NEWS ANALYSIS : Better Airline Service Expected After Shakeout : Transportation: Travelers will find more convenient schedules and improved service. But fares aren’t likely to come down, analysts say.

Dramatic changes in the airline industry, symbolized by Delta Air Line’s purchase of Pan Am World Airways this week, will make it easier for American travelers to take a business trip to Berlin or vacation in Hong Kong.

But although service and flight schedules may improve, globe-trotting travelers should not count on any significant fare reductions in the long run, say industry analysts.

“The traveler from Bakersfield, or other cities that don’t have direct service, is going to find it much easier to make (international) connections,” said Robert Decker, an airline industry analyst at Duff & Phelps. “That’s the best benefit that passengers will get. I don’t expect to see any major impact on pricing.”

The additional flights and enhanced service are the result of an ongoing industry shakeout that has seen the nation’s traditional but financially weak international carriers, such as Pan American and Trans World Airlines, sell off routes to stronger competitors. The result is a troika of healthy contenders--American, Delta and United--for U.S. foreign air travel.

These winners have already boosted flights on their recently acquired international routes. For example, United Airlines on Tuesday said it will begin nonstop service between Los Angeles and Paris on a dormant route owned by Pan Am.

International passengers have also benefited from lower introductory fares and extra attention being lavished on them by U.S. carriers eager to lure customers on their new global routes.

“I think with competition being there from the European carriers, any of these (new) international carriers are going to go all out to please people in the beginning,” said Klaus Billep, president of Universal Travel System, a Santa Monica travel agency. “It’s vital to their survival.”

Delta, with sufficient financial backing, is expected to upgrade Pan Am jets and services that have eroded over the years. The Atlanta-based carrier also has an extensive domestic route network that it can use to feed passengers to and from Pan Am’s international routes.

The convenience of flying one carrier internationally--instead of switching from a domestic to a foreign carrier--will give U.S. airlines a major advantage over their international competitors.

Until the early 1980s travelers to Europe would have to take domestic carriers to large hub cities and then switch to Pan Am or TWA for their transatlantic flights, because the two carriers lacked extensive domestic routes.

Since the shakeout--and increasingly in the future--travelers will be able to take one airline from their hometown to their overseas destination, thus avoiding inconvenient baggage delays and layovers.

“U.S. travelers have often opted for a foreign-flag carrier because it wasn’t any less inconvenient flying British Airways overseas” than it was a domestic airline, said Decker.

But it is the financial and marketing muscle of American, Delta and United that may make them unlikely to ignite price wars with “desperation pricing,” a popular tactic pursued by both Pan Am and TWA to raise cash. “Maybe there won’t be desperation pricing, which has always been good for the consumer in the short term,” Decker said.

Morton Beyer, chairman of Avmark, an Arlington, Va.-based airline consulting firm, expects price cuts that will prove costly to both domestic and foreign carriers. For example, British Airways announced a recent round of price cuts on its transatlantic routes.

“I doubt that (the airlines) are going to find any pots of golds at the ends of their rainbows in Europe,” said Beyer. “There’s a probability of increased losses for all these airlines. Ultimately, somebody has to pay for that. In the meantime, everybody gets a free ride.”

But even if some U.S. carriers wanted to cut fares, they may not be free to do so. Unlike the deregulated U.S. airline industry, carriers on international routes must seek permission from foreign aviation authorities to raise prices or begin new service.

Aviation officials in such nations as Italy, Greece and Spain have also been extremely hesitant to grant price cuts or great access to foreign carriers, analysts say. It took United years of negotiations before it won Japanese approval to fly between Chicago and Tokyo.