Winging It

The price of oil has dealt another hard and perhaps fatal blow to another small airline that was trying to be a niche player. Silverjet, the all business-class airline that flew between Newark and London Luton Airport and Dubai and Luton, shut down its operations after it was unable to find additional financing to overcome skyrocketing fuel costs Silverjet founder and CEO Lawrence Hunt, who I met last year at his facilities at Newark, is a chairming serial entrepreneur who will probably rise again from this grounding. Less fortunate will be employees, customers and investors, like those at Eos, Max Jet and other all-business startups that have failed in recent months. I took more notice of Silverjet than the others because, with Newark flights, I figured Philadelphia-travelers would gravitate toward it more than to those flying out of JFK in New York. A market for the service clearly exists, or British Airways and Lufthansa wouldn't be investing resources in it as well. We can only hope other independents will be able to try again -- if fuel costs moderate, or investors and customers just adjust to them. Silverjet's message to customers can be found here.

Airport beat reporter Linda Loyd took a thorough look at the new PHL facilities under construction between Terminals D and E. For those who didn't see it in the Sunday paper, here's the link to a story that should warm the hearts of all airport customers and employees.

Winging It today is based on the chat we had with Herb Kelleher, who retired as chairman of Southwest Airlnes so he can work just five days a week. Read all about it here.

There's a real financial crisis in the worldwide airline industry, caused by the soaring cost of oil. And if prices keep rising, it's only going to get worse than the forecast from the International Air Transport Association issued at its annual meeting yesterday. The view from Britain's Guardian newspaper can be found here.

US Airways announced new PHL service today. Read more here.

For those who keep track of the numbers the U.S. government collects on airline and airport performance: PHL ranked in the bottom six among major airlines in April on-time performance. Find the details from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics on the airports, released today. And a ton of data from the parent agency, DOT is in its airline consumer report.

Continental on Thursday morning, and United on Wednesday joined American and other airlines in announcing big cuts in capacity, reducing the number of seats for sale. The latest on Continental's plans can be found at this link.

Read what UAL's cuts announced a day earlier can mean for your travel plans later this year in this AP story. For PHL fliers, there's little impact from United's move, while other airlines are holding flights and capacity steady. Read details of that in a good, wide-ranging story by Linda Loyd found here.

The airline industry crisis caused by soaring fuel costs made it to page one this morning. Read the story here.

I have always found reports from Hitwise, a Web-tracking service, interesting to see how people are using the 'Net. As you'll see from the latest (go to page 4), mapping and direction sites outpace 'em all, making me wonder if anyone reads a map on paper anymore. Find the report at this link.

This morning's column looks at the grim prospects for the airline industry caused by high fuel prices, and some of the things they need to do to adapt to the new environment. Read more about it here.

Sens. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) and Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) have introduced legislation that would require more oversight of repair stations overseas that work on U.S. airliners. Read more here.

As painful as record fuel prices are for the major network airlines, not enough of them fell in line over the weekend for what would have been the year's 13th fare increase. Read an AP report here.

All business class Silverjet has found new investors and could resume service within weeks, the parties say. Here's a story from UK-based trade magazine Flight International.

My Inquirer colleage Linda Loyd, the airline beat reporter, has a good story online today and in print tomorrow about the losses skycaps have suffered since most airlines started charging $2 per bag for curbside checkin. Did I tell you I like to use curbside checkin and have always willingly tipped skycaps, even when having to pay the fee? The airlines don't have much to say in Linda's story because they say "it's in litigation," the normal response when a company doesn't want to talk about another amenity taken from the customer. I'll let the skycaps in the story tell you what it means to them. Find it at this link.

The Transportation Department's inspector general issued a critical report yesterday on the Federal Aviation Administration's hiring and training of new air-traffic controllers. Even the FAA said the IG got most of it right. Read the AP story on the report here.

US Airways is the latest to announce big cuts in flights and people, plus matching the $15 American fee for the first checked bag. Read the basic AP story here. Been on the road today so I'm just catching up, and more details will have to come in the next few days. In case you haven't heard yet, the airline industry is facing a full-blown catastrophe because of fuel costs. We'll catch you up on some of the dire predictions that are coming out on a regular basis. Stand by.

This morning's column takes a look at an effort to track how cyber thieves may be trying to rip off air travelers, and could potentially harm aviation safety. Read more about it here.

J.D. Power, the customer satisfaction surveyers, released its latest on airlines, showing a slippage in service rankings overall. JetBlue and Alaska, which don't serve PHL, and Continental ranked highest. Read the full news release from J.D. Power at this link.

A Southwest jet blew a tire, sending flames shooting out as it landed in Phoenix yesterday. Fire was put out quickly and there were no injuries. Read more here.

One of the leading experts on frequent-flier programs, Tim Winship of SmarterTravel.com, takes US Airways to the woodshed for the ways in which he says it's devalued Dividend Miles. Read his weekly column here.

My apologies for not alerting you sooner to a new study, piled on top of other studies and analysts' and consultants' comments, that details the trauma for airlines in a world of $130 a barrel oil. My only excuse for not posting this sooner is a lot of personal matters that have occupied most of my time since late last week. This story from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram focuses on work by Airline Forecasts LLC done for the Business Travel Coalition. For those who need more detail, here is a link to the study itself from the BTC homepage. I will spend the next few days tracking down other research and opinion. But there's no way around the basic conclusion of everyone who knows anything about the airline industry: fuel costs are doing serious, perhaps fatal, damage to some carriers and hurting every player.

Northwest joined other airlines in announcing more capacity and personnel cuts. Read some of the details here.

Airline executives from the major carriers warned at a New York conference yesterday of more fare increases and other effects of the spike in oil prices. Even Southwest, the only carrier expected to make money this year, is making plans for cuts in its long-standing growth plans. This is not Chicken Little talking, folks, the problems are very real. One good summary appeared this morning in the Dallas Morning News.

This is an issue that's been in the background recently -- how to ease air-traffic congestion and reduce delays at New York area airports. Some would like the same attention U.S. DOT is paying to New York paid to PHL. But that seems unlikely, especially if there are significant reductions in flights by the airlines this fall and winter because of the fuel-price crisis. The chronic delays at PHL, JFK, La Guardia and Newark may ease on their own as the carriers reduce capacity. Find a story about the reaction the Bush administration got at a House Aviation subcommittee hearing yesterday from Democrats at this link.

Continental and United announced a code-share agreement, along with the Star Alliance accepting Continental as a member. Read some details in an AP story, which doesn't mention what this means for US Airways, another Star Alliance and code-share partner with United already. US Airways says it doesn't expect any changes in those alliances.

This makes me wonder. We know airlines like these code-share deals because they tend to drive traffic on certain routes, giving both carriers a greater chance to dominate markets. But what benefit have you, the airline customer -- either individual travelers or organizations -- received from the US-UA code-share deal? Just curious. Please let me know what you think.

What a relief ! PHL announced today that it's opened seven specially designed "Pet Ports" where travelers with pets or assistance animals can give the poor beasts a place to relieve themselves. The areas are along the departures road and outside baggage claim buildings. Here's the airport's announcement but pay no attention to the headline on the news release (at least as of Friday PM) -- Mayor Nutter isn't giving a special welcome to dogs relieving themselves, although I'm sure he's glad they are. Use the link and you'll see what I mean.

The airlines are suffering and in one expert's analysis, many of us could suffer if there are multiple airline failures because of high fuel prices. Read more in today's print column.

US Airways has another code-share agreement, this one with Air China.

Delta and Northwest pilots agreed on a contract that will speed up the merger of the two airlines. Read more here.

Northwest CEO Doug Steenland had tough words in congressional testimony for speculators, who he said have played a major role in driving up oil prices. Read more about it in a Business Travel World story.

Here's an important story for business travelers that I wasn't able to get to last week. Read the AP story that appeared in Salt Lake's Deseret News, including comments from some of its readers. Find it here.

The Business Travel Coalition has another distressing report today, following up on the report we wrote about Monday on the economic fallout from multiple airline failures because of fuel costs. BTC has created a Web site Savemyaiport.com that lists virtually every secondary and tertiary airport in the country, saying all of them are in danger of seeing some cutbacks by carriers now serving them. In a few cases, airports could lose all of their service. Big airports, including PHL, are not on the list because that is where carriers in trouble will hunker down and continue to protect their turf. But in Pennsylvania, Allentown, Erie and Harrisburg are on it. Remember these are not announcements of something imminent: They are forecasts by one expert on the topic.

Coincidentally (or maybe not, who knows), American yesterday detailed where it would cut flights this fall (a move it said previously it would do but hadn't revealed specifics). Read more about that here. Harrisburg will lose its American flights, yes, but the airport will still have service by other carriers.

Southwest announced today that it's adding 40 flights and eliminating 31 as of Nov. 2. The changes at PHL are minor: One fewer daily roundtrip to Orlando and Pittsburgh, one more to Tampa. Read the full list here.

Delta Air Lines just announced that it will add fuel surcharges to what you thought were its "free" tickets acquired with frequent-flier miles. The charge, for tickets issued after Aug. 15, will be $25 for most domestic flights and $50 for international and some long-haul domestic ones. Read the details in a Delta news release.

Let's have a contest. What do you think the legacy airlines will next start charging extra for?

US Airways skycaps at PHL, who work for an airline contractor, are losing their jobs when the carrier starts collecting fees for checking bags. Read Linda Loyd's full story about skycaps.

Today's column takes a closer look at concerns over laptop seizures from international travelers reentering the country. Read about questions business groups and lawmakers have raised about Homeland Security practices at this link.

The airline industry crisis was succintly understated in a quote in the New York Times last week: "Said John P. Tague, United’s chief operating officer: “There’s going to be a period of adjustment in the last half of the year that will be unpleasant.”

Downright nasty and brutish may be more like it. The evidence continues to pile up: The airlines' fuel-cost crisis is very real and many communities are going to be affected by it. There's little indication yet that PHL will be hit hard this fall, with US Airways planning few cuts in its schedules. But most other carriers are likely to be offering fewer flights to their hubs from Philly unless oil prices were to fall, something that seems increasingly unlikely. The real concern for PHL fliers is the one they have confronted repeatedly over the years, each time US Airways gets into financial trouble and / or goes into Chapter 11: What if US were to fail or substantially reduce its operations? The thinking has always been that the region would fare better than smaller cities because its population is large enough to have a range of flights, even in the worst of circumstances. Without a hub airline, PHL would lose its status as an international gateway for years, but that could be regained, couldn't it?

That optimism may be looking to the past and not the immediate future. What happens if there are multiple major airline failures? What if one or more big carriers has to liquidate, unable to reorganize in bankruptcy court? A few weeks ago, analysts were calculating what $130-a-barrel oil would do to airlines, and it was very ugly. This morning the cost is climbing toward $150, so there's no good news here. Two stories in other publications from the last few days provide more detail: Read one from the New York Times about deep flight cuts this fall, and another from the Dallas Morning News about falling airline stock prices.

An announcement last week that AT&T Corp. would move its corporate headquarters from San Antonio to Dallas may not have made headlines in the East. But it's a big blow to San Antonio. The main reason AT&T -- the city's only Dow 30 company -- cited for the move is related to something we've been looking at in this space: How cities may suffer when airlines are forced to make deep cuts in service because of fuel costs. AT&T said San Antonio doesn't have enough direct airline service to major cities, and Dallas, as both an American and Southwest hub, does. Read more about what's being said in the local San Antonio Express-News