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Airline to cut flights to Vegas
| Friday, May 16 2008 4:17 PM
Last Updated: Monday, May 19 2008 7:54 AM
All flights between Bakersfield and Las Vegas will be eliminated as of Aug. 19, a spokeswoman for U.S. Airways said Friday.
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High fuel costs prompted the airline’s decision to cease the three-a-week service at Meadows Field, spokeswoman Valerie Wunder said.
“Unfortunately (pricey fuel) is the reality we’re dealing with right now,” she said.
The move follows this week’s announcement by Mexicana Airlines that it has suspended flights indefinitely between Bakersfield and Guadalajara, also because of fast-rising jet fuel prices.
On May 9 jet fuel cost 63 percent more than it did the same day last year, according to the Air Transport Association, an airline industry trade group.
U.S. Airways now leaves Bakersfield for Las Vegas at 9:58 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, and returns at 1:03 a.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays.
U.S. Airways has flown between the two cities since 2004, said Teresa Hitchcock, Kern County’s airports analysis and marketing manager.
The airline had said publicly that it would be reducing night flights to Las Vegas, but did not announce exactly which flights would be cut.
Hitchcock had been unaware of U.S. Airways’ decision to stop the Las Vegas flights. But she said the reduction wasn’t surprising.
“Just with fuel costs and those more marginal markets” such as Bakersfield, she said, “they have to pick it up where they can.”
She added that the flight was never particularly popular, possibly because of the flights’ odd hours.