(Memphis) The news caught many off-guard and the announcement has a lot of people talking. Delta announced it is cutting its flights out of Memphis by a third.
A lot of people are concerned this is going to mean less flights at higher prices, but airport authority chairman Jack Sammons says he is working hard to prevent that from happening.
Airline ticket prices out of Memphis are already a hot topic.
“It’s outrageous,” said Southaven resident Irene Estrada, who travels to Wyoming to see her daughter. “It takes me a long time to find a ticket I can afford.”
Sammons says he got the news from Delta Tuesday.
“We met with Delta this morning, management of the airport, myself, and they informed us effective September the 3rd, they would be reducing flights out of Memphis approximately by a third,” he said.
Delta flights will be reduced from 94 flights down to 64.
One concerned citizen wrote News Channel 3 when he heard the news. We shared his thoughts with Sammons.
“He says that means the airport is going to be a ghost town. What do you say about that?” asked reporter Sabrina Hall.
“We are not going to be a ghost town, we are a metropolitan statistical area of over a million people here and there has to be service to accommodate that population,” said Sammons.
He says Delta leaving just creates room for other carriers to come in.
Business traveler John Messina says he hopes carries come quickly because he already has trouble finding flights, much less direct flights.
“It’s Atlanta, Detroit, it’s all over the place,” said Messina. “I spend a full day hopping around airports.”
With Delta dropping its flights by a third, people wonder if the stops, and prices, will keep climbing.
“Certainly, this is not good news but this isn’t effective until September and we’ll be working relentlessly to induce other carriers to come to memos to fill that void,” said Sammons.
In fact, Sammons says he plans to travel to Dallas next week to meet with Southwest Airlines in a continuing effort to add more flights in Memphis.
