Flying the Snarled-Up Skies

As fares fall, passengers rise and delays grow

Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, which boasts that it is the world's busiest, was so overloaded that approaching autos were backed up for hundreds of yards and the terminals were besieged by distraught passengers who had missed flights because of the congestion. At New York's La Guardia Airport during the peak morning departure period, 40 jetliners idled their engines in a serpentine queue for as long as two hours before finally getting permission to take off. Isolated instances? Not at all. Across the U.S. last week, airports were clogged with unparalleled throngs of passengers and hit by unprecedented numbers of snafus and snarls.

United Airlines hauled more passengers (148,479) on June 15 than on any other day in its history. Said one slightly dazed United executive: "It's incredible --we are carrying more people than at the end of a holiday weekend."

The best--or the worst--is still to come. As summer begins, Americans are taking to the air in unexpectedly high numbers. The airlines' forecast of an 8% to 10% traffic growth this year has been about 5 percentage points too low. Load factors, which ran at 54% last year, are climbing into the mid-60s. The outlook: the best year ever for U.S. lines, with revenues reaching $22 billion and earnings up $100 million, to $700 million. But passenger discontent is rising even faster. The Civil Aeronautics Board is receiving a record number of complaints. Departure delays, which totaled 6,800 during the first three weeks of June, are running ahead of last year's rate.

Success is the root of the problem. More than one-third of all passengers now fly on cut-rate fares, 20% to 50% below regular tariffs, and most would not be aloft without them. The bargains have been brought about by President Carter's plan for the eventual deregulation of the airlines. As a first step, the CAB, in the past wary of cut-rate fares, has been approving almost all applications. The nation's twelve major and ten regional airlines of fer at least 26 separate bargain fares, under such catchy names as Chickenfeed and Peanuts.

The complexity of the cheapie fares puts a burden on reservation agents, who must spend far more tune explaining catches to passengers. The average phone call to Eastern Air Lines, for instance, has doubled to five minutes since the promotional fares went into effect. In most cities, airline phone lines are jammed. Regular travelers who pay full fares are often unable to make bookings, and business people who have urgent appointments in other cities sometimes cannot confirm their reservations. Hence they may lose their seats to stand-by passengers paying only a fraction of the full fare. Says American Airlines Senior Vice President Robert Crandall: "If the public wants low fares, people will have to put up with delays."

Airlines are trying to cope by putting on more flights. United, for example, is adding 129 per day. Aisles will become narrower and the cabins more cramped as an extra seat per row is added by many airlines in the Lockheed TriStar, Boeing 747 and McDonnell Douglas DC-10 jumbos. To handle the flood of incoming calls, the airlines are hiring more agents; American has engaged 250 and United 300.

The lines might have handled the passenger surge with fewer complications if three other factors had not handicapped them so severely:

Slowdowns. Over the past few weeks, the air-traffic controllers have been staging slowdowns at selected airports. Hardest hit: Pittsburgh, New York City's La Guardia and Kennedy, Newark, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The controllers, who are entitled to eight free "familiarization" flights yearly on domestic airlines, wanted one "fam flight" on U.S. international carriers. Northwest, Pan Am and TWA are resisting on the grounds that U.S. controllers do not direct landings abroad. Late last week, pressure from a federal court persuaded controllers to end the slowdown, at least temporarily, but the issue of free flights remains unresolved. Also, in many of the Midwest and Northern Pacific states, the air snarl has been aggravated by a pilots' strike at Northwest, which struggled to keep some flights aloft by using management crews.

Weather. Much of it has ranged from bad to impossible. Denver's Stapleton airport was closed intermittently for days because of thunderstorms. The Northern states have been besieged by a succession of lightning-filled fronts, which have delayed flights for hours.

Repairs. The past winter's freezes left some runways in a potholed and fractured condition. Resurfacing jobs have shut some runways at a number of airports, including Washington National, O'Hare and Denver. A shortage of landing strips at major airports can cause delays and backups at other airports from coast to coast.

Many air travelers have their own special horror stories. A Northwest Airlines 747 carrying 370 passengers took seven hours to make the 70-minute flight from Minneapolis to Chicago because of air controllers' slowdowns. An American Airlines 727, packed to capacity after Eastern canceled its shuttle from Washington to New York, required 3% hours to complete a scheduled 39-minute flight.

Despite the momentary discomforts, the summer of '78 offers some happy prospects. Plane builders and engine makers can expect larger orders because the lines will have to expand their fleets more than anticipated. Travelers can look forward to a broader array of fare reductions. Airline executives have long been divided over a key question: Do low fares pay off? Looking at all those new passengers--and profits--the answer has to be yes.

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