Andrea Ahles American Airlines announced this morning that it will be cutting 700 maintenance and engineering positions.The Fort Worth-based airline said the job cuts are a result of the reduction of the number of planes in its fleet from 900 to 600. The cuts will affect management, union and non-union employees at several maintenance locations across the United States, but not at the Alliance Fort Worth facility."Our goal with these changes is to move toward a more flexible, cost-efficient operation that improves flow and takes into account the long-term impact of the recession on travel, deep capacity cuts across the industry, and a corresponding decline in the MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) business, along with the changes to our network and corresponding fleet size," said Carmine Romano, senior vice president of maintenance and engineering in a letter to employees.American also said it has finalized plans to close the Kansas City maintenance base by September 2010.