Norfolk, Like Other Cities, Sees Cuts in Air Service

By DEBBIE MESSINA

By Debbie Messina

The Virginian-Pilot

NORFOLK

Airlines have cut 12.5 percent of flights at Norfolk International Airport since last September, to control costs associated with higher fuel prices.

That represents a 10.7 percent reduction in the number of available seats.

Compared with other medium-size airports studied by the Air Transport Association, Norfolk has not taken as big a hit as most others.

The airline industry trade group sampled service reductions at 37 similar -size airports, and according to its findings, Norfolk fares better than about three-quarters of them, which have lost up to 35 percent of flights since the fourth quarter of last year.

The nation’s 30 largest airports have all seen flight reductions , according to a recent report by the association.

On average, airlines nationally have filed plans that will reduce flights by 9.2 percent – about 8.6 percent of seats – in the fourth quarter this year from the same period last year, David Castelveter, a spokesman for the airline association, said.

“While we’re not happy about the reductions, it doesn’t necessarily result in a corresponding reduction in passenger traffic,” Wayne Shank, airport deputy executive director, said.

For the first eight months of this year, passenger counts at the Norfolk airport were down 2.4 percent from the same period in 2007, Shank said.

Shank noted that in February, when the airport lost about 5 percent of its available passenger seats, it posted a 1.5 percent gain over the year before in passengers.

The airport closely monitors its passenger count because airlines make service decisions based on ticket sales. The numbers also are important because much of the airport’s revenue comes from passenger fees, parking and concessions.

Between last month and this month, the airlines cut 11 flights, or 700 seats, in Norfolk, according to airport officials. Continental Airlines discontinued all three of its direct flights between Norfolk and Cleveland this month.

Other destinations that saw a reduction in flights from Norfolk are Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, Houston and Newark, N.J.

The latest reductions will leave Norfolk’s airport with 84 scheduled daily departures, offering a total of about 6,769 seats.

“In most of the markets where there were reductions, the markets were pretty well-serviced,” Shank said. “We still have multiple fights a day in those markets.”

Meanwhile, US Airways added a flight between Norfolk and Washington’s Reagan National Airport this month. Fifty seats are available on that flight.

Debbie Messina, (757) 446-2588, debbie.messina@pilotonline.com

Originally published by BY DEBBIE MESSINA.

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