SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT (publ. 6/17/2009)

A story about American Airlines’ plan to drop flights from San Jose to Austin incorrectly said the airline was not canceling other Bay Area flights. American’s affiliate, American Eagle, will halt all of its five daily flights between San Jose and San Diego and will eliminate two of its seven daily flights between San Jose and Orange County. In addition, American Eagle will drop three of its five daily flights between San Francisco and Orange County. All of the changes will occur Aug. 25.

The “nerd birds” soon will fly no more.

That’s the name given to the flights of mostly electrical engineers, computer programmers and other tech-savvy passengers that American Airlines has been shuttling daily between San Jose and Austin since 1992.

Because the recession has cut sharply into business and other travel, American has announced it will discontinue its twice-a-day nonstop flights between the two tech centers as of Aug. 25.

“We’re bummed,” said Ed Nelson, director of air service development for Mineta San Jose International Airport, though he added he understands the airline’s rationale for dropping the flights.

“It’s probably the toughest time in the history of the airline industry,” he said. “The economy is quite soft, consumer confidence is weak and air travel is not something that is high on people’s list.”

Over the years, planes flying between several other regions — such as Boston and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. — also have been dubbed nerd birds because so many of their passengers work for tech companies. However, the flights from San Jose to Austin were the first, according to American Airlines spokesman Tim Smith.

“These were the original two,” he said, noting that the dropped route is one of many systemwide reductions the carrier is being forced to make because of the economy. American has no plans to drop any other Bay Area flights and might reinstate the nerd-bird flights if business picks up again, Smith said. But he added, “we’re in no position to promise at this stage.”

Once the flights are discontinued, passengers no longer will be able to fly from San Jose to Austin without a connecting flight from another city. Southwest flies once a day to Austin from Oakland International Airport, and United and Jet Blue each operate one daily flight from San Francisco to Austin.

However, for many nerd-bird veterans, making the Texas trip from another airport is less convenient than going from San Jose, said David Miller, a spokesman for Santa Clara-based Applied Materials, which manufactures equipment for making semiconductors and has operations in the Austin area.

“It makes it harder for our people to get to Austin,” said Miller, who estimated he’s flown the nerd-bird route 20 times over the years and noted that the planes were fun because they were full of tech engineers.

A similar concern was expressed by Drew Prairie, a nerd-bird frequent flier and spokesman for Sunnyvale-based Advanced Micro Devices, a chip-making company that also has major Austin-area operations.

“Of course we are disappointed in American Airlines’ decision to cancel the ‘nerd bird,’ and we hope that at some point they will reconsider the direct flights,” said Prairie, adding that the flights’ mix of tech competitors made for interesting trips. He described those on board as “mostly folks with laptops looking for plugs and trying to make sure they were being careful their screens weren’t visible, given the close proximity of other passengers.”

In 2007, San Jose’s airport averaged about 177 daily departures. But in 2008, that dropped to 162. And this month, the number is down to about 149.

It’s a similar story at Oakland, where the average number of daily flights decreased from 225 in 2007 to 190 in 2008 and this month is about 148.

No 2009 data on the number of daily flights from San Francisco was available Monday. But that airport saw its average daily flight total rise from about 1,040 in 2007 to about 1,062 last year, due largely to Southwest, Virgin America and Jet Blue launching operations there, said SFO spokesman Mike McCarron.

Not seeing American’s nerd birds roaring over Silicon Valley will be disconcerting, said Marc Casto, president of San Jose-based Casto Travel.

“It’s a popular route,” he said. “It is troubling that this is another flight that’s leaving San Jose airport.”

Contact Steve Johnson at sjohnson@mercurynews.com.