Ground Clutter - Stating the Obvious
By Ralph Hood, Columnist
January/February 2001
Well, folks, Bill Clinton has announced the solution to the air traffic problem. Yep, and I am an astronaut, Bush has a mandate, and Jesse Jackson is gonna take a vow of silence. I'm a little sketchy on the details myself, but Dick Branick - an accomplished pilot and a rocket engineer - tells me the miracle cure involves a new bureaucracy and a watchdog committee. As Dick explains it, the plan doesn't say anything at all about new airports. Humph...
There
is, of course, a problem. To paraphrase Churchill, when
it comes to airline travel never have so many been so
mad at so few. You've seen the reports everywhere from
USA Today to 60 Minutes. Delays and canceled flights
seem more normal than not. Only two of my last ten airline
legs have been on the flights I bought tickets for,
and that almost seems normal.
But nobody can agree on
the problem, much less solve it. One group says it is
the airlines' fault for scheduling umpteen flights at
the same airport at the same time. Others say it's too
few airports and the failure of ATC to improve with
the times.
It reminds me of the old
question, what do you do when you find yourself at the
bottom of a hole? First, you quit digging. The first
step for the airline problem seems just as obvious.
We should start peak-period pricing ASAP, for all of
the reasons stated so well by David Plavin in the last
issue of Airport Business. As the young folks say, that
is a big "Well, duhhhÉ!"
But, you wouldn't believe
the stink that very idea brings up. General aviation
folks - from the J-3 owner to the G-V pilot - worry
that they might be discriminated against. Regional airlines
fear likewise. Airports are hesitant to start it, because
they fear litigation.
Proponents of peak-period
pricing say it could push airlines to underutilized
airports, and that passengers will fly from those airports
if it will save them money. Others say they won't. Let's
kill that argument right now. It does work; Southwest
proved it years ago when it chose Midway over O'Hare,
Love over DFW, BWI over Dulles, Ft. Lauderdale over
Miami, and Providence over Boston. PAX flock to those
airports in droves. I'm one of them.
Even that can scare general
aviation. If the airlines increase ops at airports that
are currently genav airports, where will genav go? We
are losing, not gaining, smaller airports, and genav
has already been pushed from big-boy airports.(I can
remember operating a Cessna Skyhawk in and out of Atlanta's
Hartsfield back in the '70s. Surely wouldn't want to
do that today.)
But the current system
can't continue. An unbelievable number of people at
the Atlanta airport (I've heard as high as 90 percent)
are there just to change planes. They are neither starting
nor ending their trip in Atlanta; they're just there
for the convenience of the airlines' much beloved hub
and spoke system.
As the song says, something's
gotta give. For sure, peak-period pricing is no silver
bullet. Still, it is the obvious next step. Maybe we
could make it more palatable by calling it off-period
discounting. Don't laugh; it works for hotels and rental
cars.