Attention All Passengers (29 page)

But experts say there are other options to reduce airline emissions, and some ideas are unfathomable. Among them are flying slower; eradicating first class, and employing “cattle car” seating; removing all cabin windows; and eliminating cockpit crews and replacing them with full-time autopiloting systems. Clearly such suggestions raise serious issues about safety, comfort, and convenience. That's why Waitz asks, “What level of cost or risk are you willing to assume? You need to find the balance between a broad set of society's needs.”

These are tough problems, and unfortunately the solutions are not easy, either. Medium-term mitigation for CO
2
emissions could possibly come from improved fuel efficiency. However, this will only partially offset the growth of CO
2
aviation emissions.

Next-Generation Air Traffic Control?

In an editorial for CNN.com in April 2011, Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly stated: “It's not an exaggeration to say that today's air traffic control system is using 1950s technology and flight paths to route our aircraft during a time when most drivers on the highway are following direct routes guided by their GPS systems.”

If there was one issue every member of the FAAC agreed on, it was the necessity for modernizing the nation's air traffic control (ATC) network through the Next Generation Air Transportation System, known as NextGen. It also was the only topic discussed on all five subcommittees, since it affects safety, competition, finance, labor, and certainly environment. From a consumer perspective, NextGen should mean safer operations, less congestion, fewer delays, and improved service.

So what is NextGen? Rather than a new Univac computer that gets plugged in to the accompaniment of a ribbon-cutting, the system has countless moving parts and components. It involves gradual rollouts of GPS technology on the ground and onboard aircraft, coupled with a switch to data communications and upgrades to all the many existing technologies that oversee the nation's civil and military air traffic.

Secretary LaHood is enthusiastic about NextGen. He believes it will help relieve congestion, so air traffic controllers can guide planes in and out of airports more directly. Former FAA administrator Randy Babbitt agreed: “This is truly an investment.” He maintained that once NextGen is fully deployed by 2025, the savings will be in the multiple billions. Conversely,
not
adopting NextGen will cost the American economy up to $22 billion a year.

So there's nothing not to like about NextGen. Except, of course, the obvious: Who's going to pay for it? Congress, the DOT, and the airlines have engaged in an odd kabuki for years over who will pay for what, and when. It's difficult to directly monetize the benefits, so there's a hesitancy to step forward and invest.

As for funding, LaHood acknowledges the challenges: “We have a responsibility as the federal government, frankly, to be the big players in this. I think we do have a big responsibility. We're pushing this. . . . But the lion's share of the funding should come from the federal government and we know we'll have partners out there who will help us. We know the airlines are limited on their resources although they're very supportive of NextGen.”

In that editorial Kelly committed to Southwest's investing in NextGen technology, and also wrote: “But the airlines cannot reach NextGen alone. The FAA, in coordination with the aviation community, must focus its limited resources to design and implement GPS-based flight paths that will result in measurable reductions in fuel consumption and emissions. In other words, it does no good to use new technology to fly the same old routes more precisely. We must have new flight procedures approved by the FAA to leverage the tremendous potential of NextGen technologies.”

However, the next big push from the airlines will be for further privatization, not just of TSA screeners but the FAA employees who staff the nation's control towers. Flight Safety Foundation's Bill Voss says, “I'd trade the free market pressures any day over congressional oversight. There are a lot of earmarks and pork in the system. The trouble is this is funded by user fees, and that's a toxic issue.”

The problem is that in aviation the track record shows that free enterprise unfettered by government oversight has led to cutting corners. And with air traffic control, the risks extend beyond the obvious—the safety of the public, both in the air and on the ground. They also extend to the future of the planet.

Fighting the Not-So-Good Fight

“What are the economic incentives for the best interests of the whole country?” asks transportation policy expert Stephen Van Beek. “We need to look at how to transition to greener transportation.” He notes how airlines buy and sell airport slots, a practice he suggests should be stopped immediately: “The airspace is owned by the public. Some bank out there is giving money to an airline for assets that are not theirs.” And Van Beek points to the Los Angeles–San Diego market, which is served with twenty-seven flights daily by United Express—all with thirty- to fifty-seat aircraft: “From a system point of view, that doesn't make sense.”

For these and other reasons, airlines are favorite targets of environmentalists. One common complaint is that the industry often engages in the practice of “greenwashing,” or touting environmental programs through its marketing and advertising campaigns. In fact, the Angry Mermaid Award—which is bestowed by a coalition of environmental organizations based throughout Europe and the Far East—was established “to recognize the perverse role of corporate lobbyists, and highlight those business groups and companies that have made the greatest effort to sabotage the climate talks, and other climate measures, while promoting often profitable, false solutions.” A recent nominee was the International Air Transport Association, which was “honored” for a decade of “leading the industry's efforts against regulatory action on climate change.” Among the issues the citation referenced were fighting for aviation to be exempt from green regulation; lobbying against aviation to be included in the UN Copenhagen climate change conference in 2009; and referring solely to CO
2
emissions and ignoring the impact of nitrogen oxide emissions, contrails, and cirrus clouds, which have impacts “two to five times greater” than CO
2
alone.

When it comes to greenwashing, the airlines aren't alone. It seems fair to worry that we're nibbling at the edges of this issue while not focusing enough on the elephantine impact of jet engine emissions. For example, Greenopia annually ranks North American carriers using a broad array of criteria to determine which are more environmentally friendly; in the 2011 results, Virgin America led ten U.S. and Canadian airlines, while American ranked last. Four green leaves for Virgin America and only one green leaf for American would seem to indicate a huge difference in the carbon footprints of these carriers, no? Yet a report by TreeHugger.com reveals that the criteria include fleet age, fuel consumption practices, carbon offsets, green building design, recycling programs, and green food items available in-flight.
4
Jeff Nield, the author of the TreeHugger.com piece, who suggests “green airline” is itself oxymoronic, makes a strong point: “When it comes right down to it, the fact that airplanes spew forth fossil fuel emissions up in the atmosphere is what makes them such heavy polluters.” Put another way, catering with fair-trade food items is a fine practice, but it won't reduce high-altitude emissions.

For years now, green groups have been debunking the airline industry's claims about its collective carbon footprint. In the forefront of this charge has been Transport & Environment, which receives funding support from the European Commission. The claims are that the current industry strategy is to talk about “miracle” technologies and what other entities—such as governments—should do to address aviation's footprint. T&E also believes the airlines are interested only in unenforceable, nonbinding voluntary commitments on reducing emissions.

Dudley Curtis is not generous in his assessment of the United Nations–backed ICAO (“It has failed miserably to fulfill its obligation to cut aviation emissions under the Kyoto protocol”) or the industry trade group IATA (“It proudly touts its environment record, which so far can be summed up as ‘business as usual' with a couple of nonbinding, voluntary, unenforceable, and in any case weak commitments based on current fleet renewal trends”).

As for aircraft and engine manufacturers, Curtis says they should give their full backing to a meaningful global fuel economy standard for aircraft, one that reflects fuel use across the entire flight, not just when cruising at a fixed speed. Also, they should design planes for fuel efficiency rather than for increased range and speed, since fuel efficiency has stagnated over the last decade. Curtis asserts that the average aircraft flying today is no more fuel efficient than the Lockheed Super Constellation, the last generation of propeller passenger planes of the 1950s.
5
I asked Boeing's Glover about this, and he responded, “We have design requirements that include thousands of things. They're all folded in. We set our requirements in a very aggressive manner.”

The airlines' deep pockets undoubtedly have kept regulators and legislators from demanding more from the industry. Because of the industry's lobbying, Alonso believes Congress will never enact a reasonable energy policy: “Unfortunately, they're going to respond when it's too late on climate change, but it certainly won't be in the next five years. Are they waiting for the first floods?”

Yet Alonso remains optimistic that the problems can be solved. He believes efficiencies can reduce current fuel consumption by as much as 80 percent. ICAO and IATA are not quite as optimistic but do assert that by 2050 the airline industry will produce CO
2
at 50 percent of 2005 levels. Alonso sums it up: “I do think suboptimization is better than no optimization at all.”

Waitz believes Washington must do more: “It's hard to tell the private sector to invest. It's really the government's role to put in place incentives. We ought to have programs in place. Broad, flexible programs such as cap and trade. They are popular in Europe—but not in Washington.” He notes that whether it's aviation regulations in Europe or automotive regulations in California, some communities have decided on more stringent rules and as a result they're driving innovation.

The airline business may be something of a punching bag, according to Waitz, because of its high profile (no pun intended). He claims, “People say, ‘Look at this big dirty industry.' But this industry has high abatement costs.” He points out that when assessing the carbon footprints of various industries, some sectors may do less and some may not even address such problems at all, but there are different views of equity in determining fairness. Waitz is optimistic as well; he says, “I think we will see continued innovation and continued reduction in carbon footprints. But not at the same rate as other industries. . . . You have to change your view of what's fair. There will be more pressure on aviation than in other industries.”

Consumers have a role, too. We vote not only with our ballots but also with our wallets: airlines will need to pass costs on to passengers and therefore are missing opportunities to reduce energy costs, because unfortunately the airlines don't commit to enough research.

Before consumers can become more involved, however, it would help if they were given accurate tools to measure their own carbon footprints. Last year a friend proudly told me she was saving the planet by driving her Prius on a long trip to Washington, D.C., from New Jersey. But Alonso points out that a smelly yet crowded bus might actually be more eco-friendly. In 2008 I researched carbon calculators on behalf of
Consumer Reports
and quickly found they are inaccurate to the point of absurdity. Alonso agrees there's a ripe opportunity here, for accurate consumer calculations. One study found that a fully loaded Boeing 787 flying from San Francisco to New York City offers fuel economy similar to that of a Honda Accord with three passengers, at almost ten times the speed.
6

As for carbon offsets, I suggested to Alonso they are reminiscent of the ancient Catholic Church practice of buying indulgences, so that rich sinners can keep on sinning. But he had a different view: “At the same time, people who incur the costs should pay for it. It's about individual responsibility, so you can at least write a check. . . . If it has a positive impact, then I'm fine with it.”

But Alonso also pointed to the morality of the “inequity issue” inherent in air travel. Overwhelmingly, aviation emissions are produced by developed nations, but their effects are felt throughout the world, including underdeveloped nations. As he said, “The rich pollute, and the poor pay.”

12

Ink-Stained Wreckage:

How Airlines Manipulate the Media

He [Adolf Hitler] is undoubtedly a great man, and I believe has done much for the German people.

—Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, in a letter home from a 1936 inspection tour of the Luftwaffe

A
t about 10:35 on the morning of December 17, 1903, for the first time in the history of the species a human being took to the skies in a heavier-than-air machine that moved forward under its own power. Later that day, mere hours after first Orville Wright and then Wilbur Wright established and promptly smashed new altitude records, a working reporter managed to commit the first major screw-up in the history of aviation journalism.
Nota bene:
it would not be the last.

Even today it's not an overstatement to rank that first flight as one of the ten most significant achievements in the history of
Homo sapiens
. In 1903, though, it should have ranked in the holy trinity of journalism alongside the headlines S
OME
H
AIRY
G
UY
I
NVENTS
F
IRE
and S
OME
O
THER
H
AIRY
G
UY
I
NVENTS
W
HEEL
. So you can imagine Wilbur and Orville's surprise when they decided to grant a world exclusive to the Associated Press—and the AP immediately passed up the story.
1

The Wrights were good kids and the sons of an Episcopal bishop, so it's doubtful they said what they should have said. Namely . . .
WTF??
The longest of the four flights in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, that day had lasted fifty-nine seconds but it got mangled as fifty-seven in the telegram sent to a third Wright brother, Lorin. No matter. According to
The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright
by Tom Crouch, Lorin personally walked the news over to the offices of the
Dayton Journal
, the brothers' hometown rag, and handed it to Frank Tunison, the local rep for AP. The reporter's response is now legendary among those who track Media Reports That Never Were. “Fifty-seven seconds, hey?” Tunison barked. “If it had been fifty-seven minutes then it might have been a news item.” Meanwhile, an editor in Norfolk, Virginia, had heard about the flights in nearby Kitty Hawk. He wrote up a somewhat muddled account of the event and contacted twenty-one newspapers to see if they would like to reprint it. Only five even bothered to respond.

Thus began the bumpy relationship between powered flight and the media that continues to this day.

Ninety-six years later, in February 2000, JetBlue Airways launched service from JFK International Airport to Buffalo and the
New York Times
reported that the company's inaugural departure was three hours late. Airline executives and others who were present swore the delay was not nearly so long, and also noticed that the
Times
reporter hadn't even been at JFK. The byline? Jayson Blair, the plagiarist later exposed for reporting from locations he had never visited, when the
Times
famously fired him in 2003.

Covering the Beast: Reporting on a Complex Business

As a journalist, I've written about the airline industry for many kinds of readers: airline executives, travel agents, corporate travel managers, investors, business travelers, and everyday customers. Like one of the proverbial blind men grasping at an elephant, each of these audiences is concerned with a different aspect of the massive beast known as commercial aviation. And what a beast it is. In 2009, the FAA reported commercial aviation was ultimately responsible for 5.6 percent of gross domestic product. It also helped generate $1.3 trillion in economic activity and 12 million jobs. And imagine the impact on our nation's economy if the airline industry weren't so intent on offshoring everything from telephone reservations to major aircraft maintenance.

There are quite a few excellent aviation journalists practicing their craft today, and I've been proud to know and even work with many of them. But a business as large as the airline industry inevitably is covered by a broad range of media outlets, and every day there's a tremendous amount of misinformation churned out. Kevin Mitchell battles for passenger rights as chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, and on many occasions he has found himself fighting long odds, because the lobbying efforts of Airlines for America and the individual airlines are so formidable and have the power to influence Congress, the DOT, and the media. Like special ops psychological warfare, these campaigns address why the airline industry gets so much coverage that favors it.
2

As further example, Mitchell cites the period immediately following 9/11 when the airlines took advantage of contract clauses to lay off thousands of employees and blamed it on terrorism, and such claims went virtually unchallenged in the press. Labor leader Pat Friend underscores this point: “9/11 did cover a lot of sins.” She notes that on the day of the terrorist attacks, there were 22,000 flight attendants at United, and ten years later there were 15,000.

And yet despite the full-court media press, the airlines do not enjoy a favorable reputation, which makes one wonder how poorly they would be perceived without spending all those millions. A longtime aviation journalist spells it out: “I think the airlines are their own worst enemies. They really have such a bad image. They're up there with polluters and oil companies. . . . A lot can be traced back to the historical reality that they are public utilities.”

There are deeper issues than just bias here. Much of what is reported about the airlines is rather superficial, considering what is at stake. Travel columnist Joe Brancatelli points to the legalese embedded in the airlines' contracts of carriage and notes, “The airlines say, ‘We don't guarantee we'll provide the flight.' No other industry says this about their products. And then the airlines want to know why people don't like them. Where is the consumer media explaining what is going on?”

Then there is safety. Consider that in 2010
Time
published “20 Reasons to Hate the Airlines: A Brief History of the Industry's 30-Year Campaign to Nickel-and-Dime Us Nearly to Death,” which chronicled such grievances as paying for headsets, paying for sodas, and paying for blankets. Annoying? No question. But for a headline invoking such strong terms as
hate
and
death
, it's odd the most dangerous condition cited is “The Disappearance of Legroom.” None of the many safety, security, and outsourcing issues cited in this book even cracked the top twenty.

For years now some of us have been writing about critical life-and-death safety issues, such as the FAA's oversight of aircraft maintenance and regional airlines. But there's been no momentum, no steady drumbeat, as major media outlets have provided infrequent or nonexistent coverage of threats to airline safety. As Kevin Mitchell notes, “One of the reasons people are pissed off about three-dollar Cokes [on flights] is because fees have gotten so much more ink than outsourced maintenance. It hasn't gotten the visibility.”

So why is that? Is coverage of airline safety too gory or depressing? That hardly seems plausible, in a culture that provides media saturation of natural disasters and violent crimes. Is it bad for business? Perhaps. But you would need a software programmer to decipher which media conglomerate is funded by which sister companies and outside investors. The likeliest reason seems to be the tremendous economic pressures on traditional media outlets, as they scramble to do more with less, and increasingly depend on less experienced and
outsourced
employees.

Searching for the Black Box

I have a simple rule when reading about aviation: I see if the author has spelled Delta Air Lines correctly (Delta is one of the last carriers to still break out
airline
into two words). If it's written as
Delta Airlines
, then I question every other premise. The same if the author employs such terms as
direct flight
(in airline parlance that's actually an
indirect
flight since it stops en route; the term is
nonstop
flight);
stewardess
(anachronistic and sexist); and
black box
(actually, there are two boxes, and they're orange, not black). I once stopped reading an airline story because it referred to “LaGuardia International Airport” in referencing what is a domestic facility.

They say we often fight the last war. Well, reporters covering airplane crashes are often covering the last crash, even when common sense dictates this one wasn't due to wind shear or terrorism or a short runway. This syndrome reached its peak in 1996, when TWA 800 departed from New York City and then exploded in midair off Long Island. I heard a local TV reporter suddenly speculate: “There's no word yet on whether this might have been attributed to faulty deicing.” An old colleague from Pan Am called and let loose with the obscenities: “De-effing-icing! In July! Ninety effing degrees Fahrenheit! De-effing-icing!”

At other times, a lack of information can seem worse than misinformation. Joe Brancatelli recalls Northwest Airlines using extreme measures to thwart press coverage during the strike by its mechanics in 2005. This included banning reporters on company property and blacking out flight display monitors in airport terminals (obviously to avoid images of
FLIGHT CANCELED
messages). But the company left a hole—the flight tracker on its website remained in service.

No other journalist in the country did a better job than Brancatelli did covering that strike. Every day, several times a day, he posted updates on flight delays and cancellations, putting the lie to Northwest's claims that all was fine. (“Pay no attention to that man behind the flight information display screen!”) Then he raised the stakes even higher by providing detailed coverage of the maintenance problems the FAA said weren't occurring at Northwest: the cancellations and air turnbacks and emergency landings. A few days later, Northwest put out the real flight cancellation numbers. For Brancatelli, the lesson of the Northwest strike remains an optimistic one: “Eventually, in an industry like this, the truth will come out.”

Business Journalism: Ignoring the Rest of Us

And then there's “business news.” If you examine coverage of the airlines you'll soon realize that the focus is almost entirely on investors—not customers, workers, or communities. We as a nation have not addressed how the best interests of a tiny handful of billionaires diverge from the best interests of the other 300 million of us, but the bias soon becomes apparent. Most reports are “balanced” only by the illusion of canned statements produced by a given company's public relations machine, peppered with “analysis” provided by tainted parties, namely Wall Street investors who stand to benefit by offering their prejudiced comments.

Sometimes outside opinions are shut out entirely. In May 2000, when the airline merger rumor du jour was a United Airlines–US Airways coupling, a disturbing story came to light: a publicist hired by the two carriers offered three major newspapers a sweet deal—with strings attached. In exchange for exclusive details on the $5 billion merger, the reporters promised not to make any calls for outside comments. The
Wall Street Journal
,
Washington Post
, and
New York Times
all agreed, despite the obvious danger of serving as the airlines' public relations arms.
3

When the audience is the business community, the challenge for journalists is to provide alternative viewpoints on airline issues—from labor, communities or cities, and certainly consumers. On the eve of that Northwest strike, the
New York Times
did a good job of addressing the big picture, including the perspectives of passengers and employees. That was critical, considering that one report noted, “Clearly, Wall Street is rooting for a walkout at Northwest.” That was no idle assertion but in fact was backed up by a quote from Jamie Baker, an airline analyst at JP Morgan, who stated: “Frankly, we're hoping for a strike.” Imagine. An airline strike is a debilitating, demoralizing, and heartbreaking saga, and in the case of a maintenance strike, safety is undoubtedly at risk, yet Wall Street hoped for one nonetheless.

While filming
The Red Tail
, which documented the Northwest strike, Minnesota filmmaker Dawn Mikkelson was struck by how the media responded: “It was lazy coverage, in my opinion. It was, let's talk to economic analysts and let's talk to passengers. They never touched on the outsourcing issue. This was about cutting costs.”

The airline industry/Wall Street/media axis can be a hall of mirrors at times. Many of the leading financial analysts and consultants quoted in aviation reporting have vested interests in the very issues they discuss—an article about airline consolidation, for example, may include puffy comments from a Wall Street analyst being paid merger-and-acquisition fees by the industry. But there are best practices here as well. When I requested an interview from Helane Becker at Dahlman Rose, her financial analyst firm, she forwarded a detailed seven-page disclosure statement for both investors and journalists that listed all the airline companies she rated, as well as her firm's relationships (if any) with those airlines. Kudos to Becker, but unfortunately not enough industry analysts emulate such practices, and not enough journalists ask before their interviews.

Spoon-Fed News

Reliance on public relations juggernauts is crippling American journalism. Like the “news” reports that breathlessly recite the weekend's box office receipts, or Black Friday retail revenues, or Super Bowl television commercial ratings, this is all lazy and superficial reporting. These days it's entirely possible to write and publish a news story about an airline bankruptcy filing without communicating
in any way
with a single human being. Cut and paste airline executives' quotes from the carrier's press release. Cut and paste quotes from Wall Street analysts' briefings. And if there's space, cut and paste a brief quote from a labor union's release. Serve warm.