More US airline service being cut: Is your airport on the list?

As cities reopen and air travel gradually picks up, the government is on the cusp of giving final approval to a lengthy list of cities that could lose some of their airline service.

The list is the latest attempt by the Department of Transportation to help airlines cope with a dearth of passengers and conserve cash amid stay-at-home orders because of the coronavirus while trying to make sure the communities still have airline service.

Before the pandemic, airlines could have just cut flights on their own. But as a condition of having accepted bailout funds under the federal stimulus, they must apply for DOT approval before stopping service to a particular city.

Recently, airlines have received permission to stop serving certain cities on an individual basis. But the latest move represents an attempt to take the requests as a group under a new system to let airlines drop up to five cities, or 5% of the cities in a network, whichever is greater.

If travel picks up, there’s nothing to preclude airlines from restoring service. The DOT didn’t spell out when it would issue a final ruling or when cuts would go into effect.

With the government’s comment period having ended Thursday, cities, members of Congress and chambers of commerce have tried to make their cases for why the DOT shouldn’t allow service to be cut.

The DOT stipulated that it would not leave any destination that had service before the pandemic struck without at least one carrier continuing to serve it. Also, the service cuts, to which it has already given preliminary approval, would expire Sept. 30.

The proposed service suspensions come as airlines are starting to see the first signs that passenger traffic could rebound as cities reopen. The Transportation Security Administration reported seeing the first increases in passenger counts above 300,000 a day over the Memorial Day weekend.