KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Record fuel costs and fierce airfare competition are being blamed for American Airlines' decision to cut more than 500 additional employees at its Kansas City maintenance base.

In notifying affected workers of the job cuts on Wednesday, American officials said the possibility of the cutback has been known since the company eliminated more than 400 jobs at the base in December.

The cuts, affecting about one-third of the base's current work force, will take effect in June. They will drop the number of salaried and nonsalaried employees at the facility to about 900 - a far cry from the roughly 4,500 people who worked there as recently as 1990.