Brazil Crash Was Primarily Caused by Air Traffic Control Errors, U.S. NTSB Report Finds

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board issued investigative findings yesterday that concluded simply that the Sept. 29, 2006 mid-air collision that killed 154 over the Amazon was chiefly caused by mistakes by Brazilian air-traffic control that put both aircraft on a collision course at 37,000 feet.

The NTSB report also cites a “loss of effective air-traffic control” as a probable cause of the disaster, as well as “systemic shortcomings” in Brazil’s military-operated air traffic control system.

The report then cites some "contributing" factors in the disaster.

"Contributing to this accident," the NTSB report said, were the "undetected" loss of transponder function on the Legacy caused by "inadvertent deactivation," as well as a breakdown in radio and radar communication between air traffic control and the Legacy on for 50 minutes before the crash.

The NTSB had a team that participated in the lengthy Brazilian military investigation into the crash. The Brazilian military operates air-traffic control in that country, and controllers are military personnel.

The Brazilian report, also issued yesterday, puts far more emphasis on blaming the American pilots and minimizing the air-traffic control errors. The pilots, who are in the U.S., have been criminally charged by Brazil.

The NTSB report describes the “probable cause” of the disaster this way, referring to the Brazilian airliner that went down with all on board as “GOL1907” and to the American Legacy 600 business jet by its tail number, “N600XL” The report refers to Brazilian air-traffic control as “ATC.”:

"The evidence collected during this investigation strongly supports the conclusion that this accident was caused by N600XL and GLO1907 following ATC clearances which directed them to operate in opposite directions on the same airway at the same altitude resulting in a midair."

It adds, “The loss of effective air traffic control was not the result of a single error, but of a combination of numerous individual and institutional ATC factors, which reflected systemic shortcomings in emphasis on positive air-traffic-control concepts."

It adds, "Contributing to this accident was the undetected loss of functionality of the airborne collision-avoidance-system technology as a result of the inadvertent inactivation of the transponder on board N600XL” and “further contributing to the accident was inadequate communication between ATC and the N600XL flight crew."

The report makes a striking contrast to the over 200-page report issued yesterday by the Brazilian Air Force investigative panel, which heavily emphasizes the allegation that the American pilots were largely to blame for the crash.

But the NTSB’s findings state that the Legacy pilots were “not in violation of any regulations” during the flight. Here are some of the findings from the U.S. panel:

---The Brazilian air-traffic controller supervising the flight handed it off "at an unusually early point" as it approached a new sector near Brasilia, losing a routine opportunity for a necessary navigational fix.

---As the Legacy entered the Brasilia sector about an hour before the collision, air-traffic control did not issue an altitude change order for the plane to descend to 36,000 feet for the next leg of the trip over the Amazon.

---Controllers supposedly monitoring the plane in both sectors were "unaware of the statue of N600SL’s altitude clearance" – that is, they did not realize that the Legacy was flying, as cleared, at 37,000 feet -- "and did not take positive action to provide an amended clearance, confirmation or appropriate coordination."

---Technical problems and confusion on the ground caused the controller handling "led to a misunderstanding" in the air-traffic control center at Brasilia about what altitude the Legacy had been cleared at.

---"The collision-avoidance technology aboard [the Legacy] did not function, likely due to an inadvertent deactivation of the transponder …" And "the flight crew of N600XL did not notice" that the transponder was inactive.

---On the ground, "ATC did not take appropriate action in response to the loss" of the Legacy transponder and continued to behave as if the Legacy transponder was operating properly.

---"Neither ATC nor the flight crew recognized the significance of the long time period without two-way communication …" and "ATC did not take adequate action to timely correct a known lost-communication situation with N600XL."

---Air traffic control mistakes in assigning and utilizing radio frequencies and sector-configuration radar "contributed to the breakdown in communication with N600XL and the accident sequence of events."

---The Brazilian military command that runs the air-traffic control system "did not provide adequate training and supervision" for controllers "to appropriately handle this situation."

---Contradicting suggestions in the Brazilian report, the NTSB found that "the evidence does not fully support" Brazilian assertions that inadequate training and flight planning of and by the pilots contributed directly to the accident.

The report by the Brazilian-military-run CENIPA panel -- whose conclusions a Brazilian judge said on Monday were not admissible in a court of law -- goes to great lengths to blame the Americans, while only sketchily conceding that air traffic controllers played a role. Four low-ranking Brazilian air traffic controllers have also been charged criminally in the accident, though the Brazilan Air Force is trying to remove them from civilian court jurisdiction to military jurisdiction.

Joel Weiss, an attorney representing the American pilots, Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino, said today of the Brazilian CENIPA report:

"In counterpoint to the NTSB report, the CENIPA report hides the real and obvious cause of this tragic accident. ATC placed these two competent flight crews on a collision course, traveling toward each other at the same altitude on the same airway. [The Brazilian report] also buries the fact that this was not only a result of major errors by individual air traffic controllers, but of institutional errors built into Brazil’s ATC system. The pilots should not be blamed for a string of utterly catastrophic errors committed by ATC."

A statement issued by ExcelAire, the Long Island charter company that had taken delivery of the new Brazilian-made Legacy 600 in Brazil just hours before it crashed, said it was "unsurprising" that the "heavily slanted" CENIPA report placed "unfair blame on these American pilots."

ExcelAire said, "It is a report by one branch of Brazil’s military, CENIPA, that must deal with catastrophic errors on the part of another branch of Brazil’s military, ATC. It transparently amounts to an attempt to save face in relation to ATC failures that should result in an international black-mark against the safety of Brazil’s ATC system and its skies."

David Rimmer, ExcelAire's executive vice president [and, along with me, one of the five passengers on the Legacy], said: "There is no reliable evidence that the transponder failure was reflected on the Legacy’s cockpit display. On the other hand, an important factor in the accident was the undisputed evidence of the failure of ATC to recognize the transponder failure and to provide increased separation as required by international aviation regulations. If ATC had increased aircraft separation as required, the accident would have been avoided."

I'll link to the Brazilian report as soon as I get a translation.

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More on Brazil Crash Charges: Judge Discounts Air Force Report in Criminal Case

More on the decision this week by a Brazilian federal judge to drop one of the key charges against the two American pilots in the 2006 mid-air collision that killed 154.

In his decision dropping one of several charges against the pilots, the judge also took aim at the Brazilian Air Force report on the crash that is expected to be released later today. The Brazilian Air Force is in charge of air-traffic control in that country.

The judge's ruling on Monday said that the Air Force report, which is almost 300 pages long "does not have any value in the trial" of the pilots (who are now in the U.S.) or the four low-ranking air traffic controllers who were also criminally charged in the crash.

The Air Force report "is not an official report produced under the scrutiny of the [courts]. Therefore, the judge cannot examine it and refer to it for one or another conclusion," federal judge Murilo Mendes ruled.

This is not the first time that the courts and the Air Force and federal police have been at odds in this horrible case. For over two months after the crash on Sept. 29, 2006, the American pilots were held in Brazil without charge.

On Dec. 9, 2006, hours after a judge ordered the pilots' passports returned, freeing them to leave the country, the police and military hastily cobbled together criminal charges in a last-ditch but unsuccessful attempt to keep the American pilots detained in Brazil. The pilots barely made it out.

As noted yesterday, the judge in Sinop on Monday dropped charges of negligence against the pilots, Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino, both employees of the Long Island air-charter company ExcelAire at the time of the crash. ExcelAire had just taken delivery of the new Legacy 600 business jet in Brazil and the pilots were ferrying it to New York with five passengers aboard [note, I was one of them] when the collision occurred.

In its ruling this week, the federal judge in Sinop, Mato Grosso, said that there was no evidence that the American pilots were negligent in the air-traffic control communications failures that preceded the crash.

He left standing against the pilots charges that they had failed to adhere to the original flight plan (the Legacy had been ordered to fly at 37,000 feet by air traffic control, rather than the 36,000 feet stated in the flight plan filed before take-off), and that the pilots were responsible, along with air traffic control, for not noticing that the Legacy's transponder was malfunctioning or otherwise off-line for 50 minutes before the crash.

The charges against the pilots, basically unintentional manslaughter and unintentionally exposing Brazilian skies to peril, are not extraditable under U.S.-Brazilian treaties. But the charges carry a possible prison term of there years in Brazil.

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[Thanks to Richard Pedicini in Sao Paulo for translations and updates.]

Brazil Crash: Key Charge Dropped Against U.S. Pilots

One of the charges against the two American pilots charged by Brazil in the Sept. 29, 2006 mid-air collision over the Amazon that killed 154 has been dropped, though others still stand.

Just before the expected release tomorrow of a lengthy Brazilian report on the accident, a judge in Mato Grosso state dismissed negligence charges against the pilots, Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino, both of Long Island. They were pilots of the Legacy 600 business jet that managed to land safely after the collision at 37,000 feet. [I was one of the seven survivors on the Legacy.]

The charge that was dismissed was of negligence, an assertion that the American pilots were at fault in radio-communications failures during the roughly 50 minutes before the crash. International pilots have said consistently that Brazilan air space over the Amazon is plagued in spots by radio and radar blind zones. The Brazilian military authorities responsible for the nation's air space deny this.

The Brazilians still are charging the American pilots with criminal offenses. One charge is that they failed to follow a flight plan that listed their designated altitude at 36,000 feet in the air space where the crash occurred. But it is not in dispute that Brazilian air traffic control had ordered the Legacy to fly at 37,000 feet.

The other charge centers around the malfunctioning of the Legacy's transponder, a radar-beacon-like device that signals the plane's location and triggers an automatic anti-collision system. A working transponder would have been the last possible chance to avoid a collision that had been set in place for 50 minutes. It is not known what caused the transponder to malfunction. The pilots remain charged with inadvertently causing the transponder to go off-line.

Both pilots returned to the United States in December of 2006 after being held in Brazil for more than two months. They are being tried in absentia.

On Wednesday, a nearly 300-page report by the Brazilian Air Force -- which operates the country's air-traffic control system -- will be released. The report will concede the air-traffic control and communications errors, but will also blame the pilots for inadvertently turning the transponder off and for not being aware that it was off till after the collision. Brazilian air traffic control also failed to notice that the aircraft was not signaling for 50 minutes, when controllers mistakenly believed the plane was at 36,000 feet.

At the same time the Brazilian report is issued, the United States National Transportation Safety Board will issue its own findings.

The NTSB will find that the probable causes of the accident were the air-traffic control orders to the Legacy to fly at 37,000 feet past Brasilia, and the complex on-ground communications and technological errors that occurred in air traffic control as the two aircraft, the doomed plane a Brazilian 737 that crashed in the jungle, unknowingly bore down on each other.

The NTSB will state that the transponder malfunction was a "contributing cause."

You may bet on the fact that some elements of the Brazilian media will inaccurately assert -- as they have in fact been doing for days as the report is selectively leaked -- that the Brazilian Air Force report blames the American pilots almost exclusively for the disaster.

I'll post a link to the full Brazilian report as soon as I have a translation. I'll post the NTSB findings as soon as I get the text.

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Alienating Elite-Status Passengers (Cont'd)

In a continuing quest designed evidently to alienate the very people who keep the airline afloat, United Airlines is peddling more perks previously reserved for its elite-status passengers, including priority boarding.

Dunno about you, but one of the reasons I maintain elite status (on Continental, which hasn't pulled these kinds of stunts and which treats its elite-status customers right) is priority boarding. This has noting to do with "elite" or "status," and everything to do with being able to get on the airplane quickly and find space for my carry-on near my seat.

On every flight I've flown in the past few months, the overhead bin battles have been intense. With checked-bag fees creating more carry-on bulk, the bins can't handle it. Flight attendants are distressed at the tension.

If you're one of the last 10 or 20 unfortunates to board on many flights, you often find yourself unexpectedly having to gate-check your carry-on, which is a huge inconvenience, considering that you had planned to have that bag and its contents available in-flight.

And I'm not talking about carry-on slobs here who lug on bags the size of juke-boxes that should have been checked in the first place. I'm talking about most of us who play by the rules and honor the social contract.

The checked bag fees have simply overwhelmed the bins.

The point is, priority boarding is a valuable perk. And in selling elite perks for 25 bucks and up, United is pulling the rug out from under its best customers. Again.

In the press release, by the way, a United worthy actually makes the risible assertion that adding more and more fees is a great way to allow customers to "customize their own travel experience."

Jayzus, who lets these guys out in public.

Here's the press release:

CHICAGO, Dec. 8 – Customers who want to breeze to their flights more quickly may now do so with United’s new Premier Line, the newest of the Travel Options by United.

Starting at $25, Premier Line provides priority access to three types of specially reserved lines that offer customers convenience at check-in, security and boarding, including boarding for connecting flights.

"When we asked our customers what travel services are most important to them, they told us that access to priority lines was something they value highly," said Dennis Cary, senior vice president and chief marketing and customer officer. "Premier Line provides convenient access to fast-track lines and is another choice for our customers to customize their own travel experience."

Premier Line is available in the U.S. at United’s five hub airports – Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington-Dulles – and at 9 other airports, including Boston, New York LaGuardia, and Seattle. It may be purchased at united.com when booking a ticket, while checking-in online, or anytime through the “My Itineraries” page at united.com. The option will also be available in the coming weeks at United’s airport kiosks.

United’s Premier Line service is offered to a limited number of customers each hour based on time of departure. Elite Mileage Plus members will continue to enjoy complimentary access to priority lines as they have in the past.

In addition to the new Premier Line service, customers may further enhance their travel experiences with other services from United’s Travel Options portfolio. For example, customers may conveniently ship their luggage overnight with Door-to-Door Baggage, and may choose United’s Economy Plus seating section that has up to five more inches of legroom (for elite Mileage Plus members, access to Economy Plus is complimentary). Also, with United’s Award Accelerator offering, starting at $9, customers may earn travel awards faster by multiplying the number of miles they receive when they fly.

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Let's Roar, the Pilots Want to Sleep

I love this story today in the aviation newsletter AVweb.com saying that the superjumbo A380 aircraft are so quiet in long-haul flight that off-duty Emirates pilots trying to sleep in the compartment near the flight deck are being kept awake. They're having a hard time sleeping because without the "white noise" effect of typical aircraft engines, they "can hear all the crying babies and flushing toilets" in the passenger cabins.

Last year, when I flew a Lufthansa-operated A380 on a shakeout flight with a full passenger load from Frankfurt to New York, the first thing I noticed on board was how quiet it was. So as someone who sometimes depends on noise-canceling earphones in flight and a portable white-noise machine for hotels on the road, I feel their pain.

[Correction: Please note the excellent comment below. On the Emirates A380, the crew rest compartment is poorly located (from the crew's perspective) aft, not forward by the cockpit.]

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Your Border Patrol At Work

I've been thinking about the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol lately because I'm often in southern Arizona and am always amazed when I encounter a highway Border Patrol checkpoint, sometimes as much as 50 miles from the border.

The drill is always the same. I'm on a rural highway in the desert. The checkpoint always has about a dozen uniformed agents and what appear to be some cops, all armed. The typical drill is, a Border Patrol agent, struggling through English as a barely second language, orders you to roll down your window and asks that you state your citizenship.

Say "United States" and -- presumably -- fit the approved racial profile, and off you go with a courteous "Thank you."

It always galls me because I have been pulled over by a federal agent who has no real police power this far from the border. I have been required to essentially prove my citizenship, well beyond the legal boundaries of a national border. Where, I always wonder, does the border zone legally end? In Oklahoma?

These intimidating checkpoints strike me as fundamentally unconstitutional.

But not wishing to spend the day in quasi-custody on some dusty desert pullover arguing the Bill of Rights with people who care only about when their shift ends, I say "United States," and I'm waved on.

Long way around the barn to note that one of the worthies from the Customs and Border Protection division of Homeland Security in Boston has been busted for ... hiring illegal immigrants to clean her home.

Here's the story from the Boston Globe.

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CUSTOMER: "What time does the Dallas flight depart?" ... AIRLINE AGENT: "What time can you get here?"

Whoa, lookit these operating numbers from the major airlines, all of which have now reported in on their November traffic:

Folks, people simply ain't flying. At least not anywhere near the way they used to.

United Airlines had a 17 percent drop in revenue miles flown in November, compared with November 2007. It was minus 14.5 percent for American; minus 10.7 percent for Continental and so on down into the high minus single digits for the rest of the mainline carriers.

The discount carriers that mostly fly domestic routes were all also off significantly: Minus 8.3 percent for Southwest; minus 7.8 percent for JetBlue.

Capacity -- reported as available seat miles -- was down across the board (except for Southwest, where capacity was basically the same as November 2007). But across the board, the capacity declines were exceeded by the traffic declines.

In other words, air travel is in a great big slump -- just as airlines (ya just can't catch a break, guys and gals in the airline business, and I feel your pain) are looking at the bonanza of under-$50-a-barrel oil.

Watch carefully for those fare sales, because more of them are coming.

Meanwhile, airline stocks remain in the tank because Wall Street doesn't have much faith in air-travel demand. Then again, what the hell does Wall Street know about anything.

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To Repeat (Again): Sometimes a Ride On a Business Jet Is a Real Bad Idea

Oh, my. The National Business Aviation Association has gone all defensive-crouchy today in reaction to what seems to me to have been very legitimate ridicule of the three Detroit CEOs' use of three private jets in November to make the 90-minute flight to Washington to argue for the $25 billion bailout (which seems to have inflated in price to $34 billion in a few short weeks).

It has been clearly stipulated here -- on numerous occasions -- that business jets make eminent sense as productivity tools for certain companies in specific situations and for exactly the reasons that the N.B.A.A. points out. Every company I know that uses them employs a mix of flight options -- commercial and private -- for carefully defined business reasons, including the need to get a crucial employee -- or team of employees -- to and from a destination, at the best value in terms of time spent on the road, and direct productivity.

Below is the N.B.A.A. e-mail to its members today, reiterating the case for the smart use of business aviation.

But the N.B.A.A. overlooks the issue at hand, because the use of business jets in this particular circumstance by the Detroit CEOs, swanning into Washington in Gulfstream splendor in these awful economic times to demand taxpayer bailouts, was just plain stupid -- worse, even, than the insurance giant A.I.G.'s half-million-dollar-plus hotel bill for a sales retreat at a St. Regis hotel in California, a mere week after A.I.G. got its own federal bailout.

The word for this in public relations is "optics" -- that is, a cognizance of the appearance of the thing.

"Optics," as any luxury hotel owner will tell you right now, is the reason lots of high-level corporate travelers are now staying at the Sheraton rather than that five-star hotel they stayed at till Wall Street sank the economy. Because of possible public perception, many are staying downscale for the time being, even though they may have utterly justifiable reason -- service, location, etc. -- to stay at the five-star.

Obviously, the Detroit automakers realized the optics problem of the company jets for use on a short hop to the capital, because when the Detroit grandees came back to Washington this week, they all drove cars. (And held forth in arranged media phone interviews on the road.) Why they didn't simply do the smart thing, which is fly commercial, is a question that can only be answered by the PR geniuses who make Detroit the special place it is.

Shortly after I first got into this end of the reporting business in early 1999, I began doing occasional stories on business aviation, which fascinated me.

Business aviation was at the time digging itself out from an economic slump that was partly the result of public attitudes toward scandalous abuses in the use of corporate jets in the 1980s. Remember the buccaneer RJR Nabisco chief F. Ross Johnson parading around golf buddies and even flying his poodle to join the family vacation, as he and other executives treated the company fleet of 10 jets -- known as the RJR Air Force -- like personal toys?

In 2000, when the business aviation industry was showing early signs of the spectacular recovery and growth period it was about to enter, I asked the then-president of the N.B.A.A., Jack Olcott, about that public perception, and resulting decline in business-jet sales that it had helped cause.

"To a certain extent the [business-jet] community brought this upon itself" with those abuses, he said, adding: "The excesses of the '80s were really only very limited examples, but they received tremendous media attention."

The N.B.A.A. statement (below) had the opportunity to make that point about the very limited example the automaker CEOs set.

Alas, it does not, and instead calls the perfectly legitimate media reaction to the extremely bad judgment of the Detroit CEOs "sensationalist." But I nevertheless suggest that anyone interested in this issue go to the N.B.A.A. web site and read the background material on the industry, which makes a very good case -- Detroit aside.

***

"Dear NBAA Member,

In light of the recent, overwhelming news coverage of the Big 3 auto executives' use of business aircraft, and the hearings on Capitol Hill this week related to the auto industry, I wanted to make you aware of NBAA's work to advocate for the business aviation community in the current environment.

As we know, the news coverage of the auto executives' use of business aviation, now in its third week, has taken a sensationalist view of not only the use of business aircraft by the Big 3, but the utilization of business aviation for any company, anywhere. As companies that use business aircraft know, these assets are essential business tools that provide enormous value to companies and their shareholders. Historically, studies – including those commissioned by NBAA – have reinforced this long-held view.

Like everyone else in our industry, NBAA has been frustrated by the mischaracterizations of business aviation that have been put forward, and we've been responding forcefully. As the story has unfolded, we have given interviews to a whole host of news outlets to correct misperceptions, inform reporters' understanding of our industry, and give context to the coverage. While we can't guarantee that our comments will be accurately portrayed or even included in every story, we have nevertheless pressed our case with CBS News, USA Today, National Public Radio, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Associated Press, Business Week, and many others – we are even talking with overseas news outlets.

Additionally, we're reaching out to news organizations, putting the resources in their hands that clearly explain why thousands of companies of all sizes, all across the U.S. look to business aviation as a solution to their transportation challenges, especially in a challenging economy. The information we've given the media is available on an online resources page that can be accessed from NBAA's redesigned web site, www.nbaa.org, or at NBAA's Media Backgrounder page at www.nbaa.org/news/backgrounders.

Of course, NBAA staff alone can't always respond to every negative story in every newspaper in the country, local television show, or posting on the Internet. Your participation is also needed, so that news organizations understand the true face of business aviation, and why it is so important not only for the businesses that rely on it, but also for supporting the growth of jobs, investment and economic activity in places across the country. If you're planning to write a letter to your local newspaper editor, or weigh in on the Internet, we hope the resources we've made available on our web site can also be used to help you assemble your comments.

Obviously, we'll continue to vigorously defend the industry as this story evolves. And as always, we welcome your thoughts and suggestions.

Sincerely,

Ed Bolen
President and CEO
National Business Aviation Association"

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Auto-Makers: So What's Your Story Re Corporate Jets?

Last I heard, the worthies who run Ford, GM and Chrysler were insisting that using corporate jets to fly to Washington to beg for a $25 billion taxpayer bailout, as they all did last month, was absolutely necessary because of efficiency, productivity and (snort) security.

Now we have this Mulally of Ford setting out today in a car for the long drive to the capital for a new grovel session tomorrow.

Hel-loooo: There is a way more efficient means of getting from Detroit to Washington than driving a Ford or swanning in on a $50 million Gulfstream.

It's called commercial air service. It's all the rage.

Somebody, please flag down Mulally at the Interstate rest stop and tell him the roundtrip coach fare between Detroit and Washington (nonstop flying time 97 minutes) is available at last-minute purchase today for $222 on AirTran and US Airways; $296 on Continental and $312 on Delta and United.

He can even fly Detroit's own, soon-to-disappear airline, Northwest. But the fare is $1,225 -- and you can't blame that disparity on the autoworkers wages.

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Delta Slashing Capacity

Delta Air Lines today announced a further cut of 8 to 10 percent in domestic capacity for next year and a 3 to 5 percent cut in international capacity.

Confronted with demand that keeps falling faster than they're been able to cut seating capacity and flights, airlines are about to line up to announce even more capacity cuts next year.

The result, as I have said for months, will be the start of a fundamental restructuring of the air-travel system in this country -- and it won't be good news for travelers.

Delta, which recently acquired Northwest Airlines in a merger, noted that despite the fact that oil prices have fallen $100 a barrel since July, the airline industry "now grapples with a U.S. economic recession that has eroded travel demand."

All airlines reduced capacity this year. United Airlines, for example, cut fourth-quarter mainline capacity by 16.6 percent.

Wisdom in the conventional media said that the already announced capacity cuts would likely suffice, as airlines benefited from a sharp drop in fuel costs. Some of us said otherwise, as air traffic obviously began to plunge and as airlines took a unique opportunity to downsize for the future.

Meanwhile, a day after Continental Airlines said that its traffic was off sharply in November, Southwest Airlines announced today that its November traffic was off 10.7 percent compared with November 2007. The average load factor was 63.2 percent, down 6.1 points. Load factor is the average number of available seats sold. Available seats were down a slight 0.4 percent in November, Southwest said.

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Airline Demand Still Falling

Air-travel demand is evidently continuing to fall at a rate greater than the ability of airlines to reduce seating capacity. This increases the likelihood that airlines will need to reduce fares until they get their capacity in line with demand.

Continental Airlines today was the first to report its operating results for November. The numbers -- all compared with November 2007 -- are compelling:

---Domestic passenger traffic was off 15 percent (and down 5.4 percent internationally).

---Domestic seats available were down 12.4 percent. (So the drop in actual traffic exceeded the drop in seating capacity).

---Domestic average load factors -- the percentage of seats sold on an airplane -- was down 2.5 points, to 83.1 percent (and down 2.4 points to 77.4 percent internationally). Load factors in the 80s are still amazing, meaning that on most flights, every seat is sold -- but the drop is notable.

Meanwhile, shares of U.S. airlines tumbled today. The stock market in general tanked today, of course, but Reuters reports that the airline stock decline outpaced the overfall decline in the Dow Jones average and attributed it to "speculation that [airline] bookings may suffer more now that the nation's economy has officially been declared to be in recession."

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To Repeat: Sometimes a Ride on a Business Jet Is a Real Bad Idea

It isn't often that I disagree with my learned friend Michael Boyd, of the Boyd Group aviation consultancy. But today I do.

In his always-compelling "Hot Flash" weekly essay on his company's Web site Aviationplanning.com, Mike today lights into those of us who have condemned as tone-deaf the chief executives of the Big Three auto makers, each of whom used a private company jet to travel to Washington a few weeks ago to ask Congress for a $25 billion bailout.

His essay today is headlined: "It's OK for Al Gore, But Not for GM: The New Evil: Business Jets!"

Well, I would respectfully argue, it is indeed OK for Al Gore (a private citizen who is not seeking a taxpayer bailout and who did not run an auto-maker into the ground), and but not for GM, to be swanning into Washington on a $50 million private jet. As we all recall, the Detroit worthies were looking for taxpayer rescue after decades of gross mismanagement.

As I said here earlier, business jets can make good sense as productivity tools, not just for valuable top management to travel but for middle-management teams, technology teams and others who need to be somewhere fast -- especially somewhere without good commercial air service -- for solid bottom-line reasons.

Mike writes today: "The [Detroit] CEOs looked like Team Nebbish From The Planet Motown. But the real story came later. A vigilant TV network correspondent discovered, no doubt after five minutes of earnest research and a cab ride to Reagan National, that the CEOs, coming to Washington to ask for taxpayer money, actually flew, yes!, private jets!

"The outrage! They're losing billions, and they have the fat-cat crust to fly in private corporate jets down to Washington to beg for money! The fat pigs! They could have flown commercial, just like the rest of us! Congress, don't give 'em diddly.

"And that became the fodder for every indignant talk show host on the air. Nobody dared ask any questions. It was now dogma, and don't argue: These CEOs are pigs who have killed off their companies, then run to Washington in luxurious private jets asking for our hard-earned dollars.

"Well, here's a flash for the intellectual fundamentalists who are so righteously calling for these CEOs' heads, based on the mob-belief that they sipped champagne and smoked Davidoff 25s on the way to Washington, while the rest of us were having our toiletries examined in the TSA line at DCA: Those executives did the right thing. They should have taken those corporate aircraft to Washington."

And the Detroit worthies should have argued along these lines, Mike says:

"First, we have a corporate flight department because in many instances it allows us to move our people far more efficiently than commercial air. Time in our business can be critically expensive. When we need to move a team of production engineers from Lansing to our plant in Shreveport to fix a line problem, commercial flights would take all day -- or, depending on the time the failure takes place, more than a day. ...

"In my case, yes, I did utilize corporate aviation assets to get to Washington. I fully intend to do so again should a similar event arise. To do otherwise would be irresponsible to my shareholders, employees and investors. I report to them, not to gadfly reporters, or to inept agenda-laden 'environmentalists' who would be happy to see us all live in nice clean caves.

"As you must certainly know, this is a crisis for my firm and the entire US auto industry. Immediate attention is needed, including my full-time efforts on the matter. ...

"...I have a company in crisis and must be in touch at all times. On the corporate jet I have communication with all parts of my company at all times. I conduct business while on that airplane. This being a crisis, I find that is far more effective than being out of pocket, lining up at Detroit Metro, waiting in line at the TSA that you toss money at regardless of its effectiveness, then waiting again to board the flight. Then there is the sloppy air traffic control system you inflict on the public, which requires airlines to fly in excess of the time they really need to, and gives me a 20% chance of not arriving on schedule, anyway."

Noted. But I absolutely do not buy the argument. The Detroit worthies have plenty of backup in the executive suites, and spending a few hours on an easy commercial airline flight from Detroit to Washington posed no critical problems. This was not a crisis in Shreveport demanding attention. One of the auto-makers flacks had the audacity to argue that the corporate jet is needed to ensure the personal safety of the CEO.

Pul-ease. I've ridden on a business jet that crashed in the damned Amazon.

Flying corporate jets on short-haul trips to ask for taxpayer money in Washington exhibited arrogance and a breathtaking level of tone-deafness.

I don't care if their only other option was to stick out a thumb and hitch-hike to the capital. They had no business using private jets in this instance. Period.

###

Big Mess at Airports

Overall air travel is down during this Thanksgiving holiday period, but bad weather (ice, snow, heavy rain) has caused major snarls at airports in the East and Midwest today.

The New York-area airports, natch, are the biggest mess, with delays of up to four hours at Newark and over two hours at Kennedy and LaGuardia, according to Flightstats.com.

Also reporting big delays: O'Hare, Denver, Orlando, Boston, Miami and Louisville. As the early evening peaks arrive, the delays are sure to ripple to other airports. Lighter-than-usual Thanksgiving air travel aside, the Sunday after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest travel days of the year.

###

Hotlines, Updates Posted by Mumbai Hotels

The two luxury hotels that were among the targets of terrorists in Mumbai have posted Web sites with helplines and updates.

Here's the Taj Mahal. And here's the Oberoi.

###

GM Wants to Hide the Heavy Metal

[Above: A G-IV cabin]

General Motors evidently got the F.A.A. to keep the public in the dark about the use of at least one of its corporate jets, Bloomberg reports today.

That would be the leased $50 million G-IV jet, tail number N5116, that the GM chief executive, Richard Wagoner, flew into Washington on Nov. 19 to beg Congress for a $25 million industry bailout. The top dogs at Ford and Chrysler, Alan Mulally and Robert Nardelli, also swanned into the capital from Detroit that day in their own companies' private jets.

Information on the movements of all aircraft, including private jets, is usually readily available at Web sites like Flightaware.com

But movements of the GM aircraft, which last visited Washington on Tuesday, could no longer be tracked publicly after that.

###

International Air Travel Slumps for 2nd Month -- This Means More Fare Sales Are Ahead

International air traffic declined in October for the second consecutive month, the International Air Transport Association said today.

The fall-off was 1.3 percent compared with October 2007, smaller than the 2.9 percent drop in September.

And here's a strong indication that we can expect to see even more fare sales ahead on most international routes. Load factors -- the percentage of available seats filled with paying customers -- dropped 7.6 percent and 11.1 percent, respectively, on the all-important North Atlantic and Asia-Pacific routes, compared with October 2007. That means far more seats are flying empty, and until they're able to reduce capacity, airlines are going to be looking to fill those empty seats at whatever price they can get.

"While the drop in oil prices is welcome relief, recession is now the biggest threat to airline profitability," said Giovanni Bisignani, the executive director of the air transportation organization. He added that a "deepening slump" in airline cargo traffic (which fell 7.9 percent in October) is "a clear indication that the worst is yet to come."

###

Mumbai Terrorist Deaths Over 100

The auhorities haven't fully secured Mumbai after a wave of terrorist attacks that evidently singled out Westerners and killed more than 100 people yesterday. Hostages are still being held, and anyone with immediate business-travel plans to Mumbai -- also widely known by its former name, Bombay -- really needs to carefully assess current conditions in that city.

By the way, I don't quite get why most of the media today are pointedly referring to the perpetrators as "militants," rather than "terrorists."

Evidently, the rationale is that various unnamed but learned authorities on known terrorist groups have never heard of the so-called Deccan Mujahedeen, which is what the terrorists who pulled off these coordinated attacks in Mumbai call themselves.

Dunno, but from my point of view, this parsing of nouns reflects an overall mistake we've made in bestowing standing on terrorists, as if terrorists are defined exclusively as enlisted, formerly sworn member of an official group -- a recognized army, of sorts -- and not as ideologically driven organized criminals who employ terror to achieve their goals -- which makes them "terrorists," in my English book.

###

Terrorist Attacks on Luxury Hotels and Tourist Spots in Mumbai

Terrorists attacked the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels and several other tourist and business-travel locations and a train station in Mumbai, India. More than 60 people have been killed.

Here's the AP report as of mid-afternoon Wednesday. A more timely BBC report put the number of dead at over 80. Unconfirmed wire-service reports said that terrorists are holding hostages at both five-star hotels.

Here's the current report in the Times of India newspaper.

###

Eclipse Failure: The Reckoning Begins

The strange saga of Eclipse Aviation, which filed for bankruptcy this morning, citing debts of more than $770 million, has not been fully told yet. Not by a long shot.

Explanations are required -- for employees at the Albuquerque, N.M. plant, for customers who put down money for orders, for customers who already possess one or more of the approximately 250 Eclipse 500 jets that have actually been delivered since Eclipse announced its start-up 9 years ago.

Originally, the Eclipse 500 very light jet was priced (and heavily promoted) at $775,000. That price was $1.35 million early last spring, and Eclipse raised it to $2.15 million in May.

A year earlier, Eclipse was claiming nearly 2,700 orders and options -- 1,400 of them accounted for by DayJet, the air taxi enterprise that went out of business in September with 28 Eclipse 500s on hand.

There are a lot of numbers to add up -- or subtract. Lawsuits have been filed. A blog, Eclipse Aviation Critic, has been diligently following the saga.

In all of this, with all of the manufacturing and certification problems, where was the F.A.A.? Oh, I forgot. In the tank.

###

Eclipse Aviation Files for Bankruptcy, Seeks to Sell Assets

Eclipse Aviation, which blazed the way for the manufacture of cheap very-light jets, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware today.

Eclipse said it would seek court approval for debtor-in-possession financing and
the sale of "substantially all" of its assets under Section 363 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

Eclipse announced an agreement to sell its assets "for a combination of cash, equity and debt," to an affiliate of ETIRC Aviation of Luxembourgh -- "subject to higher and
better offers."

Eclipse described ETIRC Aviation as "a principal driver" of the very-light jet industry in Europe. ETIRC is Eclipse's major shareholder and its chairman, Roel Pieper, has been the acting CEO of Eclipse since July 2008.

Citing "unprecedented economic challenges," Pieper said that the asset sale would "position the business for aggressive global expansion." He did not elaborate on whether there are potential plans to resume production of the $2.15 million, five-seat Eclipse 500 jets.

From what I can ascertain, ETIRC Aviation is a distributor and marketer, not a manufacturer. Here and here.

###

British Airways Sharply Discounting Premium Seats to London

Walk-up business class fares cost about $9,200 roundtrip between New York and London (and about half that for corporations that negotiate high-volume discounts). As traffic falls, many airlines are discounting.

But British Airways moves aggressively into major cost-cutting tomorrow when it will start offering its Club World business class at roundtrip fares between the U.S., Canada and London starting at $1,998 between JFK and London.

First class roundtrip travel also is available starting at $3996 from New York to London. First class on B.A. can cost over $12,000 walk-up.

British Airways said that comparable prices for Club World and first class will be available from all 22 North America gateway cities to London and most major cities in Europe. The sale fares will be available from tomorrow, Nov. 25, through midnight Monday, Dec. 1 for travel from Tuesday, Dec. 2, though Sunday, March 22 -- with no blackouts.

Travel must be purchased seven days in advance of travel. Minimum stay is one Saturday night, with maximum stay 11 months. Fuel surcharges are included, but taxes of approximately $260 and the $2.50 Sept. 11 Security Fee are additional.

Sample fares (Club World, followed by first class)

Origin city to London Club World First
JFK&Newark $1998 $3996
Boston $2197 $4396
Philadelphia $1998 $4196
Washington, D.C. $2197 $4396
Baltimore $2197 N/A
Miami $2698 $4696
Orlando&Tampa $2698 N/A
Atlanta $2398 $4396
Chicago $2598 $4596
Dallas/Ft. Worth&Houston $2598 $4596
Denver $3098 N/A
Phoenix $3098 $5096
Los Angeles&San Francisco $3298 $5296
Seattle $3998 $5995

###

Zagat Air Travel Survey: Flying Less, Liking It More

The new Zagat Survey on air travel lists the top five airlines as rated by respondents for overall satisfaction in coach cabins: JetBlue, Southwest, Continental, AirTran, Delta.

Continental, which led in most domestic categories, was also rated No. 1 for domestic premium cabins.

In the "Outtakes" section, which lists general customer comments without specifying which airline they refer to, someone said of an unnamed airline: "Bathrooms smell like the lion house at the zoo on a hot day."

I'd add: On the other hand, the lions get fed and have room to walk around, and there's an organization that makes sure they're treated humanely.

###

Holiday Travel Slumping, Fare Sales Continue

I was amused by the phony baloney from the White House last week in announcing that military air-lanes would be turned over to commercial airliners during the holiday season to help alleviate crowded skies. Now there's an inane solution in search of a non-existent problem.

I'm in dark-sky Tucson where it's 4.45 a.m. as I write this (I have a plane to catch), and the only thing I see in the sky right now is the stars.

Seriously, air travel is down sharply. It is down because of announced and unannounced capacity cuts, and because demand has fallen well below expectations.

Here's one example: Los Angeles International Airport says that it expects to handle 14.3 percent fewer passengers during the 10-day Thanksgiving holiday from today through Nov. 30.

Meanwhile, good news for travelers beyond less-crowded skies. Those fare sales the airline stock market analysts said weren't going to occur are continuing well past the holidays.

Southwest Airlines just extended its winter sale -- with one-way fares from $49 to $159, depending on day of travel -- through Dec. 4 for travel from Dec. 12 through Feb. 28.

###

Sometimes a Ride On a Business Jet Is a Real Bad Idea ...

Breathing new life into the term "corporate pantloads," top executives of the three Detroit automakers each flew to Washington on private jets to ask Congress for a total of about $25 billion in bailouts.

Good for the news organizations -- here, -- that saw this for the helluva story that it was. I do not see any phony populism in the outrage over this one.

Granted, there are times when a corporate jet makes sense in terms of productivity. Usually, this would involve the case of a solid, well-run company that needs top executives -- as well as management and technical teams -- in efficient motion and can justify the expense on the bottom line. Said company would not be sending said executives to Congress to whine for taxpayer bailouts.

This was similar to, but I would argue even worse in tone-deafness, A.I.G. spending $500,000 on a St. Regis hotel for a sales retreat a week after it got its own multi-billion-dollar bailout from taxpayers. At least the retreat, as bad an idea as it was to go through with it, had a viable bottom-line purpose.

It takes a few hours to fly from Detroit to Washington. These Detroit characters swanning through the skies in their executive jets on a mission to beg for a taxpayer bailout in these awful economic times represents a big fat black eye for the business-aviation industry -- currently involved in major efforts to dissuade government from raising landing fees and taxes and from cracking down more on private-jet security.

I can't wait to see the reaction from the arch-enemy of business aviation, the Air Transport Association, which represents commercial airlines and insists that business jets essentially get a free ride on taxpayers' backs.

And by the way, does anybody know exactly which models of business jets our Detroit worthies flew in?

###

More Bad News (Cont'd)

For weeks, I've been reporting incrementally, here, in the paper and in the current Institutional Investor magazine, on a story that is really sneaking up in travel: the fact that the hotel business is in a serious tailspin.

It started at the mid-level hotels in late summer as business travel fell off, and suddenly smacked the luxury hotel brands upside the head in mid-September, and worsened since.

People in the hotel industry, which is generally a pretty happy business, full of optimists who really love travel, tell me they have never seen anything like this.

Smith Travel Research reports today that revenue per available room (called Revpar, it's the basic measurement of hotel performance) dropped a startling 13.2 percent during the week of Nov. 9-15, compared with the comparable week last year.

Average occupancy rates fell 11.6 percent and average room rates (which haven't yet shown a drop that directly reflects the malaise) fell 1.7 percent.

Leading industry forecasters are scrambling daily to keep up with the bad news. Smith Travel, which stays right on top of these things, said the latest Revpar decline was "certainly worse than we expected."

I'm in Tucson, holed up in the beautiful desert. My wife is back east till the weekend. She was on the train into Manhattan early this morning sitting near some very anxious Wall Street types who were discussing the collapsing Dow.

"Well, how low can it really go?" a woman asked.

"To one," a guy replied.

So the good news is that the Dow Jones average closed today a whopping 7551 points above the potential low. Whew.

###

Bad News (Cont'd)

This just keeps getting worse, doesn't it. Some air-travel items from this morning:

---There has been a sharp deterioration in international premium traffic, on which major airlines have basically bet the farm in recent years. According to the International Air Transport Association, international first-class and business-class traffic fell 8 percent in September, and the decline is likely to have worsened in October, though the figures aren't available yet. For years, that segment of the market had been growing monthly. Largely because of robust international premium travel, major U.S. airlines have been diverting capacity to international routes.

---In a trend with implications for hotels and big-city retailers as well as airlines, there has been a 15 percent decline in the last month in online searches for flights to the U.S. from the U.K., according to the European search engine Skyscanner. "In previous years, there has been an increase in flight searches to the USA at this time of the year" as travelers from the UK came to the U.S. to do holiday shopping or to book leisure trips to ski resorts. Not only has the worldwide recession affected this, but so has the weakening pound, which no longer provides major buying power here.

---Air France/KLM said quarterly profit is down 44 percent largely due to weakening business travel demand internationally.

And it's only 9 a.m. here in Arizona where I'm holed up in the desert working on a book ... about air travel. Title: "High Anxiety," natch.

###

Travel Slumping, Airlines Dealing on Holiday Fares

Tom Parsons at Bestfares.com, the discount travel booking site, says that airlines are so concerned about the drop-off in Thanksgiving travel demand this year that advance-purchase requirements are being relaxed.

He reports:

"The major airlines have now reduced their 14-day advance purchase holiday discount airfares to three days or no advance purchase...

"Travel on these little or no advance purchase airfares are valid from November 20 through December 3, 2008. We do suggest that travelers avoid traveling on Sunday, November 30, because prices are overly high due to demand on that date. As we get closer to Thanksgiving, the airlines will lower those three-day advance fares to no advance, so they can gobble up as many last-minute travelers as possible.

...We also suggest that this a very good week to book holiday travel for Christmas and New Year's. Many of the major airlines are offering cheaper airfares than they did just six short weeks ago.

Travel between major U.S. cities, except those in Florida, and fares to the Caribbean, Mexico and Hawaii have dropped since the week of October 6.

We believe there are two primary reasons why consumers are not booking travel.

1. The economic crisis we now face has made many travelers rethink a holiday getaway. Travelers would rather stay home than face the many new charges including increased ticket change fees and baggage fees that the airlines are now imposing on them.
2. The cost to travel by car had dropped. In many parts of the country the cost of gallon of gas is at least two dollars less than the price during July 2008 and at least a dollar less than November 2007.

...Lowest priced travel dates - December 13, 14 and 24, '08, January 6-8, '09.

Second lowest priced travel dates - December 15-19, 22, 25, 30 and 31, '08, January 1 and 5, '09.

Second highest priced travel dates - December 21, 23 and 26-28, '08, January 2-4, '09.

Highest priced travel dates - November 30, '08, December 20, '08.

... With no sign of an economic recovery in the near future, many of the major airlines are discounting airfares this holiday season much more than we expected. Imagine how many bargain basement airfare sales they will have to offer us in the first three months of 2009 to get us back in the air and flying."

###

Southwest Seeks New York City Service

Everybody's favorite domestic airline, Southwest, is finally planning to operate out of a New York airport, La Guardia. Southwest said today it submitted a $7.5 million bid to acquire the unused slots of ATA Airlines, which declared bankruptcy last April, in a plan to operate seven non-stop routes from La Guardia.

Here's the announcement.

Southwest has been conspicuous in its absence from Kennedy, Newark and LaGuardia in the vital (and delay-ridden) New York air-travel market.

###

Annual Airport 'Healthy' Food Rankings: Consider the Source

Each year, local newspaper and television-news editors faithfully assign hapless reporters to cover the annual ranking of airports whose restaurants have the most "healthful" food. The rankings come from a group called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Predictably, some news outlets -- knowing a cheap local angle when they see one -- run credulous stories saying "Bumbutt Tri-State Regional Airport Scores High on Physicians' Healthy Food List." Or something to that effect.

Seldom do reporters go beyond regurgitating the press release and ask, just what it this Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine that we give so much credence to?

Well, as I have reported in the past, it's a group, mostly made up of animal-rights activists, including some physicians, that campaigns against meat, milk, animal medical experimentation and other perceived threats to health. That inconvenient information never appears in the press material.

First, credit where it's due, because of course we want to encourage healthy eating, and the last time I was in an airport, the amusingly named George Bush Houston Intercontinental Airport, to be specific, I noticed enough butts the size of baggage carts to wonder if some people have ever heard of a nice salad.

The Physicians Committee press release, due out later today, cites airports where restaurants offer good vegetarian options. Ranked at the top were Dallas/Fort Worth, Detroit Metropolitan and Chicago O'Hare. At the tail end of a list of 12 were Reagan National, Hartsfield Atlanta and Las Vegas McCarran, with the hilariously named Newark Liberty close, um, behind.

And here is some critical background information on the group. Remember, now, that other pseudo grassroots groups that oppose the Physicians Committee may be funded by the meat or dairy industry! Everybody's got a PR angle.

I have no real beef (so to speak) with the Physicians Committee, except that they really should disclose where they are coming from. And reporters should look it up.

###

Darkening Skies for Eclipse Aviation

Things do not look good at Eclipse Aviation, which makes the innovative Eclipse 500 very light jet. Eclipse said today that it was "unable to meet its payroll obligations" that were due yesterday. Eclipse said there have been no layoffs and that the company is working on a "long term financial solution" to keep operating.

Employees will be paid next week, Eclipse said. The company is based in Albuquerque.

The respected aviation analysis company Forecast International said it will soon issue a new report predicting the end of production for the Eclipse 500 line. Forecast International said it believes that Eclpise Aviation "will not attract new investment necessary to allow it to continue making the aircraft beyond the first quarter of 2009."

Forecast International analyst Douglas Royce said that Exlipse is making the planes "at a low rate as it seeks to preserve cash" and predicts that total production of the jets will be 162 for this year.

Eclipse aggressively marketed its little jet, but the main customer, the air taxi service DayJet, ceased operations in late summer, a victim of the credit crunch. DayJet had 28 Eclipse 500s in its fleet, and about 1,400 more on order.

Forecast International said part of Eclipse's current dilemma is that the manufacturer accepted a large number of orders for the plane at a unit price of $1.5 million. The price rose to $2.15 million in May, but Eclipse still "is required to deliver aircraft at the earlier, lower price."

"Every aircraft delivered under the old price is delivered at a loss," Forecast said, noting that Eclipse has said publicly that it needs between $200 and $300 million in new equity investment.

Eclipse said in June that it had orders for 2,600 aircraft.

Competitors in the very-light jet market include the Cessna Mustang, the Embraer Phenom 100 and HondaJet.

###

High Load Factors: Airlines Crow, We Cower

I don't quite get the point of airlines crowing about their record-high load factors these days. Delta, the latest to report October traffic, leads off the announcement proclaiming that domestic load factors for the month were 83.7 percent -- "higher than any previous October on record."

I guess that plays well with those poor devils who invest in airline stocks. But to the rest of us, it simply underscores how crowded and constricted the airline system has become.

Delta is no exception to the trend. Planes are more full than ever despite a sharp fall-off in demand. That's because there are fewer flights and fewer seats going up. Delta's domestic capacity in October, for example, was down 13 percent from October 2007.

***

Speaking of a fall-off in demand, my wife and I are in San Francisco right now, marveling at how few tourists are around.

We usually avoid Fisherman's Wharf, but we had reason to stay at the Hilton Hotel here this time. I've been coming to San Francisco for 40 years, in every month of the year. I know that the pre-Thanksgiving weeks are usually slow everywhere, but I have never seen the tourist areas of this city emptier.

On the other hand, the grand old San Francisco spirit is always in evidence.

Take the Tuesday election (San Francisco went 85 percent for Obama, incidentally). While decrying those "wacky San Francisco stories" and tropes that the media are so fond of, the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday ran an editorial that praised local voters for rejecting a ballot measure on Tuesday that would have renamed a sewage treatment plant after President George W. Bush.

Dunno, I had to think about that one. Passing the measure would have been an act of sarcasm, of course. Rejecting it strikes me as an act of delicious San Francisco irony.

###

Delays? What Delays?

Airlines have sharply slashed domestic capacity and cut routes, and fewer people are flying. One result is that delays are dropping.

Flightstats.com reports today that in October, 84 percent of domestic flights arrived on time (defined as within 15 minutes of schedule). It was the fifth straight month of improvement in on-time performance.

The lesson: You may not be able to get there anymore ... but you'll get there faster.

###

Those Airline Capacity Cuts

...look fairly significant, at least from the first two major airlines to report October operational results, United and Continental.

United flew 12.6 percent fewer domestic seats in October, and reported 10.3 percent fewer domestic revenue passenger miles, compared with October 2007. Continental flew 10.8 perecent domestic seats, with a 10.2 percent drop in revenue passenger miles.

As I keep saying, we are witnessing a fundamental shrinking of our national air-transport system, and as airline executives keep saying, it's a permanent situation.

###

Airline Stocks? No Thanks

Above: Baker Bowl's right field wall.

No disrespect to the world champion Philadelphia Phillies, my former home-town team. But I recall my father speaking about Baker Bowl, the Phillies' home at Lehigh Ave. and Broad St. from 1887 to 1938, when they moved six blocks west on Lehigh to join the Athletics at Shibe Park, later Connie Mack Stadium. The Phillies were, of course, famous for being one of the worst teams in baseball.

Old-timers in Philadelphia like my father recalled that Baker Bowl had a huge billboard forming the right-field and right-center wall. It was for Lifebuoy, a popular soap brand up through the 1960s that promoted itself delicately as a remedy for body odor. For decades, the sign said, "The Phillies Use Lifebuoy."

And Philadelphia fans being Philadelphia fans, the popular retort became, "And they still stink."

That's a long way around third base for this note on airline prospects and airline stocks, from Zacks Investment.

As Warren Buffett famously said of investing in the airline industry: "If we knew then what we know now, we'd have shot the Wright Brothers down."

###

Just Sayin'

--Lots of commotion over Rick Seaney's report that airlines are hoisting up an unusual number of fare sales for the holidays. Not so, says an airline stock analyst, widely quoted in media. Dunno, I think Rick makes a persuasive case.

--And by the way, was that a tectonic shift toward online political news coverage that I just felt? Yup. Here.

--America's most dangerous cities? No, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles aren't on the top 10 list. Orlando is, though. Here's a photo list, from the Orlando Sentinel newspaper.

###

Fare Sales Bustin' Out All Over

Airlines are reacting swiftly to falling demand with fare sales. More than ever, if you're flexible (and who isn't these days?), you can find a pretty good price, assuming you can plan in advance (and can't we all, these days).

Rick Seaney at Farecompare.com says in an e-mail:

"In the past 24 hours the FareCompare.com proprietary airfare tracking system, which processes tens of thousands of airfares daily from over 500 airlines, noted the largest domestic airfare sale activity [of] any time in the past year."

My note: That's big news, since the first half of the year was remarkable for 21 successive across-the-board fare increases.

Suddenly, fare sales are all over the place for holiday travel, Rick says, adding:

"Northwest was the instigator Tuesday night as they fired out a wide-reaching domestic holiday airfare sale hours before their official merger announcement with Delta. The other major airlines have spent the day hurriedly matching and extending this sale.

"Take, for example, Delta Air Lines with the only non-stop between Atlanta and Nashville. The cheapest airline ticket on Monday was just under $500 roundtrip, but with Delta matching Northwest’s sale, that same seat can be had for $238 roundtrip (Mon. 24-Nov., returning Friday 28-Nov.).

"In years past we have tracked holiday airfare sales, but they typically were initiated less than two weeks before the holidays -- many times at the last minute.

"With unprecedented domestic seat cutbacks this year (211,000 fewer seats available each day domestically by Christmas), we were not optimistic about holiday sales – it appears however that the airlines have traded the year-long oil crisis for a global economic crisis. Demand began to wither at the end of the summer under pressure from higher airfares/fees, and more recently by consumers pulling back as they worry about the ramifications of the downturn in the U.S. economy.

"We expect to see more matching activity Thursday and urge consumers to take a second look at holiday airline tickets– they may be pleasantly surprised. The cheapest days to travel around the holidays are Tuesday, Wednesday and the day of the holiday – steer clear of Sunday and Monday after the holiday on returns."

Check out Rick's blog, Rickseaney.com, where he plans to post new fare-sale information as he digs it out later today "after all the matching activity has settled in."

###

'Begging the Question' At Qantas Over Another Safety Incident

I'm obviously no grammarian schoolmarm, but it drives me nuts the way you see the media mangle variations of "Begs the question," evidently under the faulty assumption that it means "Demands that the question be asked."

Nah-uh. Here's a definition of begging the question:

A Qantas spokesman was asked if a malfunction that knocked out onboard radar during a 12-hour flight today from Los Angeles to Auckland created a safety concern.

"None at all. Otherwise they wouldn't have operated the flight," she replied.

That's begging the question. And considering the spate of mishaps involving Qantas jets in recent months, it's also pushing the luck.

###

Going Postal

... or FedEx, whatever.

United Airlines will deliver your bag -- for $179 each way on flights of 1,000 miles or more. That's $358 plus taxes.

Hmmm, they used to actually deliver you AND your bag for that, and with a reasonable guarantee that at least one would arrive each way.

Honestly, I just do not understand how anyone can write about these ridiculous airline money-raising stunts without laughing.

Consider me amused.

###

Play Ball?

Considering one ridiculous baseball spectacle last night -- the ground crew hosing down the infield at the ballpark in Philadelphia during a driving rain -- led me to consider another: the madcap scramble by the road manager of the Tampa Bay team to hastily find 50 or so hotel rooms on a moment's notice, late at night in Philadelphia, because the Tampa team had already checked out of its hotel, not expecting to spend another night in Philly.

I want to meet that guy! Talk about a real challenge in business travel -- which is something, after all, that sports teams do an awful lot of.

(And by the way, the weather forecasts consulted by everybody except, apparently, Major League Baseball and Fox, all predicted rain and wind for last night. Did the notoriously cheap Rays simply fail to ensure a hotel plan B in case of a rain-out?)

Last night's spectacles came as the bozos who run Major League baseball in cahoots with the bozos who run the Fox television outfit continued their efforts to destroy the World Series -- in this instance by playing a game that should never have been started, continuing it long after it should have been called for rain, and then "suspending" it in utter, total confusion in the 6th inning.

By the way, I'd forgotten that sportswriting can still be worth the time. Here's Bill Conlin today in the Philadelphia Daily News.

###

Boom Ends, International Air Traffic Plunges

Five years of surging growth in international air traffic came to a halt in September, when 2.9 percent fewer passengers boarded international flights compared with September 2007, the International Air Transport Association said today.

Load factors were down 4.4 points to 74.8 percent in a system with more capacity than ever.

"The deterioration in traffic is alarmingly fast-paced and widespread," said Giovanni Bisignani, the trade group's director. This is the first time since the short-lived SARS crisis in 2003 that global traffic has dropped month-on-month.

Steady 5 percent monthly growth rates on the all-important North American routes -- where U.S. domestic carriers have vastly increased capacity and made big bets on long-term growth -- "turned into a 0.9 percent contraction" in September, the group said.

Even the booming Middle Eastern business took a major hit. After years of double-digit month-on-month growth, passenger traffic on Middle Eastern carriers dropped 2.8 percent.

And my opinion is: This just gets worse. It does not get better for a long, long time. Our domestic and global air-transport systems are undergoing fundamental change.

###

The Littlest Road Warriors

It's definitely a trend to combine business travel with leisure travel when possible, including taking a spouse or friend along.

But Sarah Palen's children appear to be racking up those frequent flier miles on the taxpayer dime... Note that the kids' friends sometimes travel along on "state business."

From the Anchorage Daily News.

###

Fixing the Terrorist Watch List Mess?

Well, the feds have taken a big step in the right direction.

The Homeland Security Department today issued a 195-page "rule," a federal document setting forth for evaluation proposed procedural changes in the way the federal Terrorist Watch List is (mis) administered at airports.

The long-sought change is called Secure Flight. Secure Flight will "improve aviation security and fix the major customer-service issue of watch list misidentifications, a frustratingly common occurrence for travelers under the existing airline-based systen," the Homeland Security secretary, Michael Chertoff, says in the announcement.

The entire 195-page proposed rule change is here.

Basically, the new procedure, subject to congressional approval, would turn over to the Transportation Security Administration the direct supervision of the list at the point of contact with air travelers. Right now, the airlines do this -- and do it very badly. The airlines say they have been saddled with an impossible task, incidentally.

Great public confusion surrounds the watch list, most of it the fault of individual airlines. Airlines actually all keep their own, usually haphazard, versions of a list that is then matched against the actual federal watch list when a passenger with a name that matches or approximate an actual identity on the federal list turns up. The process is repeated every single time that passenger shows up at the airport.

Asinine examples of misidentified "terrorists" are legion.

A toddler with a name like Jack Anderson (whom I've written about) gets flagged as a suspect at an airport because an airline has that name, or a variation of that name, on the list compiled by the airline itself, based on the airline's interpretation of the T.S.A.'s summary of the actual federal list, which is (of course) secret.

Yes, I know it is maddeningly complicated.

But the fact is, airlines tend to indiscriminately mass names on their lists, partly because it would be expensive to actually do a better job of reducing so-called "false positives," and partly out of other concerns, among them liability. An airline that waves on passenger who is on the actual terrorist watch list, and who then commits an act of terrorism, is an airline with a huge liability exposure.

The actual watch list is maintained by a federal agency called the Terrorist Screening Center, administered by the F.B.I. On that list -- itself a compilation of about a dozen previous "terrorist" lists formerly maintained by various law enforcement and intelligence agencies -- are detailed identities of suspects. Not just names and aliases, but birthdates, criminal records, descriptions, surveillance reports and much other personal identifying information. That level of identifying information, if checked against airline passenger manifests, would make it much easier to eliminate from the check-in hassles all of the seven-year-olds, nuns, congresspeople, war heroes and other obvious innocents who are routinely told by the airlines (inaccurately) that they are on the "watch list" or, in some of the stupider examples, the "no fly list."

Privacy concerns are the basic reason the airlines have been saddled with this chore, which they hate. The argument had been that an airline providing personal information to the federal government in advance of someone flying was an invasion of privacy. And the airlines themselves can't collect in-advance personal information aside from your name -- unless you volunteer it, for example by enrolling in a frequent flier program.

O.K., so far so good. Homeland Security is moving in the right direction. The misapplication of the watch list and the confusion introduced by the airlines has been a disgrace.

Now we need to look more closely at the actual federal list, which contains hundreds of thousands of records but lists the identities of fewer than 20,000 American citizens, all of whom have been judged as security threats in one way or another by one government intelligence or law enforcement branch or another. The actual list has two sections -- "no fly," meaning you simply ain't getting on the plane and "selectee," the far bigger category, meaning you've been investigated and the authorities want to have a close look at you and your plans, even if you do get on the plane.

Most of the people on the actual list, I have no doubt, are genuine bad actors. But lists have histories in intelligence files.

One specific question out of many: What is the name "Jack Anderson" doing on the actual list, for example? "Jack Anderson" is a kid, now 7, from Minnesota who was flagged at the airport on a family trip to Disney World. But another "Jack Anderson," you'll recall, was a crusading, muckraking columnist who made life miserable for Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover and other known American scoundrels. Because of his journalistic activities, Mr. Anderson was on the Nixon enemies list and had an massive secret FBI file.

Now that Homeland Security has moved to fix the problem of misidentification, I would argue that it is time to move to the next level and look into whether we need to more thoroughly scrub the list and separate the actual bad actors from whatever identities of various "political enemies" may have been carelessly allowed to migrate onto it over the years -- like Jack Anderson the columnist, dead for 13 years now.

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Northwest Airlines: More Capacity Cuts?

I'm always amazed at how reporters, enslaved as so many of them are to the dubious virtues of ready corporate access, believe the story is the fortunes of the airlines -- and not the dire prospects current airline tactics portend for a vital part of our national transportation system: air travel.

Airlines are engaged in a long-term strategy to shrink the domestic air-transport system and keep it shrunken. Now, even with oil prices about half of what they were a year ago, the process continues.

Northwest is the latest to send a clear signal of its "flexibility" in the area of reducing service even beyond what's been announced. This is presented as a means to "soften the blow through downsizing."

My question: Soften the blow for whom?

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Small Town USA and the Moose Lady

Above: My small-town America

I'm weary of writing about damn airplanes. How about a change of pace?

How about small-town America and patriotism?

I was getting a little depressed recently with that Moose Lady shooting her mouth off about how all of us who don't live in some crappy hole like Wasilla, Alaska, are "un-American" -- lacking, as we are, in small-town virtues, whatever they are.

And then it occurred to me. I live in small-town America. In a town with a population a little less than Wasilla, Alaska. A town with working gas lamps along the streets, a train station where I can get to New York in 25 minutes, a wonderful library where nobody tries to ban books; a town with nice, helpful family people who do not measure their lives in six-packs ... the whole nine yards of small-town, patriotic America. Unlike Wasilla, my town does not have a polluted, dead lake and a collection of ugly big-box stores.

At the train station in my small town, there is a small monument with eight names on it. The names of American citizens, my neighbors in my small town, population 8,000, who were murdered in the terrorist attacks of 9-11.

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AA Cuts More Capacity for 2009

AMR, the American Airlines parent company, announced a $360 million loss for the third quarter and said that its mainline capacity will be 14 percent lower next year than in 2007 (after a 9 percent reduction this year).

(By the way, ignore the absurd headline about a quarterly profit that AA put on its announcement. That figure includes a big asset sale. The bottom line is the net loss.)

American did not break out domestic vs. international capacity cuts for next year, but the trend has been that domestic routes are being cut far more than the more-profitable international ones.

American's regional-airlines capacity (almost all domestic) will be 14.5 percent less in 2009 than in 2007, following a 9.5 percent cut this year.

As I've said, the domestic airline system is shrinking substantially. Watch as the other major carriers -- happy with the current drop in oil prices and determined to operate as smaller entities in the future -- announce new 2009 capacity cuts soon.

--end

At United Airlines, With 4th Quarter Capacity Already Down 16 %, More 'Adjustments' May Be Coming

As I said the other day, don't buy the airline PR palaver about the size of capacity cuts ahead in the domestic airlines. They're going to reduce the air-transport system even more than they've been saying.

United Airlines is already down 16 percent domestically for the last three months of this year, its vice president for industrial relations, Kathy Mikels, said at a Calyon Securities conference in September.

In Sao Paulo yesterday, United chief executive officer Glenn Tilton told ATWOnline that "more adjustments could be needed" as United lays off workers (7,000 in the current round) and assimilates the benefits of lower oil prices to shrink its operations and wheedle federal approval for antitrust immunity on select code-share markets with Lufthansa, Air Canada and Continental.

"Adjustments," of course, is corporate Goodspeak for "cuts."

Antitrust approval in select code-share markets means "OK to fix prices and undertake quasi-mergers on lucrative routes without all the costs and legalities of an actual merger."

Across the board, airlines are seizing the current economic crisis as a reason to slash as much capacity from the system as possible.

There is an analogy here, by the way, to the U.S. regional newspaper business. Gannett Newspapers, for example, are famous for slashing costs and jobs and allowing circulation to fall to the level where, readers be damned, the highest sustainable advertising revenue can be squeezed at the least possible cost in a monopoly market. The result was newspapers that had no news in them, but enough advertising to ensure short-term high profit margins. In a monopoly market.

That's one thing, if we're talking about the Bumbutt Bugle-Journal.

It's quite another when we're talking about the dismantling of a big chunk of a vital national transportation system.

And we should be talking about that, soon.

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American Express Cuts Platinum Card Benefit

American Express sent out a notice to its Platinum Card holders informing them that a major benefit of holding the card -- which costs $450 a year -- is being cut.

Effective Nov. 15, the "domestic companion airfare program" disappears. That's the perk that allowed card holders to book free companion tickets four times a year, based on availability (which was always very limited, but still...).

The card still offers rewards points (as do other, cheaper airline and travel-loyalty credit cards), free access to participating airline clubs for ticketed passengers of said "participating" airline on day of travel, and various concierge services.

Lookit the intelligence-insulting, disingenuous way American Express words its notification that a key benefit of the card is being slashed: The first sentence of the letter speaks of "a change to one of your Platinum Card benefits."

A "change?" What, the corporate spell-check can't handle the word "elimination?"

What, they think card holders who pay $450 a year won't read on through the palaver and ascertain that they're getting stiffed?

"We evaluate the benefits offered on the Platinum Card regularly to ensure we are delivering services that Card members want, value and that meet their needs," the letter says, explaining why the card is ... well, no longer as valuable.

Its corporate mind-set tuned to Goodspeak, there is no explanation from American Express of why this perk has been cut, but I gather they want card holders to believe it's ... in their best interests.

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With Demand Plummeting, Airlines Cutting More Flights Than They Said They Would

As I've been pointing out to anyone who prefers reporting over airline PR, passenger traffic started going into free-fall a couple of weeks ago. And airlines have been cutting schedules and capacity faster than they claimed they would as passengers simply stop showing up.

OAG has stats out today showing schedules for the fourth quarter, which of course includes the peak Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season: Domestic flights are down 11 percent and capacity is down 9 percent over last year's fourth quarter.

OAG's chief operating officer Steve Casley said: "The scale of the decline in the U.S. market is worse than the previous schedule analysis showed, with airlines taking 265,000 flights out of operation this quarter. When you consider that the combined cuts from all the world's airlines totals 451,000 flights, then it really puts America's domestic capacity decline into perspective."

You can listen to airline PR or listen to this: Even the fourth-quarter published schedules are squishy, given empty airports and rapidly declining demand. My prediction is airlines will cut more flights by trimming the published schedules, and that the holiday travel season will be a great big bust.

It is, on the other hand, a not-bad time to travel if you’re flexible. Fares are holding steady and, in many cases, coming down. Frequent flier award seats are more available than in the past.

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Qantas Flight 'Nosedived' At 37,000 Feet

More details on that Qantas flight over the sea off western Australia yesterday in which about three dozen passengers were injured, some seriously.

The plane, an A330 carrying 313 passengers and crew, climbed about 300 feet from its 37,000 feet cruising altitude before "abruptly pitching nose-down," according to the accident report on the Aviation Safety Network. The report says a possible "systems irregularity" combined with sudden turbulence was the likely cause. It isn't clear yet what the "systems irregularity" might have been.

By the way, I just love the quote from an Australian air-transport safety official in the account in today's Wall Street Journal. He says, "certainly, there was a period of time when the aircraft performed of its own accord."

Uh, here on planet earth, that means "fell."

A plane that abruptly pitches nose-down has a remarkable ability to concentrate the attention.

Here's a detailed report in the Australian, a newspaper, with comment from passengers who literally hit the ceiling.

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Another Qantas Mishap; 36 Injured

There's been another safety-related incident on a Qantas airliner, this one on an A330-300 that suddenly lost altitude on a flight to Singapore from Perth, Australia. At least 36 passengers were hurt, a dozen of them seriously.

This is the latest in a series of recent incidents involving Qantas, which has long prided itself on having one of the best safety records in aviation. The most serious previous incident was in July, when an oxygen container exploded in a cargo hold and blew a hold the size of an SUV in the side of a 747 that then had to make an emergency landing.

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AIG's Post-Bailout Business Trip Bash

Interesting to see some business-trip expense accounts are still riding high while the rest of us are scrambling.

It seems that executives of AIG, the big fat insurance company we all bailed out recently to the tune of $85 billion, had themselves a swell executive retreat -- right after the bailout -- at a super-expensive Southern California oceanfront resort, the St. Regis Monarch Beach.


Here's the $443,343.71 hotel bill, by way of a Huffington Post link today to the House Oversight Committee's Web site report on hearings into the bailout.

Rooms at the St. Regis Monarch Beach run from $565 to over $1,300 a night, by the way.

Hey, it's just dough, and it's all expense-accountable, right? And that $23,000 the high-flying AIG executives spent on hotel spas? Hell, they'd just been through a very stressful time, friends.

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Sun Country Bankruptcy; Mesa Slashing Jobs

The company that owns Minneapolis-based Sun Country Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday. In a statement, the company said:

"Petters Aviation and its subsidiaries, including MN Airlines, LLC, d.b.a. Sun Country Airlines, filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. Sun Country Airlines will continue to operate and fly its regular flight schedule.

Stan Gadek, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sun Country said, "We were forced to take this action as a result of recent events at Petters Group Worldwide. We do not anticipate any disruptions, and expect to operate business as usual... Customers can book their flights in confidence and know that they will continue to receive the great service that they are accustomed to on Sun Country."

I'd take issue with that "book with confidence" assertion. Make it, book with caution. And remember: If you do book on Sun Country, use a credit card because by law credit card charges are refundable for services not rendered, such as a flight that disappears if an airline suddenly goes belly-up. If you book with a debit card, or pay with any other form of currency, you are not covered.

And incidentally, the "recent events at Petters Group Worldwide" is a reference to an FBI raid last month on Petters headquarters.

Petters Aviation is a wholly owned unit of Thomas Petters, Inc., and owns MN Airline Holdings, Inc., the parent company of Sun Country Airlines.

MESA AIR, meanwhile, is "reducing staff across the board," its chairman, Jonathan Ornstein, told ATW Online, an aviation news site. Facing a projected $250 million drop in revenue this year, Mesa Air Group is finding it impossible to "support the same level of overhead," Ornstein said, without adding details.

For August, Mesa reported a 13.9 percent drop in revenue passenger miles flown on an overall drop of 24.5 percent in total passengers boarded. Delta Air Lines dropped its contract with Freedom Airlines, a Mesa unit, in August.

Mesa currently operates 159 aircraft with over 800 daily departures to 126 cities, 38 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, the Bahamas and Mexico. Mesa operates as Delta Connection, US Airways Express and United Express under contract with Delta Air Lines, US Airways and United Airlines, respectively, and independently as Mesa Airlines and go!, the Hawaiian carrier that links Honolulu to the neighbor-island airports of Hilo, Kahului, Kona and Lihue.

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Good News for Award Travel

Airlines are having such a hard time selling tickets these days that an old joke can be adapted to fit the situation:

CUSTOMER -- "What time does the flight to San Diego leave?"

AIRLINE CLERK -- "What time can you get here?"

Good news for frequent fliers. In general, with airline traffic falling sharply, this is a very good time to redeem frequent-flier miles for award tickets and upgrades.

Meanwhile, Virgin America just upgraded its award-trip feature online. Here's the announcement.

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Outlook Darkens at Sun Country Airlines

Minnesota’s Sun Country Airlines is warning employees that it could shut down later this fall, but hopes to stay in business.

A month ago, Sun Country joined some of the big guys in alienating customers and added a fee ($12) for the first checked bag. Not that an annoying extra fee could put you out of business in this terrible economic climate, but it sure can’t help you keep customers loyal. Basically, though, Sun Country's immediate problems are the credit crunch and the FBI investigation at its parent company. (9/25 post).

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Southwest Introduces Elite Access Lanes

The world really is changing.

Southwest Airlines said today it will introduce priority security lane access for its Business Select and Rapid Reward A-List Customers at select airports.

Southwest said it will open the lanes, branded "Fly By," at these airports later this month:

Baltimore/Washington International, Dallas Love Field, Phoenix Sky Harbor
International, Orange County John Wayne, Denver International, San Francisco
International, and Los Angeles International.

Southwest said it plans to add more airports to the Fly By rollout starting in November, continuing to implement the priority security lane program throughout its
system on an airport-by-airport basis.

To use the lanes, passengers must have an A-List identification card or a Business
Select boarding pass.

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