I don't recollect this being said this way. I think the journalist misunderstood a statement. Air lines are in fact flying more direct routes and they are using jets to do it. The turbo props that were doing a lot of the distribution out of Charlotte, Atlanta, Dallas, Philadelphia have been scrapped and replaced with small jets.
This is another wrong statement by the journalist. I don't think the journalist has a grasp of the issues that the Justice Department is investigating. Air passenger traffic is at an all time high. Just cutting routes a little bit is going to drive price up a lot.
Yes, in the last year or two airline mergers have cut a lot of service. Southwest dropped a lot of AirTran's routes. American is slashing US Airways routes. Ticket prices have adjusted accordingly. Justice Department is looking to see if airlines have colluded beyond these merger situations to manipulate the supply of seats.
But air traffic, particularly jet air traffic, has increased substantially in volume in the last 20 years. Journalist is being very sloppy here.