I stopped by today at the AA Ticket Office in Richardson TX (Renaissance Hotel, Campbell & 75) to buy a series of tickets that would have been too difficult to buy on the Internet. After finishing the purchase and thanking the agent for her good work (it was a difficult sequence of flights that had to match other flights by others in the party with adjacent seat assignments) she told me quite sadly that the office would close next week.
The offical line from HQ was that a ticket office is not a revenue generator and that costs had to be trimmed.
[This ticket office is in the heart of what we in Dallas call "telecom corridor" or "telecom alley" - it is flanked by world class companies and expensive residential neighbourhoods]
The agents all seemed more sad than angry. One person told me that she had been there for 16 years. They would all be relocated (in Dallas a relocation of five miles can turn an awful commute into a disaster commute).
I've posted this story on the General Travel Talk section because this is probably a sign of the future from all the majors. A smaller revenue pie must be matched with reduced costs which is difficult in an industry with high fixed costs.
Have any of you noticed any other clear signs of cost-cutting?