Winging It

One way business journalists learn what airlines are doing is listening to Webcasts of their presentations to industry analysts. You can listen to one of these by US Airways earlier today by clicking here. It may take a few hours for the sponsor, JP Morgan, to get the US Airways presentation up on the site.

These kind of presentations to investment companies are archived on the "investor relations" portion of the US Airways Website, allowing you to listen at your convenience. Other major airlines also are presenting at the JP Morgan conference, and you can usually find their executives' remarks in the same way, by going to the investor relations portions of their Websites.

In the early 1990s, the U.S. Department of Transportation identified a phenomenon it called "the Southwest effect," to show what happens when the airline starts service in a new city: fares drop and traffic goes up. Today, there's no better example of the effect than traffic at Philadelphia International. Read details in our report on PHL traffic in 2006 here

You may have seen a story in print today about the Airline Quality Rating, an annual recounting of satistics about the airlines that are kept by the federal government. If you missed it you can find it here.

This yearly exercise has its fans, because it is a good roundup of data and it's an easy way for the media to report on the airlines. But Mike Boyd, a longtime aviation consultant in Evergreen, Colo., is not among them. Read what he has to say, in great detail, here

To no one's surprise, Southwest Airlines reported its 64th consecutive profitable quarter today. Read the news story by the AP here. Wall Street analysts who follow the industry are concerned that what's now the largest U.S. airline in passengers flown is facing cost pressures, from fuel and labor, at a time when the economy is sluggish and customers are resisting higher fares. Some analysts are downright unhappy and downgrading its stock, The runup in fares that many business travelers experienced in early 2006 ran into resistance in the second half of the year, and that resistance continued into the first quarter..Lousy weather in the Northeast and Midwest didn't help either.

More interesting, and pertinent to the lives of frequent travelers, was what Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said during a question-and-answer session with the analysts and reporters. He's also concerned about costs. But he's confident Southwest will find ways -- as it has for its 36 years in business -- to get more productivity out of employees while still keeping customers happy. The airline is considering adding wireless internet acess to its planes, along with some type of entertainment system, but not for a couple of years probably. As you may have heard, it's also studying whether to offer reserved seats, a radical departure from its unreserved practice now, and is looking at international service (think Mexico or Canada). "We have an array of things that aren't ready for prime time," Kelly said.

But Kelly indicated that Southwest isn't thinking of charging for services such as talking to a live human being on the phone, checking bags or otherwise nickel-and-dimeing customers, What he's most determined to do is continue to be different than other airlines. Southwest will still have its own style of service, and it will continue to focus on keeping fares low and service frequent on the routes heavily used by business travelers. Despite last year's fare increases, and the nasty weather that spoiled some vacations this year, "those Road Warriors just seem to plow on through," Kely said.

You can hear replays of Southwest's, American's and Continental's earnings conference call on their Website (links in the right-hand column of this homepage), as you can with most carriers these days, on a quarterly basis.

Another Congressional hearing today, this time in the House, on the passenger bill of rights legislation. As you will recall, the proposed regulations stemmed from the stranding of passengers on major airlines' planes during snowstorms over the winter. Opinions vary whether using federal law is the best way to make carriers behave better. Today it was the turn of the American Society of Travel Agents to weigh in, and they are in favor. Read the testimony it presented to a House committee here

Look for some news in the next couple of weeks from US Airways and Southwest, PHL’s two largest airlines in numbers of passengers.

Southwest will be up first, with chief executive Gary Kelly in town Wednesday night and Thursday at the invitation of the Temple University School of Tourism and Hospitality Management. Perhaps the airline will take the opportunity to reveal plans for the additional flights from PHL that it says it wants to start.

On May 15, US Airways will hold its annual shareholders meeting at the Radisson Warwick Hotel in Center City. Look for some pilots in uniform and few of the airline’s other 5,600 PHL-based employees to show a keen interest.

Look for some heavy promotion in coming days of restricted advance-purchase fares to Columbus, Manchester, Pittsburgh, Providence and Raleigh/Durham -- as in $29 or $49 one-way plus taxes. As usual, the deep discounts came from Southwest first, with US Airways and others matching.

In the same vein, AirTran announced one of its two-day sales, this one for its busines-class service, with one-way fares starting at $109 plus taxes. Tickets have to be bought by the end of the day Friday.

Planning a trip to Europe in a few years? Southwest Airlines CEO Gary C. Kelly was in the city this week and had a comment that may interest you. See what he had to say about the airline's plans for PHL in our Inquirer story

Delta is taking a turn at raising fares, revealing that it raised many of its domestic prices $5 each way last night. One of the older legacy carriers or another has tried seven times this year to raise fares but has succeeded in getting the rest of the industry to go along only twice. Southwest says it won't match this one, which increases the chances it won't stick,

The University of Michigan's annual survey of customer satisfaction with several industries, including airlines, was released today. It had some results that may be a surprise to PHL-centric fliers. Airlines finished next-to-last, while cable and satellite TV providers came in last, but overall, the industry improved nicely in the 2007 ratings compared with last year. The airlines had a score of 63 out of 100. Here's how the major carriers finished: Southwest, 76; Continental, 69; US Airways and Northwest, 61; American, 60, Delta,59; and United, 56. More information about the survey is in a U of Michigan news release.

This may appear to be more inside-the-airline-industry information than you really need, but we think it's worthy of a minute of your time. Southwest Airlines has signed a 10-year agreement with Galileo, a British company that operates one of the world's largest airline reservations systems. The deal will put Southwest's fares on the computers of thousands of travel agents in North America. Southwest has had a more limited agreement with Sabre, a U.S. company that is another of the other major operators of a "global distribution system," or GDS, for agents.

As Web-savvy travelers know, Southwest's fares and schedules aren't in the other big online travel services for consumers, including Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity. Southwest has never thought it was worth the fees those services charge. What's more, Southwest.com is one of the most popular Web sites of any kind. It accounts for 70 percent of Southwest's ticket sales, and ranks not far behind the big three sites that serve multiple carriers in the number of visitors it gets. A deal with Galileo will put the great majority of Southwest's fares in front of agents who use its GDS. And Road Warriors may really benefit. Travel agents still sell half of all airline tickets, and about half of all business travel is managed by corporate travel departments that use agents. Despite the flocking of airline customers to the Web to book and plan their own travel over the last decade, thousands of companies continue to use agents in one way or another, either having them book trips or serving as monitors of travel policies.

J.D. Power and Associates, best-known for its consumer-satisfaction surveys on autos, does the same for airports and airlines. The 2007 results for PHL were released this morning and they may surprise -- perhaps even shock -- some travelers. PHL baggage service received a score of "better than most," the second-to-the-highest ranking, putting it in a tie with baggage service at Atlanta, Chicago O'Hare and Detroit, and a notch below Dallas/Fort Worth and Newark. Overall, PHL had the same score of "better than most," or four on a one-to-five scale. Just as curious, three airports that often get good reviews in other surveys, Denver, Minneapolis//St. Paul and Toronto, finished in last place among the largest airports (those with 30 million or more passengers a year).PHL had one "among the best" rating, for its food-and-beverage offerings.

All of J.D. Power's satisfaction scores can be found on its Web site.. Airports and airlines are under the Travel tab. More than 10,000 travelers participated in the study. Please let us know what you think of this survey (just the airline and airport stuff, not your car, please!) and other simiilar consumer research about airlines and airports.

The Department of Transportation reported April airline performance today. Read our story here.

The Transportation Security Administration and the airlines disagree over how much carriers should be paying for security services. Read more here.

Last week started in a minor key, with release by the U.S. Department of Transportation of data for airline on-time performance in April at Philadelphia International Airport and elsewhere. It wasn't good, as anyone flying could have guessed. But as the week went on, the skies brightened, with positive developments on a number of fronts that travelers care about. Of course, that was before the weather and FAA computer problems ganged up Friday to make a mess of flight operations at PHL and many other airports.

The reports on airline and airport delays for April (see the links posted on the blog early Tuesday) show a pattern that you can pick up if you read these things as often as we do. Remember how much rain we had in April? On-time performance nationwide slipped because of the weather. As usual, the New York airports and Chicago O'Hare were even worse than PHL. But PHL was hit especially hard because of US Airways' ongoing struggle to fix its reservations system. Those problems also have caused on-time operations to suffer in March and April at Charlotte, US Airways' largest hub, which usually finishes far ahead of PHL in the rankings. US Airways says service got much better in May, with 80 percent on-time arrivals systemwide. We await the next federal report.

Another bit of good news: The world's airlines, represented by the International Air Transport Association, say they will do their part to cut carbon emissions that cause global warming. The head of the group promised it would work with governments and aircraft manufacturers to improve technology to reach a goal of zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Those worried about the Federal Aviation Administration's airspace redesign plan for the Philadelphia and New York areas had reason to cheer, too. The FAA says it will hold another meeting to take public comment, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. June 27 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Cherry Hill.

As the week ended, the feds - this time the State Department and Homeland Security - recognized what travelers had been telling them for months: They are ruining long-planned trips because they cannot reduce the backlog of unprocessed applications for passports. So they suspended the requirement for U.S. citizens to have passports to fly to and from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda this summer. What will suffice until at least September is a government-issued photo I.D. and proof that you've applied for a new passport. The proof, officials say, can be found at the State Department's Web site within a few weeks of receipt of an application.

Our favorite bit of cheer was from the AAA Mid-Atlantic motor club, which surveys service stations from Virginia to North Jersey daily about their gasoline pump prices. AAA reacted with dismay in late April when fuel-price prognosticators said a gallon of unleaded regular could hit $4 a gallon this summer. No way, the club said, and that's what's happening so far, with prices hovering just above $3 in Pennsylvania and just under $3 in South Jersey. Let's hope it stays that way.

Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly says the airline's growth may not be as strong as it had hoped. That could slow down its plans to expand at PHL when it gets more Terminal E gates this fall. Read more here

If airline flights you took over the last 10 days were on time, you were among the fortunate few. We all heard the predictions that air travel was going to be rough this summer, with more flights scheduled and planes packed tighter than ever, and recent days have been doozies. The worst day was June 8, a Friday, when a Federal Aviation Administration computer failed, backing up air traffic across most of the East as severe thunderstorms were breaking out. Just one example: A blog commenter reported a five-hour takeoff delay on an American Airlines flight from Philadelphia — for his two-hour flight to Chicago. Matters weren’t much better on most afternoons last week as thunderstorms built up.

One way to track how airports and airlines are doing in real time is flightstats.com. The site is useful to see whether an individual flight is on schedule and to see the full array of operations for each carrier or airport. On the free portion of the site, you can check an airport’s departures or arrivals for the current day and one day before or after, and find a notation for how many minutes late each delayed flight was. You can see how grim the situation was at PHL on Thursday, when most flights before 9 a.m. were on time, a few more were late from 9 a.m. to noon, and half or more ran late in the afternoon. After 6 p.m., almost none was on time.

The weather made it a good time for another push by the Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights, the grass-roots group (find its blog here) that wants Congress to require airlines to provide basic human comforts during long delays. The group issued a report last week asserting that airlines and federal regulators understate the number of flights that get stranded on the runways for hours. Good arguments can be made on both sides of this issue. The airlines’ views can be found at the Air Transport Association’s Web site, airlines.org

Despite the amount of coverage the media (ourselves included) give airlines, the majority of business trips are literally on the road. It’s logical, of course, considering how many people have opted since Sept. 11, 2001, to drive 300 miles or more to avoid the hassle of airport security and airline delays, and how many miles are put on rental cars by air travelers. That makes the price of filling a gas tank of acute interest, and the news has been good so far this summer in the Philadelphia region. Last week, the average price of unleaded regular continued a trend that started just after Memorial Day, dropping a penny or two a gallon on successive days, the AAA motor club says. By week’s end, the cost was below $3 a gallon in Pennsylvania, although it’s a little higher in the five-county area west of the Delaware. In South Jersey, the price was $2.89 a gallon.

The dreams of[ US Airways to make Philadelphia an even bigger and better international hub surfaced again Friday. The airline says it wants to start flying nonstop to two to four more cities in Europe and beyond, including some that have never been mentioned before by airport or airline officials. Among the places under consideration: Moscow; Istanbul, Turkey; Tel Aviv; Birmingham, England; India; and Japan. Read more in our story in Saturday's paper.

Souithwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly says BWI is where it would have a code-share arrangement with ATA Airlines for connecting to international flights. Read more from Baltimore Sun

Here's thought No. 1 from Nutter: "The airport is critical, not only to the future of the city but to its impact on the region. ... I think it's pretty obvious there have been a number of challenging situations in airport operations. I'm fully examining all the performance issues out at the airport." So we know he appreciates what a powerful force PHL is, the source of close to 35,000 jobs and $14 billion a year in economic activity in the region, and how its reputation rubs off on the city.

Something else that's clear to us is that Nutter has already been talking to airlines and suburban politicians. He wants to find common ground with political leaders of South Jersey, Delaware County and, especially, Tinicum Township, where two-thirds of the airport's city-owned land is situated. County residents are concerned about aircraft noise and other effects of proximity to the airport. They are opposed to an FAA plan to use new takeoff paths over residenttial areas, and they want to know what Tinicum can expect if an additional runway is built along the Delaware as a way to reduce flight delays. While Nutter said he wants to work with suburban politicians, he also said, "It's critically important we improve our takeoff and arrival times, given our current record." Our thought: If reducing delays without having an impact on the neighbors were easy, it would have been done years ago.

Nutter said increasing international service will be another priority for him because of its ability to increase tourism and promote overseas trade. He said he would like to see direct flights to Africa from PHL (perhaps the longest of long-shot dreams), as well as the routes to Asia and additional service to Europe that US Airways seeks. The airport also needs to resolve the disagreement it's had with US Airways involving use of gates in Terminal A-East for domestic flights, Nutter said. US Airways continues to complain that it's hamstrung by the airport's decision to move Delta to A-East from Terminal E, so Southwest can expand its domestic service.

As for baggage, Nutter said: "We need US Airways to resolve the baggage-handling issues at the airport. My understanding is some improvements have been made, but more needs to be done."

One more area that Nutter says needs work is how efficiently the city handles requests for things like construction permits and installation of new equipment. That's another issue that frustrates US Airways' people, from baggage handlers up to the CEO.

In his call, one question Nutter did not want to address was this: Does mayoral front-runner want a new airport boss to replace Mayor Street's appointee, Charles J. Isdell? Nutter said he will only answer that question after the election in November. So if he wins, plan on us asking again.

Al Taubenberger, who ran unopposed this spring in the Republican mayoral primary, has been thinking about the importance of PHL in the regional economy. After Democratic nominee Michael Nutter called to tell us his priorities for the airport, we asked Taubenberger to give us his. (We posted Nutter's comments two days ago.)

Like Nutter, Taubenberger said he supports US Airways' plans to add more international flights here. The GOP candidate said job growth in the city was a key plank in his platform, and while each new overseas flight would add only a few jobs, the service will help international trade. Because US Airways uses PHL as a hub, he said the city should help US Airways get as many airport gates as it needs. He was familiar with US Airways' objections to moving Delta into Terminal A-East to free up space in Terminal E for Southwest.

"There's no doubt Southwest has helped," he said. "But Southwest... is not the hub airline here...Southwest does not have international flights. It's more of a commuter and leisure airline."

Taubenberger said he wants members of Congress from the region to fight to help clear more air space for flights in and out of Philadelphia. Flights to and from airports in the New York and Washington areas have a higher priority to air-traffic controllers than do flights here, he said. But he said he needed to do more study before he expresses an opinion about the FAA's airspace redesign plan for the Philadelphia and New York areas, which is aimed at trying to reduce delays and is opposed by some political leaders in Delaware County and South Jersey.

If Taubenberger becomes mayor, he would ask Charles J. Isdell to continue as city aviation director. "He has done a good job under difficult circumstances, plenty of which weren't under his control," he said.

The murky weather here and to the west has many PHL flights backed up for departure, with arrivals affected as well. We heard from www.joesentme.com (subscription Web site for frequent fliers) that Northwest was cancelling a number of flights, but here most of its flights have arrived and departed normally this morning.

Consumer Reports, the monthly magazine of Consumers Union, regularly asks its members to rate consumer products and services, and in the July issue now on newsstands it looks at hotels and airlines. For travel veterans, much of the CR articles will seem very basic, such as what to expect from a luxury hotel vs. a budget brand. But CR surveys' get thousands of responses from readers (more than 31,000 on airlines), so serve as a fair guage of what leisure and business travelers think.

There's far too much data in the reports to recount much of it in our space, but here's a hint: The highest ratings in the "fanciest" category went to Ritz-Carlton (Four Seasons apparently didn't get a minium of 150 responses). Among luxry brands, top marks went to Renaissance. Homewood Suites and Springhill Suites by Marriott tied for best upscale hotels, and Drury Inns/Suites was the top vote-getter in moderately priced, Microtel was rated best in budget lodgings, but ratings for all the budget brands were quite a bit lower than those in the other categories. One area to watch for are the room rates, because the surveys were done from January 2005 to April 2006. Some of the prices seem low to us, at least for urban hotels.

In the airline survey, the best ratings went to JetBlue, Midwest and Southwest. (The survey was done in February but included a followup in April after JetBlue's February service meltdown, which the magazine said didn't change the results). At the bottom of the list of best airlines were No. 17, America West, and No. 18, US Airways.

The FAA holds what is probably its final informational meeting tonight on its airspace redesign plan for PHL and New York area airports. Read this morning's story here

Southwest won't be flying nonstop between PHL and LAX or Oakland for awhile. Baltimore to California nonstop also will be out of the schedule by fall, although the changes may only be temporary. CEO Gary Kelly briefed analysts and reporters on that and other tweaks it made to its schedule as a way to cut costs at a time of high fuel costs and a sluggish economy. Two other local notes: one less PHL-Providence flight and one additional PHL-Nashville roundtrip. And the airline says in the fourth quarter it will announce changes in its seating and boarding policy, frequent-flier program and overall fare structure Read more in our story for print tomorrow, and in an AP story and check in again forr additional insight as the week goes on.

We're using a new way to deliver the Monday Road Warrior column that appears in print to you, the folks most interested in the topics. Instead of pasting all the copy here, we give you a Road Warrior link. Let us know if there are any objections.

The feds reported today on flight delays growing worse in May, for the fifth straight month, Complaints to USDOT about service, and the number of mishandled baggage reports the airlines too in May also were on the rise. For the statistically minded, here's more detail, including a few stats about PHL service, in a story from Bloomberg News with us contributing the local information. (Pay no attention to the word "yesterday" in the lead; this is a story slotted for tomorrow's print edition that you lucky online readers get to see first.)

Air fares took another bump up over the weekend. Southwest led the way this time, with others matching. Read the AP story here.

The last 24 hours have brought multiple announcements from airlines and Amtrak about technology upgrades designed to help the customer

Southwest Airlines said you can now use PayPal, the electronic-payment system owned by ebay, to pay for tickets on its Web site. Northwest Airlines announced a a similar deal with PayPal last month. A news release with more information can be found here

US Airways said today it arranged with Usablenet mobile to provide PDA and web-based cell phone users with content and functionality from its usairways.com Web site that is optimized for these devices. A customer now can buy a ticket from a handheld device, in addition to getting flight schedules. Find a news release about it with this link.

At Amtrak, the upgrade is at 44 of its busiest stations (which includes Philadelphia 30th Street, No. 3 in riders). The railroad has new Quik-Trak ticketing machines with better touchscreens, brighter graphics and ADA-compliant features that Amtrak says should help disabled travelers. Eventually, there will be 300 new machines in 150 stations. Find Amtrak's news release here.

What's the world's largest airline in domestic passengers carried? The answer is a surprise to many people: It's Southwest. Yes, the so-called no-frills discounter that few PHL fliers had ever used until it landed here in 2004 has become firmly entrenched in the No. 1 spot for the nation in the first four months of the year, compared with 2006. American Airlines continues to have more total passengers because of it also has international service, and along with several other major carriers, is ahead of Southwest in revenue and total passenger miles. But with Southwest carriying so much short-haul traffic, it has a big lead in domestic passengers. And the airline led the world in domestic traffic last year as well. That's a function of the U.S. air-travel market representing close to half the world's traffic, and seven out of the top 10 airlines in domestic passengers are all U.S. carriers.

For those who can't get enough of this kind of data, here's a link to the source of U.S. numbers, the Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistcs. bts.gov. And another one to the International Air Transport Association stats for world rankings.

News about airlines seems to come in bunches and this week is a good example. Besides the announcements from multiple airlines that want routes to China, the carriers start reporting second-quarter financial results. American, Southwest and Continental are among the first up, with US Airways next week. Analysts say the industry did reasonably well from April through June, and with demand strong and capacity reduced by some airlines for the second half, money is likely to be made for the full year unless some big surprises occur. Look here for reports on the financials and other news here as the week progresses.

If you've flown recently, packed into another metal tube with practically every seat taken, this won't surprise you a bit: The major airlines began reporting second-quarter earnings this morning, and American, Delta and Southwest all made money. As expected, Southwest's profit went down vs. the same 2006 quarter. The reasons for the results: Fares have held up, with only limited discounting, and some carriers have trimmed or at least not added capacity (that means the number of seats available for sale). In the meantime, you folks just keep on traveling because you must or want to. The airlines' news releases, with more detail than most of you want, we're sure, can be found using the Web site links in the lower right-hand column of this page. For more detail about what Southwest is doing to cope, here a link to today's story in print about an employee buyout offer.

No kidding, Herb Kelleher, the smartest guy in the airline business, steps aside as executive chairman of the most consistently profitable airline in the world, but stays on as an Employee (always capitalized at Southwest). Also, CEO Gary Kelly was given a contract for the next four years, and president Colleen Barrett said she also will step down from her post but stay on as an employee, Read the details of this surprising announcement today at Southwest.com's press release site. The release is the first one on the list. And here's a New York Times story on it

Today's Road Warrior column is a roundup of news from the last week, Find it at this link.

We're back from a couple of weeks away from the blogosphere, and ready to hear from you again.

First off, NPR News Morning Edition (WHYY 90.1 FM) will run a four-part series on airline travel tomorrow through Friday, with PHL as the focus. The series will start with a profile of a family traveling from PHL to Orlando, and follow it with closer looks at airport security, air-traffic control on the PHL-Orlando route and the effect of low-fare competition at PHL. Aviation director Charles J. Isdell will be interviewed Friday in the last segment. Give it a listen and tell us what you think.

Flight delays in June hit a 13-year high, the U.S. Transportation Department reported today. Read the AP story here. Below you will find PHL information that will be combined with the AP story in print tomorrow morning:

At Philadelphia International Airport, 59 percent of flights arrived on time and 61 percent departed on time in June. Philadelphia was ranked No. 28 among the nation's 32 largest airports for arrivals, and No. 31 out of 32 for departures. Among major carriers here, American Airlines had the poorest on-time arrival record, in June with flights landing within 15 minutes of their schedule 46 percent of the time. Northwest Airlines flights arrived on time 50 percent of the time, and US Airways, the airport's largest carrier with more than 60 percent of the traffic, had an on-time arrival rate of 52 percent. Others were Southwest Airlines, 73 percent on time; AirTran Airways, 69 percent; United Airlines, 61 percent; and Continental Airlines, 64 percent.

Nationwide, US Airways led the major airlines in lost or damaged bags for the month, with 10.6 reports filed for every 1,000 passengers. American was second, with 8.9 reports per 1,000 passengers. AirTran had the best record among the large carriers, with a rate of 4.4 per 1,000. US Airways also had the highest rate of complaints per 100,000 passengers filed with the Department of Transportation, at 3.43. The national average for all airlines was 1.35 complaints per 100,000 passengers.

The airport's bond ratings have been raised, helping spur a number of projects, including adding gates in A-West and redesigning the F Terminal. Read a little here and more tomorrow online or in print.

Southwest is testing a new procedure at San Antonio International Airport that let's passengers board flights in the order in which they check in. The experiment is aimed at cutting down on the way passengers now start forming the A, B or C lines long before they actually board, creating severe traffic jams in the gate area. Seats are still unreserved -- that's something Southwest is still looking at changing. The airline hasn't made any announcements about the test we can find, but the San Antonio Express-News had a story about it this morning. Read all about it here.