The Saint Louis Economy is Still Struggling

Rumors are starting to swirl that American Airlines, still one of St. Louis's largest employers, will be removing St. Louis as a hub for its system and slash the number of employees here.

So...let me get this straight.

American bought out TWA in 2001 and everyone was thrilled because American said job cuts would be minimal. There were parties at the airport, because TWA was about to go into bankruptcy, which would certainly have been bad.

But in 2003 American cut the number of full-time former TWA jobs from 20,000 to 10,000. They closed a 500-person reservation center in the St. Louis area (the old TWA center, in fact). They fired every single former TWA flight attendant. Every single one, regardless of seniority.

Now they're slashing flights (again), and jobs (again).

Why were we all so happy in 2001?

You can say that American gave employees (well, not flight attendants, and not flight crews on overlapping flights - something like 3/4 of them lost their jobs) time on the job that they wouldn't otherwise have had. You can make that point, and yeah, you'd be right-ish enough to build a platform on it.

Frankly, I think that the age of flight is over. I think we've really reached a point with petroleum product prices that is going to force the airlines to cut routes, cut employees, and raise prices in order to remain competitive.

Good riddance. It sucks that people are going to lose their jobs, but the industry is in an unsustainable position now. Maybe some airlines will find a way to grow - JetBlue, Southwest, other discount carriers will expand to take over the open niches in the market. I honestly don't know. But lines like American, with their 40 different kinds of hardware, and their incredibly inefficient hub-and-spoke system, are probably doomed.

And St. Louis just got a little bit dimmer.