American Airlines cuts 7,000 jobs

American Airlines, the world's largest air carrier which is still losing huge amounts of money almost a year after the 11 September terror attacks, will cut another 7,000 jobs by March next year and reduce its fleet and number of flights.

American, a unit of Dallas/Fort Worth-based AMR Corp, said on its website it would retire 74 costly Fokker 100 aircraft and defer 35 aircraft deliveries in 2002. The airline will also "seek every opportunity" to defer or cancel new deliveries going forward.

AMR will take a charge against earnings, but the amount is not yet known, said its spokesman, Tim Doke. The job cuts will be widespread, he added, with about 40 per cent coming from the ranks of pilots and flight attendants. No cuts are expected in the maintenance and engineering side.

Demand for air travel is still off since 11 September, particularly from lucrative business flyers that big, full-service carriers such as American rely upon to generate profits.

American's cutbacks come two days after the sixth-largest US carrier, US Airways, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. That renewed fears that UAL Corp, the parent of United Airlines, might also file for bankruptcy. The industry has lost more than $10bn (£6.5bn) since the attacks.