Essential Travel News for 4/16/07

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FAA/SECURITY

Evidence mounts that controllers are overworked, towers understaffed

There were disturbing signs last week that the nation’s air traffic control workforce might be in need of more staff and easier work rules. The most ominous sign was a report from the National Transportation Safety Board stating that controllers should be given more time off between shifts lest they be overcome by fatigue in the tower and thus more prone to make mistakes. The NTSB said it came to that conclusion after investigating a Comair crash in Louisville last year where the aircraft took off from the wrong runway. The board said the controller on duty had slept for just two hours during the previous nine hours before his shift started. The NTSB cited several other recent incidents of “close calls” at O’Hare, LAX, Denver and Seattle airports that appeared to be due to controllers working after inadequate sleep. The safety board said the FAA should at least stop scheduling controllers for two eight-hour shifts within a 24-hour period.

At Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, the FAA last week opened a new control tower, but a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association there said the Phoenix facility is dangerously understaffed. From December 2003 until today, the union said, the number of controllers working in the Phoenix tower has declined from 76 to 53. “To offset these losses, the FAA brought in three trainees,” the controllers’ spokesman said. Another 12 controllers will be eligible to retire this year, he said, and the FAA “will not have their replacements ready – if they have hired them yet at all – until 2009. That is a big problem. The staffing crisis is well underway here in Phoenix.” He added that since new, tougher work, rules were imposed by the FAA on controllers last fall, “morale has dramatically decreased and work and pay rules are providing incentives for controllers to retire as soon as they are eligible instead of working to the age 56 mandatory retirement.”

Finally, CNN reported last week that three aircraft – including two commercial airliners and one plane carrying human lungs for an emergency transplant – were forced to circle over the Manchester, N.H. airport for up to 18 minutes because the lone air traffic controller on duty in the tower took a bathroom break.

Ad hoc consumer group wages lonely battle for passenger rights bill

A passenger who was stuck on the ground in Austin for eight hours aboard an American Airlines flight last winter is spearheading an ad-hoc lobbying effort in support of the airline passengers’ bill of rights introduced in Congress recently. The passenger, Kate Hanni, testified in favor of the bill at a Senate hearing last week, but found she didn’t have a lot of company. As we reported last week, the Washington-based Air Travelers Association, a consumer advocacy group, came out against the bill – and so has the Business Travel Coalition, representing corporate travel managers. Both groups said the bill goes too far in giving any individual passenger the right to deplane after spending at least three hours in an aircraft stuck on the tarmac. Needless to say, the airline’s own trade organization feels the same way, and testified to that effect at the hearing – in the face of withering criticism from Sen. Barbara Boxer, one of the bill’s sponsors. Even the U.S. Transportation Department declined to support the legislation. Hanni also reportedly took her campaign to congressional staffers, lobbying for passage of the legislation. The determined Hanni has even started her own grass-roots organization and is seeking support from like-minded airline passengers who have had enough. Her group is called the Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights. You can check it out and maybe sign her petition at www.strandedpassengers.blogspot.com.

AIRLINES

Midwest Airlines’ board rejects AirTran’s latest takeover bid

Even though AirTran Airways’ parent company has raised its bid for Midwest Airlines stock to $9 in cash and 0.5842 shares of AirTran stock per share of Midwest, the latter’s board of directors last week once again rejected the AirTran offer as “inadequate,” and urged its shareholders not to tender their shares. The Midwest board said its negative view of the AirTran offer was confirmed by an opinion it received from Goldman Sachs. “AirTran’s revised offer does not take into account the long-term value of our strategic plan,” said Midwest CEO Timothy Hoeksema. “The board believes that Midwest’s future holds great promise and that the best interests of all stakeholders lie in Midwest continuing to execute its plan.” Meanwhile, Midwest also announced additional service expansions last week, with plans to begin Midwest Connect 50-seat regional jet service in July between Kansas City-Colorado Springs three times a day and Kansas City-Madison, Wis. twice daily. Also in July, Midwest will add a second daily Kansas City-Pittsburgh roundtrip and a third daily Kansas City-San Antonio flight.

American opens web site for women travelers

American Airlines has expanded its web site with a new section devoted to female flyers (www.aa.com/women). Noting that it carries some 50 million women travelers a year, American said the new web area’s content will include information on safety and security; how to save time and money while traveling; advice on traveling with friends, family or partners; and stories and suggestions from other female travelers. To launch the site, AAdvantage partner company Wyndham Hotels is offering female travelers a 20 percent room discount and special spa offers when they book through www.aa.com/women.

INTERNATIONAL

Transatlantic for $12? Ryanair eyes U.S. market

Move over, Sir Freddie Laker: Dublin-based low-fare airline Ryanair, which carries millions of passengers to dozens of airports within Europe, wants to launch a transatlantic airline, possibly with fares as low as $12 one-way. That’s according to Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, who revealed his plans in an interview with European aviation magazine Flight International. The publication said O’Leary hopes to take advantage of the new U.S.-Europe “open skies” aviation agreement, which takes effect in 2008, to create a separate low-fare airline just for the transatlantic market. The publication said the new carrier would start around 2010 and would eventually include a fleet of up to 50 Airbus A350s or Boeing 787s. “With the cheapest fare at 10 euros ($12), O’Leary expects the services, to secondary airports such as Baltimore, Providence and New York Long Island Islip MacArthur, to be full,” the magazine said. “He expects sales of food, drink, duty-free goods and in-flight entertainment to be a major revenue earner.” Unlike Ryanair’s no-frills, one-class European operations, the transatlantic airline would also offer a premium class. “O’Leary says he has already had speculative approaches from U.S. airports and is confident the venture will succeed despite the failure of several transatlantic low-fare airlines over the years,” the article said. It quotes O’Leary as saying: “By mid-2009, we will be carrying 70 million passengers at 23 bases across Europe. It will be relatively straightforward for us to do a deal for 40 to 50 long-haul aircraft and connect these bases transatlantically. There would be no one to touch us.”

Low-cost U.K. carrier plans June 21 start on New York route

Zoom Airlines, that new low-cost British carrier we reported on several weeks ago, reportedly plans to begin flying a two-class 767 on June 21 between London Gatwick and New York JFK, with fares as low as $255 each way. The airline has won approval form the U.S. Transportation Department to start selling tickets, but at this point the approval applies only to ticket sales in the U.K. Zoom is a British affiliate of Canada’s Zoom Airlines, which operates from several Canadian cities to the U.K., and U.S. airlines like Delta have challenged its application to fly to the U.S. on the grounds that Zoom U.K. is not really a British company but a Canadian one. According to the trade publication Travel Weekly, the DOT approval for Zoom to sell tickets in the U.K. “could be an indication Zoom is likely to overcome Delta’s objections to its application.”

AIRPORTS

United, others hit LAX flyers with surcharge to pay the rent

A few weeks ago, we reported that several airlines at Los Angeles International Airport were taking the airport authority there to court because it has imposed significant increases in the rents that the carriers pay for terminal space. The complaining airlines say the increases violate their lease agreements with the airport. Now, according to wire service reports, United Airlines has decided not to wait for the courts, and instead will pass the rent increase along to passengers. United reportedly started assessing a $10 per person surcharge on flights out of LAX to cover what it said was an annual increase of $10 million in rent that it pays to the airport. Following word of United’s surcharge, the same $10 fee for LAX departures was also reportedly adopted by American, US Airways, Delta and Northwest.

Las Vegas opens new rental car facility

McCarran International Airport at Las Vegas has cut the ribbon on a new consolidated rental car facility on Gillespie Street, about three miles south of the terminals. The individual rental company shuttles to and from the airport have been replaced by a common system of rental shuttle buses. The $170 million facility is home to all 11 rental car companies that serve McCarran, and it has space to hold up to 5,000 rental cars.

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