Southwest Airlines’ and Airtran Airlines’ pilots unions have agreed to agree on the process for integrating their seniority lists. This isn’t an agreement on merging the lists but simply an agreement on how they’ll go about doing so.

They’ll first negotiate and then if they don’t get an agreement, they’ll have mediated talks and if those don’t work, they’ll have arbitration with a binding agreement. Standard stuff between unions but what I like is the fact that they’ve set deadlines for all these processes and those deadlines all fall within 2011. Good on both of them.

This process is governed by the McCaskill-Bond Act which was passed by Congress after the AA-TWA merger and the flight attendants union simply stapling on employees to the bottom of their list.

A curious question comes to my mind on US Airways as a result of this. I believe such a process was followed by US Airways and America West pilots unions. The result was an arbitrated result that the US Airways pilots didn’t like. The process was hijacked by US Airways pilots who initiated a vote amongst *all* pilots for new union representation. Since US Airways pilots outnumbered America West pilots, they got their way at the end of the day. At least until America West pilots sued. It would seem to me that federal law may well have been violated in this. If any readers here know the status of this, please comment.

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Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly has said recently that he believes Southwest will want to keep Airtran destinations such as Wichita, KS in all likelihood.  He also added the caveat that until they can see the viability of these smaller destinations for themselves, a solid committment can’t be made.  That evaluation won’t take place until Southwest officially merges with Airtran.

I think Southwest got a peak at what their world could look like when they did their due diligence on purchasing Frontier Airlines.   I think they saw the viability of operating smaller aircraft with reduced frequencies to some of these destinations and I think Southwest wants in on that action.  It wasn’t just Atlanta that Southwest wanted when they looked at Airtran. 

Airtran has made it kind of specialty of theirs to develop routes to what I would term third tier destinations.  Those destinations are places such as Wichita, Branson and Des Moines.  Airtran serves quite a few small destinations with regularity but not frequency.  Some with subsidies and some without. 

Take a look at these cities and you’ll see opportunity that fits neatly within the Southwest system. 

1. Key West, FL
2. Bloomington, IL
3. Moline, IL
4. Des Moines, IA
5. Wichita, KS
6. Lexington, KY
7. Portland, ME
8. Flint, MI
9. Grand Rapids, MI
10. Branson, MO
11. Omaha, NE
12. Atlantic City, NJ
13. Rochester, NY
14. White Plains, NY
15. Asheville, NC
16. Akron-Canton, OH
17. Allentown, PA
18. Harrisburg, PA
19. Knoxville, TN
20. Newport News/Williamsburg, VA
21. Charleston, WV

Airtran has built up quite the business at these airports and all of them can be served by Southwest focus cities.  This is why Southwest keeps saying that the 717 has a place in the fleet for some time to come.  It’s an aircraft that can efficiently serve such cities (as well as their 737-500s) to feed traffic to major cities such as Chicago, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Dallas, Orlando, Washington, D.C., Tampa, Oklahoma City, Nashville and Milwaukee.

And serving such cities isn’t out of SWA’s experience.  Take a look at the third tier cities they serve:

1. Birmingham, AL
2. Little Rock, AR
3. Hartford, CT
4. Boise, ID
5. Louisville, KY
6. Jackson, MS
7. Omaha, NE
8. Manchester, NH
9. Albuquerque, NM
10. Albany, NY
11. Long Island, NY
12. Oklahoma City, OK
13. Tulsa, OK
14. Providence, RI
15. Greenville / Spartanburg, SC
16. Amarillo, TX
17. Corpus Christi, TX
18. El Paso, TX
19. Harlingen, TX
20. Lubbock, TX
21. Midland/Odessa, TX
22. Norfolk, VA

As much as SWA is concentrating on growth to larger, mainline cities, SWA still has a vested interest in serving those smaller third tier cities and towns.  Even more so today as they can feed that traffic to one of many focus cities and carry people onwards at a far better value than being offered by a legacy airline.

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Both the CEOs of American Airlines (Gerard Arpey) and Southwest Airlines (Gary Kelly) decried rising oil prices as a crisis at a conference in Dallas last week. 

“We’re all very worried about what’s happening in the oil market,” Arpey said. “If the economic recovery dampens, it won’t be good for traffic.”

It’s true that rising oil prices will again challenge airlines to earn a profit and it is also true that the volatility in the oil market(s) makes things very unpredictable for airlines.

However, we have created another problem within the airline industry that goes unrecognized so far.  We haven’t allowed a major airline to go bankrupt and liquidate since Eastern Airlines.  Instead, we’ve allowed continually bankruptcy reorganization that has permitted uncompetitive companies to become marginally competitive again for a brief period of time.  Some of those companies figured out that they had to change the way they did business (Continental) and some haven’t. 

Mergers haven’t really eliminated airlines.  They have re-branded them with a new name.  Delta didn’t eliminate Northwest, it absorbed it and it continues on today.  United didn’t eliminate Continental, it continues on today. 

The reason we need to permit an airline or two to truely fail is that the barriers to entering the airline market are exceptionally high.  When we prop up the legacy and SuperLegacy carriers, we make it an order of magnitude more difficult for new new, leaner airlines to enter into the market place. 

We also don’t regulate anticompetitive behaviour very well.  In this country, it’s perfectly acceptable to allow an airline to flood a route with capacity and below cost pricing to eliminate a new entrant from that route.  The consumer is hurt in two ways:  They see potential for new, low fares show up for a very limited time and they see an new, better airline potentially eliminated from the marketplace.

After more than 30 years, we still haven’t done anything about the anti-competitive nature of unions in the airline business.  The airline industry got deregulated but labor did not.  The current scenario makes change in rapidly changing conditions all but impossible for airlines facing higher costs elsewhere. 

I’m not in favor of eliminating unions but I am in favor of eliminating years long talks between airlines and unions on new contracts.   Billion dollar business negotiate mergers and consummate those mergers in as little as one or two years.  It can take far in excess of 2 years for a union and airline to come to an agreement on a new contract that by the time it is voted in, market conditions have changed again.

This puts both unions and airlines at a strong disadvantage in this industry.  It is as big of a crisis as any oil crisis at this point.  This industry has no agility and is constantly lagging behind changing conditions. 

It’s interesting to me that the only airlines who earn profits and who do negotiate things like high oil prices with any agility at all are the newer airlines who have contained other costs such as labor and equipment or those airlines who have figured out that working with their employees to get agreements quicker is the right business decision. 

A depature from the marketplace of a major airline would be healthy and good for the airline industry.  It would put executive teams at various legacy and SuperLegacy airlines on notice.  It would put unions on notice as well.  The status quo isn’t working and the industry remains fairly stagnant.  Legacy airlines inch along while low cost carriers earn money for investors. 

We now even encourage airlines to become even larger monolithic companies that are even harder to turn around in the face of trouble.  That’s our real crisis in the airline industry, not oil.

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Airline CEO Doug Parker says that there is one more big merger deal to be done in the United States and that is with his airline, US Airways.    Parker’s comment was made during US Airways recent media day.

The question is, who?  I’ve said before that US Airways and AA could actually do a nice deal when it comes to the complementary nature of the two airlines but I have also noted that you would be combining two airlines with very bad union relations right now.    Furthermore, neither has the cash to do the deal and a stock swap is just swapping one so-so share for another. 

The truth is, I think US Airways has something AA needs.  The executive team.  The US Airways executive team manages to deliver profits despite being an airline with not a lot of international traffic and an airline with no hub that anyone views as particularly strategic.   I would like to see that team manage American Airlines’ resources.  I think we would all be pleasantly surprised financially.

I actually don’t see a partner for US Airways.  Not right now.  It isn’t an low cost carrier (ironically enough, US Airways stock symbol is LCC) as the models are two widely apart.  It isn’t an airline that shares a similar fleet as US Airways flies Boeing and Airbus and within the Airbus fleet, it flies two somewhat dissimilar fleets of A320 series aircraft. 

I cannot identify an airline that has a strategic position that would complement US Airways routes without being a clash in every other way.  JetBlue owns JFK and an Airbus fleet but the clash in cultures and everything else makes me shudder.  The same is true for Frontier Airlines.

Southwest has no interest in them.  They simply identify where US Airways is strong and then move in to compete with them.  Southwest wins and US Airways moves along to another place.

SuperLegacies?  They don’t need US Airways.  There is no real route rationalization to be had in many cases and the few places where one SuperLegacy might want more dominance are places where anti-trust regulation is unlikely to grant it.

Right now, US Airways is on its own and that’s OK.  This is a profitable airline and, in many cases, more profitable than SuperLegacies.  5 years from now may prove differently but I don’t see it in the next 2 years or even 3.

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Since the Southwest decompression incident last Friday, there have been a number of parties suddenly using the event to promote an agenda.  The DoT and FAA have both acted more politically than anyone would necessarily like to see.  In fact, I believe a number of people have failed to see what went right in this incident such as a successful emergency descent and safe landing.  A recovery that was so smooth, all but one passenger continued on their flight when a replacement aircraft was sent.

Now the TWU (Transport Workers Union) is calling for the FAA to clamp down on maintenance being down out of the United States.  What they would really like is for it to be forbidden altogether.  Sadly, this is much more about jobs than it is about safety.  The reality is that if maintenance done outside the United States was the hazard that the TWU would have you believe, we would have catastrophes happening left and right.  The fact is that air travel in the United States over the past 10 years is vastly more safe (by inicidents and type of incidents) than it has ever been before. 

We don’t have lax safety procedures.  We really don’t.  An unpredicted and unpredictable event happened and the good news is that everything that was supposed to happen if the unforeseen happened did actually happen.  the hole in the fuselage was contained, the aircraft performed an emergency descent with no further issues and the aircraft was landed safetly with no substantive injuries.  And for every event remotely similar to this over the past 10 years, the outcome was the same.

Making political hay out of this or any other event is irresponsible and unsafe.  When you begin to allow political motiviations control the ultimate outcome of these situations, you lose the transparency that actually makes this industry safe.  Who wants to self report unsafe events and incidents if they know they’ll be crucified for it politically?

This is my criticism of how France approaches such things.  By opening criminal investigations into air disasters, they encourage people to not cooperate, not self report and, worst of all, not engage in self examination with a goal of avoiding or eliminating the problem in the future.

The most responsible thing that could be done in this event would be to let the NTSB do its job, make its recommendations and then follow those recommendations.   Allowing anyone to “score” politically as a result of this incidents puts us all more at risk.

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American Airlines and Japan Air Lines can now start cooperating over the Pacific and that can’t come too soon.  JAL is emerging from bankruptcy and while it has new financing, it still has a lot of work to do.  Combine the exit from bankruptcy with the recent earthquake/tsunami disaster and you’ve got an airline that has a lot of struggles ahead of it. 

American Airlines also is suffering.  Projected by some to have as much as $1billion in losses for 2011, AA needs to get some things right.  It’s now starting to benefit from its trans-Atlantic cooperation with British Airways, Iberia and other smaller Oneworld partners but only time will tell if that is truly successful.

Oneworld partner, International Consolidated Airlines Group (British Airways / Iberia Airlines) has also just expressed an interest in taking a stake in JAL when it is re-listed for stock exchanges.  This is Oneworld bringing the network closer together among partners.

AA and JAL can now cooperate similarly and both would be wise to consolidate some service between the US and Japan for the near future.  Rather than see a splashy introduction, I think we’ll see both of these airlines act as quickly and as seriously as they can to preserve their revenues on flights between the two countries.  This partnership is defensive rather than offensive in the manner of the trans-Atlantic pact.

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In the last few days, there have been a lot of airliner incidents reported in the media.  Southwest Airlines had one 737 experience decompression after a hole developed in a fuselage of a 737-300.  Another Southwest Airlines 737 diverted due to flight crew smelling smoke in the cabin.  To make matters worse, during inspections of 737-300s, Southwest discovered two more aircraft with sub-surface cracking in their fuselsages.  An American Airlines flight diverted after a few passengers and flight crew became dizzy and another AA aircraft, a 767, had to return to the airport after taking off because of a suspected tail strike on take-off.  A regional jet flew into a flock of birds and suffered major damage to its nose cone and body. 

It seems like there have been several other incidents over the past few weeks as well but are things suddenly unsafe?  No, not really.  I just named 4 flights out of several thousands that have taken place over the past few days.  Statistically speaking, they are insignificant.   One thing that drives reporting of these events is whether or not it is a slow news day.  Over the past few days, we’ve had little news to block out less significant reports related to airliners.   Japan and its disaster is settling down in the news and Libya news has settled a fair bit as well.  When things are quiet, airliner incidents get reported and the more prominent the airline is, the more its incidents get reported as well.

It’s safe, go fly.

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The latest stats on airline complaints have Delta at the top with 2 complaints per 100,000 passengers and Southwest at the bottom with just .27 complaints per 100,000 passengers.  The legacy airlines (and many of their regional airlines) occupy the worst positions with LCCs and smaller airlines doing the best.  Does that mean that bigger is worse?

No, not really.  Southwest Airlines carries a tremendous number of passengers but it carries them on shorter flights and most flights are “point to point” rather than hub flying.  In fact, the better airlines tend to be more “point to point” flyers and the worst airlines are those with exceptionally heavy hub flying.    Does that mean hub flying is bad?

No, not really.  It’s notable that Airtran which definitely uses hubs occupied a low complaint position despite being heavily hubbed out of Atlanta, home of Delta Airlines. 

If anything, I would argue that it indicates just how much an airline values a customer and their repeat business.  Those airlines holding bad positions sacrifice service to maintain revenue and in many instances that works out OK for them.  However, those airlines who pretty much always show profits in good times and bad are the ones that are occupying the best positions. 

There is a lesson there for airlines:  Value your passengers total experience and they’ll value the services you offer.

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United Airlines flight attendants (comprised of about 15,000 United employees and 9,000 Continental employees) will be voting on which union will represent them in the merged companies I like to call ContiUnited. 

United (old) flight attendants have been severely unhappy with United since they lost their pension in bankruptcy in 2002.  The blame has often aimed at United Chairman Glenn Tilton and employee groups at United (old) have made it clear they intend to get what is theirs with this merger including the Flight Attendants.

It’s been my observation that Continental crews haven’t viewed their merger with United with great enthusiasm either.  Continental crews have had pretty good working conditions, good industry salaries and have been rewarded with the company’s success.  That experience has been seen to be at risk since United (old) employees typically outnumber Continental employees in the same jobs.

This vote will be won by the United (old) flight attendants and expect Continental flight crews to be displeased by this.  Jeff Smisek, CEO of United and formerly CEO of Continental, has been exceptionally quiet during this merger and hasn’t put much of a “one team” spin on this merger in the public in my opinion.  As times passes, this merger appears, from the employee perspective, to be less and less a merger of equals and more and more one of Continental executives taking over United operations.

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Southwest Airlines has had another 737 develop a hole in its fuselage while in flight.  The aircraft suffered a rapid decompression, performed an emergency descent from 36,0000 to 11,000 feet and then landed at Yuma’s airport. 

According to one passenger account in the media, the hole was about 3 feet long but I would cautiou that these accounts often are wrong.  Passengers were met with another aircraft and the flight continued onwards to Sacremento.  One passenger hitched a ride with a family relative in a Cessna 182.

Southwest has announced that it is grounding its 737-300 fleet for emergency inspections.  This particular aircraft was delivered in 1996 which is neither particularly old nor particularly young for such an aircraft. 

A little less than 2 years ago, another Southwest flight from Nashville to Baltimore also developed a hole in its upper fuselage and had to divert to an airport in West Virginia.  That hole was slightly larger than 1 square foot and was later determined to be caused by metal fatigue.

Is Southwest or this aircraft type unsafe?  No, not really.  I do suspect that we’ll see some recommendations come out of this event with respect to inspecting for metal fatigue more frequently.  Southwest’s aircraft isn’t really old at all by any standards but Southwest does tend to perform many cycles (a landing and takeoff together is a “cycle”) each day with its aircraft compared to many airlines.  The numbers of cycles an aircraft takes on is far more important than its actual age or how many miles it has flown.

Expect some delays if you’re flying Southwest as they have 81 of this aircraft type in its fleet and until inspections can be performed, Southwest is liable to have a shortage of aircraft for its flights since 81 aircraft represents not quite 15% of its overall fleet.

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Pratty & Whitney has done pretty well this week.  First off, they’ve won the IndiGo order for the Airbus A320NEO and that is a big order over time.   150 aircraft is nothing to sneeze at.  P&W already is in development on this engine for Bombardier (CSeries) and Mitsubishi’s regional jet.  In addition, COMAC has now expressed interest in this engine for its 919 developement. 

At first glance, P&W appears to be getting interest from the little knowns but that’s simply because they’re the ones with new aircraft in development.  The Airbus A320NEO adds legitimacy and the order for IndiGo’s A320NEOs solidifies it.

It does strike me that airline industry appears attracted to the perceived greater promise of the GTF.  When does the GE/Snecma CFM LEAP 56 engine start gaining interest?  It’s noticeably silent in that area so far.

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Two months ago, I wrote a blog post that included m thoughts on Vision Airlines operating flights in and around the Gulf States area to the Destin, Florida area.  You can read that HERE.   These flights were going to use Vision Airlines’ 737s from airports such as Macon, GA and Asheville, NC to carry passengers into both Destin, Florida as well as Gulfport/Biloxi.  

Already several cities in Vision’s plans are not working out.  Most recently, their flights from Macon, GA have been cancelled.   Now, it’s also true that Vision has seen enough tickets sales from other, more major origination cities such as Louisville, Kentucky and Huntsville, Alabama.  But those are reasonably large cities when compard to Macon and Asheville.  

I repeat my prediction:  Vision isn’t going to make a real go of this.  Those aircraft are difficult to fill and Vision’s idea of regular flights (just a few times a week in most cases) doesn’t serve the flexibility required by many seeking a few days leisure in places like that.

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Japan Air Lines, JAL, entered into bankruptcy in January 2010 as one of the worst bankruptcies in Japanese history with debts totaling over $28 Billion.  While in bankruptcy, they got a new Chairman Kazuo Inamori, an innovative founder of tech companies in Japan, and they also suffered massive route cuts and labor cuts (totalling over 16,000 people.) 

Their bankruptcy was financed by 11 creditors including the Development Bank of Japan and they’ve now exited bankruptcy into a disaster. 

I’m always struck by how the airline industry so often finds itself in a poorly timed event for airlines that just got over a previous disaster.  Japan, affected by its recent earthquake and resulting tsunami, is no longer a remotely attractive place to visit and even the highly downsized entity JAL is today can hardly be expected to survive what is by all accounts a massive downturn in demand.

It’s not just international flying.  Many places that are normally high demand domestic destinations are in disarray.  So, one wonders just how viable the latest version of this airline is?

JAL likely will only be able survive with more government support and this is a country that will be finding it difficult to pay for the recovery in front of them as it is.  But just as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were a massive, unpredicted event with both domestic and global implications, so is Japan’s recovery from the earthquake and tsunami.  It’s best to find a way to let this airline recover a bit more before passing judgement on whether it should even exist at all.  In the long run, let the markets decide.  In the short run, help this company out.

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The Dallas Morning News Airline Biz Blog had THIS blog entry last week about analysts taking issue with American Airlines’ plans for 2011.  In short, American has already said they would trim their capacity growth by about 1 percent but Wall Street doesn’t think that is nearly enough.  Actually, I think Wall Street Analysts would prefer an aircraft not even take off unless every seat is filled.

I’ve been following the airline industry for a long while now.  I’ve been writing this blog for nearly 3 years and I cannot recall American really responding with liveliness to any economic change or crisis.   Delta, an airline that is bigger and less “integrated” so far, responds quickly and adjusts its system with great fidelity.  There are no half measures and the same is pretty true for most other US based airlines.

American plods along not earning money, not dealing with its labor problems and not really making any great adjustment to any of their plans.  When they do something, even rather small, we all tend to act surprised.  Recall that everyone was surprised and commenting about their announcement that they’ll add the 777-300ER to their fleet.  Even I was surprised and a bit excited.  Then about a week later, I realized we all got excited over a purchase of 2 aircraft.  Yes, a third order was added but so what?  This was a nothing move and a nothing announcement.

Analysts are tired of half measures coming from AA and they’re tired of the rather large losses coming from AA when behemoths such as Delta and United (also Super Legacy airlines) are earning profits.  Big profits.   Defenders of AA (usually from within AA itself) love to point out that they didn’t declare bankruptcy and “screw” their investors.  No, perhaps not but they aren’t doing their investors any good right now either. 

The truth is, AA resembles that person we all know who continues to live with a toothache instead of going to the dentist and doing something about it.   Those people are tiresome and they’re often unproductive because they live with their pain instead of moving it out of the way to make progress. 

Why?  I can’t say for certain.  The motives of the executive leadership of that airline are not visible to anyone.  We can’t see inside their heads but I can speculate.  First, the board of directors is virtually handpicked by CEO Gerard Arpey.  They are, for all intent and purpose, Arpey supporters much more than AA supporters. 

Second, being an executive at AA is a powerful position and maintaining the status quo is a far more successful strategy for maintaining that power.  Revolutionaries and evangelists are not tolerated at AA.  Success is defined by increments rather than wholesale directional changes even if those increments merely mean you lost less money than in the previous financial quarter.

Third, momentum is keeping AA going.  AA has done a great job of managing its finances.  How else could it loose hundreds of millions of dollars for years and keep on going.  The well can’t keep on going forever though and it would seem that the best time for a change in leadership would be now rather than 2 years from now with AA contemplating bankruptcy then.  You can only mortgage so much equipment to keep on going.  You can only issue so much debt to keep on going. 

At some point, you need to earn a profit.  Most airlines did that in 2010.  Most will in 2011.  AA did not in 2010 and will not in 2011.  Frankly, I’m surprised that analysts are roughing up AA even more at this point.

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Southwest Airlines CEO, Gary Kelly, continues to speak loudly at his doubts about Boeing providing a replacement that is 10 or more years down the line in lieu of a re-engine.  At the J.P. Morgan Aviation, Transportation and Defense Conference, Kelly spoke of this dilemma for Southwest and just how unsatisfying it is. 

Southwest wants more fuel effiency sooner than what Boeing is publicly talking about.   Kelly believes that Southwest needs to advance its talks with Boeing on this subject.   Kelly also believes they can manage more than one type of aircraft in their fleet and believes the Boeing 717 will offer many possibilities for Southwest going forward.  Finally, he also believes they can source their next mainline aircraft from several manufacturers, not just Boeing and he includes Airbus and Bombardier (CS Series) in that statement.

There isn’t anything new being said here.  However, its the fact that Kelly has taken to saying it in virtually every public forum that is significant.  Southwest wants Boeing to pay attention and the fact that Kelly continues to speak indicates that Boeing isn’t doing a very good job of listening so far.  Is it hubris, dysfunctionality or a short wait before they hope to wow Southwest?

I actually lean towards hubris in this case.  I believe Boeing thinks that Southwest will wait.  I believe that Southwest is not the same Southwest Airlines that existed in the mid 1990’s and if Boeing expects to keep them as a mainline customer, it’s time for some transparent talks on what these airlines need.

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Delta is cutting back 25% of its flights to and from it’s Memphis hub and to anyone who follows the industry, this comes as no giant surprise.   The merger between Northwest Airlines and Delta Airlines resulted in two hubs very close to each other:  Memphis and Cincinatti.  Another hub, Atlanta, was also nearby and everyone was pretty sure that both hubs would see a reduction in activity. 

Cincinatti has already been drawn down significantly and Memphis has experienced some reduction.  The thing about this announcement is how it was couched by Delta President Ed Bastian.  He says this will be good for Memphis.

I do wonder if Memphis feels similarly.  Reduction is probably appropriate but one should call it what it is:  rationalization of the network to provide better profit and other benefits to the company.

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A new QANTAS safety video featuring John Travolta at the beginning and end is under attack by QANTAS employees in various forums.  Travolta serves as a Goodwill Ambassador for QANTAS and owns a 707-138B originally flown by QANTAS and Braniff International.  His aircraft is painted in vintage QANTAS livery.

Employees refer to the video as “cringe worthy” and “corny” and some suggest the pilot of QANTAS flight QF32, Richard Captain de Crespigny, the Airbus A380 that was safely landed after an uncontained engine failure should re-record the video.  I’ve watched it and, frankly, I can’t really find anything “cringe worthy” or “corny” or “tacky” about it.  It’s simply Travolta inviting people to enjoy a QANTAS flight and to pay attention to the safety video.  A lot of airlines should be so lucky.  Watch it yourself.

QANTAS Safety Video

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A few days ago, Washington Reagan National Airport was uncontrolled by an air traffic controller for about 30 minutes.  During that time, 2 aircraft had to manage themselves into the airspace and land at an uncontrolled airport. 

Believe it or not, this isn’t all that uncommon at certain regional / out of the way airports and there are procedures for it.  However, aircraft in Washington DC’s airspace should probably not go uncontrolled . . . ever.

There was a case of a person locking themselves out of the tower about a year ago.  This time, speculation is that the air traffic controller fell asleep.  An investigation is going on and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has ordered that 2 controllers man the “midnight to 6am” shift at Washington Reagan National. 

For more information, read HERE.

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British Airways, American Airlines and Iberia Airlines received trans-Atlantic anti-trust immunity to cooperate on routes between the United States and Europe late last year.  Since that time, all three have been maneuvering their operations to prepare for this cooperation.  Now it begins.

Previously, flights between JFK (New York city) and Heathrow (London) on AA and BA frequently left within minutes of each other.  Now, the two airlines will form a kind of “shuttle service” between New York City and London with departures from London to NYC in the afternoon leaving once every hour and flights from NYC to London leaving as frequently as every 20 minutes in the afternoon. 

Frequency is good.  Choice is good.  And I would be tempted to criticize that much frequency except that a quick check of schedules reveals that all of these aircraft are either BA 747-400s or AA 777-200s.   I do wonder if I haven’t identified where at least one British Airways A380 will fly routes.   It also makes me speculate that AA’s recent order of 777-300ERs might not be for quite as distant routes as we once thought. 

The airlines are also cooperating on other flights to between other cities.  Iberia will fly to California from Madrid.  Schedules between Miami and Spain will be coordinated going forward.  A check of flights between Dallas / Fort Worth and London Heathrow show 3 coordinated flights a day with 2 AA 777s and 1 BA 747.   There are 7 more connections (several at cheaper prices) available between those cities with stops in Chicago, Boston and Washington D.C.

Chicago to London flights as non-stops are a bit more frequent although all operated on 777s.  Chicago gets 6 evening departures to London and when you consider the connections that AA has in its Chicago hub, this should be good for everyone in Oneworld. 

I am struck by one thing now.  The biggest argument against such an alliance was the dominance both BA and AA would have between London and the United States.  Both were already dominant players by any measure.  The new schedule for these flights show real muscle flex and I wonder how any other airline competes against this partnership into London. 

This will be a very interesting alliance to watch for the next 2 years as it  grows and blossoms.  You have to wonder if Star Alliance and SkyTeam aren’t just a bit concerned at how this network unfolded on a global basis. 

One example:  QANTAS will soon be flying to DFW airport regularly from Australia.  It will be possible to leave Sydney, Australia on QANTAS at 1:25pm on a Monday, arrive at 1:50pm in DFW that same Monday ( I love how the international date line makes that possible) and then depart DFW at 6:05pm on British Airways to London Heathrow arriving at 9:00am the next morning.   Then one could hop a QANTAS flight from London Hearthrow at 12:00 noon and fly to Sydney, Australia via Singapore (fuel stop) arriving at 7:30pm the following day and thus completing a roundtrip flight on some of the longest flights in existence.

And you can book all of that through American Airlines’ website.  This is some real market power and it will be very interesting to see how people respond to the offerings these Oneworld partners will have arranged between themselves.

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A couple of weeks ago a 31 year old Muslim woman was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight due to a member of the flight crew “feeling uncomfortable.”   The woman, a graduate student flying to San Jose, wore a headscarf and actually had done nothing.  So what instigated this?  The flight crew member “thought” she overheard the woman say “It’s a go.” on her cell phone when, in fact, she had said “I’ve got to go.”  

Quite a common phrase among people using cellular phones as a flight nears departure. 

The TSA searched her headscarf but quickly realized that this wasn’t a situation warranting further searches and left the rest of her possessions alone.  Despite the TSA’s assessment, the woman was kept from the flight and told that the flight crew wasn’t comfortable with her flying with them. 

Southwest Airlines has apologized several different ways and offered compensation for the experience in the form of a flight voucher but the woman says she doesn’t want to fly Southwest after that experience.  I can’t say that I blame her.

For 10 years now, we have treated a class of people very badly when it comes to flying.  Although you may believe that it’s Muslims that I’m speaking of, I’m not.  That class of people is actually those who look Muslim and/or strange or and/or Middle Eastern / Asian.  That’s a pretty big class of people.

This kind of treatment is a direct result of the Bush Administration’s “one percent doctrine” which is, simply stated, that if there is a 1% chance that something is going on, it will be treated as fact rather than speculation out of an abundance of caution.  It is a political response to a terrorist threat.

I usually avoid being political in this forum because I think it serves little or no good when it comes to a dialog about an industry.  In this case, it’s unavoidable.  It’s not that I’m anti-Bush or anti-Republican.  It’s that I’m anti-stupid when it comes to security.   We have ground our Bill of Rights into dust over the perceived threat of terrorism with respect to political considerations in this country. 

We grossly abuse that class of people I spoke of a few paragraphs earlier out of an abundance of caution and I’ll note that that class probably comprises nearly 2/3’s of all people in the world.  It’s a pretty large class of people even in the United States and includes a significant portion of people who are US citizens.  And by grossly abuse, I mean in a way that 20 years ago would have been soundly reprimanded by popular opinion as well as by courts. 

We grossly abuse our Bill of Rights when it comes to unlawful searches and seizures with our current TSA security checks at airports.   I cannot think of another situation where we demand (not ask) that people give up all rights in order to use what is a major and essential transportation system in this country.  People are afforded no protections from these searches whatsoever and the only response to objections to this treatment is “you don’t have to fly.”  Well, yes, in fact, in many cases you do in this 21st Century economy.

Oddly enough, we don’t even protect people from criminal prosecution(s) resulting from these searches which aren’t a security risk to a flight.  We just pursue the perceived “bad people” in every way possible, legal or not.

Most of you who read this are likely *not* in that class of suspected people.  I’ve seen comments in many forums by people saying things like “it is a small price to pay for feeling safe”.  The abrogation of these rights is centered in public opinion that is, at the minimum, based on political responses to security problems rather than fact.

Most of you likely don’t care because you think you’re largely unaffected by this.  Perhaps but perhaps not.  It’s far too easy to use these tactics against anyone by using that very same argument:  “You want to feel safe, don’t you?”  The problem is, you aren’t safe.  As a matter of fact, you’re far more at risk for wrongful prosecution, harrassment and even 1st, 4th, 5th and 9thAmendment rights violations.  

We are and should be a better country than that.  We should behave better than this.  The most shocking thing of all to me is just how easily everyone folded to this one percent doctrine approach and accepted the implications towards citizens and visitors to this country alike. 

As for the airlines who are responding this way towards customers:  You’re better than this.  You all have started issuing apologies publicly because they cost nothing and appear to be the right thing to do.  Apologies for honest mistakes are right and proper.  Continuing to abuse a class of people and then apologizing for it after the fact is shameful.  If your flight crew is so poor at realistically identifying flight risks, I would suggest that they don’t need to be working for you anymore.  They are unable to perform an essential part of their job.  They are reacting to anything instead of being experienced professionals.  

And anyone who has been involved in real security issues will tell you that people who just react wholesale to anything are actually some of the biggest threats to real security.

Filed under: Airline News, security by ajax
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