Downturn hits international travel

February 12, 2009 |

With demand for international trips in free fall, most U.S. and foreign airlines are cutting international service to and from the USA. They're reducing the number of scheduled flights or parking big jets and putting passengers on smaller ones to avoid flying money-losing, half-empty flights.

In March, there will be about 466,000 fewer seats ? about 15,000 seats a day ? on scheduled non-stop flights from the Lower 48 states to foreign destinations, according to OAG-Official Airline Guide flight schedules analyzed by USA TODAY. Industrywide, that's a 5.3% March reduction year over year. Some carriers have cut capacity to and from the USA by a third.

The heavily traveled business route between London and New York began to sag in the fall, after Wall Street melted down. Now, most international carriers feel the recession wherever they fly.

"This has the signs of being a travel downturn that's deeper and longer than the one after the Sept. 11 attacks," says Simon Talling-Smith, British Airways' top executive for the Americas. "This is a much more global downturn than that one was."

Get the full story at USA TODAY

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