Winging It

Even the White House recoginizes airline flight delays as a growing problem. Read more in today's Road Warrior column.

In the last 12 hours, we've experienced one of the great frustrations of the Road Warrior who's in a remote city in the West and doesn't have instant access to philly.com. Want to know if the Phillies were the National League East champions last night? Don't count on ESPN. For more than an hour we switched back and forth between the Eagles sorrowful performance and an ESPN program called "Baseball Tonight" or something like it. We got virtually no National League news, and nothing at all about the Phils win and the Mets loss that gave the home team the division championship. Other TV news focused on the Mets collapse. Who cares? We won't be shedding any tears as we inhale all the news about the Phils' fantastic finish from The Inquirer and the Daily News on philly.com. [End of commercial].

Hello out there. We're back from a break and monitoring the airline business again. Surprise, surprise, we find that not all the affected parties resolved their differences about airline service and management decisions in the last 10 days. Pilots at American are grumbling about executive bonuses as they open contract talks. Closer to home, Pennsylvania's U.S. senators asked US Airways CEO Doug Parker to reconsider the airline's decision announced last week to reduce Pittsburgh service. Here's a report and the text of the senators' letter as reported on a politically oriented Web site. We'll post US Airways response if we get one.

What else has been happening in the world of PHL travel that's of concern to you? Let us know what's on your mind.

Boeing Co. announced yesterday that delivery of its next-generation long-haul jet, the 787 Dreamliner, would be delayed for six months , until the end of 2008, because of production problems. Those who like new airplanes and are interested in the advanced technology in the 787 are disappointed, of course. But PHL fliers were unlikely to see one of these jets regularly for years or even decades anyway, unless there's some drastic change in international long-haul service here.

US Airways has opted to buy a competing plane, the Airbus 350 XWB, which also is behind schedule and won't be delivered until 2014. The 787 has gotten off to a fast start, with orders for more than 2,300 from 50 customers. None of those customers, however, have international routes from PHL. The only U.S. carriers that have ordered the Dreamliner are Continental and Northwest, so you will have to fly through one of their hubs to be among the first on your block to try it out.

You may have seen this story last week about August flight delays, but we're posting it now because we were away and want this space to serve as an on-the- record compendium of the single most aggravating aspect of air travel today. One of the more dismal statistics in the story is from PHL itself: More than 1,600 stranded passengers were helped by the airport's hospitality program in August, a far-higher-than-average number. And this is at a time US Airways continues to trim its PHL flight schedule -- it's down to 417 mainline and Express departures a day, compared with almost 500 in early 2005.

Air fares are on the rise again. Read what happened overnight here.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters has set Oct. 23-24 for the meeting of officials from her department, the FAA, the airlines and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to work on ways to reduce delays at Kennedy International Airport. Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) says he's been assured discussions will also take place to deal with Newark delays as well. Find a good AP backgrounder on the situation here.

We've been spending more time in hotels lately. See our thoughts in today's Road Warrior column.

Today we're at the annual Aviation Forecast Conference sponsored by the Boyd Group, a consulting firm whose expertise we've counted on for years to help us look ahead in the world of airlines and airports. Here are a few of the developments and issues we heard about that could affect the PHL traveler and everyone whose livelihood depends on PHL. Some of this is opinion based on analysis by Michael Boyd, the the blunt, incisive, quotable president of the firm:

-- Airline labor, which made concessions that saved the life of US Airways and other bankrupt carriers, is mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore.

-- The 50-seat regional jet will become rarer, replaced by the 70-to-125-seat RJ.

--The FAA has done a lousy of managing air traffic and the industry needs to admit it and find its own way to reduce delays .

-- Legacy,, aka network, carriers (American,Continental, Delta, Northwest, United and US Airways) will keep their hub-and-spoke systems (good money makers) while the larger low-cost carriers (AirTran, Frontier, JetBlue, Southwest, Spirit and a few others) and the legacies will go head-to-head in more places than they do now. The two groups aren't afraid of competing against each other.

-- International traffic will continue to grow sharply. One destination expected to boom: India.

-- Airline mergers aren't inevitable.

-- Southwest Airlines will be doing one of its periodic reinventions of itself in a few years. (Warning to competitors: watch out .)

More from the conference later in the week.

The major airlines -- even some of the minor ones -- are making good money this year. The biggest, American parent AMR Corp., reported today. Look for Southwest and Continental later in the week and US Airways next week. Read about Delta here and about AMR results here.

Remember all those crowded airline flights this summer? The airlines certainly do -- and much more fondly perhaps than many of their customers. More solid third-quarter profits were reported today, in large part because of heavy demand in the summer. This time it was the turn of Continental and Southwest.

Today's print column includes some information posted last week during the forecast conference we attended, and other news. Read all about it here.

NASA, it turns out, has done a major study of pilot and other avation professionals' reporting of safety-related incidents, including near-collisions of planes on the ground and in the air. But the space agency won't release the data -- at least not to the media -- because it thinks you'll be scared to fly. Read about what the data shows in an AP story here.

The wildfires ravaging Southern California have prompted airlines to waive the usual penalties most of them charge for making changes to tickets for travelers scheduled to go to the region. Check with your airline if you have plans. Be sure to read the fine print of what airlines will do for you because rules may vary, depending on how much paid or how you bought your ticket (directly from the airline or through a travel Website.)

Some of our leaders have been trying to kill Amtrak for years. It's not working. The national passenger rail system had record ridership in the fiscal 2007 year that ended Sept. 30. Here's Amtrak's news release with lots of detail.

United and JetBlue join the third-quarter parade of airlines reporting solid earnings. Read details here.

Were you on any crowded airline flights last spring? Here's one reason: Fares in many markets were lower in the second quarter compared with 2006, helping explain why demand is strong. Read what the DOT's Bureau of Transportation Statistics released on air travel costs today.

US Airways moved strongly into the black in the third quarter. But the airline's execs are still complaining about PHL plans that they say are hampering their international operations. Here's our Friday morning story with the details.

We take a closer look at the debate between US Airways and PHL officials about the use of domestic and international gates at the airport. Link to today's column.

We were going to report some more travel-related news today but ran out of time because you, dear readers, responded so enthusiastically to today's column. We've received about 15 e-mails and phone calls so far, several of which are posted as comments in the next item down in this space. Check 'em out, and we'll be posting fresh items the rest of the week.

News about Amtrak today includes a release from the railroad about what happens when investments are made in infrastructure that speeds up service. More people ride. Amtrak's news release is here.

Also today, the U.S. Senate passed a bill sponsored by Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D.,N.J.) and Trent Lott (R, Miss.) that would give Amtrak $11.4 billion in funding over six years. The bill would provide funds for maintaining and improving the Northeast Corridor and make money available to states to start new rail lines or improve those they have. The bill would provide Amtrak more stable funding than it's ever had.

You will see a slightly shorter version of this in print or online in the morning but here's an advance copy for the Road Warrior readers:

Pennsylvania U.S Sens. Bob Casey and Arlen Specter complained bitterly yesterday in letters to US Airways that the airline's planned cutbacks at Pittsburgh International Airport are part of a pattern of reneging on promises to support air service in the region. The senators said they’re particularly troubled that many US Airways employees who could be laid off by the cutbacks won’t receive severance packages offered to Pittsburgh-based flight attendants.

Specter said that over many years, he had offered support for the airline’s operations in Pennsylvania, and US Airways officials in the past had vowed to continue a major presence in the city. “We’ve gone to hell and back for US Airways and they’ve thumbed their nose at Pittsburgh,” he said.

Specter added that he doesn't think US Airways has shortchanged PIT at the expense of PHL.

US Airways has said it’s losing $40 million a year in its Pittsburgh operation and has no choice but to cut back to 68 daily flights and 1,800 employees by January. At the beginning of 2001, the airline had 542 daily flights and 12,000 employees. CEO Doug Parker has replied to previous letters from Specter, saying we've got to run the airline to make money and that a great deal has changed in the airline industry since Allegheny County spent $1 billion on the PIT terminal to handle the traffic in the 1990s.