Major Airlines

After rushing to join the competitive fray at BWI, several small carriers have been forced to abandon service there, and larger airlines are carefully scrutinizing whether flights are making enough money.While there has been a recent flurry of cutbacks, the impact thus far has been minimal, as major airlines fill in the gaps with more flights. But more cuts by big carriers, like USAir and Continental, could alter the picture."I'd be surprised to see wholesale cutbacks, provided passenger demand is there," said Alex C. Hart, an airline analyst for Ferris, Baker Watts Inc. in Baltimore.

The golden years lost a little of their luster this summer when several airlines ended discount programs for seniors. But that's no reason to tear up your AARP card. There are plenty of deals, in the air and on the ground, for older travelers. A new online guide, www.seniordiscount.com, has expanded from 25,000 listings of travel and other deals to more than 115,000 since its launch last year, says David Smidt, the president and chief executive. Joan Rattner Heilman, author of an annual guide to senior discounts, is seeing no reduction in deals as she works on the 2003 edition of Unbelievably Good Deals & Great Adventures That You Absolutely Can't Get Unless You're Over 50, due out next spring (Contemporary Books; $14.95 for 2002 edition)

The United States and Britain, together with some of their major airlines, may be headed for a midair collision this week. Negotiations over a new agreement on trans-Atlantic service have broken down after a year of virtually no progress. The temporary authority given to USAir and British Airways to merge their trans-Atlantic operations expires Thursday. Transportation Secretary Federico F. Pena is under pressure not to extend it, or even to renounce the U.S.-British airlines treaty. Either move could have serious consequences.

Washington. -- The rate of absorption of clever but awful technologies into our economy and culture is difficult to measure on a long time scale. But clearly the pace has quickened with the relentless advance of electronic wizardry in combination with easy profits and a helpless public whose preferences are ignored.The interactive telephone -- push one if you want this. . . .push nine if you want that -- is surely responsible for some measure of psychic disequilibrium in the population.We are not yet at the point where 911 robotically responds with: "Push seven if a homicidal maniac is breaking down the door and you believe you are endangered."

America West Airlines, which filed for bankruptcy court protection late Thursday, is one of the few carriers created after deregulation that is still flying.The airline, the nation's ninth largest, said it would continue in service while seeking to reorganize its finances and business under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code.America West, which was one of the early success stories of deregulation, is given a fairly good chance of survival if it can develop a plan to continue without outside help.

It may cost more to fly by the first of the year, and for a change, soaring fuel prices will not be entirely to blame. Passengers can blame higher ticket prices on terrorists. Airlines are facing the possible loss of a federal program that, since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has provided carriers with less costly insurance than what they had been getting from insurance companies. The insurers, finding the risks too high, virtually abandoned the commercial aviation industry after hijacked passenger planes were rammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Electronic ticketing, which has the potential to save airlines considerable money, is off to a slow start.Until this summer, "ticket-less travel" was available only for trips in the United States and Canada, but now two routes to Frankfurt, Germany, have been enfolded in the system.Major airlines first offered electronic tickets -- or e-tickets, as they are called -- in 1994, with Southwest Airlines leading the way. Linda Rutherford, a Southwest spokeswoman, says that more than half the line's daily trips are now made using electronic tickets, and this seems to be the best any airline is doing.

In the Region InfoVista to move headquarters from Columbia to N.Y. InfoVista SA is moving its U.S. headquarters from Columbia to New York, where it already has located its North American operations, finance and human resources functions, and its Northeastern sales staff. The French software company wouldn't say how many jobs will be lost in Columbia, but officials said some of their technical support and customer service employees will remain at the office on Little Patuxent Parkway.

For 30 years, Southwest Airlines Co. has confounded competitors by offering cheap fares on short flights. Saddled with higher operating costs, major carriers have taken solace in the fact that the no-frills airline doesn't fly cross-country nonstop. That's about to change. Beginning Sept. 15, Dallas-based Southwest will offer twice-daily nonstop flights between Baltimore-Washington International Airport, where it is the dominant carrier, and Los Angeles International Airport for $99 each way. It will mark the first time the airline has offered regularly scheduled nonstop coast-to-coast service.

NEW YORK - David Neeleman, chief executive of JetBlue Airways Corp., surveyed the cabin of an Airbus SAS A320 jetliner during its inaugural trip, clicked on the public address microphone near the cockpit and made a marketing pitch. "If you like the flight today, tell your friends and family about us and we'll keep adding service," Neeleman said to 135 passengers as the aircraft cruised at 32,000 feet from Dulles International Airport outside Washington to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. JetBlue, a New York-based, low-fare airline with 21 jet planes that flies to 18 cities in the United States, is expanding routes and posting profits in an industry facing more than $6 billion in losses last year, company officials said.