A breathtaking week for the airline industry as Skybus Airlines ceases its operations, the week's third carrier -- alongside Aloha and ATA -- to fold in the face of soaring fuel costs and a tanking U.S. economy.
A fourth carrier, Champion Air, will shut down as of May 31.
The latest shuttering has created turmoil at airports dealing with stranded passengers. It's also left cities like Columbus, Ohio, holding the bag after investing millions in airport improvements following the fledgling carrier's arrival just last year.
A pall hung over Pease International Airport Saturday morning as stranded passengers, airport workers and vendors grappled with the news that Skybus Airlines had suddenly stopped flying.
Some passengers frantically booked flights on other airlines, making their way to Logan and Manchester. Others rented cars to drive home or to their destinations. Local workers said they were shocked by the news and concerned about the future. Thirty one employees of Port City Air, the local company that handled all Skybus’s customer service at Pease, had to wonder if they’d keep their jobs.
“We were all shocked to hear the news of the Skybus’ sudden closing last night,” Port City Air president Bob Jesurum wrote in a memo to his employees. “As recently as this past week, we had been reassured by senior officials at Skybus that everything was ‘fine and that they were looking at Portsmouth for future growth as a focus city.’ ”
In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.
From the Associated Press:
WXII-Channel 12 [Greensboro-Winston-Salem] also has a full report up on YouTube, but has disabled embedding. View it here. Paul Makishima for the Boston Globe:
Dearly departed Skybus launched just last year and made a splash by offering 10 seats, each for $10, on every flight. They saved money by charging for EVERYTHING: water, checked bags, pillows. They also shaved costs by flying into places that don't get used much--or at all...
One of those off-the-beaten-path cities was Gary, Ind., with Skybus service (to Greensboro, N.C.) launched only a few short weeks ago. The Chicago Tribune's Jon Hilkevitch recently gave an inside look at the unique service the carrier offered its passengers via words and video:
Although I was not lucky enough to snag a $10 airfare that Skybus offers on 10 seats aboard every flight, my round-trip ticket was $142, including taxes and fees. On the day I booked the airfare on the Internet, the same non-stop itinerary to Greensboro from O'Hare International Airport was $756.48 on United Airlines and $1,118.97 on US Airways. ...
It took little time for the 17 passengers on my flight to go through screening conducted by the Transportation Security Administration and board the 154-seat Airbus A319 aircraft that Skybus operates on all its routes. ...
Shortly after takeoff, flight attendant Inna Djaniants was working the cabin's captive audience over the intercom system, asking for a show of hands on how many people paid less than $200, less than $100 or just $10 for their tickets. She explained that Skybus keeps fares low by hawking food, beverages and other items on each flight. Passengers are prohibited from bringing their own drinks or food onboard.
Passenger Kimberly Nelson, 31, a supervisor for a financial company in Charlotte, said: "I always wanted to go to Chicago over St. Patrick's Day. Thirty-two bucks round-trip, including taxes, you can't beat it. Skybus reminds me of Southwest Airlines when I flew it 15 years ago. It has the same kind of energy."
Unfortunately, things have changed quite rapidly for Skybus passengers in the new economy. From WBBH-Channel 2 [Florida]:
Confused and frustrated customers flooded into the Charlotte County Airport Saturday. The abrupt Skybus bankruptcy left many people stranded, wondering how this could happen and how they will get home.
Normally when you walk into the Skybus terminal at the Charlotte County Airport, either you go to the kiosks or to the help desk. But Saturday, the first thing people saw was a set of notices from Skybus letting people know they will not be offering any more flights. Right now, all flights are grounded and people like Ashley Fowlkes are trying to figure out how to get their loved ones home.
"Anything they can, I guess. They may have to rent a car and drive home. They may have to buy another late notice plane ticket which could be like $800," said Fowlkes.
Brandon Swartzlander and his family also had their dream vacation turn into a nightmare. He thought Skybus' $10 tickets seemed like a pretty good deal - until they found out they had no way to get home.
"It was a good deal," said Swartzlander. "And then you get blindsided at midnight last night. There's no way home." Perhaps what is worse is how he and his family found out. "I was flipping through the channels and I caught a glimpse of a Skybus plane and I heard them say, 'We'll tell you how it affected stranded passengers' and I thought to myself, that's odd," said Swartzlander.
But moments later it all made sense. He realized he'd lost the money he'd already paid for the tickets back to Ohio. Plus, he had to start searching and scouring the internet for an alternative way home - not an easy task for a family of eight. "Just for the eight of us to fly Southwest, it's going to cost us an additional $1,500," said Swartzlander's wife Jeanne.
Passengers aren't the only ones affected. From AP:
Skybus Airlines' $57 million in government incentives weren't enough to sustain its discount flights that ended today. The Columbus-based company plans to file for bankruptcy protection in the coming days.
The company's collapse will leave Port Columbus International Airport with fewer flights and about 350 Ohio residents without jobs. It will also leave the state and Columbus with a heavy investment that yielded just 10 months of air service. Port Columbus invested millions in terminal improvements tailored to the Columbus-based airline. It now has five open gates, a ticket counter and some soon-to-be-emptied offices.
The decision, made after a board meeting yesterday, left hundreds of Skybus ticketholders stranded and its 450 employees out of work. The company has lost millions of dollars and plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday. Its chief executive, Bill Diffenderffer, resigned nearly two weeks ago. Skybus workers were stunned by the news yesterday. About a dozen employees gathered at the Skybus ticket counter, some taking pictures. Some were upset and crying, asking each other what they plan to do. Workers from other airlines came up to wish them well and tell them they will be missed. ...
Mike Boyd of the Colorado-based Boyd Group also has been a critic of the Skybus model, but he expressed surprise at the swiftness of the airline's demise.
"They had a dumb model. The original plan never had a chance, at $50-a-barrel oil or $100-a-barrel oil," he said. "But I really thought someone could come in and turn it around. The pressures on airlines today are very different than they have been in the past. They're shutting down suddenly now to preserve whatever assets they have for the creditors." ...
Skybus got off to a strong start last summer, bringing tens of thousands more passengers through Port Columbus. In turn, the airport added parking spaces and raked in millions in additional parking revenue as it reached an all-time record passenger count of more than 7.7 million for 2007.
But Skybus hit a rough patch during the winter. With a very short window between flights and a crush of flights all leaving within an hour of each other first thing in the morning, dealing with ice and snow took its toll on on-time performance. The airline had to cancel more than a dozen flights Christmas Day and the day after, when two of its seven planes went out of commission as a result of mechanical problems.
Poor performance coupled with a lack of customer service took its toll. Passenger numbers dropped in the slow months of January and February, as the airline struggled to build up its new base in Greensboro, N.C. Route cuts last month were quickly followed by the replacement of the CEO by former Chief Financial Officer Hodge, who was charged with improving performance and stemming losses.
But it was apparently too little, too late to turn the airline around.
The airline made 74 daily flight to 15 U.S. cities. It has about 350 employees in Columbus and 100 at a second hub at Piedmont Triad International Airport. On Mar. 19, the airline held interviews for flight attendant positions at PTI. Nearly two weeks ago, the carrier named Mike Hodge as the company's new chief executive officer. Hodge replaced Bill Diffenderffer, and had previously served as chief financial officer for Skybus.
Increasing customer service problems were cited, one being its interesting form of passenger communication as noted by Tom Barlow at WalletPop:
Intially, Skybus was best known for its policy of reserving at least ten spots on each flight to sell for $10 each. Later, it gained notoriety as the airline that could not be contacted by telephone, refusing to deal with customer service problems except by e-mail. When it ran into maintenance problems with a couple of jets on the same day recently and had to cancel a number of flights, its customer non-service brought a great deal of negative press.
As for Skybus labor, they also had email communication to contend with -- of a more worrying kind -- as Marla Matzer Rose of the Columbus Dispatch pointed out last month. The pilots were also quickly moving to become Teamsters:
The pilots for Skybus Airlines are attempting to unionize, with more than 80 percent favoring a vote by next month to join the Teamsters. ... "If the Teamsters are certified, the way this airline is run is going to change," said aviation consultant Michael Boyd of Colorado-based Boyd Group, who has been a critic of the Skybus business model. "The next group will be the flight attendants. I think the employees are saying, 'We just can't work at these rates.' "
Skybus, which was notified late last week of the action, said in a statement that the company is surprised to be facing a "union organizing effort when the airline industry is dealing with a slowing economy and oil prices" that are nearly $108 a barrel.
"We believe that a majority of our pilots will understand that we are better served focusing on building a start-up airline in a very competitive environment than we are going down a path that for other airlines has led to contentious labor-management issues," the statement said.
The starting salary for a Skybus captain is $65,000, while a less-senior first officer makes $30,000 to start. Pilots say those amounts are as much as 50 percent below industry standards, and Skybus pilots say the airline is not offering second-year pay increases. Still, Skybus has been able to attract experienced pilots with stock options and the opportunity to be home every night, because all planes return to either Columbus or the second base of Greensboro, N.C. ...
Victoria Gray, a spokeswoman for the airline division of the Teamsters, confirmed that the union has collected more than the required number of cards from Skybus pilots to proceed. The Teamsters asks for 65 percent of eligible employees to "submit cards" indicating they want to join the union; the organization then notifies the National Mediation Board of the vote and asks the airline for its employee list. The mediation board requires a simple majority for passage of a vote to join a union. Gray said that by this timeline, she would expect Skybus pilots to join the Teamsters Local 747 out of Houston by April.
Skybus has about 140 pilots, nearly 120 of whom are eligible to vote. In a phone interview yesterday, a Skybus pilot speaking on condition of anonymity said he was one of the more than 100 pilots who submitted cards favoring union membership.
The pilot said he still thinks the basic Skybus model is a sound one, and that the company can succeed. But he said pilots have become angered by having their work rules changed via e-mail with no direct communication and by being told that pay raises would come only in the form of profit sharing after the airline has a full year of profitability. ...
Extreme penny-pinching also has gotten on the pilots' nerves. In the pilots' lounge, "They took away the bottled water recently because they said it cost too much," the pilot said. "They got us these cheap plastic containers to fill up and take on the plane, but they leaked. They admitted they made a mistake and gave us bottled water again. But to save the delivery cost, they have pilots on their off-hours go to Costco and pick up cases of water and deliver them to the airport."
This week will go down as one of the worst ever for US airlines, as no fewer than four carriers -- Aloha Airlines, Champion Air, ATA Airlines, and now Skybus -- folded up shop this week, or announced imminent plans to do so. A fifth airline, Sun Country Airlines, announced it will place nearly 30 percent of its pilots on furlough over the summer, though company officials says it plans to rehire them in late October.
More bad news arrives with the folding of ATA, the second airline in a week to abruptly cancel all flights and cease operations. Dawn Gilbertson and Toby Phillips for the Arizona Republic:
ATA Airlines, which offered daily nonstop service between Phoenix and Hawaii, suddenly shut down overnight after filing for bankruptcy. The last flight to operate was a Honolulu-to-Phoenix red eye due into Sky Harbor International Airport this morning. ...
Indianapolis-based ATA, which has been struggling financially and recently ended its Chicago operations, blamed the shutdown on the loss of a key military charter flight contract. Many passengers aboard the final ATA flight from Honolulu this morning said they were thankful that they made it to the mainland, but many others didn't know how or when they would be able to get back.
"I didn't realize that there was no flight returning when I left," said Hannah Smith, in Phoenix to visit family. ATA typically offered the cheapest tickets to the islands, Smith said. "That's where I live," she said. "I've got to get back."
Frances Fuller said she lives in Hawaii about half of every year, flying to and from Phoenix often. "I have about $1600 worth of plane tickets booked," Fuller said. She was unsure what her next steps would be. "My bank card company certainly wont give me a refund," she said.
Shocked that the airline gave no warning of the shutdown, Fuller said she felt for those who were suddenly without jobs. When agents gave passengers the news that all other flights would be canceled, Fuller said, "All I kept thinking was that they all just lost their jobs."
"It was a very sad morning."
In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.
Getting to the mainland is no easy feat for stranded ATA passengers. One day after the carrier folded, hundreds paid to hop on a special flight to the west coast, but thousands more are still looking for seats. The frustration is growing at Honolulu International Airport. Long lines and lots of waiting as another round of stranded ATA airlines passengers scramble to find seats out of Hawaii.
"I just need, I gotta go to school. I can't be down here forever," said Florianne Molina of Vallejo California. Fortunately, Florianne Molina and nearly 300 others left with useless ATA tickets got out on a special Hawaiian airlines flight to San Francisco. But they did have to pay for it. $320 each.
Lieutenant Colonel Loren Weeks on vacation before deployment to the war zone also got a seat, but his travel problems aren't over yet. "I'm heading to Kansas to get possibly another ATA, well, flight to fly us into theater, and who knows that flight's on hold as well," said Weeks.
ATA's abrupt demise marked the second time this week that a major carrier serving the Oakland-Hawaii route suddenly terminated operations. On Monday, Aloha Airlines halted operations, just days after it had filed for bankruptcy. Aloha's collapse also erased flights between Oakland and Hawaii, along with other destinations.
ATA blamed the loss of a military contract for its shutdown. The airline said it depended on the revenue from the government deal tooffset a "tremendous spike in the cost of jet fuel." Aloha blamed its shutdown on soaring fuel prices and fierce competition in the mainland-to-Hawaii corridor.
Passengers who arrived at the Oakland airport Thursday were greeted by a deserted ATA counter and signs that stated the airline had filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations. "Now what? I don't know what to do," said Ed Mitchell, who was traveling with his wife, Chang Chi, and their two sons from Seattle to Hawaii. "I've been all over the world. This is the first time we've gotten stuck."
The Mitchell family had planned a birthday celebration on Maui for children Ivan, 9 and Ian, 8. "I hope we get a plane," Ivan said. "We've been planning this for a long time." ... "This is very challenging for our airport," said Robert Bernardo, a spokesman for the Oakland airport. "We no longer have direct flights to Hawaii. Since 2000, we had direct flights to the Hawaiian islands."
Together, ATA and Aloha accounted for 4.8 percent of the Oakland airport's 14.6million departing passengers during 2007, Bernardo said. That equates to about 700,800 passengers. ATA represented about 3.4 percent, or 496,400 passengers leaving the airport. Aloha generated about 1.8 percent of the business, or 204,400 passengers.
"We are working very hard to find other carriers who will provide that service to Hawaii," Bernardo said. Officials were hopeful the airport could land one or more replacements before long.
Unusual measures are being used to help stranded passengers notes Mary Forgione for the Los Angeles Times:
The Hawaii Tourism Authority is going to pay for charter flights to help the estimated 9,000 tourists stranded on the islands since ATA went under this week — the first time the agency has spent money on such a venture.
“We’ve never done this before and we hope we’ll never have to do it again,” Rex Johnson, chief executive of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, said today after the agency had an emergency meeting to authorize funding.
Ted Evanoff and Zach Dunkin for the Indianapolis Star report on the employee reaction:
Two years after emerging from bankruptcy, ATA Airlines filed for Chapter 11 again today, surprising employees who doubt the Indianapolis-based carrier will ever fly again.
ATA, founded in the city in 1973, was purchased out of bankruptcy in 2006 by the New York investment firm Matlin Patterson. Laid-off pilots hope to secure new jobs with the other two carriers the investor has bought over the last two years - North American and World Airways, both based in Atlanta and part of Matlin's Global Aero Logistics.
Employees including pilots and flight attendants lashed out today at the management installed since the original October 2004 bankruptcy filing. "The most glaring single factor in cessation of operations was grossly incompetent management from the time of the bankruptcy going forward," said Seth Cooperman, a Boeing 737 pilot at ATA.
Dropping the New York LaGuardia and Washington Reagan routes sapped passengers from the West Coast leisure routes to Hawaii even as fuel prices rose and the airline spent heavily to bring online mothballed DC10s, employees said. A deal with Southwest Airlines funneled passengers to certain routes shared by both carriers, but Cooperman said it appears the transaction was not profitable enough to sustain the carrier.
"They’ve closed their doors. It doesn’t look like they are going to reopen,’’ said Jacki Pritchett, an ATA flight attendant since the 1970s.
ATA employs 2,300, including about 560 workers in Indianapolis. Local employment alone is down from more than 2,000 employees four years ago when the discount carrier was the nation's No. 10 passenger airline and the largest carrier serving Indianapolis. All the local routes were dropped in bankruptcy, including the popular Indianapolis-to-Florida flights.
Southwest in turn took over many of those routes.
The scathing response by ATA's pilot's union, ALPA:
The union representing the pilots of ATA Airlines is condemning the airline's management for its callous disregard of its employees and passengers in canceling all operations without warning early on Thursday morning.
"By shutting down in the middle of the night, this management group has let down its loyal customers and the flight crews, cabin crews, mechanics, and other employees who have made deep sacrifices over the past few years to keep ATA afloat," said Capt. Steve Staples, chairman of the ATA unit of the Air Line Pilots Association, Int'l. "It shows an utter lack of respect and illustrates the ruthlessness of Wall Street hedge fund managers who have no knowledge or interest in the companies they own."
ALPA was notified at approximately 4:00 a.m. Central time that the airline was filing for bankruptcy and shutting down all operations immediately. The airline's last flight was ATA Flight 4586, a morning red-eye from Honolulu to Phoenix that was scheduled to land at 8:34 a.m. Pacific time.
"ATA's customers and employees had absolutely no warning that the airline was going out of business," Staples said. "This abrupt withdrawal is the airline equivalent of getting on the last helicopter out of Saigon."
The April 3 announcement that ATA is ceasing operations is two days shy of the first anniversary of ATA's announcement that its holding company was buying World Airways and North American Airlines. On April 5, 2007, ATA Holdings changed its name to Global Aero Logistics (GAL) and, in August 2007 completed the transaction that gave it three airlines: ATA, World, and North American. GAL is privately held by the hedge fund MatlinPatterson Global Opportunities Partners II.
"We find it unusually coincidental that ALPA, which was in contract negotiations with ATA and had the best opportunity to change our collective bargaining agreement to reflect the new realities of the industry, was suddenly forced to shut down while World and North American will continue operating under the Global Aero Logistics banner," Staples said.
"Since when does the acquiring airline go out of business while the acquired airlines keep flying?"
Staples said that all ATA employees are the ultimate victims of a series of incompetent managers who chose to blame economic conditions for the airline's problems instead of admitting their own mistakes.
"We were telling management two years ago that they needed to institute a fuel management program, and even found a fuel consultant who offered to work with the company - but our overtures to help ATA reduce its fuel costs were repeatedly ignored," he said. "Management decided to outsource virtually all of our maintenance, then acquired elderly, unreliable DC-10s that needed extensive repairs. The ripple effect of years of poor management decisions - not the current economy - was what doomed ATA."
Staples said the union's top priority is making sure that all 585 ATA pilots and flight engineers find new jobs, especially since part of ATA's fleet has been transferred to World Airways and more airplanes could go to World and North American later.
"Our position is that we are pilots of Global Aero Logistics, which is still operating, and we deserve to be in the cockpits of Global's airliners. Our contract says that the pilots go with the airplanes, and we will use every legal means available to us to ensure that our members' rights are protected," he said.
Hawaii is holding a job fairs for Aloha and ATA employees now out of work due to the shutdowns. Melinda Peer at Forbes looks at the business aspects of the events of this week:
On Thursday, ATA Airlines became the latest carrier to land itself in bankruptcy, citing high fuel prices, competition and the U.S. economic slowdown.
The complaints have become a refrain for the beleaguered airline industry and aren't expected to get better anytime soon. In early April, the International Air Transport Association cut its 2008 industry earnings forecast for the second time just a day after reporting that February's global passenger load factor slipped 0.6% from a year ago.
"The broadening impact of the U.S. credit crunch has brought buoyant consumer confidence to an abrupt end. Oil prices continue to rise. Demand is softening and after the 64% improvement in labor productivity and an 18% reduction in non-fuel unit cost attained since 2001, efficiency gains are much more difficult to achieve," said Giovanni Bisignani, the association's chief executive.
Fuel has gone from 1.25 cents per available seat mile for the majors in the second quarter of 2000 to 3.50 cents in 2007's second quarter, Swelbar notes, adding that labour costs dropped from 3.50 per ASM to 3.00 cents between the same periods.
Although ATA operated only 29 jets, it had a long history and was an early proponent of a blending of the low-fare model with the network model. But ATA had gradually retreated from the low-fare scheduled business as it increasingly came to rely on charter business and on effective "virtual charters" it operated as codeshares for Southwest Airlines. Much like Aloha, it had gone through a bankruptcy from which it emerged as private carrier in late 2004. ...
At ATA, the challenge came when one of its major charter customers, FedEx, announced it would not be renewing ATA's military charter sub-contract for the next US government fiscal year, which begins in October. ATA said the contract was supposed to last another year. ATA had already trimmed its scheduled service dramatically, announcing a month ago that it would end all service at Chicago Midway, the airport it had made synonymous with low fares, and would also end its West Coast/Hawaii service in June. Southwest, which said its arrangements with ATA also ended on 4 April, had expanded its Midway presence significantly by buying ATA gates at the airport. ...
George Hamlin, a consultant with ACA Associates, called Hawaii "a microcosm of the US market: a duopoly of Aloha and the larger Hawaiian Airlines in a market that could not sustain the entry of an additional carrier in this fuel-price environment". Hamlin thinks other airline failures are entirely possible, and that Columbus, Ohio-based Skybus could fail "relatively soon". The larger US carriers may have enough cash for the year, says Calyon Securities analyst Ray Neidl, but "if high fuel prices and a lacklustre economy persist through 2009, cash reserves at many airlines might become a concern".
This week also claimed a smaller charter carrier, Champion Air, which said it was hobbled by its fuel-swilling Boeing 727s and would end its operations in May. Champion said it too lost a major customer when Northwest Airlines' vacations subsidiary MLT said it would stop using the carrier.
Elsewhere in the USA, Sun Country said it would furlough 45 of its 156 pilots for the summer in a 30% cutback forced on it by the cost of fuel. The decision was made by the privately held low-cost carrier's new chief executive, former AirTran chief financial officer Stan Gadek.
High fuel prices and intense competition has led the airline industry to push for consolidation. Unfortunately Hawaii's Aloha Airlines wasn't able to hold on long enough. On Sunday, the Honolulu-based airline said it would halt all passenger service after Monday, effectively bringing a close to a business that's been running since 1946.
"We simply ran out of time to find a qualified buyer or secure continued financing for our passenger business," said Aloha President David Banmiller. "We had no choice but to take this action." Hawaii's second-largest carrier has operated a fleet of 26 Boeing 737s to serve five airports in Hawaii and six destinations in the continental United States.
In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.
Less than two weeks after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Aloha announced yesterday that it plans to halt passenger service with its last flight tonight. It will continue operating its cargo and charter operations. ...
Even before filing for bankruptcy protection March 20, Aloha had been shopping its overall business and just the passenger operation to other airlines and investor groups. Aloha came close more than once to striking a deal...those potential deals collapsed. ....While Aloha was searching for buyers, its lenders were pressuring the airline to stop selling tickets to passengers, taking the position that such sales would further expose the lenders to more potential losses, the person said. ...
An indication of how quickly Aloha is bleeding financially came in a court filing yesterday. The airline said its unrestricted cash had dwindled from $3.8 million on March 20 to $900,000 as of yesterday. ...Aloha cited the soaring cost of fuel and an interisland fare war, trigged by the entrance of go! airlines, when it filed for bankruptcy protection, a move that was meant to buy the company time while it restructured.
With no substantive offers for its passenger business, Aloha officials decided to stop the bleeding by shutting that operation, people familiar with the case said. A tight credit market nationally added to Aloha's woes, making it difficult to find new lenders willing to risk their money in a slowing economy and a bare-knuckles interisland fare ware, several people said.
"In this credit market, no one else is crazy enough to lend," said one attorney.
In its bankruptcy filing, Aloha said it was unable to generate enough revenue from its inter-island passenger business because of go!'s pricing. Aloha said it was forced to match go!'s "below-cost fares" at a time when the airline industry is facing unprecedented increases in the cost of jet fuel.
On Monday, Mesa said go! would increase the number of daily flights it operates from an average of 54 to 94, beginning on Tuesday. Mesa said go! would operate between 11 and 13 round trips a day from Honolulu to Maui, Lihue, Hilo and Kona, offering all seats at $49 through April 7.
The fuel price spike, coupled with a steadily weakening U.S. economy, has stalled the airline industry's modest recovery from the 2001-2006 downturn. Oil prices, which are directly related to jet fuel costs, remain above $100 a barrel. Big airlines are beginning to shrink to cope with much tougher operating conditions. On March 18, Delta Air Lines Inc unveiled plans to cut 2,000 jobs and scale back flights.
The previous downturn in the airline industry resulted in bankruptcies and unprecedented out-of-court restructurings.
Aloha Airlines announced today that it will be shutting down its inter-island and transpacific passenger flight operations. Aloha’s last day of operations will be Monday, March 31, 2008. On that day, Aloha will operate its schedule with the exception of flights from Hawaii to the West Coast and flights from Orange County to Reno and Sacramento, and Oakland to Las Vegas. Code-share partner United Airlines and other airlines are prepared to assist and accommodate Aloha’s passengers who have been inconvenienced. ...
The shutdown of Aloha’s passenger operations will affect about 1,900 employees. Aloha also announced that its air cargo and aviation services units will continue to operate as usual while the U.S. Bankruptcy Court seeks bids from potential buyers. On March 27, 2008, Saltchuk Resources, Inc., announced its intention to buy Aloha’s air cargo business.
“"This is an incredibly dark day for Hawaii,”" said David A. Banmiller, Aloha'’s president and chief executive officer. "“Despite the groundswell of support from the community and our elected officials, we simply ran out of time to find a qualified buyer or secure continued financing for our passenger business. We had no choice but to take this action."
“We deeply regret the impact this will have on our dedicated employees who have made Aloha one of the best operating airlines in the country. “Aloha Airlines was founded in 1946 to give Hawaii’s people a choice in inter-island air transportation.
“Right now everyone is just in a state of shock…we don't know what happens after today. All you can do is support each and everyone of us. There is over 3500 of us. We are not just co-workers, we're family,” Aloha Airlines flight attendant Kanani Kaopua said. For Kaopua flying for aloha wasn't just a job, it was an opportunity to support her education.
“This job enabled me to go to school and work you know and I have enough seniority where I could get the days off for school now, but all of that is so miniscule when you look at the big picture of what's going on,” Kaopua said.
At the Aloha Airlines check-in counter employees put on a brave face, trying to do their work without showing too much emotion. However, when you talked to them about the shutdown the emotions came out.
"My heart is really, really heavy this is my family. I've been here for 30 years. I had two babies -- married. This is my family. It's going to be really hard to work today, but we've got to take care of our passengers that are still flying," counter employee Chris Opiopio said. While workers did take care of the passengers they also took a few moments to shed a few tears and try to console each other.
Nicole Fong just spent six months training to begin a career at Aloha Airlines.
"I worked really had to pass probation to start a career here and it's devastating to know it's coming to and end just when I'm starting," Fong said. She said her heart goes out to longtime employees. "This is their life. This is their living. What are they supposed to do now?" she said.
Employees were told their sick leave and vacation is gone. Their health coverage is also ending. The company said their pensions and 401Ks are secure.
"I been 35 years with aloha airlines and, you know, it's like 85 percent of my life is working here. It's very sad to see that it goes," said Joe Kauweloa who worked for Aloha for 35 years.
Prior to the announcement, flight attendants Na'i McCarthy & John Baker representing Save Aloha Airlines were interviewed on KHON:
In related news, Gita Sitaramiah reports in the Pioneer Press:
Faced with rising costs and more competition, charter flight operator Champion Air announced today that it will cease operations May 31. The Bloomington-based airline's 550 employees will continue to receive their pay and benefits through that date.
"Unfortunately, our business model is no longer viable in a world of $110 oil, a struggling economy and rapidly changing demand for our services," said Lee Steele, Champion's president and chief executive. "Those factors also have impeded our efforts to attract new capital and new investors."
The charter airline flies Boeing 727 aircraft, which have three engines and are less fuel efficient. The airline also has faced more competition as scheduled airlines, including Northwest Airlines, offer more package deals.
Reporters Christopher Conkey and Andy Pasztor over at the Wall Street Journal set the scene as we take the pulse of today's FAA and the airline industry it's charged with overseeing:
As it addresses concerns over airline inspections, the Federal Aviation Administration faces pressure from Congress and industry to change how it ensures the safety of air travel and how it overhauls the aging air-traffic-control system.
The agency was already dealing with a protracted labor battle, resistance to its congestion-relief initiatives and Democratic opposition to President Bush's nominee to head the FAA. Then, revelations surfaced this month that an FAA supervisor had let Southwest Airlines Co. keep flying older jets even though they had missed required inspections.
The FAA and airlines immediately afterward suggested the issue was a rare oversight. The FAA inspectors' union and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said a wider problem existed.
The agency changed course this week, initiating industry-wide maintenance audits at every airline.
In addition to Southwest, the article goes on to say that US Airways has since underperformed during an FAA spot check of its maintenance records. And, in related news, United announced the grounding of several of its 747s due to maintenance issues yesterday. Soaring fuel costs. Higher ticket prices. Cuts in service. Maintenance issues.
The difficulties mount for the airline industry -- and the FAA.
In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.
First, a look back at the scandal over improper FAA maintenance inspections at Southwest. Associated Press:
...[T]he FAA has fined Southwest $10.2 million for safety violations that include failing to conduct mandatory inspections and continuing to fly planes that the airline knew hadn't been inspected for fuselage cracks and fatigue. (After Southwest finally inspected the planes it discovered cracks in some of them, yet continued to fly them.) Investigators at the Federal Aviation Administration have also been accused by internal whistleblowers of being too cozy with the airline and failing to provide proper oversight of Southwest.
After the FAA announced its fine, Southwest grounded more than three dozen planes last week to conduct additional inspections -- these involved skin around the plane's windows that Boeing had suggested be inspected in a bulletin released back in 2002. ...
According to the FAA's findings, the airline had flown nearly four dozen jets on more than 59,000 flights before it realized that it hadn't conducted required safety inspections on the planes. Then, even after the airline became aware that it hadn't conducted inspections, it continued to fly 38 Boeing jets on a total of 1,451 flights without checking the planes.
When the airline finally got around to inspecting the planes, it found cracks in half a dozen of them -- including one crack that was nearly four inches long. ...[A] similar fracture caused an Aloha Airlines jet to rip apart in 1988.
United Airlines pulled aside seven Boeing 747s for reinspection on Thursday after discovering onboard technology that steers the giant aircraft clear of other planes in the air hadn't been maintained according to the Chicago-based airline's standards. ...
United acted after FAA inspectors discovered the Korean firm that handles heavy maintenance on United's jumbo jets had used improperly inspected equipment to test the systems that help the jets avoid midair collisions. The systems are critical given the recent push by regulators to reduce the amount of space between aircraft to help reduce overcrowding in the skies.
The test equipment at a facility operated by Korean Air in Busan, Korea, is used to calibrate the United 747s' altitude and air data computers to the precise level needed to let the planes fly within 1,000 feet vertically of other aircraft, instead of the 2,000-foot vertical separation that used to be the industry standard. ...
Airline maintenance is drawing fresh scrutiny from Congress and organized labor as carriers increasingly shift work to outside vendors, including maintenance shops based overseas. Critics contend that the quality of work is slipping because overtaxed FAA inspectors can't monitor work scattered across many repair stations as effectively as maintenance done in-house by airline workers.
The two unions vying to represent United's mechanics in a special election were quick to criticize the airline and federal inspectors for Wednesday's actions. "The issue is the FAA does not have the ability to monitor these facilities," said Joseph Prisco, president of Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association Local 9 in San Francisco.
Attention now is focusing on the agency's process for conducting inspections, the Air Transportation Oversight System, which relies on data submitted by the airlines. The system calls for the agency's roughly 3,000 inspectors to spend more time analyzing industry-provided data than conducting physical inspections. The inspectors' union, passenger groups and some lawmakers say that has essentially abdicated a regulatory role to the industry.
They take information from the carriers, put them into formulas and do very focused inspections," said Linda Goodrich, a vice president of the union that represents most FAA inspectors. "The carrier knows when we're showing up and exactly what we're going after."
Dave Michaels and Terry Maxon of the Dallas Morning News offer a revealing look at the genesis of the Air Transport Oversight System. In the interest of education, I'll quote a healthy passage, but recommend your reading the entire detail-heavy piece:
The FAA began moving away from its confrontational, cop-on-the-beat approach to policing the airlines after the 1996 ValuJet crash in Florida that killed 110 people. Even then, the FAA took blame for going easy on airlines in order to promote commercial aviation.
The FAA was faulted for poor oversight of ValuJet, an airline that grew quickly and farmed out almost all of its maintenance. The agency admitted that it didn't have enough inspectors to monitor the airline. It later prohibited the shipment of oxygen generators in cargo holds, where a fire started that brought down the plane.
"In a system as large as ours, you can't inspect every individual part or flight or airplane," said Andrew Steinberg, a former U.S. assistant secretary of transportation who left the agency this year. "Clearly you need some spot-checking, like there are traffic cops on the highways," he said. "But the basic framework for safety is to make sure the airlines' programs are in place to ensure safety."
The post-ValuJet era introduced big changes.
FAA inspectors now file fewer "enforcements," as investigations bearing sanctions are known. Instead, they're supposed to focus on the most serious risks – ones that cause accidents – by analyzing data provided by the airlines. The airlines are encouraged to self-report regulatory violations. By doing so, the companies can avoid fines. But they also learn lessons that prevent accidents, FAA officials said.
Peggy Gilligan, the FAA's deputy associate administrator for aviation safety, said the approach strikes a balance between enforcement and information sharing, because "we have learned over the years that you can't enforce perfect safety." The equilibrium allows the FAA to "learn lessons before we see risk manifest itself as incidents or accidents," Ms. Gilligan said this week.
Even critics say that new approach, known as the Air Transportation Oversight System, makes sense. With ValuJet, a start-up airline that grew quickly, "it was impossible to get a handle on the enormous amount of stuff going on," Ms. Goodrich said. "We had no way to prioritize the risk."
[UPDATE Mar 26, 2008] Another airline, this time American, finds itself grounding its MD-80's for inspections today:
American Airlines canceled approximately 200 flights this morning to reinspect wiring on its fleet of MD-80 aircraft. Inspections take a few hours, and the company is rotating its MD-80 aircraft back into service as soon as they are cleared.
The need for the unscheduled inspections emerged during a Federal Aviation Administration audit of the Fort Worth, Texas-based airline's maintenance records. ... The FAA said today this was not a safety issue and explained that the inspection concerns a wiring bundle in the airplanes' wheel well. The airline is required to secure every one inch, and the aircraft in question may have had the bundles secured every 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 inches.
The FAA is taking extra precautions on the heels of accusations that Southwest Airlines missed, or failed to document, airplane inspections. That prompted the FAA to announce it was proposing a $10.2 million fine against the carrier -- the largest fine ever imposed against a passenger airline.
Last week, the FAA announced a more far-reaching audit to ensure all airlines — more than 100 of them — are complying with maintenance requirements. ... American Airlines said "many inspections have already been completed and the aircraft are currently in service," according to its statement. "We are in the process of completing the inspections on the remaining airplanes and will return them to service on a rolling basis throughout the day."
The company operates 300 MD-80 aircraft, all of which are part of this reinspection. Congress plans to further examine airline inspection issues next month.
I recently came across the photo above left near Ground Zero for one of the crew members lost that day. The text of the note:
Thank you, Karen Martin, for picking up my trip. I will never forget you and what you did to save my life. I pray you are in peace in the big arms of Jesus and I look forward to when I can thank you personally. With love always, Gerianne. American Airlines Boston flight attendant.
Even those physically clear from immediate danger can cope with survivor guilt. Crew members like Gerianne are not alone. In January, United Airlines settled a lawsuit filed by one of its flight attendants who suffered with post-traumatic stress following the attacks.
A former United Airlines flight attendant who narrowly missed being on one of the hijacked jets that crashed into the World Trade Center has settled a federal lawsuit that accused the airline of wrongfully firing her after she was unable to work because of posttraumatic stress disorder.
Deborah Jackson of Plaistow, N.H., had worked for United Airlines out of Logan International Airport for 17 years when the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks occurred, according to the suit. ...Jackson was a regular flight attendant on United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston to Los Angeles and won praise from her employer and passengers, according to the suit. She said in a brief interview last night that she was scheduled to work on that flight the day after the attacks.
After Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower, killing many close friends and colleagues, Jackson "suffered extreme guilt, grief, and stress" and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, the suit said.
She accepted an offer of a furlough from the airline because it was too difficult to return to work, the suit said.
In August 2005, United notified Jackson that she could return to work and she began her flight attendant recertification process. (All crew members returning from extended leave or furlough are required to complete refresher FAA airplane evacuation and safety equipment training.) Unfortunately for Jackson, fear paralyzed her immediately and she was unable to complete this task. She was ineligible to return to the line.
Continuing:
Her conduct was "contrary to her outstanding performance" before Sept. 11 and illustrated how the disaster had affected her, according to the lawsuit. Jackson repeatedly asked United Airlines to continue her furlough or make other accommodations for her, but the airline refused and wrongfully fired her in November 2005, the suit said.
The following year, she recovered from post-traumatic stress disorder and asked the airline to rehire her, but it would not, said the suit.
In January, United and Jackson were able to reach a private settlement. Another United flight case appeared in 2003. David Shadovitz wrote of the case in Human Resource Executive:
A New Jersey appellate court recently ruled that a flight attendant whose co-workers died on the ill-fated United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in Shanksville, Pa., on Sept. 11, 2001, was ineligible to collect workers' comp benefits because her resulting post-traumatic stress disorder occurred outside the workplace.
Flight attendant Kim Stroka was originally scheduled to work on Flight 93 from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco on Sept. 11, but decided to take the day off without pay. After learning of the plane crash while at a bowling alley, Stroka became emotionally distraught and was later diagnosed by her psychologist as suffering from PTSD. Stroka applied for workers' comp, but was denied benefits by United, which argued she was not entitled to them because her injury did not occur in the course of her work.
While recognizing the tragic nature of Stroka's injury, the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court nonetheless emphasized that an employee must be working or furthering his or her employer's interests at the time of the injury to be eligible for compensation.
Because Stroka was not performing any activity that benefited her employer at the time of the crash and did not suffer any injury while working that led her to develop PTSD, the court concluded that her injury did not occur in the course of her employment. ... In issuing its decision, the three-judge appellate court overturned an earlier ruling of a workers' comp judge, who awarded to Stroka medical and disability payments.
The December 2003 Capehart Scatchard Workers’ Compensation Newsletter [pdf] offered up a few more details in an article written by John H. Geaney, Esq.:
Petitioner began psychiatric treatment on September 24,2001 with Dr. Stephen Clarfield for post-traumatic stress syndrome. She told her doctor that she felt guilty that she was alive, while someone else in her place had been killed.
Petitioner did not return to work and continued to treat on a biweekly basis. She filed a claim petition seeking medical and temporary disability benefits. Petitioner testified that her company provided her with training regarding hijackings. Flight attendants viewed a security video and read a Federal Aviation Administration handbook on how to deal with a hijacking crisis.
The Judge of Compensation found that the petitioner’s stress condition was work-related and awarded medical and temporary disability benefits to the petitioner. As of the time of trial, petitioner was still fearful and was having panic attacks when she would see a runway. United appealed the decision and argued that petitioner’s psychiatric condition did not arise from work. The Appellate Division agreed:
Petitioner’s post-traumatic stress syndrome originated not while she was at work, but while she was taking a day off. Nothing happened while she was working which led to her current condition. She was not working at the time Flight 93 crashed, nor at the time she heard the news of the crash. In fact, her reaction to the event occurred because she was not working, not because she was working. If we were to accept petitioner’s argument, off-duty police officers, firefighters, and others whose jobs are inherently risky could seek compensation benefits when a fellow employee was injured or killed while taking that employee’s place. No authority exists to support that position.
This case is an important one because it delineates a line between compensable occupational stress and non-compensable occupational stress.
The newsletter contains a companion review of Supreme Court rulings on such PTSD cases, making it well worth a read [pdf].
Finally, a 20-year Pan Am flight attendant and current 15-year licensed marriage and family therapist, Helen Davey, PhD, wrote a brief Self Psychology paper offering empathetic advice to her former aviation colleagues in the wake of 9/11. In the interest of education and in the hopes that it may help others, I'm excerpting an extended portion of it:
Perhaps if you just pretend that we're sitting on a jumpseat together, doing what flight attendants do best -- jumpseat therapy -- I can offer some ideas about what you might be feeling and why.
Most people are not aware that Pan Am employees endured continuing terrorist attacks since the 1970's, and that we had to live with constant threats as well as the loss of friends. Add to that the pressure of management problems, financial turmoil, airplane crashes, layoffs, Lockerbie, and, finally, the fall of Pan Am, and it adds up to a traumatized work force. Aware of the turmoil that my beloved fellow employees endured, I decided to study trauma through the eyes and hearts of former Pan Am employees. I then wrote my doctoral dissertation on what I learned and titled it A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Fall of Pan Am. I hope that it might be of some benefit to you in these uncertain and scary times. ...
The symptoms of trauma can sneak up on you in subtle ways, until you finally feel overwhelmed and don't know what hit you. Symptoms vary widely from individual to individual, and can include feelings of hopelessness, indifference, and isolation. Insomnia is common, or the feeling of just wanting to stay in bed under the covers where it's safe. A loss of appetite or the inability to stop eating everything in sight can be experienced, as well as headaches, chest pains, and feelings of intense fear when recollecting the overwhelming event, or putting yourselves in the terrifying place of those who lost their lives, and imagining exactly what it was like for them. And, of course, wondering how you would have handled the same situation yourself. Persistent anxiety, jumpiness, fears, or feeling out of control, and excessive worry over loved ones' safety can be present.
Fundamental to the experience of trauma can be a devastating sense of helplessness. In my study of Pan Am employees, this feeling of powerlessness was a common theme. Sometimes this led to feelings of betrayal and painful disillusionment with Pan Am's management, who were seen as parental figures. However, such anger was not usually felt toward the Pan Am "family" as a whole.
I can see many parallels between the feelings and behaviors of Pan Am employees and those of American Airlines employees now. Are you feeling angry about not having been protected? Some employees turn to unusual behaviors to counteract their helpless feelings. For example, they may become obsessed with gaining as much knowledge as possible about what is happening. Or they may keep their lives "orderly," cleaning out and straightening every nook and cranny in their homes. There are some flight attendants who have not even been able to unpack their bags since September 11.
Others deal with the emotional trauma by a cutting off of emotion, and sometimes pushing those close to them away. Are you feeling numb or not very loving? A particularly traumatizing aspect of September 11 was the inability of so many flight attendants to get home. Many people state that they are less afraid of dying than of again being helplessly stranded so far from home. They are more terrified of feeling those feelings again than they are of actually dying. ...
A traumatized person can feel as if he or she is an alien to the "normal" people around them, a conviction which leads to a sense of alienation and aloneness, that an unbridgeable gulf separates him or her from the understanding of others. Anxiety slips into panic when it has to be born in isolation. Hence, there needs to be a place where painful feelings can be shared. I know that many of you feel that family and loved ones have a hard time understanding what you're going through since September 11, and perhaps you might even feel estranged from your fellow flight attendants, especially if they are not expressing feelings of fear. ...
Flight attendants, in my experience, seem to have a feeling that they should be emotionally invincible, impervious to fears having to do with flying. Many flight attendants have expressed feelings of humiliation to me about such fears, and this shame seems to be as painful as the fear itself. Several flight attendants have expressed thoughts such as "if I were strong or spiritually grounded, I wouldn't be feeling depressed or anxious." Thus, ordinary feelings that many people in a similar situation would experience are felt to be somehow shameful.
Some flight attendants may be feeling more traumatized than others, and this seems important to understand. Just because some people are frightened and unable to fly right now does not mean that they are weak or don't have strong character. The situation is made worse for some people because it represents a retraumatization, a feeling of repetition of a childhood history of trauma which leaves them more vulnerable. ...
People who have already had an experience with trauma while flying are more likely to be retraumatized by the events of September 11. Such trauma can take the form of a major illness on board the aircraft, an aircraft evacuation, an assault on a passenger or crew member, the death of a passenger, an airplane crash, or any perception of serious threat to self, other crew members, or passengers. Many of you may have "gotten right back on the horse" after other incidents, and never really understood its impact on you. So, September 11 may have just compounded an already existing but unrecognized traumatic state.
For example, a dangerous experience with turbulence could easily disturb one's background sense of safety, and revive old feelings about an earlier loss of a sense of control in life, such as the divorce of one's parents. Also, one might expect that any disaster that happens subsequent to September 11 will have a similar retraumatizing impact, as did the crash of Flight 587.
Your most important function at work besides safety has always been to provide passengers with a sense of comfort and reassurance, and a denial of the possibility of death. I am imagining you offering "coffee, tea, or immortality," and that's an extremely difficult task when you're feeling at risk yourself. It's important that each one of you be able to find a place within a relationship for your disturbing experiences and feelings, rather than having to bear them alone, and to recognize that there is nothing inherently shameful about these painful experiences and fears. Shame only contributes to keeping feelings hidden and makes you emotionally isolated. I urge you to tell each other how you're really feeling.
Getting together in small groups to talk can be extremely helpful. Leaning on your religious or spiritual faith can be of great comfort. Symptoms of trauma do improve with time and talking about it. If, however, you continue to experience symptoms after reaching out to family or friends or faith, then it's time to seek out the help of a professional therapist.
Ilona Meagher is an independent Illinois-based online writer, new media developer and former 15-year employee of a major U.S. airline.
Currently completing a Journalism degree at Northern Illinois University, she's begun her next project: Airline 911: The Business and Psychology of Aviation, Labor, and Travel in Times of Change.
The information presented on this web site is based on news reports, government documents, medical studies and personal interviews, reflections and analysis.
Psychological explorations do NOT represent therapeutic prescription or recommendation.
Comments at Airline 911 do not necessarily represent the editor's views. Illegal or inappropriate material will be removed when brought to our attention. The existence of such does not reflect an endorsement by Airline 911.
