Fort Worth, Texas-based American Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today to reorganize its finances, but the air carrier — currently the fifth busiest operator at McCarran International Airport — says there won’t be any service disruptions and business will continue as usual.
American has 25 flights a day to and from Las Vegas, primarily feeding its hub airports and focus cities of Dallas-Fort Worth International, Chicago O’Hare, John F. Kennedy International in New York, Miami and Los Angeles International.
With a 5.5 percent market share at McCarran, American is poised to leap to the airport’s fourth busiest carrier in a few months as US Airways continues to reduce its Las Vegas presence.
To Las Vegas, American is an important link to Central and South America, with more than half of its local schedule providing connecting flights to Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami.
Through October, American has flown 2.1 million passengers to and from Las Vegas, and October was the airline’s second-busiest month here. Flying from McCarran’s D gates, American uses twin-engine Boeing 737 and MD-80 jets on most of its routes, but also flies Boeing 757 jets on some flights.
American assured customers today that its operations and those of its commuter partner, American Eagle, would operate normal flight schedules today, that all tickets, reservations, exchanges and refunds are good and that customers affiliated with its frequent-flier loyalty program, AAdvantage, would not lose accumulated miles.
American had been the only U.S. legacy carrier not to file for bankruptcy protection, but aviation analyst Seth Kaplan of Airline Weekly said the filing was no surprise.
“The fact that AA filed for bankruptcy is not a surprise, but the timing is,” Kaplan said. “They had enough cash to wait but clearly realized their situation was unsustainable and would only deteriorate further by waiting.”
Kaplan predicted that American eventually would cut routes, lay off employees and ground aircraft. He believes operations to Dallas and Miami would be maintained, but that Los Angeles and Chicago “could be more vulnerable.”
American is the only airline with nonstop flights between McCarran and Miami, three a day, but the other four routes it offers have competition.
Kaplan said one prospect for American would be to merge with another carrier, possibly US Airways.
One of the factors cited in today’s filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York was American management’s inability to reduce labor costs and manage skyrocketing fuel costs. A statement from Transport Workers Union President James Little indicates American will have a rocky road if it expects any union concessions.
“This is likely to be a long and ugly process and our union will fight like hell to make sure that front-line workers don’t pay an unfair price for management’s failings,” Little said in a statement issued today.
He said aircraft mechanics and maintenance workers represented by TWU have saved the company several hundred million dollars over the past decade through boosted productivity and by bringing in work from other airlines.