Travel Slowdown Clouds Airline-Jobs Picture

Dan Smith has worked at the airport, in a maintenance hangar and now, at an airline union, so he doesn’t need fancy forecasts or the latest economic statistics to gauge the health of the industry.

Smith, business agent for Teamsters Local 104, keeps an eye on airfares. Right now he doesn’t like what he sees: coast-to-coast trips under $200 round-trip – half-price sales at even the healthiest carriers.

“When your hotel costs more than your flight, something’s wrong,” Smith said.

Business travel has fallen off sharply in the recession, so airlines have been trying to fill planes with more price-conscious vacationers.

Airlines have responded by cutting unprofitable flights, nixing or curbing growth plans and laying off workers.

Passenger-airline employment was down 6.3 percent in June from a year earlier, the 12th consecutive monthly decline, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Next week, US Airways will furlough 600 airport workers, including ticket-counter and gate agents at Sky Harbor International Airport represented by Local 104. The Tempe-based carrier also recently furloughed flight attendants and pilots.

In addition to the plunge in travel demand, the airline blamed lower-than-expected attrition given the anemic job market.

“Nobody’s leaving the company,” Smith said. “Attrition is nil.”

Smith doesn’t see the airline job picture improving until the economy rebounds and airlines are able to start growing and raise airfares.

His hiring outlook over the next six to 12 months: “It’s very dismal.”

Smith does see a couple of positives. US Airways, for example, is adding workers in Washington, D.C., after a recent airport-rights swap with Delta. Longer term, he said, some airlines are bringing outsourced work back in-house.

AirTran Airways Starts Service Between MSP And Milwaukee

AirTran Airways today began daily nonstop service between Minneapolis-St. Paul and Milwaukee.

Initially, AirTran is offering one flight a day, building up to three flights daily by the end of the month.

The new service was announced in February as part of Orlando, Fla.-based AirTran’s expansion of its Milwaukee operations to compete with Milwaukee-based Midwest Airlines.

New Airline Rules “Enhancing Airline Passenger Protections”, Good News for Passengers

Federal government rules called “Enhancing Airline Passenger Protections” will take effect. Visit the official website (airconsumer.dot.gov) for details, including the 22-page discussion published in the Federal Register – not as much of a yawn as you might think. It shows the government’s thought process.

In any case, the title sounds reassuring, but what will the rules actually do?

Worst-case scenario: For us, the worst possible situation (well, after crashing, I suppose) is being stuck in an airplane on the tarmac. We’ve all read about the horrific experiences of people trapped on a delayed airliner with no food, water or toilets for up to 12 hours. Unimaginable! Well, good news: The new rules require airlines to publish plans for dealing with such situations and to let passengers get off the plane after three hours, as well as provide food, water, working toilets and medical attention for passengers who remain on the plane.

Of course, there are exceptions, notably if there are issues of security or safety. Also, several airlines (Jet Blue, Delta, American and Continental) have requested exemptions for certain New York airports because of the impact of construction at JFK airport. Nonetheless, the message is clear: Airlines have to pay more attention to passengers’ needs. This is comforting, no matter how rare these incidents.

The meat: The rules also require airlines to provide the on-time records of all flights – at the time of booking. This will include data on how often a particular flight arrives more than 30 minutes late and highlight flights that are over 30 minutes late more than half of the time.

This is huge. For years I have paid attention to this stat, when I can find it. Some airlines, like USAirways, already provide it in schedule and booking information. Others will be starting April 29, though it’s unclear how third-party booking sites (Expedia, Kayak, etc.) will display it.

Look for a percentage. I have seen flights that show a 40 percent on-time arrival record! This means you’re likely going to be late. On a nonstop coming home, no biggie. If you’re making a tight connection in a hellish airport (say, Philly or Atlanta), you’re in trouble before you start.

This information is even more critical when using third-party websites, which sometimes allow impossibly tight connections (say, one hour to make an international connection in Philly – doesn’t happen!). The rules also require airlines to publish cancellation rates. Some flights, often smaller connectors from feeder airports, are canceled when there is only a passenger or two. This can blow your whole trip. These stats will be like gold when you’re building your next itinerary.

Complaints: All of this rule-making and enforcing comes under the purview of the Aviation Consumer Protection Division of the U.S. Department of Transportation, and responding to complaints is tucked in there as well. The department has redesigned its website and made complaining easier: via online form, snail mail or even the phone, 24/7 (though strangely not toll-free). Be careful, though; only two categories of complaints, airlines service and disability/discrimination, are handled by DOT. Safety complaints get farmed out to the FAA, security complaints to the TSA.

The DOT website provides direct links and phone numbers, but you are in another world in each case. The site also provides free, downloadable data on airport and airline performance. It’s fascinating – take a peek. Also visit flyersrights.org to see what the largest nonprofit airline consumer organization has to say.

Airlines Service Two Airlines Flight Will Risk Delay or Cancelation by 2030

By 2030, climate change and a lack of airport capacity will mean that one flight in two will risk delays or cancellation at highly-congested airports, according to a new EUROCONTROL report.

The study, Challenges of Growth, finds that even taking the economic downturn into account, demand for flights in Europe will rise from 10 million today to 20.4 million in 2030. Airports are working to make the most of their capacity and expand to meet demand, but on current plans, they will only be able to handle 18.1 million of those flights, leaving 2.3 million flights a year or 6,300 flights a day unaccommodated.

As a result, airport congestion is set to rise substantially – by 2030, around 20 of the largest airports will be saturated, that is operating at full capacity, for 8 hours or more a day. About half of every day’s flights will pass through one of these saturated airports.

‘Despite the economic downturn and a prospect of slower growth in the future – because of maturing European markets and higher fuel-related costs – demand in the longer term is still set to rise substantially,’ said David Marsh, Manager of Forecasting and Statistics at EUROCONTROL. ‘As a result, airports are going to run out of space – and with half of each day’s flights going through one of the saturated airports, a small delay at one airport could rapidly escalate to infect the whole European air network.’

The risk of delay will be higher too, because weather-related delays are likely to be more common. Aviation has been working hard to understand and reduce its impact on the environment. Now, for the first time, EUROCONTROL is looking at the reverse effect: the likely impact of climate change on air traffic. Bouts of extreme weather will occur more frequently and probably be more severe, bringing further disruption to already saturated airports. And as higher temperatures become the norm across Europe, holiday patterns are likely to change. While airlines will be able to change their routes to cope with this, airports, which require substantial infrastructure, are not so flexible.

’Prosperity in Europe relies on the smooth movement of people and goods, and the air transport industry has a key role to play in this. Whatever capacity can be delivered at airports, the outlook is for a heavily-congested future. Thanks to climate change, demand may be elsewhere than today. We need to start thinking of an agile air transport network, one that brings together people and technology so that it can react effectively both as the day’s events unfold and as demand changes by the year, unencumbered by the twentieth-century concerns of national borders: a real Single European Sky, an agile pan-European system, if we are to cope with the challenges of the future, David Marsh added.

EUROCONTROL, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, has as its primary objective to develop a seamless, pan-European air traffic management (ATM) system that fully copes with the growth in air traffic, while maintaining a high level of safety, reducing costs and respecting the environment. EUROCONTROL has 38 Member States: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. On 8 October 2002, the Member States and the European Community signed a Protocol on the Accession of the European Community to the revised EUROCONTROL Convention. Pending its entry into force after ratification by all Parties, certain provisions of the Protocol are already being provisionally applied.

United States and European Union Sign New Open Skies Agreement

The United States and the European Union have just agreed to a second Open Skies aviation agreement. This one significantly liberalizes transatlantic aviation regulations.

The first Open Skies deal, which came into force March of 2008, allowed unlimited access to and from Europe and the United States for international carriers. The second stage of this deal now seeks to allow European and American airlines to take major stakes in competitors.

Right now foreign control of United States carriers is currently capped at 25 percent. United States airlines can gain ownership of European Union carriers by 49.9 percent. Any effort to boost European ownership of American airlines more than this in the past would require approval from the United States Congress.

The European commission vice president responsible for transport, Siim Kallas, welcomed this as a major step forward. He said that both sides have agreed to increase regulatory co-operation and remove the barriers to market access that have been holding back the development of the world’s most important aviation markets.

The European Union has long pressed for such an outcome. They said that it would represent a key step towards liberating the airline industry from the outdated regulatory constraints in the area of foreign investment that prevent it from acting like any other industry.

However, John Byerly, the chief United States Negotiator, said that the progress in the negotiations is far from assured. He insisted that the united States has made no commitments to change its ownership limits. He said that there are no requirements and no timetable. Thus, only time will tell what this new Open Skies Agreement will truly hold in store for the aviation world.