United Airlines is already down 16 percent domestically for the last three months of this year, its vice president for industrial relations, Kathy Mikels, said at a Calyon Securities conference in September.

In Sao Paulo yesterday, United chief executive officer Glenn Tilton told ATWOnline that “more adjustments could be needed” as United lays off workers (7,000 so far in the current round) and assimilates the benefits of lower oil prices to shrink its operations and wheedle for federal approval for antitrust immunity on select code-share markets with Lufthansa, Air Canada and Continental.

“Adjustments,” of course, is corporate Goodspeak for “cuts.”

Antitrust approval in select code-share markets means “OK to fix prices and undertake quasi-mergers on certain lucerative routes without all the costs and legalities of an actual merger.”

Across the board, airlines are seizing the current economic crisis as a reason to slash as much capacity from the system as possible.

There is an analogy here, by the way, to the U.S. regional newspaper business. Gannett Newspapers, for example, are famous for slashing costs and jobs and allowing circulation to fall to the level where, readers be damned, the highest sustainable advertising revenue can be squeezed at the least possible cost in a monopoly market. The result was newspapers that had no news in them, but enough advertising to ensure short-term high profit margins. In a monopoly market.

That’s one thing, if we’re talking about the Bumbutt Bugle-Journal.

It’s quite another when we’re talking about the dismantling of a big chunk of a vital national transportation system.

And we should be talking about that, soon.

###

OAG has stats out today showing schedules for the fourth quarter, which of course includes the peak Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season: Domestic flights are down 11 percent and capacity is down 9 percent over last year’s fourth quarter.

OAG’s chief operating officer Steve Casley said: “The scale of the decline in the U.S. market is worse than the previous schedule analysis showed, with airlines taking 265,000 flights out of operation this quarter. When you consider that the combined cuts from all the world’s airlines totals 451,000 flights, then it really puts America’s domestic capacity decline into perspective.”

You can listen to airline PR or listen to this: Even the fourth-quarter published schedules are squishy, given empty airports and rapidly declining demand. My prediction is airlines will cut more flights by trimming the published schedules, and that the holiday travel season will be a great big bust.

The plane, an A330 carrying 313 passengers and crew, climbed about 300 feet from its 37,000 feet cruising altitude before “abruptly pitching nose-down,” according to the accident report on the Aviation Safety Network. The report says a possible “systems irregularity” combined with sudden turbulence was the likely cause. It isn’t clear yet what the “systems irregularity” might have been.

By the way, I just love the quote from an Australian air-transport safety official in today’s Wall Street Journal. He says, “certainly, there was a period of time when the aircraft performed of its own accord.”

Here on planet Earth, we define that as  “fell.”

A plane that abruptly pitches nose-down has a remarkable ability to concentrate the attention.

Here’s a detailed report in the Australian, a newspaper, with comment from passengers who literally hit the ceiling.

###

It seems that executives of AIG, the big fat insurance company we all bailed out recently to the tune of $85 billion, had themselves a swell executive retreat — right after the bailout — at a super-expensive Southern California oceanfront resort, the St. Regis Monarch Beach.

Here’s the $443,343.71 hotel bill, by way of a Huffington Post link today to the House Oversight Committee’s Web site report on hearings into the bailout.

Rooms at the St. Regis Monarch Beach run from $565 to over $1,300 a night, by the way.

Hey, it’s just dough, and it’s expense-accountable, right? And that $23,000 the high-fiving AIG swells spent on hotel spas during their week of resort R&R after the taxpayers bailed them out? Hell, they’d just been through a very stressful time, friends.

###

CUSTOMER — “What time does the flight to San Diego leave?”

AIRLINE CLERK — “What time can you get here?”

Good news for frequent fliers. In general, with airline traffic falling sharply, this is a very good time to redeem frequent-flier miles for award tickets and upgrades.

Meanwhile, Virgin America just upgraded its award-trip feature online. Here’s the announcement.

###

A month ago, Sun Country joined some of the big guys in alienating customers and added a fee ($12) for the first checked bag. Not that an annoying extra fee could put you out of business in this terrible economic climate, but it sure can’t help you keep customers loyal. Sun Country’s basic problems, of course, are the FBI investigation of its parent company (see post 9/25) and the credit crunch.

###

Southwest Airlines said today it will introduce priority security lane access for its Business Select and Rapid Reward A-List Customers at select airports.

Southwest said it will open the lanes, branded “Fly By,” at these airports later this month:

Baltimore/Washington International, Dallas Love Field, Phoenix Sky Harbor
International, Orange County John Wayne, Denver International, San Francisco
International, and Los Angeles International.

Southwest said it plans to add more airports to the Fly By rollout starting in November, continuing to implement the priority security lane program throughout its
system on an airport-by-airport basis.

To use the lanes, passengers must have an A-List identification card or a Business
Select boarding pass.

###