Press Release
For Immediate Release
28 September 2007
ACTE Disputes White House Effort To Blame Airlines for Nationwide Delays
Alexandria, Va -- The Executive Director of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) does not support the White House in its recent assertions that the nation’s airlines are solely to blame for ongoing delays across the country, nor the administration’s “over simplified” approach to solving the problem. According to a statement issued today by Susan Gurley, ACTE’s Executive Director, “placing the onus for extensive delays primarily due to weather and an antiquated air traffic control system on the airlines is an attempt to refocus headlines and capitalize on public opinion.”
“It is highly fashionable right now to criticize the airlines and demand instant improved performance,” said Gurley, “but that only serves to conceal the real problem, which includes an antiquated air traffic control system, unrealistic demand of ground facilities that are already at capacity, and equally unrealistic public expectations. The potential remedies, charging more for flights at peak periods and limiting the number of flights into the New York Metropolitan area, would barely put a dent in the problem.”
Published reports yesterday asserted that delays and cancellations have generated a $15.3 billion dollar loss to industry and travelers, and that 25 percent of the nation’s flights are either delayed or canceled. Seventy-five percent of these delays are claimed to be caused by the ripple-effect of congestion or problems experienced by air traffic in the New York Metropolitan area. Gurley states that one of the proposed government solutions to delay reduction-- charging more for flights departing heavily trafficked airports -- may actually have the opposite effect. And the other, limiting the number of flights out of congested airports, is a return to regulation.
“How do you limit the number of aircraft out of a major hub without restricting trade and competition,” said Gurley. “How will the government choose the carriers and determine the number of flights allowed to operate out of a particular airport without skewing the already fragile cash flow of some airlines, most of which have just come back from the edge of bankruptcy?”
Gurley said that charging more for flights out of congested airports will simply create a traveling elite that will easily justify the additional cost of boarding conveniently scheduled flights out of major hubs, at the expense of the rest of the traveling public.
“The carriers are victims of their own success,” said Gurley. “For years, they have made it so easy to get from one of the country to the other, and from one remote corner of the country to the next, that the traveling public have become accustomed to a sense of transportation-oriented instant gratification.”
Gurley says the government is going to have to do a better job at replacing the Air Traffic Control system, and other systems that make it possible to support thousands of flights in the air each day. And that may mean funding major Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) projects from the general tax fund. She’d issued a statement earlier this week, when the failure of a phone line and the lack of a redundant system, shut down the airspace over Memphis, affecting 250 flights.
“Travelers are going to have to make adjustments in their thinking, especially if the dramatic number of passengers predicted for the future are correct,” said Gurley. “More time is going to have to be budgeted to get from one city to another. You can’t expect dozens of flights, all scheduled to take off within minutes of each other regardless of the weather, to remain ‘on time.”
Gurley stated that many corporations across the country are now using congestion strategies that make allowances for the weather, for air and surface traffic, and for the logistics of the destinations involved, but that the most effective solutions to the congestion and delay problem are decades away.
“It will take years to build bigger airports, to extend runways, to replace the Air Traffic Control (ATC) system, and to improve highway access to many airports,” said Gurley. “A more immediate form of relief relies on ‘demand management,’ a business philosophy that measures the investment of time and manpower in a trip with its potential return. This is going to be the era of video-presencing, where software and laptops will be the new meeting portals for a lot of companies.” Gurley and her staff have been experimenting with electronic meeting software for six months.
ACTE research indicates that up to 40 percent of business travel for some companies is generated solely by internal meetings. “Find another way to hold these meetings and you’ll reduce congestion and increase available funds for revenue producing travel,” said Gurley.
Gurley also claims that the airlines are going to have to do business differently too. Another ACTE study indicates that passengers deeply resent misinformation or no information on the status of a flight. “The average passenger doesn’t comprehend the logic of boarding a plane in anticipation of a possible window of departure, which may not open for two or three hours. “Given that choice, many wouldn’t board. With advance information, passengers wouldn’t opt to spend the night on the airport floor either,” said Gurley. “The airline that supplies this information and the best way to deal with it is going to emerge as an industry champion.”
Gurley’s answer to the immediate problem of delays in air transportation calls for a more honest approach to the problem on the part of the carriers, backed by a clear contingency policy made evident to the traveling public, far more realistic expectations of the traveling public, and a commitment by the government to resolve infrastructure problems as soon as possible without higher ticket taxes.
For more information, contact:
Debbie Flynn
CEO
Brighter Group
The Pod, London's Vertical Gateway
Bridges Wharf, Battersea
London SW11 3BE England
T: 020 7326 9880
F: 020 7326 9890
E: [email protected]
W: www.brightergroup.com