Regional airlines now account for nearly half the flights from Buffalo to destinations across the United States, and local routes to major airports such as LaGuardia in New York and Reagan National in the nation’s capital are now served by planes once derided as “puddle jumpers.”
A Buffalo News examination of all scheduled flights out of Buffalo the week of July 19 found that 46 percent will be flown by regional carriers, even if the planes say Continental or US Airways or United.
What’s more, the planes being flown along many routes are no longer big jets, but small regional jets or propeller planes, such as the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 — the kind of plane that crashed in Clarence on Feb. 12, killing 50.
That might come as a surprise to people who have not been flying regularly.
“I think most people think they’re flying on a major airline” when they step on planes operated by regional subcontractors, said William Vanecek, director of aviation at Buffalo Niagara International Airport. “They’re getting a ticket that says US Airways, so most think they are flying US Airways.”
Yet no matter what the ticket says, an increasing number of flights from Buffalo are really being operated by airlines like Colgan Air, the Virginia-based regional that was flying Continental Connection Flight 3407, the ill-fated flight that crashed in Clarence Center.
That’s a huge issue for air travelers in wake of the questions that the Flight 3407 crash has raised about the safety of regional airlines versus the bigger carriers, which use bigger planes and more experienced, better-paid pilots.
Noting the “stunning” revelations about the training and performance of the crew of Flight 3407, Sen. Byron Dorgan, the North Dakota Democrat who heads the Senate Aviation Committee, said last week: “Do we have one level of safety, or have we drifted some?”
A confounding array
Lawmakers and federal transportation officials have vowed to answer that question in the coming months, but one thing is for sure. The airline industry has drifted a great deal from the days when a traveler could trust that the airline named in big type on the ticket was the one flying the airplane.
The News review of mid-July flights found a confounding array of regional airlines flying routes for most major airlines.
For example, Colgan not only operates many Buffalo- Newark flights for Continental, it also handles US Airways’ Buffalo- Albany route.
ExpressJet handles some Continental flights between Buffalo and the airline’s Newark hub.
ExpressJet, Chautauqua Airlines and CommutAir fly Continental’s Buffalo-Cleveland route.
Given that Continental’s name was on the fuselage of Flight 3407, the families of the crash’s victims say they can’t understand why Continental seems to be escaping scrutiny for its relationship with Colgan.
Mike Loftus, a former Continental pilot whose daughter, Madeline, died aboard that flight, said his daughter bought a Continental ticket assuming she would have the level of service she had come to expect from that airline.
Told that major carriers had refused to testify at last week’s Senate hearing on airline safety, Loftus said: “I think they’re trying to distance themselves from the crash.”
Company spokeswoman Julie King said Continental verifies that its regional partners are complying with federal safety regulations. In addition, Continental reviews any federal audits of the regionals it works with and regularly interviews their staffs.
The safety programs of the major carriers and their regional partners are fully integrated, with constant contact among the various players, said Roger Cohen, president of the Regional Airline Association.
“The mainline carriers require that everyone live up to their name,” he said.
But that is not the case in terms of training — which is a key point, because federal investigations revealed that Colgan did not fully train the pilot of Flight 3407 in the plane’s stall recovery system.
“Each carrier is responsible for its own training program,” Cohen said.
For his part, though, Loftus said the major carriers have to take more responsibility for what happens at the regionals.
And he said the big airlines’ attempt to distance themselves from the Clarence Center crash proves that they can’t be trusted to implement the voluntary safety improvements the Federal Aviation Administration is seeking.
“If they don’t want you to own up to some of these mistakes, you’ll never fix the system,” Loftus said.
Change in early 1990s
It’s a system that has evolved dramatically from the days when a handful of familiar names flew the bulk of U. S. commercial flights.
The regionals started to grow after the economic downturn of the early 1990s put financial pressure on the major carriers, said Capt. Paul Rice, first vice president of the Air Line Pilots Association.
By 2000, regionals accounted for 42.6 percent of domestic flights, and they were more often confined to shorter routes between smaller communities.
But all that started to change after the 9/11 terrorist attacks rocked the mainline air carriers. The big airlines immediately started cutting pilot jobs, and the regionals picked up the slack almost exactly, Cohen said.
And now, Cohen’s group said, regionals will handle 51.6 percent of domestic departures this month. Many of the routes that typically were big-city, big-market routes — like Buffalo to New York or Buffalo to Washington — now get handled by regionals.
Some picked up monikers from the aviation industry’s past, such as Piedmont Airlines and Republic Airlines, while others — like Mesa Airlines or Chautauqua Airlines — would be unrecognized by the average flier.
Passengers might notice a difference, though, when they board a regional aircraft, said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association.
“I think there is a higher level of service on the larger carriers,” he said, and fewer amenities on the smaller regional planes.
“I think it’s not quite as safe as the major carriers, but it’s extremely close,” Stempler said.
Rice, of the pilots union, agreed that there are two levels of safety now in an industry where the union in the 1990s fought to ensure that the regionals had to meet the same safety standards as the big boys.
“In a regulatory world, everybody has to meet the same standards,” Rice said, “but in the practical world, some airlines do more than others.”
Members of Congress are starting to wonder, though, if the crash of Flight 3407 proves that the difference in safety between the major carriers and the regionals is far wider than it ought to be.
“I worry that, because of economics or whatever, we’re trying to do things on the cheap,” Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., said of the regional airlines.
While exact statistics are hard to come by, pilot salaries at the regionals are generally far lower than at long-established airlines, several sources said. The copilot of Flight 3407 made less than $24,000 a year and commuted to her job in Newark from her parents’ home near Seattle, while the pilot made $67,000 a year.
Cost is one of the central reasons why so many major airlines have spun off smaller flights to their regional brethren, said John G. Wensveen, dean of the School of Aviation at Dowling College and author of a book on airline business plan development.
Lower labor costs
Noting the large number of unsold seats on jets serving smaller and mid-sized markets, the majors have increasingly subcontracted those routes to companies with smaller planes and lower labor costs, Wensveen said.
“And if I’m a large carrier and I need to cut large costs, labor is one of the things I look at right off the bat,” Wensveen said.
Typically, the big airlines strike up multiyear deals with regionals. The majors handle the ticketing, the fuel costs and other expenses while paying the regional for operating the flight.
Most major airlines strike up several relationships with different regionals. That’s because different regionals have planes of different sizes that are appropriate to different routes, said Cohen, of the regional airlines group.
Rice, of the pilots union, complained that such outsourcing has now reached an entirely new level, where regionals are subcontracting with lower-cost regionals to cut costs even further.
Six regionals handle US Airways Express flights out of Buffalo, the NFTA said. Continental and Delta work locally with four regionals, and United contracts with two for its Buffalo service.
Four airlines — Southwest, Northwest, JetBlue and Air- Tran — don’t partner with regionals to serve Buffalo.
Vanecek, of the NFTA, said he has seen the number of regional flights out of Buffalo growing for the last decade, and Wensveen said that’s just the beginning.
Given their lower cost structure and flexibility, regionals will continue to fly an increasing share of the flights nationwide, and even extend their reach into Canada and Mexico, he predicted.
“Who’s going to dominate the airline industry?” Wensveen said. “It’s going to be the regional and commuter carriers.”
By Jerry Zremski
A Buffalo News examination of all scheduled flights out of Buffalo the week of July 19 found that 46 percent will be flown by regional carriers, even if the planes say Continental or US Airways or United.
What’s more, the planes being flown along many routes are no longer big jets, but small regional jets or propeller planes, such as the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 — the kind of plane that crashed in Clarence on Feb. 12, killing 50.
That might come as a surprise to people who have not been flying regularly.
“I think most people think they’re flying on a major airline” when they step on planes operated by regional subcontractors, said William Vanecek, director of aviation at Buffalo Niagara International Airport. “They’re getting a ticket that says US Airways, so most think they are flying US Airways.”
Yet no matter what the ticket says, an increasing number of flights from Buffalo are really being operated by airlines like Colgan Air, the Virginia-based regional that was flying Continental Connection Flight 3407, the ill-fated flight that crashed in Clarence Center.
That’s a huge issue for air travelers in wake of the questions that the Flight 3407 crash has raised about the safety of regional airlines versus the bigger carriers, which use bigger planes and more experienced, better-paid pilots.
Noting the “stunning” revelations about the training and performance of the crew of Flight 3407, Sen. Byron Dorgan, the North Dakota Democrat who heads the Senate Aviation Committee, said last week: “Do we have one level of safety, or have we drifted some?”
A confounding array
Lawmakers and federal transportation officials have vowed to answer that question in the coming months, but one thing is for sure. The airline industry has drifted a great deal from the days when a traveler could trust that the airline named in big type on the ticket was the one flying the airplane.
The News review of mid-July flights found a confounding array of regional airlines flying routes for most major airlines.
For example, Colgan not only operates many Buffalo- Newark flights for Continental, it also handles US Airways’ Buffalo- Albany route.
ExpressJet handles some Continental flights between Buffalo and the airline’s Newark hub.
ExpressJet, Chautauqua Airlines and CommutAir fly Continental’s Buffalo-Cleveland route.
Given that Continental’s name was on the fuselage of Flight 3407, the families of the crash’s victims say they can’t understand why Continental seems to be escaping scrutiny for its relationship with Colgan.
Mike Loftus, a former Continental pilot whose daughter, Madeline, died aboard that flight, said his daughter bought a Continental ticket assuming she would have the level of service she had come to expect from that airline.
Told that major carriers had refused to testify at last week’s Senate hearing on airline safety, Loftus said: “I think they’re trying to distance themselves from the crash.”
Company spokeswoman Julie King said Continental verifies that its regional partners are complying with federal safety regulations. In addition, Continental reviews any federal audits of the regionals it works with and regularly interviews their staffs.
The safety programs of the major carriers and their regional partners are fully integrated, with constant contact among the various players, said Roger Cohen, president of the Regional Airline Association.
“The mainline carriers require that everyone live up to their name,” he said.
But that is not the case in terms of training — which is a key point, because federal investigations revealed that Colgan did not fully train the pilot of Flight 3407 in the plane’s stall recovery system.
“Each carrier is responsible for its own training program,” Cohen said.
For his part, though, Loftus said the major carriers have to take more responsibility for what happens at the regionals.
And he said the big airlines’ attempt to distance themselves from the Clarence Center crash proves that they can’t be trusted to implement the voluntary safety improvements the Federal Aviation Administration is seeking.
“If they don’t want you to own up to some of these mistakes, you’ll never fix the system,” Loftus said.
Change in early 1990s
It’s a system that has evolved dramatically from the days when a handful of familiar names flew the bulk of U. S. commercial flights.
The regionals started to grow after the economic downturn of the early 1990s put financial pressure on the major carriers, said Capt. Paul Rice, first vice president of the Air Line Pilots Association.
By 2000, regionals accounted for 42.6 percent of domestic flights, and they were more often confined to shorter routes between smaller communities.
But all that started to change after the 9/11 terrorist attacks rocked the mainline air carriers. The big airlines immediately started cutting pilot jobs, and the regionals picked up the slack almost exactly, Cohen said.
And now, Cohen’s group said, regionals will handle 51.6 percent of domestic departures this month. Many of the routes that typically were big-city, big-market routes — like Buffalo to New York or Buffalo to Washington — now get handled by regionals.
Some picked up monikers from the aviation industry’s past, such as Piedmont Airlines and Republic Airlines, while others — like Mesa Airlines or Chautauqua Airlines — would be unrecognized by the average flier.
Passengers might notice a difference, though, when they board a regional aircraft, said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association.
“I think there is a higher level of service on the larger carriers,” he said, and fewer amenities on the smaller regional planes.
“I think it’s not quite as safe as the major carriers, but it’s extremely close,” Stempler said.
Rice, of the pilots union, agreed that there are two levels of safety now in an industry where the union in the 1990s fought to ensure that the regionals had to meet the same safety standards as the big boys.
“In a regulatory world, everybody has to meet the same standards,” Rice said, “but in the practical world, some airlines do more than others.”
Members of Congress are starting to wonder, though, if the crash of Flight 3407 proves that the difference in safety between the major carriers and the regionals is far wider than it ought to be.
“I worry that, because of economics or whatever, we’re trying to do things on the cheap,” Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., said of the regional airlines.
While exact statistics are hard to come by, pilot salaries at the regionals are generally far lower than at long-established airlines, several sources said. The copilot of Flight 3407 made less than $24,000 a year and commuted to her job in Newark from her parents’ home near Seattle, while the pilot made $67,000 a year.
Cost is one of the central reasons why so many major airlines have spun off smaller flights to their regional brethren, said John G. Wensveen, dean of the School of Aviation at Dowling College and author of a book on airline business plan development.
Lower labor costs
Noting the large number of unsold seats on jets serving smaller and mid-sized markets, the majors have increasingly subcontracted those routes to companies with smaller planes and lower labor costs, Wensveen said.
“And if I’m a large carrier and I need to cut large costs, labor is one of the things I look at right off the bat,” Wensveen said.
Typically, the big airlines strike up multiyear deals with regionals. The majors handle the ticketing, the fuel costs and other expenses while paying the regional for operating the flight.
Most major airlines strike up several relationships with different regionals. That’s because different regionals have planes of different sizes that are appropriate to different routes, said Cohen, of the regional airlines group.
Rice, of the pilots union, complained that such outsourcing has now reached an entirely new level, where regionals are subcontracting with lower-cost regionals to cut costs even further.
Six regionals handle US Airways Express flights out of Buffalo, the NFTA said. Continental and Delta work locally with four regionals, and United contracts with two for its Buffalo service.
Four airlines — Southwest, Northwest, JetBlue and Air- Tran — don’t partner with regionals to serve Buffalo.
Vanecek, of the NFTA, said he has seen the number of regional flights out of Buffalo growing for the last decade, and Wensveen said that’s just the beginning.
Given their lower cost structure and flexibility, regionals will continue to fly an increasing share of the flights nationwide, and even extend their reach into Canada and Mexico, he predicted.
“Who’s going to dominate the airline industry?” Wensveen said. “It’s going to be the regional and commuter carriers.”
By Jerry Zremski
0 Nhận xét:
Post a Comment