air travel - USA Today - NWI’ve got to give USA Today some credit:  they know how to make eye-catching graphics.  Take, for example, the nice interactive illustration they posted recently, detailing the expected cutbacks in the airline industry across the US.  High fuel costs and a weak economy are forcing air carriers to pare both the number and the seating capacity of the planes they’re planning to send aloft—and the interactive map shows exactly where, and how, those cutbacks are expected, through next October.  The snippet to the right doesn’t do the real graphic justice—so check out the original.  It’s nifty.

Interestingly, Washington is one of only 8 states with a projected increase in seated airplane capacity. But it’s an anemic gain of just 1 percent.  USA Today projects a 5 percent drop in Oregon, and an 8 percent decline in Idaho.  But Hawaii is facing a 27 percent decline in air travel—a significant blow to the islands’ tourist economy.

High oil costs sure change everything, don’t they?