Despite Recent Severe Weather, Travelers Blame Airlines Most for Flight Delays

A majority of air travelers have been delayed within the past three months -- and they are holding the airlines responsible, according to a new survey focused on consumer perceptions of the causes for air travel delays.

The survey was conducted by market research firm TNS and was based on interviews August 16-19 with 2,500 members of the TNS US online panel. Respondents were screened for past month travel and past three-month air travel.

Just this month, a Federal Aviation Administration report named June 2007 one of the worst travel months in U.S. history. At the same time, the Department of Transportation stated that the first half of 2007 was the worst for air travel delays in 13 years, when the department first began keeping statistics. The TNS study reveals that among those who expect to travel over the Labor Day holiday, 30 percent plan to travel by air. Despite the delays, the Air Transport Association expects 15.7 million passengers will fly over the Labor Day Weekend -- a 2.6 percent increase over last year. As the already busy skies become increasingly crowded this
holiday weekend, consumers can only hope that airlines will be prepared to meet the demand.

"What's interesting is that consumers are now blaming the airline itself for their travel delays more often than they blame the obvious culprits -- weather, increased summer air traffic, or both," says Tim Gohmann, senior vice president, Travel & Leisure, TNS North America. "Airlines have the opportunity to address the contributing factors such as overbooking and mechanical failure and win back some of the trust of consumers. Consumers, on the other hand, should approach Labor Day weekend prepared to face the same delays they have experienced throughout the summer."

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Enrollment System for Traveler Programs Upgraded

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has announced it has upgraded its Web-based scheduling tool for registered frequent travelers and has eliminated a previous backlog for membership into the programs. Turnaround time for new applicants using the Global Online Enrollment System (GOES) is now less than six weeks, down from up to a year in some high volume locations before GOES was available, the border agency says.

The online application, launched in November 2006, enables a more efficient method of applying for or renewing membership into SENTRI, the southern border frequent traveler program. This tool also streamlines the application process allowing applicants to schedule their interview from their own online account, which will automatically alert users when they have been conditionally approved and prompt them to schedule a final appointment, CBP says.

"Technology is a critical tool to border management, and we will continue to leverage the right technologies to meet the myriad challenges inherent with our mission of keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the country while facilitating legitimate trade and travel," says CBP Commissioner W. Ralph Basham.

The SENTRI program, or Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection, first launched in Southern California in 1995 to provide approved participants expedited processing at certain high-volume crossings. Nationwide, there are more than 100,000 members, with an expected growth of more than 30,000 anticipated during 2007.

In the future, the Global Online Enrollment System will also beavailable to NEXUS and FAST members. Nexus is a joint frequent traveler program with Canada, and FAST, or Free and Secure Trade, is the trade equivalent, and is available on both the northern and southern borders at designated locations. It is anticipated that these programs also will fulfill the secure travel document requirements for land and sea travel under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.

There are over 300,000 members in all three programs, according to CBP. For more information, please visit cbp.gov and click the "Travel" tab.

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Message on Capitol Hill: Airliner Merger to Hurt Consumers

Experts, stakeholders and lawmakers alike rose on Capitol Hill to question the proposed merger of US Air (LCC) and Delta Airlines (DALRQ), saying the combination could cut competition and hurt consumers.

U.S. domestic airlines have lost nearly $40 billion in the last five years, but after intense restructuring among the major carriers, the industry may have turned a corner, notes U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that held a hearing looking at airline competitiveness.

Even conservative estimates suggest the airline industry will turn a profit of $4 billion in 2007, Inouye says. Despite the positive outlook, most industry observers warn that external factors or other negative business trends could dramatically impact any potential profits next year or beyond, Inouye adds.

"Aviation is vitally important to our nation’s system of transportation and commerce. We must be quite certain that the likely benefits of various merger proposals far outweigh any potential consequences," he says.

The airline industry has seen a pause in mergers in the past half-decade, as the airline industry restructured but that does not change concerns about anti-consumer and anti-competitive effects of mergers in the airline industry, says Mark Cooper, director of research, Consumer Federation of America.

"The elimination of competition and the reinforcement of dominant fortress hubs inevitably raise concerns about rising prices," Cooper says. "Competitive entry in the industry, to the extent it can discipline the abuse of market power, is highly restricted, limited to selective, high volume routes and markets. The so-called low cost airlines would leave more than half the country unserved."

Financial analysts generally agree that consolidation will be good for the airline industry because it will quickly ease problems of overcapacity, Inouye says.

"However, industry is just one part of the equation the Congress must consider," he says. "We must also weigh the extent to which consolidation is in the best interest of consumers, particularly since the impact of decreased capacity on travelers and local communities is less clear. "

Gerald Grinstein, chief executive of Delta Air Lines, also weighed in against the merger, which he likened to a hostile takeover on the part of U.S. Air Lines.

"We believe US Airways’ unsolicited and anticompetitive proposal does not meet antitrust standards, and would harm employees, consumers and communities. It would create a much weaker combined carrier that would threaten the future stability of our nation’s air transportation industry," Grinstein says. "It would reverse the remarkable progress Delta has made. Let me be clear – this is a hostile takeover bid; not a consensual merger."

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FAA Sees Drop In Number of Air Traffic Controllers

Air traffic controllerstaffing levels have dropped for the third straight year, to a new low of 14,206, according to the most recent Federal Aviation Administration "Administrator's Fact Book."

Despite the FAA's public claims that it hired more controllers than it lost to retirement and other factors over the past year, the agency's own fact book reports that the overall total number of controllers working inits 300-plus facilities dropped from 14,227 at the end of fiscal year 2005 to 14,206 in fiscal year 2006, according to the air traffic controllers' union.

The figures are listed as being current asof Oct. 31, 2006, taking into account hiring and attrition statistics a full month into the current fiscal year.

Controller staffing totals reached as high as 15,386 as recently as September 2003. But a year later, in October 2004, the FAA reported that total had fallen to 14,736 as the long-expected controller retirement wave began to increase in size. The total fell again, to 14,227, a year later, the FAA reported.

"This is the most definitive proof yet, from the FAA's own reported figures, that the agency simply cannot get ahead of the retirement wave, no matter how many people they say they are hiring and trying to rush into thesystem," National Air Traffic Controllers Association President Patrick Forrey says. "The agency is now rapidly losing its most veteran,experienced controllers -- the people who it was counting on to train its new generation of controllers -- at a far higher rate than it expected and is continuing to force more veterans to retire early with its demoralizing, distracting and authoritarian imposed work rules."

Veteran controllers are currently retiring at a rate of more than three per day since the start of the current fiscal year: Oct. 1, 2006. This follows a 2006 fiscal year in which 734 controllers retired, eclipsing the FAA's projection to Congress by 57 percent. At the current pace, the number of fiscal year 2007 retirements will clear the FAA's projection of 643 by Memorial Day at the latest; a full four months before the end of the fiscal year. Overall, the FAA has missed its retirement projections for three straight fiscal years, by an increasing margin each year, the union says.

Controllers can retire before the mandatory age of 56 if they have metone of two criteria: Reach age 50 and have 20 years of service; or have 25 years of service at any age.

"Rather than 'staffing to traffic' as the FAA states publicly is its new mission, the agency appears to be following a new policy; 'staffing tobudget,'" Forrey says. "And the scary part is no amount of new hires the agency has made over the past two years or will make over the next 2-4 years is going to fix the current staffing problem. That's because it takes 2-4 years to train a new controller before that professional is fully certified.

"That gap, from the day a veteran controller retires to the day their replacement reaches full certification level, is where we have the most reason to worry about the agency's continued ability to maintain the margin of safety in the system by ensuring there is redundancy," he adds. "Our greatest challenge today, besides the distraction of the imposed work rules, ismaintaining the margin of safety knowing the level of redundancy has been whittled away to its bare minimum. We need more eyes watching the skies."

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