At Kansas City International Airport, Justin Meyer, manager of air service development, said he expected there to be a 16 percent decrease in seating capacity this October compared with October 2007.

Southwest and Midwest airlines have also shrunk seating capacity, adding to the overall reduction in schedules at the Kansas City airport. In addition, two newer airlines that provided frequent nonstop domestic flights to locations such as Columbus, Ohio, Austin, Texas, and Raleigh, N.C., have had to give in to the rising fuel prices and discontinue flights.

Sky Bus, which began in 2007, stopped flights in April, and ExpressJet announced Tuesday it will discontinue commercial flights beginning in September.

While they are experiencing capacity cuts, Meyer said KCI was in a better position than other airports of its size because of past success.

“The good news is the last two years were strong growth years,” he said.

In 2006 and 2007, Meyer said KCI acquired a few new airlines and Midwest “grew substantially larger.”

“We’re coming back to Earth while other airlines are feeling the cuts more,” he said.

Some local travelers are feeling the cuts, too, in terms of fewer low-cost flights and schedule options.

“We’re starting to see that schedules aren’t as good as they were in the past (for future dates),” said John Novotny of Travellers Inc., 831 Mass.

Anne Walters, general manager at Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 4104 W. Sixth St., Suite A, said the local effect of a national reduction in flights was minimal, but she expected that could change.

“I think what we’re finding is that the clients are becoming more inconvenienced with air travel as time goes on and it’s just more and more difficult, but they are still flying.”