American Airlines has announced that jobs are being eliminated as a result of the planned capacity cuts the airline reported last week.

"We now expect that approximately 1,600 jobs will be affected at this time, including reductions announced earlier that will impact the Kansas City maintenance base," said Jeff Brundage, American's senior vice president of human resources. "Jobs in airport services, cargo and flight service also will be affected."

The airline said 1,200 flight attendant positions will be eliminated nationwide, along with 300 airport services staff members and 50 cargo service positions. Flight attendant cuts will be made on a basis of seniority.

American plans to reduce mainline seating capacity, measured by available seat miles, by 7.5% in 2009 compared with 2008; earlier projections called for a 6.5% year-over-year decline.

"We are not sugarcoating the magnitude of what we, along with every other airline, are up against today in this economic climate," said American CEO Gerard Arpey.

The airline said the additional reductions represent a decline in mainline capacity for the second half of the year of about 2 percentage points beyond its previous guidance given on April 15.

As a result, in the second half of 2009 AMR, American's parent company, expects mainline domestic capacity to decline by approximately 7.5% and international capacity to decline by 5.5% compared with the second half of 2008.

With these latest changes, the company's second-half 2009 mainline domestic and international capacity will be down approximately 15.5% and 5.5%, respectively, compared with the same period in 2007.

"The cuts we implemented last year have been helpful, and as a result, we did not make major changes to our summer schedule," Arpey said. "But looking forward, we think an adjustment to our fall schedule is warranted, so we are making additional cuts beginning in late August."