Delta stops West Coast flights at Logan
As fuel prices soar, carriers are dropping costly nonstop routes
Nicole C. Wong, Boston Globe, 6/3/2008 (excerpted)
Delta Air Lines Inc. yesterday said it will stop offering its daily flight between Boston and Los Angeles on Aug. 19 as record-high fuel prices force carriers to reexamine the viability of gas-guzzling nonstop transcontinental routes.
The cancellation comes a month after JetBlue Airways Corp. axed its plan to launch a daily flight on the same route starting May 21. And last week, American Airlines Inc. said it would discontinue its daily flight between Boston and San Diego as of Sept. 3.
As a result, travelers will have to take connecting flights or scrounge for fewer seats on airlines that are still flying the routes nonstop. Trips are likely to be more inconvenient due to stopovers or more expensive due to a lower supply of seats - maybe even both.
With fewer nonstop transcontinental flights, "capacity is going to go down," said Henry Harteveldt, principal travel analyst for Forrester Research Inc. And as a result, "fares are going to go up."
Nonstop service to eight West Coast cities is available from Logan.
Delta's move means flying on the carrier between Boston and Los Angeles - or any other city on the West Coast - will now require a layover in Atlanta, New York, Salt Lake City, or Cincinnati, said airline spokeswoman Susan Chana Elliott.
After its cut, American Airlines will offer six daily nonstop transcontinental flights out of Boston - two to San Francisco and four to Los Angeles International Airport. American's Boston-to-San Diego passengers will now have to connect through Chicago or Dallas and pay about 5 percent more. The Boston-San Diego flight is the only nonstop transcontinental service American has canceled as it begins reducing the number of seats it flies on domestic routes by 11 percent compared with the prior year.
"When you're a network carrier, you want to have flights that feed your longer haul routes," said spokesman Ned Raynolds. "US transcontinental flights, however, are one of the mainstays of our domestic system. American Airlines would think real hard before reducing any of those flights."