American Airlines announces layoffs in Kansas City

Thursday, April 7th 2005, 9:15 am

By: News On 6

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) _ Record fuel costs and fierce airfare competition are being blamed for American Airlines' decision to cut more than 500 additional employees at its Kansas City, Mo., maintenance base.

In notifying affected workers of the job cuts on Wednesday, American officials said the possibility of the cutback has been known since the company eliminated more than 400 jobs at the base in December.

The cuts, affecting about one-third of the base's current work force, will take effect in June. They will drop the number of salaried and nonsalaried employees at the facility to about 900 _ a far cry from the roughly 4,500 people who worked there as recently as 1990.

American, a unit of Fort Worth, Texas-based AMR Corp., has lost nearly $2 billion in the past two years. It also has maintenance bases in Tulsa, Okla., and in Fort Worth.

Under a 25-year lease with Kansas City that was signed in February, American must employ at least 700 workers at the base to keep economic development incentives from the city.

Workers at the Kansas City base earn an average of about $55,000 a year.