RESPONDED ON NOVEMBER 30, 200912:47 PM 

Ron Kuhlmann, Aviation Analyst and Writer, Sharp Aviation 

Teams, Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) 

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There are no easy answers. Much of the industry carries a "legacy" designator and that 

indicates that there is a lot of history and definition inherent in the structures of those 

companies. As we have seen in other industries, overcoming that heritage can be a 

mighty task. And it is made more complex by the fact that US carriers, for a considerable 

time, were global leaders. Like nations, it's hard to move down in the pecking order. But 

there are some steps that might move the US industry in a more positive direction. 

Remember that you are a service industry. I frequently have more positive 

encounters with supermarket cashiers than with airline staff. All to often the "we are 

delighted to have you on board today" announcement is the sum total of goodwill that 

will be dispensed. I realize that the knocks taken by staff have put many of them out of 

sorts, but they lose track of the fact that the individual passenger is not to blame for that 

situation and should not be held accountable. A quick read through many online flight 

reviews reveals a stunning number of references to staff attitude. 

There is more to the problem thanATC. Ifby some miracle the next-gen systems 

were available tomorrow, there would still be only two runways at LaGuardia and the 

runways in San Francisco would still be only 750 feet apart. I recently did an assessment 

of the 5-6pm departures at Atlanta and found that the number of operations was a bit 

below the optimal capacity in good weather. Add a storm or fog, however, and you have 

an unsustainable operational schedule at an airport that has actually added runway 

capacity. So where does that leave Newark? 

Hello Labor? Hello Management? Much of the time it is virtually impossible to 

believe that these two groups actually are involved in the same enterprise. There are 

continuous actions by both that seem primarily intended to exacerbate the wounds 

rather than heal them. There are bound to be points of friction due to the different 

perspectives and responsibilities of each party but even at Ryanair, pilots are not 

trashing their own company in order to dig at management. Eastern showed decades ago 

that intractability can, indeed, bring the company down. And then? 

"The industry" is not synonymous with its parts. In the US we continue to 

assume that aviation is really a certain set of brand names and to allow one of those 
names to fail is equivalent to total industry decline. Pan Am, certainly one of the first 

global brands, disappeared and, strangely, people still got to London. Eastern's demise 

did not result in Miami becoming a backwater. The elaborate "safety net" of bankruptcy 

protections has generally served to only extend the lives of companies that eventually 

prove to be unsustainable. However, in the meantime, as is regularly pointed out by 

international competitors, the regulations allow the weakest links to establish pricing 

baselines that have far fewer or much-reduced cost components. Getting to Phoenix does 

not inherently require a 50 year-old airline. 

Forget national, think global. Some have described the airlines as the original 

world-wide web and long before we spoke of a global village, the world's airlines were 

connecting it. Yet despite this incredible reach, US airlines especially, remain very 

domestic companies that simply go a lot of places. The ownership regulations were fine 

decades ago but they serve no real purpose in the present environment. I take that back--

they offer a way for incumbent carriers to file seemingly endless lawsuits concerning the 

ownership of Virgin America. And this is beneficial just how? While this narrow view of 

the world is not exclusive to the US, we continue to fear foreign involvement far more 

than most. Even the Japanese are seemingly more open to foreign involvement-which 

points out that the US does not object to being the owner, just the ownee. 

For reasons that are unclear, airlines occupy a unique sliver of the national and 

corporate psyche. Banks, energy companies, auto makers and other high-profile 

corporate names merge or disappear on a regular basis and the nation goes on about its 

business, but the possible disappearance of American Airlines or United hints at 

national Armageddon. As we are seeing in the battle for Japan Air Lines, investors are 

willing to supply billions in support of US carriers that are themselves in poor financial 

shape in order to get JAL into their alliance!!! As long as that kind of reality disconnect 

exists, no commission will be able to "fix" things.