American to Add Flights Between L.A. and Bay Area

In a move further heightening competition in the California air corridor, American Airlines announced Tuesday that it will begin hourly service between Los Angeles and San Francisco starting May 1.

The move will increase the number of American’s daily round-trip flights between the two cities from 12 to 16 and counters recent speculation that the airline is losing interest in the California north-south market.

The service will operate from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The move comes on the heels of an announcement by Delta Air Lines that it will operate 16 round trips a day on the route beginning June 1. At present, Delta flies three daily round trips.

And just before Delta disclosed its plans, United Airlines said it was boosting its San Francisco-Los Angeles service to a flight every half hour between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

“I don’t think anyone is going to make money with three guys in there,” said Daniel A. Hersh, an airline analyst with Bateman Eichler, Hill Richards., a Los Angeles investment firm. “Somebody has got to lose.”

He said he thought that the added service by the three big carriers is a response to Southwest Airlines’ increased presence in California. Southwest has instituted a route between Burbank and Oakland beginning April 10. Burbank, he said, “is an acceptable alternative to Los Angeles International Airport.”

The corridor’s traffic, Hersh said, “is principally business travel. These are people willing to pay (more) to not wait an hour for a plane.”

Joseph J. D’Ambrosio, American’s western division vice president, said: “California is extremely important to American. Our historical presence in the market goes back to the earliest days of air transport in the 1920s.”