Flights from New York airports to be reduced

Fewer passengers on flights out of the New York area airports and higher fuel costs are resulting in a reduction in scheduled flights and an increase in airfares.

The airlines are set to discontinue services that will end up leaving thousands of travelers stranded, who normally fly out of the major New York City airports.

Beginning in September, nonstop services between New York and 25 cities in the U.S. and abroad will be canceled, and services to an additional 55 cities will be cut significantly, according to FareCompare.com. FareCompare.com is a research site that analyzes flight fares, and has issued a report on fall flight schedules.

“We’re losing service to a lot of cities,” the chief executive of the research site, Rick Seaney, indicated.

In all, domestic capacity is likely to shrink by 13 percent, which means approximately 70 million seats, by 2009, according to data published by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

It is anticipated that small to mid-sized cities will experience the heaviest cutbacks in the domestic market, although some airlines are cutting frequency to larger cities such as Atlanta, which previously saw several flights daily.

The leaner schedules will certainly mean that many travelers will be forced to deal with less convenient times for arrivals and departures, flights that are more crowded, and stopovers on more routes. It is also likely that fares will increase as well.

www.panynj.gov