85 percent.
American blamed some of its operational problems on pilots filing last-minute maintenance requests, delaying thousands of flights. The pilots union said it was not coordinating a work slowdown at the bankrupt carrier. Last week, the two sides resumed contract negotiations.
Despite lower passenger traffic, American said its unit revenues grew 4 percent in September, the sixth consecutive month that American topped the industry. Unit revenue is a key measure that tracks how much money an airline collects for every seat-mile flown.
"We feel very good about our performance, and quite frankly if it wasn't for the operational issues in the past few weeks we would have been at 4.4 percent," said Virasb Vahidi, American's chief commercial officer.
At its mainline operations, passenger traffic declined 2.9 percent while capacity dropped 3.4 percent. At its regional operations, which includes American Eagle, passenger traffic dropped 1.4 percent while capacity declined 2.7 percent.
Domestic passenger traffic was affected the most by the flight delays and cancellations, decreasing 7.1 percent with capacity down 5.5 percent. International passenger traffic rose 3.2 percent on 0.5 percent less capacity, AMR said.
Separately Monday:
Pilots at American Eagle ratified a new contract with the regional carrier. The Air Line Pilots Association, which represents 3,000 pilots at Eagle, said 75 percent of the votes cast were in favor of the agreement.
"Although none of us wanted to navigate the bankruptcy process during our career, we are pleased that this difficult chapter is now behind us and we can focus on moving forward, exiting bankruptcy, re-fleeting, and pursuing paths to grow our company and ensure that we sustain solid piloting jobs well into the future," said ALPA's master executive council chairman, Tony Gutierrez.
The agreement does not include pay cuts or cuts to pilots' seniority. However, the carrier's parent company has already announced that it will close its Los Angeles pilot base for Eagle as it outsources some regional flying to SkyWest Airlines.
Qatar Airways will join American's Oneworld alliance.
It will be the second Middle Eastern carrier in the alliance, along with Royal Jordanian. Qatar Airways serves 120 destinations in 70 countries, increasing the number of destinations available to Oneworld's international travelers, the alliance said.
"Adding Qatar Airways will significantly improve our connectivity between many of the destinations that are most important to those customers, so today's agreement with Qatar Airways will enable us to offer even more value," Horton said in a prepared statement.
It will take 12 to 18 months for Qatar to become a full member of Oneworld, the alliance said.
Qatar Airways does not currently serve American's hub at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. Its competitor, Emirates Airlines, offers nonstop service from DFW to Dubai and recently signed a multiyear alliance agreement with Oneworld member Qantas Airways.
This article contains material from The Associated Press.
Copyright 2012 - Fort Worth Star-Telegram
