By JOE SHARKEY
From Bill Shea:
U.S.Air Force's announcement on Thursday said that a
National Guard F-15 jet broke apart in midair on Nov. 2, 2007; the pilot
evacuated the plane safely. The breakup in mid air was blamed on parts
that didn't meet specifications; which raises issues ranging from national
security to potential legal action and even foreign sales.
"Thursday, February 28, 2008 3:35pm CST
In today’s 12:30pm EST airfare distribution Delta Air Lines raised domestic airfares by $10 roundtrip on the bulk of its route system. Over 18,000 city pairs show this new $10 roundtrip airfare hike affecting both leisure and business travelers.
This domestic airfare increase attempt follows a similar $10 roundtrip hike last week initiated by United Airlines and marks the 6th attempted system-wide increase this year. Three of the previous five attempted increases in 2008 have been widely “successful” (sticky) except on selective routes dominated by lower cost airlines.
This trend in airfare hikes closely follows a similar pattern as 2007, where 23 attempted increases resulted in 17 successful airfare hikes. Airfare increases are being driven by the unprecedented run-up in fuel cost, firm demand for air travel and limited seat capacity. Last week I had predicted at least one more increase this quarter and would not be surprised to see another as well.
(Update: I'm happy to give the spokesman for the Air Transport Association his say in his posted comments. But I cordially take issue. The airline industry has consistently failed to address the atrocious problems associated with mounting delays and the stranding of passengers on airplanes for long periods of time. Inadequate health and safety provisions for passengers are the issue. So is dishonest reporting of operations data, including flight diversions and cancellations. And if the ATA has problems with the passengers' rights movement's "mission creep" into areas other than stranded passengers, that is something the ATA needs to address with someone other than me.
We have a real and growing crisis in domestic air travel. I have never known passengers to be so angry, and much of the anger is prompted by bad customer service, indifferent management, and the expectation that every time you go to the airport, something unpleasant is likely to occur. Flight delays and cancellations are a routine occurrence. Every business traveler I know is fed up with the major airlines -- and these are people who understand the issues.
The ATA has blamed everybody but the major airlines that fund it for the problems. Yes, the air traffic control system is a mess and it's getting worse. Right now, it's being held together -- such as it is -- only by heroic efforts by controllers on the job. (And by the way, all those controllers Ronald Reagan hired when he fired the striking ones? They're all hitting retirement age).
Where has the industry been all these years as this obvious air-travel crisis developed? Paying top management big bucks, humiliating the workers they haven't fired, meekly going along politically with the F.A.A. as that inept government agency utterly failed to deal with congestion and outdated technology, that's where. Why hasn't the ATA been screaming bloody murder about the federal government's abject failure to bring the U.S. air-traffic system up to speed?
Instead, the ATA was busy putting together that silly "Edna" video campaign to try to blame the private jet industry for the problems of air-traffic congestion. Or applauding the risible White House stunt last Thanksgiving that opened a few military air lanes for commercial traffic, which of course then had to funnel itself right back into the same system.
The time has come for the major airline industry to cut the jive. Tell it straight. We are in a real jam, and it is going to be with us for years. NextGen is, as Mike Boyd calls it, "YesterdayGen" -- and even if NextGen does ultimately help alleviate congestion (which lots of people don't believe), it's more than a decade behind schedule, and still years away from operation. This is no way for a major world economic power to run its air travel system.
The sooner we all get on the same page, the better prepared we'll be to start finding solutions. Not all airlines are egregiously at fault, but the ones that are will simply have to start dealing honestly with their customers -- or government will step in. I'm convinced of that.
And yes, air fares will rise. We need to get used to that. In return, air service must improve. The airlines need to get used to that.)
****
Kate Hanni's Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights issued a "report card" on the industry today and it isn't pretty. Here's a copy: final2007reportcard.pdf
Kate's group is focused primarily on one issue: How airlines treat passengers who are stranded on parked planes, amid deteriorating conditions, for three hours or more. (In some cases last year, passengers sat in growing distress on parked planes for 12 hours and more). And what needs to be done to require airlines to provide for basic in-cabin health, sanitation, food and water; to give stranded passengers timely, reliable information, and to provide a way for people to get off stuck planes after a certain number of hours.
The airline industry is adamantly opposed to the group's push for federal legislation (bills are pending in both houses of Congress), insisting that it can handle the problem itself.
But it hasn't handled it. Instead, the industry's mouthpiece trade group, the Air Transport Association (ATA), has attacked Kate Hanni personally and, as shown in the following statement it issued today, has tried to muddy the issues.
Here's the statement the ATA issued:
"The Air Transport Association responded to a report issued by a consumer group critical of the airlines on customer service and delays, calling the group's claims baseless and not constructive. ATA went on to say that carriers are aware of the serious problems created by flight delays and noted that improving the country's outdated air traffic control system will address the core issue of delays. Steps have been taken at the individual carrier level as well as in concert with other stakeholders in the airport and government communities to address these challenges," the ATA said."
The disingenuousness in that statement lies chiefly its claim that "flight delays" are the issue -- and not airlines holding people for three to 13 hours in parked planes without adequate food, water or ventilation, and as passengers suffer through added indignities like unusable toilets.
How many stranded passenger instances have there been? Thousands, by Kate's group's count. By industry count, there were 462 flights last June alone that sat on tarmacs with passengers unable to move for at least three hours, and in many cases far longer.
Per usual, knuckleheads in the local press and cable network television media, who don't seem capable of doing reporting beyond what they've been told to put in their notebooks or cameras by the last flack they spoke to, keep confusing the issue.
No, NBC4 Washington, there were not merely "thousands of delays" in the air-travel system in 2007.
There were millions. Do the math. Industry data show that well over 25 percent of flights last year were delayed. There were 11 million flights. Allowing for the percentage of those flights that left the U.S. for another country (whose operational performance isn't reflected in the delay statistics), that still indicates that about well over 2 million domestic flights were delayed in 2007.
The ATA sniffs that criticism is not "constructive," while obfuscating the issue -- as if the Air Traffic Control system is responsible for not emptying overflowing toilets on stuck planes.
The airline industry doesn't seem to be getting the message that it had better sit up and pay attention to what it needs to do -- or will be legally required to do -- about stranded passengers and the crummy way they've been treated. “Who would think it would take a law to ensure passengers on a stranded plane get a drink of water and a working toilet?” New York State Assemblyman Mike Genaris, who drafted the landmark passeners' rights law that took effect Jan. 1 in New York State, asked me not long ago.
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[Left: The alleged perpetrators]
The British Airways start-up all-business-class airline OpenSkies has chosen its initial European city — Paris.
Here’s the .pdf of its filing to the U.S. Transportation Department.
dot-filing-openskies-of-ba.pdf
If it gets approval from the U.S., which isn’t expected to be a problem, the little airline will fly 757s between Paris and JFK starting in June.The airline recently found a slot at JFK amid uncertainty about whether it would need to use Newark as its U.S. port if Kennedy wasn’t available.
OpenSkies, which plans to expand starting later this year, will fly 757s configured with 82 seats, mostly in first-class and business-class. At least for the initial phase, there will be a token small coach section in the back.
The airline, a subsidiary of British Airways, hasn’t yet decided whether the Paris port will be at Charles De Gaulle or Orly airports.
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–Oh, this oughta work out real well. Amtrak is rolling out “mobile security teams” equipped with bomb- sniffing dogs (and armed, my guess is, with Uzis, flamethrowers and chucka sticks) to “randomly pull people out of line” at train stations for the good old once-over and third degree.
No explanation of why Amtrak suddenly decided to send out the bulls, more than 7 years after 9/11. These will be Amtrak employees, incidentally. Sleep well tonight.
For example:
***
PHOENIX -- A 65-year-old St. Louis man is missing after Amtrak personnel, mistaking his diabetic shock for drunk and disorderly behavior, kicked him off a train in the middle of a national forest, according to police in Williams, Ariz. ... Police said there is no station or running water at the crossing, which is about 2 miles from the nearest road at an elevation of about 8,000 feet.***
Anyway, the most feeble national rail system in the developed world says not to worry, the new in-house security measures will not cause the trains to run late. “This is not about delays,” an Amtrak spokesman told the Associated Press, in the non-sequitur of the day (so far). Hardy-har-har.
There’s a similar security program on the New York City subways, but it’s conducted by the New York Police Department, whose officers are highly trained, motivated, and generally aware that citizens are to be treated with civility unless they provide sufficient reason not to be. I’m not sure that’s in the Amtrak customer-service tradition.
By the way, the good old reliable AP failed to report when this new security program will start. (For some reason, some reporters increasingly overlook the “when” in the 5-W’s).
This week, on the Northeast corridor, is the answer.
Most security experts I know laugh at the idea of “bomb sniffing” dogs as an effective security tool for dealing with moving crowds. Stick a great big ham sandwich in a decoy bag, and that’s where the dog’s attention goes, they say.
Who can blame the dog? Better they should use “busy-body parrots” as security animals. I have two parrots, a big macaw and a little African gray. The little one is always ratting out the big one, and the big one screams bloody murder every time a jogger thumps down the street outside. And neither one can be distracted by a ham sandwich.
Meanwhile, consider the potential of the trained anti-terrorism wasp. USA Today actually did once.
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Cutting benefits is a perk! Yeah, that's the ticket. My jaw drops when I see an announcement like this from an airline, in this case US Airways this morning (italics mine):
“As part of out continuing efforts to provide valuable benefits to our frequent fliers, US Airways is making a change to our Dividend Miles program …”
Surely, you’d think, while this announcement is going to contain some PR jive, there must be some arguable small benefit for US Air’s most loyal (and profitable) customers hidden in the palaver. I mean, they say this is part of a continuing effort to provide valuable benefits.
Uh, nope.
Starting May 1, passengers who fly trips of under 500 miles no longer will get a 500-mile minimum credit, the announcement says. Instead, they’ll get credit for the actual number of miles flown. (Most major airlines credit a passengers with a minimum of 500 miles for any trip.)
If anyone has an explanation for this move — which seems certain to infuriate some of US Air’s most loyal customers, while providing very little benefit to the airline itself that’s evident to me — I’d love to hear it. Maybe I’m missing something.
Let’s say I’m a loyal flier on the US Air Shuttle between LaGuardia and Washington, a trip of about 200 miles. As of May 1, I will no longer get a 500-mile credit for each trip. Instead, I get credit for less than half that.
By the way, the current roundtrip US Air Shuttle fare between LGA and DCA is $679.
My response, if I’m that customer: Amtrak here I come. I-95 here I come.
As part of its “continuing efforts to provide valuable benefits to our frequent fliers,” US Air also is slapping a $50 per ticket “quick ticketing fee” on award travel booked online within 14 days of departure.
I just don’t get it. Why do airlines persist in putting out public announcements couched in language that is an obvious attempt at deceit -- on the level of a prevaricating seven-year-old? Do they really think we can’t see this baloney for what it is?
Earlier this month, United Airlines pulled a similar stunt. United blithely sent out an announcement that passengers buying nonrefundable tickets (read: most of us who aren’t traveling at the last minute) would have to pay $25 for a second checked bag. (Which used to be free).
United began the announcement of the new fee with these words:
“As part of its continuing effort to offer customers choice, flexibility and low fares, United is announcing a new, simplified checked bag policy …”
Now, compounding the idiocy was the fact that most of us don’t routinely check bags anyway, and very few frequent travelers check a second bag except on very rare occasions.
If United had simply said, in effect, “Fuel costs are soaring; the weight of those extra 50-pound bags each member of the Clampett Family insists on carrying on affects our costs, and we reluctantly need to charge a fee for that second bag in order to keep fare hikes under control …” — most of us might have seen the point even if we didn't like it.
Insulting your passengers’ intelligence is unwise.
But wait till the merger (s). You’ll be reading more about the “benefits” coming your way.
PS: Here are two sample comments about the US Air move this morning on Flyertalk.com:
"I just called UAMP about this since I fly the shuttle twice a week and they indicated that if booking as a United codeshare you would still get 500 minimum. The trick is not to book as true US in which case you'd get actual flight miles flown."
***
"So fuel is only expensive on flights of less than 500 miles?
"
Amid speculation that Northwest Airlines Corp. is close to reaching a merger deal with Delta Air Lines Inc., Northwest CEO Doug Steenland told employees this week that his airline's board will make sure any transaction is in the workers' best interest.
"I, the management team and the board of directors will not move forward with a transaction that does not benefit all of our key stakeholders: our employees, our customers, our shareholders and the communities we serve," Steenland said Monday in a recorded message on Northwest's employee hotline. "Any merger would have to put our airline in a safe harbor and offer long-term stability and job security for our front-line employees." ...
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Top: Air traffic, mostly private jets departing from the Super Bowl or arriving to pick up passengers after the game, around Phoenix last night just before midnight Eastern time.
Above: Flight arrivals and departures at Phoenix Sky Harbor and Deer Valley Airports, 6.50 p.m. (Eastern time) Friday
