Industry group expects Labor Day air travel to be down

Passenger traffic on U.S. airlines will drop 5.7 percent this Labor Day holiday compared with last year, according to an airline industry group.

It will be the first year-over-year decline in Labor Day passengers since 2002, according to Victoria Day, a spokeswoman for the Air Transport Association, which issued the report.

The group attributes the drop to airline capacity cuts, high energy prices and rising airfares.

About 16 million passengers will travel on U.S. airlines from Aug. 27 through Sept. 3, down from 17 million passengers during the same period last year, according to the group.

Domestic travel on U.S. airlines is expected to drop 6.5 percent while international travel on U.S. airlines is expected to increase 1 percent. Airlines trying to adjust to high fuel costs and economic uncertainty are dramatically cutting their flight schedules this fall, which contributes to a drop in passenger traffic.

Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines is cutting its domestic capacity by 13 percent in the second half of this year compared with the same period a year ago, including cutting about 6 percent of its domestic capacity out of Atlanta in September compared with a year earlier.

AirTran Airways, which is based in Orlando and has its largest hub in Atlanta, plans to cut capacity by 7 to 8 percent during the last four months of this year.