TAMPA, Fla.--Jan. 31--The number of passengers traipsing through Tampa International Airport was down last year.
Total passenger count dropped 5.37 percent in 1995 compared with 1994, according to the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority.
Jim Johnson, director of airports for the authority, said the decline was mainly due to cutbacks in service and increased fares.
Continental Airlines and USAir each added 15 to 18 jets a day to their service in 1994. Last year, they cut those extra jets as part of systemwide reductions.
Then, USAir cut all of its intra-state Florida jet service in 1995. It replaced the jets with USAir Express, which uses turbo-prop commuter planes.
Meanwhile, American Airlines downsized its service at hubs, specifically in Raleigh-Durham and Nashville. American had been sending three flights a day to each of these airports from Tampa, but cut those flights when the hubs were downsized.
Finally, airlines raised air fares and that reduced the number of people who could afford to fly.
On the bright side, the total cargo pounds that went through Tampa International Airport increased 8.31 percent and mail pounds increased 0.1 percent from 1994 to 1995.
Those increases are due to both Federal Express and Airborne Express adding capacity during the year, said Johnson, and DHL Worldwide Express introduced new service to Tampa.
-----
ON THE INTERNET:
Visit "sptimes.com", the World Wide Web site of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times. Point your Web-browsing software to http://www.sptimes.com
----- CAI.A,FDX,U,AMR,ABF
No comments:
Post a Comment