Bookmark www.milnet.com     Contact milnet@milnet.com

_____________________________________________________________________________________

A disheartening look at one of the largest negative effects of the 9/11 Terrorist Attack -- One that will, in all likelihood, not be fixed anytime soon -- if at all.

Terrorism Has Killed The U.S. Airline Industry

Hyperbole?  Again?  Not so.

Understand this.  Traveling by airline was never a great way to travel.  Food kept getting worse, seating became less and less comfortable and any new upstart attempting to improve got whacked by competition undercutting their prices.  Almost every such foolish attempt has returned to austere if not spartan comforts while shuttling 100s of bodies through the friendly skies.

Only now the skies are NOT AT ALL that friendly.

"Daddy, are there terrorists on this plane?  Is Osama still alive?  What is that man doing?"  11 year old anxieties that jangle the nerves of adults all around him.  And this is a quiet child on this flight.

Arriving at the airport, there is a line snaking outside the parking garage's entrance into the ticket lobby.  Not yet organized to do a proper Walt Disney World or Six Flags snake that coils in and around itself, the airports just let em stack up, up long ramps, across fire passageways, out onto the parking lot concrete and into chilly, dark corridors.  And believe me, the people in line are NOT happy.  Oddly enough they feel somehow more secure or at least talk amongst each other as though they are.

"Hey, the National Guard, camo and M-16s don't bother me" I say to my son. "Nice to know our guys are here to keep things safe, right?"  The 11 year old nods but the enthusiasm is already waning for the trip to California Adventure.  With a 2 1/2 hour wait to get on the plane and searches with really serious search techniques, really serious searchers and grim faced but confident Soldiers, armed and deadly, don't escape the attention of my 11 year old.  No way.  Last year the same trip was so effortless we practically walked on the plane.

Not so this time.  A one hour flight from San Jose International (South of San Francisco in the heart of Silicon Valley) to Orange County (right near Los Angeles) is now a four hour ordeal, with increased noise level, lots of body movements and lines that make Disney lines look just fine.

You have the ticket counter line (4 times as long now for some reason), which you must cross to get into the security line (and vice-versus of course), so there are three San Jose Policeman in obvious bulletproof vests under their police blouses, nervous and in charge, with lots of "come on, come on, keep in moving" with traffic control hand gestures.  The brilliant quipster, I, pop off with "Beats traffic control".

Cop grins and says, "not really, these puppies don't have bumpers".  The blond behind me sniffs as if he is trying a sexual innuendo, but I know better having done a little traffic signalling myself in the past.  So we wend our way through the snake with lots of interaction of nervous people trying to relief the tension by telling their neighbors how great it is.

Sure it makes us more secure, but is it fun or enjoyable.  No way.  We have changed dramatically and taken a whole lotta fun out of flying that had already been chewed to hell by the pure economics of operating turbine powered, high tech metal birds all over the world.

Oh don't forget, once past the security check (about one in five is subjected to the full Monty of searches with wand in the crotch, even buckled shoes get shedded to pass the no bleep test), then there is the random check the gate agent's computer burps out.  Son and I get a free wand check ourselves (no profiling here I suspect :).  No McDonalds or even a stop for a beer on this trip, they are loading by the time the boy and I are ready to board.

Even aboard the plane, the humor is false and tinny sounding.  I am not immune.  A nice person asks for permission to sit with us (flying Southwest Airlines still is open seating) and I quip with a dull sound, "No problem, only costs a dollar!"  This gets a brief smile.  When I try it again when a lady wants to sit directly across from us, "Sorry we'll have to search you first", the smile is forced for more reason than one I suspect, but all around me the little group facing each in opposing seats let out the nervous giggle.  First polite person says, "Hey you wanted to charge me a buck!"  The male chauvanist comes out under strain and I say "Yeah, but I get to search her".  No one laughs now and I quickly find a book to read while the 11 year old is trying to figure out why Daddy is now being shunned.

Orange County is better, the National Guard is kidding a very tall man about height restrictions for travellers and the gate agents are all smiling as we walk past in the exit direction.  The line there is  not too long, and the people waiting to pass through seem less tense.  Maybe L.A. area is used to the crazies and protection.  San Jose wasn't.  And neither am I.

The rest of the quick "In your face terrorist" trip goes just fine, and since we killing two birds with one stone, we drive back in a car passed around the family as a new set of wheels for up North.  But I reflect that even an eight hour drive on Highway 5 is better than a four hour ordeal just to go to Disney's California Adventure.  Oh by the way, you have to buy tickets for each park...someone needs to talk to Disney's marketing team -- they are already suffering the park was pretty empty.  I'd suggest a combo package and a Disney mailout to the kids travelling to help them through the airport.

So What's It Mean?

To conclude the kiss of death to the airlines, the trip for which I speak is probably the most popular in the industry.  Would I fly out to Florida to ride the Big Red Boat or the Disney Boat Trip to Bahamas.  Forget it.  That is a three or four hour airport ordeal and then the five to six hour flight.  I hate flying to London or Japan, so there is no way I am going to start my vacation with the airport game.

Maybe the boat trip people will get a boost out of this.  Or the trains and buses.  And the U.S. Congress got it all wrong.  What you need at the airports are more security checkpoints in parallel so you can search more people at once.  This will reduce that piece of it, and perhaps reduce the number of random searches.  We have to become people movers from the point people enter the terminal to the point they walk down the jetway.  Otherwise, it is going to only get worse.

Why?  Because the airports are reporting half to 1/4 the air travel going on today, and it feels 10 times worse than it did in the days prior to 9/11.  There is simply no way the airports are going to get back to the volume they were at before.  The results are easily predictable.  The airlines with the finances to stay afloat and eat up their little brothers will survive.  That is a very limited number.  Not only do they have to figure out new ways to woo passengers in the air, but they will have to get past an anti-trust regime that is fully screwed up on its own -- how can you argue to an airline they are creating a monopoly when they are soon going to be out of busines?  Someone needs to train  the justice department -- teach them what the term "bottom line" means--monopolies don't usually operate in the red.

And What About Business Travellers?

You couldn't get me to be a regular business traveller now.  It's not just getting your laptop through (major slowdown number 1 are laptops and electronics for obvious reasons).  It's the time lost.  Travel time during the week was bad before.  Now if you lose 3 to 4 hours in the airports, your company is going to try to figure out to convince you to give up lots of personal time for the flying adventure or eat the loss in production by having their business travellers trying to juggle laptops and cell phones in long, never ending lines.  Maybe the wearable PC will boom.  Something has to happen cuz that guy standing in line is wasting money.

Airports are More At Risk

I see a dim future where there is only two flights south to L.A. area, two to Chicago and two to Dallas Ft. Worth.  Two non stops to some East Coast destination (Say JFK and Miami).  Not that San Jose International would be open.

No those will be out of Oakland, since San Francisco and San Jose have spent fortunes on their airports (SFO has all new front end construction that will never be paid back at this rate).  Oakland, being somewhat behind in upgrades, may be more fortunate -- more financially able to survive and continue to operate.  Everyone whines about the airlines, but don't forget they pay into the airports and the airports are not public service areas, they need to make money too.

Looking across the country, those terminals designed to move aircraft are now designed wrong.  Atlanta, Dallas/Ft.Worth, Chicago, Miami, L.A., JFK, and even La Guardia are doomed.  We need to move people to the gate while at the same time making sure they are searched well.  Think about it.  A fourth of the planes can't keep an on time schedule...why?  Because of the people problem.

The Bottom Line

Our flight to Orange left 15 minutes late and despite the hero pilot's expending far too much fuel for corporate good, we made it up at 37,000 feet.  Only to have to slow down near L.A. and drag our feet waiting to cross L.A. airspace.  Finally we went feet dry,  left the black waters off L.A.,  made our little fishhook over to Orange County and landed.  One hour and 30 minutes elapsed time for a flight that used to take maybe an hour.  That's four and one half hours total time.

On the return trip and at 70 mph on Highway 5, I felt like looking up and seeing if I was passing any planes up there.  That's how ridiculous it felt.  Try explaing it to a kid why taking an airplane on a 4 1/2 hour trip, when a car trip only takes eight hours.  Especailly when he is trying to make sense of the speed differences--despite the precocious little whelp already knows the 737s airspeed is better then 500 knots.  "That's almost 10 times as fast, isn't it Daddy?"

Hey it took longer to get from car to airplane seat, then to takeoff, land, drive to a not too close restaraunt AND eat a sit down dinner in Chevys.  What's up with that?
 

© Copyright 2001, Michael Crawford - MILNET

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

distributed worldwide by AFI Research afi@supanet.com