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Airlines Slow to Ramp Up New Orleans Flights

By Dan Schlossberg
ConsumerAffairs.com

March 6, 2006

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After losing all of its big convention business through June, New Orleans reports flight levels rising gradually but still well below their 2005 peak.

Life is not easy in the Big Easy, where airline seats today are less than half of what they were last March. In fact, only Continental has restored its old service levels – primarily because many survivors of Hurricane Katrina now live in the airline's Houston hub.

The storm, which started Aug. 29, was followed by flooding that destroyed large chunks of the city. A quarter of the pre-Katrina population has left the metropolitan area, with much of it unlikely to return.

The return of convention business is equally uncertain, though many of the city's top hotels are in the mostly-intact French Quarter, which sits on the highest land in a city that is actually below sea level.

If conventions come back, airlines will have to come back too. So far, that hasn't happened.

Southwest, still the biggest operator at Louis Armstrong Airport, projects a June 2006 schedule that offers 60 per cent fewer seats than it had at the same point last year.

All carriers combined plan to fly nonstop to 33 airports by June, as opposed to 44 direct flights in June 2005.

For consumers, less service is actually a bigger bargain: prices are down 13 per cent in an effort to reestablish New Orleans as a business and vacation destination.

Another factor in the fare fall is the establishment of contractural agreements among airlines, local officials, and government agencies negotiating for groups of rescue workers needed for post-Katrina cleanup work.

Convincing airlines to come back won't be easy. Among those that re-routed planes were USAirways, which began service to Hawaii, and Southwest, which expanded in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Denver, and other airports.

Once the 42nd busiest airport in the country, Louis Armstrong lost its voice when the storm cancelled all commercial service. For weeks afterward, the airport's facilities were used to shuttle rescue personnel and to treat survivors of the catastrophe.

Carriers are betting that the city's long-standing reputation as a tourist magnet will restore more frequent service soon. By June, more than half (57 per cent) of the June 2005 schedule will be in place.

According to current plans, however, only Continental and American will operate anything close to their old schedules.

The wait-and-see attitude of the airlines makes sense: carriers will be watching to see if tourists, business travelers, and conventioneers replace government employees and relief workers as their primary passengers to New Orleans. When that happens, service levels should rise accordingly.

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