Posted on: Friday, May 27, 2005
Forecast looks ugly for summer flying
Advertiser Staff & News Services
Fliers to the Mainland beware: This summer vacation season could rival 2000, the worst ever for flight delays, cancellations and cranky travelers crammed into airport terminals.
Takeoffs are returning to levels before Sept. 11, 2001, and millions of tickets already have been sold. Security delays are a concern and so are summer thunderstorms.
At hub airports — especially Chicago's O'Hare International — bad weather can combine with huge numbers of passengers to cause delays that cascade through the entire system. That's what happened in 2000, forcing thousands of passengers to sleep on terminal floors or sit fuming while their planes lingered on runways for hours.
But Scott Ishikawa, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, predicted travelers going through Hawai'i's airports — particularly Honolulu International — won't be plagued by long lines and delays.
"I don't think it's going to be like that here," Ishikawa said.
An estimated 200 million people are expected to fly nationwide this summer, with about 7 million coming through Hawai'i, Ishikawa said.
"After 9/11, there were almost 90-minute waits" to get through security checkpoints, he said. "On a bad day, we've got it down to maybe 10, 15 minutes. And that's at crunch time. Aside from that, it's way under 10, 15 minutes."
Travelers can help reduce delays by adhering to the maximum 50-pound luggage limit for domestic flights and 70-pound maximum for international travel, Ishikawa said.
Passengers also should stop packing restricted items in carry-on bags, he said. Honolulu International collects 7,000 such items per month, he said.
"People have a better idea of what not to bring to the airports," Ishikawa said, "but they still show up with scissors and lighters and other contraband.
Hot, humid summer air produces thunderstorms, typically in a zone from Texas to Michigan. They're too high to fly over, too dangerous to fly through and often too wide to fly around. The results can be disastrous to the national network of airports.
"In bad weather, that's when it shuts down," said Jack Evans, spokesman for the Air Transport Association, the industry group for major airlines.
For the first 10 weeks of this year, slightly more flights were delayed, and delayed longer, than they were during the same period in 2000. Most delays were caused by weather.
Kenneth Mead, Transportation Department inspector general, said yesterday that six airports are likely to experience delays this summer: Philadelphia, New York-La Guardia, Newark, N.J., Washington Dulles, Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
To avoid massive weather disruptions throughout the whole system, the Federal Aviation Administration has planned alternative routes based on where storms are likely to develop.
"If we have a certain weather pattern, we have a different way of getting them out," FAA chief Marion Blakey said.
State tourism liaison Marsha Wienert doesn't predict the same kind of airport delays in Hawai'i as at Mainland airport hub cities.
"We're not a hub and most of our flights end here and start here, rather than relying on a connecting flight," Wienert said. "We just don't experience those same kind of challenges."
State officials monitor security lines and flights for delays every day, Wienert said, and are prepared to adjust staffing and procedures this summer.
Much has been done to improve operations at airports since 2000. Airports have added runways and terminals and improved efficiency, and the FAA has adopted new strategies. But the system has yet to be tested during a bad thunderstorm season.
In 2000, there were 698.9 million passenger boardings of commercial planes in the United States, according to the FAA. In 2004, there were almost as many — 698.7 million — and that number is expected to rise in 2005.
Cash-strapped air carriers slashed their workforces in the past few years to save money. U.S. airlines cut 81,717 jobs between July 2000 and July 2004, and another 16,990 by February, leaving 400,253 full-time equivalent workers, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Understaffing was responsible for more than 500,000 US Airways passengers being delayed during the December holidays, according to a report issued by Mead. The report criticized the way US Airways Group Inc. handled the shortages of fleet service employees and flight attendants, particularly in Philadelphia.
American Airlines is among those that have made changes to avoid a repeat of 2000. "The ground rules have changed," spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan said.
The airline has altered its schedules to eliminate rush-hour traffic jams at hub airports. Pilots now fly the same plane all day, which means they don't lose time transferring from plane to plane.
The FAA also has ordered airlines to reduce their schedules at O'Hare — a hub for both American and United — during peak travel periods. The move has helped reduce congestion, said United spokesman Jeff Green.
Jason Trotman, who owns a marketing company in Brooklyn, N.Y., didn't think the airlines had enough staff as he waited yesterday in the long security line at Dulles, where he was taking off for a vacation in Spain. He pointed to closed airline ticket counters.
"It's ridiculous," Trotman said. "It's Memorial Day weekend; you know you're going to have crowds."
The Associated Press and Advertiser staff writer Dan Nakaso contributed to this report.
