I got a shock recently when I started looking for flights to Salt Lake City from San Antonio and found that Delta has aparently cancelled the direct flights between SAT and SLC. We used to have 2 or 3 a day and when going other places in the West, most of the time I would be routed through SLC.

Not sure when this happened -- last time anyone in my family flew between the two was last March when my nephew, his wife, and their two children under the age of three visited us.

We will now be forced to fly through DFW (which I really hate). Also, looks like all the flights between SAT and DFW are now the regional jets and not the larger aircraft. Certainly, Delta will no longer be my preference as a result of these changes. (Actually, it will probably all boil down to price alone now since the convenience factor has totally disappeared.)

I know that those living in many smaller towns have had to put up with this for years but I was really surprised since San Antonio is not a small town.

carrolldf:

Things are just as bad here in St. Louis. When American Airlines cut back last fall we lost numerous flights including direct flights to England. Many of the flights offered are as you say on the small regional jets. Offers on reduced tickets are few and far between.

Keeping my fingers crossed and hope perhaps another airline will come into St. Louis.

Sandy

Don't feel 'special'.
Many large airports have been losing flights.
USAirways has announced it plans to cut back to only 10 gates at Pittsburgh (from 50 recently). Many speculate that the company is going down the exact same path as Eastern, Pan Am and TWA and that it won't be around in 18 months.
LAX hit a nine year low for total flights last year.
SFO was off 28% through the middle of 2003 (compared with pre-9/11).
Miami traffic was off 5%.
Kansas City off 25%.
The list is long.

Delta has really moved to heavily relying on the regional jets. I hate them, but it looks like the wave of the future. We've always flown Delta from DFW to Florida on the big jets. Then last spring here we are schlepping across the tarmack and climbing up one of those moving ladders onto a regional jet. It made for a miserable flight.

duh!

Since September 11th, two major airlines have filed bankruptcy, all the airlines retain bankruptcy lawyers, a couple of airlines went out of business, and all the airlines have aircraft parked in the desert.

Airlines have tightened belts, cut costs, stopped service to unprofitable cities, cutback on flights and stopped other perks.

I'd be interested in hearing a city who has gotten more flights in the past 2 1/2 years.

Go: Guess which city I can think of? My hometown-- Long Beach, CA. For that matter, Ontario, CA should be getting more flights too. In congested urban zones like LAX, the outlying regional airports with large jet capacity and available (cheap) slots are getting a new look. LGB, with a runway that takes MD-11s and 767s, now has four major airlines (plus FedEx, UPS and Overnight Express) serving it (limited destinations, but what the hey...).

Durango lost American (non-stop to Dallas) and Continental (non-stop to Houston) last year. All we have left are United Express, America West, and a couple of smaller carriers. It is much harder to visit our family in South Texas now.

This is just a guess, but I would assume cities with a heavy leisure mix have probably done better than those which are more business-oriented. I haven't noticed New Orleans losing many flights since 9/11 and, in fact, new airlines have entered the market. Some airlines (Delta, for instance) have also increased the frequency of flights because they now fly smaller aircraft.

(Ironically, we did lose USAirways' 4 flights to Shreveport just today but that totals under 80 seats on all 4 flights!)