eagle92

Not exactly a great job at sugar coating is it?

http://www.amrcorp.com/news/october03/28_stl.htm

FOR RELEASE: Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2003
AMERICAN AIRLINES, AMERICAN EAGLE AND AMERICANCONNECTION CARRIERS TO OFFER 209 FLIGHTS TO 68 DESTINATIONS FROM ST. LOUIS LAMBERT INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

St. Louis – Beginning Nov. 1, American Airlines, American Eagle and AmericanConnection carriers will offer a wide spectrum of flights featuring world-class customer service and high reliability to the business and leisure destinations that St. Louis area residents desire.

"Starting Saturday, St. Louis becomes American’s fourth-largest hub in terms of daily network departures," said David C. Cush, American’s vice president – St. Louis. "The new schedule provides the flights needed by people who live here and those who want to come to St. Louis for business or to visit with family and friends."

"The traveling public will feel the effects of the scale-back of service at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport beginning Nov. 1," said by Richard C.D. Fleming, president and chief executive officer of the St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association (RCGA). "However, from the RCGA’s perspective, we recognize that the continuing 200-plus St. Louis daily flights by American Airlines, American Eagle and AmericanConnection represents a substantial base of continuing service, and is, in fact, more substantial than a number of other hubs around the country.

eye on american

what a stupid press release -- they must really take their customers for fools

i'd have more respect for them if they just came out and said they were #$%*ing their customers in the @$$

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AA EXP

lalala

Its soo nice to hear someone say the exact things that were going through my mind.

STL -- the black hole in the AA system.

RIP

lala

FWAAA

I'd just as soon not be routed thru STL anyway - so its downsizing from a real hub to a high-traffic focus city doesn't cause me any pain. And all too often in the past year or two the cheap fares tended to be STL connections.

wideman

Lambert is a foul airport -- enormously long walks between some gates, and very possibly the worst food concession of any non-totallydinky airport in the country. The sooner that AA rids itself of that place, the better.

lalala

I soo miss flying lgw-stl where I could actually make it through customs and immigration in 20 minutes unlike the mess I had to deal with in ORD and JFK.

Savvy Traveler

Lambert is indeed foul, but I will miss flying the old TWA 757s (which I love in First) and Super80s. TWA outfitted those planes with much better seats than AA, IMO.

MetairieTraveler

I'm not thrilled about flying through STL, too often the flight to MSY is departing out of gate C36!

But it was an option for getting into and out of New Orleans. Now I am forced to go through DFW (on Monday morning) as the ORD flight is too late and the MIA flight has really awful connections (2+ hours).

I would rather fly an RJ to STL on Monday morning than fly Delta.

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MetairieTraveler

If I have to fly, then give me a Maker's Mark and water.

ALARISstl

Your leaving out one minor detail. How about the AA Elite's that live in STL. We hardly share your opinions.

You can connect ORD & DFW and stay away from STL. Not exactly a viable option for us all of the time.

BTW, I've been to most of the small - large airports around New England. You have little room to talk!

Tango

I will miss the SEA / STL flights. Not that I took them very much but now everyone will be crowding onto my SEA / DFW flights.

Savvy Traveler

Not only that, but if I am reading AA's timetables correctly, SEA pax are losing the late flight into Seattle. That means the last westbound STL/ORD - SEA flights will leave 6-7'ish. Not exactly ideal if you're connecting from across the pond on a later flight.

elCheapoDeluxe

Yeah, but you can hardly justify making every city a hub based upon the elite who live there. STL elite still have a pretty darn good selection of flights.

I personally will not miss STL a bit.

IndustrialPatent

And AA's facilities at ORD, DFW, JFK and -- especially -- MIA aren't?

AA poured money into its ORD terminal (as well as LAX) just a few years ago -- even transitioning the old, manual flight information boards behind each gate to an automated television version (skipping over the electonic signs). Don't tell me they couldn't do the same at STL -- maybe not now, but in the future.

I'm not saying old, aging airports are bad -- I'm a DTW-based flyer who primairly flies NW/CO and, in many ways, I miss the old terminal & all its memories -- I'm just making a point.

[This message has been edited by IndustrialPatent (edited 10-28-2003).]

wideman

None of those airports will be mistaken for the Garden of Eden, but at least they're in real cities: places that significant numbers of people have a reason to visit for business or leisure. (OK, DFW is marginal.) St. Louis, on the other hand, is a woebegone sinkhole, bereft of even minimal amounts of economic or spiritual vitality. Except for the sudsmaker and a dog food outfit, I can't think of anyone who's headquartered there, and the cultural benefits seem to match perfectly with Mencken's Sahara of the Bozart. At best, St Louis is in a sad little group of places, like Cleveland or Milwaukee or El Paso, where there's no real reason to be there unless you got left there and haven't quite found the wherewithal to go somewhere else.

No offense to my former neighbors in the Gateway to the West, of course.

vatali

The beer company, the "dog food" company which is now a chocolate factory BTW (nestle bought them out). are 2. But what about Monsanto, SWB, Malinkrot, Boeing, and Mastercard. Not all headquarters, but all require lots of travel. A company I used to work for here, Amdocs, has headquarters in Tel Aviv. I used to take the STl-LGW, then connect to Tel Aviv. But don't get me wrong, I go out of my way to hit segements. it is the only way I could have made plat this year. I still don't like the new idea though, because I have to go to Canada lots next year and the cheapest routs are through DFW on AA. I hate flying 1 and 1/2 hrs south to fly north.