Opinion ID: 1720069
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: poor performance by existing carriers

Text: We have the CAB records of the time performance of all flights scheduled on two of these routes in 1967. The record is not a good one. On the Dallas/Ft. Worth-Houston route in 1967 Braniff canceled 471 flights and arrived late by CAB standard (at least 15 minutes behind schedule) on 2,477 flights. In the same year Trans-Texas canceled 189 flights and arrived late with 844 flights. Of all the flights by these two existing carriers, 27.32% were either late or canceled. In the month of December, 1967, Trans-Texas arrived on time with only 43% of its flights. On the Dallas/Ft. Worth-San Antonio route Braniff has an effective monopoly. Trans-Texas cannot fly non-stop between these cities. American can do so only as the leg of a flight to Mexico, and it has only one flight each way daily. On this route in 1967 Braniff canceled 202 flights and was late on 1,748 occasions. Of all scheduled flights, 28.26% were either late or canceled. It is significant that these late arrivals were much more common on the southbound flights than on the northbound flights. Braniff flights from Dallas/Ft. Worth to San Antonio were late on 31.78% of the trips as compared with 18.45% late flights in the other direction. From Dallas/Ft. Worth to Houston 31.83% of Braniff flights were late, while only 14.27% of the northbound Braniff flights were late. The Braniff southbound flights usually originate in distant cities such as Denver, Chicago, Kansas City, or New York and are subject to weather and traffic delays in those areas. Air Southwest insists that it can assure better schedule compliance by being subject only to Texas weather problems and by being free of the problems of other areas. The 1967 performance record of existing carriers supports that contention. The schedule of existing flights, particularly those flying south from Dallas nonstop to San Antonio, leaves something to be desired. The first daylight flight in the morning leaves Dallas at 8:25 a.m. and the next one is at 11:20 a.m. Only one flight non-stop goes south between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. We do not have in this record the information on the arrival performance of the flights between Houston and San Antonio. It does show that available schedules are poor. Though five carriers have authority from the CAB to fly this route, their schedules are made to fit long hauls either to the east for west coast. In 1965 Continental carried 62.47% of the passengers on this route, and Eastern carried another 27.82%. Braniff and Trans-Texas each had two flights going in each direction at the time of the commission hearing. The CAB carriers point out that they have 37 daily flights on this route. The problem is the timing of those flights to meet the needs of the people commuting between these two cities. For example, between midnight and 7:15 a.m., a person has the choice of six flights from San Antonio to Houston, but if he does not make the Eastern flight No. 50 which leaves at 7:15 a.m. he must wait until the Braniff flight No. 194 departs at 11 a.m. Braniff and Trans-Texas give the number of empty seats on their flights as proof that existing flights offer more space than the traffic needs. The majority opinion of the court of civil appeals accepts this evidence as forceful proof of the adequacy of existing service. But we should expect empty seats on most airline flights. Air passengers cannot be compared with surface passengers or freight in this respect. To travel by air, one must have a seat which he ordinarily reserves in advance. When a reservation holder cancels or fails to show, there is usually no one there to take the seat. The significant statistic is the load factor, or percentage of occupied seats, rather than the total of empty seats. We are not given the load factors for all flights throughout the year of 1967. Trans-Texas gives us no load factors. Both Trans-Texas and Braniff only give us figures for one month, that of January, 1968. January is admittedly a poor month for air travel. All flights are lumped together so that we cannot tell the experience during peak traffic hours. Braniff had an average 54.1% load factor between Dallas/Ft. Worth and Houston and an average 61% load factor between Dallas/Ft. Worth and San Antonio during January 1968. This average includes all flights, at any hour and on every day of the week. Though these January load factors were picked by the CAB carriers for purposes of their argument, the percentages are not so low as to give force to that argument. Seventy percent is considered a high load factor by air carriers, and when all flights are considered no airline in the nation shows so high a factor. Four out of the seven public witnesses testifying for Air Southwest expressed strong dissatisfaction with the ground service of the CAB carriers. They complained that baggage did not arrive, that reservations required too much time to obtain, and that the procedure at the check-in counters was consistently slow and tedious. When they desired only to take a flight on one of these routes, they were required to stand in line and wait for long periods while some person in front of them planned a complicated itinerary with connecting flights and while elaborate information was written on the CAB ticket form for each person in the line.