American Airlines Vows To Maintain Major Presence In St. Louis

American Airlines president Donald Carty has assured St. Louis business leaders the airline will continue to be a major player at Lambert-St. Louis Airport, even after another $2-Billion in operational cost cuts. Carty admits a lot of former TWA employees based in St. Louis have been discouraged by layoffs that have hit them harder than people who worked for American before the merger of the two airlines. But he says those layoffs are more a function of how their unions put them on seniority lists than it has been with the airline’s budget cuts. Carty says more layoffs are coming by May, as the company takes another 42 planes out of circulation and closes two reservations offices.