American to Add Bigger Jets on Austin-San Jose Route

Road warriors, take note: The Nerd Bird is getting bigger.

Citing customer demand, American Airlines will use 188-seat Boeing 757s on two of its three daily Austin-San Jose flights, upgrading from the 136-seat jets it flies now. When the new jets are added Dec. 14, first class will expand from 16 seats to 22.

"Six more seats in first class might not sound like a lot, but it can make the difference between getting an upgrade and not," said American spokesman Tim Smith.

American launched the 1,470-mile nonstop flight in 1992. The flight earned the nickname the Nerd Bird because the seats were packed with tech workers traveling between Silicon Valley and Austin.

For engineers, sales people and marketers, the flight is more than a convenient way to get to Silicon Valley; it is an extended workplace. Deals get done, contracts are signed and gossip is exchanged.

Empty seats are rare.

"It's almost always a full flight, and when you throw in all the roller bags and the suit bags, it gets real crowded," said Steve Taylor, spokesman for Applied Materials Inc., which shuttles hundreds of employees between Austin and its Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters on the Nerd Bird each month. "It's great there will be more seats. The bigger the plane, the better."

The expanded flights are just one example of the growing passenger business at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

In June, 743,459 people flew through Austin-Bergstrom, up 5.5 percent from June 2005 and slightly ahead of March 2006, which had been the previous record for the airport.

Through June, passenger traffic was up 9 percent at the airport over the same period last year.

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