
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 9, 1995                   TAG: 9503090077
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

USAIR WILL CUT 10% OF FLIGHTS

USAir plans to cut nearly 10 percent of its 2,500 daily flights by July in an effort to save more than $100 million a year and move back toward profitability.

Virginia markets, except for Washington National Airport, are to remain untouched by the cuts, the airline said Wednesday.

The reductions and a plan to add 70 new flights will reduce Arlington-based USAir's overall capacity about 5 percent.

USAir will substitute regional aircraft in areas where passenger loads have been too low to justify jet service, USAir Chairman Seth Schofield said.

``We indicated a month ago that part of the path to profitability is properly sizing this airline, a process that would lead to fewer planes and fewer people,'' he said in a written statement. ``The first step of matching capacity and demand is to cut 240 flights by July.''

"The new schedules are not fully drawn," said USAir spokesman Paul Tuck. "We know philosophically what we're going to do, but we don't have specifics yet."

Despite that, Tuck said, no Virginia destination is on the list for cuts in service except Washington National, which will see more small commuter planes and fewer jets.

At Roanoke Regional Airport, Executive Director Jacqueline Shuck said she is "not concerned, because USAir does well from here. Not every single flight is profitable, but most are."

And while the carrier plans to trim expensive jet service in favor of commuter planes that cost less to operate, Shuck said USAir's jet service from Roanoke enjoys the highest passenger counts. Of USAir's 27 daily flights from Roanoke, six use jet aircraft; 46 percent of the total 1,444 seats on those daily flights are aboard jets.

USAir has been struggling with large financial losses; it recorded a $322 million loss in the fourth quarter of 1994, triple that of the last three months of 1993.

Analysts called the move a good one.

``If they can reduce capacity to save that much money, I'd say it's a very excellent move on their part,'' said Lee Howard, president of Airline Economics International Inc., a Washington aviation consulting firm.

``They've been in severe financial difficulty for some time now. And one of the biggest problems is capacity and costs, which are interrelated,'' Howard said.

USAir said the cuts will be phased in beginning next month. By July, the number of flights that do not involve landing or taking off from one of the airline's four hubs - Baltimore; Charlotte, N.C.; Philadelphia; and Pittsburgh - will shrink to less than 10 percent.

``A lot of the reductions will be in markets where we already have substantial service,'' Turk said. ``So we're not abandoning markets. We're simply saying we're going to fly a little less often to match the offerings with the traffic.''

The 70 new flights will include flights to Frankfurt, Germany, from Philadelphia and Boston and to the West Coast from Charlotte and Pittsburgh, USAir said.

by CNB