The future of flying and travel

On this eve of a new year, new decade, new century and new millennium, some crystal-ball-gazing is only natural, along with some predictions and resolutions about prospects for area travelers. Significant uncertainties regarding the choice, quality, cost and convenience of every journey that begins or ends in Pittsburgh or passes through here make this especially appropriate.

Chief among these uncertainties is the overall quality of the air travel, which seems to be deteriorating rapidly. The problems are more than a matter of increasing costly tickets for sardine-tight seats and skimpy meals.

Every flight these days has become something of a wild-card experience. In the final hours of the worst year on record for airline on-time performance, it's hard to head for the airport with any confidence that a given flight will take off when schedulers say it will, if it takes off at all.

Even as airlines make policies to get passengers to the airport and onto planes earlier than ever, flight delays are stretching from minutes to hours. Although substantial savings are often widely available for passengers who know how, where and when to look, average prices for unrestricted tickets have crept steadily upwards, driven ostensibly by the cost of fuel.

And although the price of airline fuel is soaring, how much of it is wasted by planes idling on a runway for hours on end?

Of course, winter weather always magnifies the problems of aging, overcrowded airports, overburdened traffic control systems and airlines that can't seem to work out labor contracts to keep their employees enthusiastic about doing their jobs. United, Delta and American, anticipating labor disruptions, have already slashed schedules. Even cabin attendants on US Airways routes once operated by Piedmont have voted to strike, pending a 30-day cooling-off period.

Unfortunately, none of these factors seems likely to improve dramatically in the foreseeable future.

Congressional committees have been holding hearings to discuss the problems with the airlines, Federal Aviation Administration, air traffic controllers and airline unions, but there's nothing like any consensus on how to address these issues, let alone any glimmer of how to solve the underlying problems, which have been building for decades.

Although a massive amount of money has accumulated in the air travel trust fund for updating airports and air traffic control systems, there's a reluctance to ladle it out until an overall plan is developed. Unfortunately, the pace of technological development always outstrips the pace of political will and bureaucratic implementation.

Add to this uncertainty the proposed acquisition of US Airways by United. While Wall Street is skeptical, the Senate Commerce Committee has approved a resolution denouncing the merger, the General Accounting Office has called the deal anticompetitive, and the Justice Department is weighing a court challenge, the managements of both airlines remain publicly confident that the deal will fly, especially in what's perceived to be the more business-friendly environment of a Bush administration.

United's recent commitment to beef up maintenance facilities in Pittsburgh seems to indicate that it views Pittsburgh as a valuable hub facility, although no dirt will be turned until the ink on the deal is dry. Given the considerable concern of the various regulators involved, not to mention the difficulty United is having keeping its existing fleet flying on time, no one knows what being a United hub will really mean down the road.

On the other hand, the prospects of Pittsburgh International Airport not being a United hub are equally murky, as is the long-term viability of an independent US Airways, even though its flight service and options seem to have improved vastly in recent months, its on-time performance not withstanding.

It also remains to be seen whether any of the recent, limited crop of airline alternatives that have recently sprouted up here can make a go of it. Absent some form of federal regulation, the competition they provide will be the only force to keep a behemoth airline honest. Without significant and steady support from the traveling public, their future is in doubt.

So the future of flying is hard to predict.

The good news is that despite these concerns, opportunities to travel have never been more bountiful. If you're smart and lucky about the time and season, travel can even be a relative bargain.

It is also entirely true that the prospects for our airport and our area reaching their full potential have never been better. Achieving these goals, however, will require inspired leadership, continuous dedication, lots of hard work and more than a little good luck.