And so it begins. No, not the summer travel season, which also begins soon, but rather announcements of big reductions in airline service for the fall and beyond. American kicked things off today with this announcement:

AMR Corporation, the parent company of American Airlines, Inc., today announced significant reductions to its 2008 domestic flight schedule, including a fourth quarter mainline domestic capacity reduction of 11 percent to 12 percent from the previous year. It also outlined plans to retire at least 75 mainline and regional aircraft and unveiled several revenue growth initiatives, as the company responds to record fuel prices, growing concerns about the economy and a difficult competitive environment.

And specifically that means:

As a result of significantly reduced flying, AMR expects to retire 40 to 45 mainline aircraft from American’s fleet, the majority of which will consist of MD-80s but will also include some Airbus A300 aircraft. The capacity reductions will also result in the retirement of 35 to 40 regional jets, as well as a number of turbo-prop aircraft from AMR’s regional affiliate fleet.

American operates just under 300 140-seat MD-80s; the remainder of its narrowbody fleet is made up of 124 188-seat Boeing 757 and 77 148-seat Boeing 737-800.

American Eagle, American’s owned regional carrier, operates 25 70-seat CRJ-700 (not going anywhere) and 206 Embaer regional jets. The Embraers seat between 37 and 50 passengers (39 are 37 seat, 59 44 are seat, and 108 are 50 seat). Trans States and Chautauqua also operates an additional quantity of Embaer regional jets on its behalf as American Connection from St. Louis and now Miami.

American’s flights this summer from Charlotte:

Dallas-Ft. Worth: six MD-80
Chicago: 5 44 or 50-seat regional jets
New York – La Guardia: 5 44 or 37-seat regional jets
Miami: 4 44 or 50-seat regional jets
St. Louis: 3 50-seat regional jets

CLT impact: As the cost of operating a 37-seater and a 50-seater is pretty much identical, you’d presume the smaller planes would go. And that probably will happen.

You’d also expect the markets served by 37-seaters to be the most likely to be cut. In a general sense, that’s true. But Charlotte’s flights on 37-seaters are to LGA, a capacity controlled airport where slots are use-or-lose. And since American almost certainly won’t want to lose them, it’s doubtful that the New York flights will be cut. The same is basically true with the Chicago flights as well. At the outside, a one-flight reduction — CLT-ORD and CLT-LGA service is likely all of the existing (or close to it) or none on AA.

Miami does well for American, so cuts there are unlikely there too.

St. Louis? A wild-card, with a lot depending on what American does with its small hub there.

Dallas: Expect to see a reduction of one or two flights a day.

Bonus Observation: If NYC, ORD, and MIA all look pretty safe then what’s vulnerable? Try Raleigh, where American has a regional jet focus city with 65 flights a day, 46 of them on 37- or 44-seat RJs…