Aviation Daily on Airports

Airports, Airlines Develop Plans to Handle Extended Passenger Delays

Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA) was the host to a conference last week to facilitate the creation of plans to accommodate passengers inconvenienced during irregular operations (IROPS), which I covered in the Jan. 23 issue (subscribers only) of Aviation Daily.  Representatives attending the conference included airports, airlines, the Air Transport Association (ATA), passenger advocacy groups, the Dept. of Transportation, the Transportation Security Administration and Customs and Border Patrol.

The conference was a follow-up to a conference sponsored by Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in September, covered in the Oct. 1, 2007, issue (subscribers only) of Aviation Daily.  The conference happened right before the DOT Inspector General came out with a report offering 10 recommendations to help DOT, airline and airports improve customer service for passengers.  You can read my post on that here.

“We had seven airlines and 12 airports at the September conference.  We invited a mix of regional and major hub airports, along with representatives from ATA and ACI-NA to get the broadest depth of understanding for our group,” said Jim Crites, DFW’s executive vice president of operations.  “The main issue we addressed then was providing clear and consistent communications with all the stakeholders involved.  We want the airports, the airlines, all on the same page when it comes to customer service issues.”

There needs to be clear and consistent communication with all stakeholders involved in IROPS, said Crites.  "For example, airports and runways are clear and open for business.  But  operations might still be disrupted, which upsets customers," he said.  "We need to make sure that airlines, airports, TSA and Customs are all on same page with customers."

One area identified during the DFW conference was concessions when flights land or are canceled late at night, said Crites.  "People still need food and water.  We encouraged airports to work with their concessionaires to make arrangements to open when customers are in the terminal and need service," he said. 

Another issue was with flight monitoring, said Crites.  "Airports, airlines and FAA can work together to track flights so if someone sees something that could become an issue, we can work to keep ramps available and not strand passengers," he said.

"We hope to develop a tool box of best practices that can apply for different situations so that airports can develop a plan in advance of an IROPs," said Crites.   "ACI-NA and ATA embraced the idea of a D.C. conference to formalize and solidify broader outreach to all airports and airlines.  We want to share best practices and lessons learned from airports and airlines."

The conference yielded a long list of best practices and issues that need to be addressed, Richard Marchi, ACI-NA’s senior adviser for regulatory affairs.  “We want to create a list and have it available within a month for our members and the airlines,” he said.

And DOT has named members of its Tarmac Delay Task Force, which was covered in the Jan. 24 issue (subscribers only) of Aviation Daily.  Among those chosen were Deborah McElroy, ACI-NA EVP-policy and external affairs and Benjamin DeCosta, Hartsfield-Jackson Airport aviation general manager.

One of the speakers at the conference was Kate Hanni,  founder of the Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights (CAPBOR).  She became a vocal passenger rights advocate after it took 57 hours for her family to fly from San Francisco to Mobile because of weather delays during Christmas 2006.  She has since filed a class-action suit against American Airlines over the delay.  You can hear my 9-minute Podcast with Hanni here.

Latin American Aviation Focuses On Safety

The Latin American equivalent of the Air Transport Association, known as ALTA, is making safety improvements its chief concern this year.

ALTA is working with countries throughout the Latin American and Caribbean region to have all carriers based their registered and compliant with IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) standards. It also is striving to force governments to insist that any airline that operates to the region by IOSA certified.

Airlines that fly to and within Latin America also are facing higher taxes and landing fees in various parts of the region. The Brazilian authorities, for example, have proposed raising landing fees at Sao Paulo Airport by 5,000%. ALTA hopes the Brazilians will bend to travel and tourism interests who are fighting this action, said ALTA Executive Director Alex de Gunten.

For a 6:16 minute segment from de Gunten's recent roundtable with Aviation Week reporters and editors, click here.

A Few More Questions - and a Podcast - with DFW Airport's Joe Lopano

I had the chance to do a "Five Good Questions" interview with Joe Lopano, the executive vice president of marketing and terminal management for Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in the Jan. 15 issue of Airports, which you can see here for free. 

But as you know, I always ask a few more questions than I need, so below is what was left over.  You can also click here to listen to a 4:44-minute Podcast where Lopano updates progress on the Visit DFW initiative and efforts to attract new service to India.

Aviation Daily: A study released in August found that the airport has an economic impact of $16 billion in 2005.  Why did the airport feel it was important to show economic impact figures? 

Joe Lopano:  The Texas Department of Transportation did the study.  But I think the core of our business is what we do.  We provide the facilities for easy air service to occur.  Once you get the facility and once you get the services in here, this becomes a huge economic generator, like a huge machine that drives the economic engine.  [The engine] drive employment, and employment drives housing, and housing drives restaurant participation and then people go to movies because they work here.  They buy cars, go to schools and teachers get employed because there are 305,000 people who are all with this airport.  And in every single community that same phenomenon occurs, smaller in some and much larger in others.  Its extremely important to understand the importance of that, because it drives air service development marketing.  You do the marketing because you want the engine to be bigger.  We want more jobs, we want more money and more economic benefit for our owners, and that’s really the bottom line reason for what we do.

AD: What is the status of DFW’s spending to upgrade existing terminals to look more like the new Terminal D?

We have $45 million earmarked for Terminals A, B, C and E and we plan to have the preponderance of that project complete by the end of this calendar year.  Although we are  rated number one by Airports Council International and JD Power & Associates, we will not sit back and rest on those laurels.  We want to refurbish to the best of our abilities in the short term.  What we’ve done is based on market research.  We know what drives customer preference and we take those elements that are most closely related to customer preference and we work on those and try to improve them, whether that be comfort in the gate area, options in the gate area, restrooms and lighting.  These all are things we’re focused on and will have all that work completed by end of this year.

AD:  What are your top goals for 2008?

JL:  The first one is to complete the $45 million refurbishment project, that’s imp to us.  We really want to capitalize on Open Skies.  We think the new London Heathrow and Amsterdam flights will open up new opportunities to grow certain markets at DFW.  We’re going to work together with all the airlines whether that be KLM, American or British Airways.  We also see new opportunities for new cargo carriers to come in with new destinations and we continue to focus on that.  We’re already the fastest-growing cargo hub and we want to continue to grow that.  And we think we can   We hope to get a couple more destinations announced this year, whether they be domestic or international. Finally, another goal would be to continue with the Visit DFW program and roll that out and make sure it’s successful.  We want to fine tune it, make mid course corrections as we see fit and measure it to see how much traffic it’s generating and how much benefit we’re getting for the money.

Making Sense of Merger Mania

My head has been spinning on all the stories that are bringing merger mania to a full boil.  We've heard the usual suspects just like everyone else -- Delta and either United or Northwest, if you believe the Wall Street Journal's story yesterday.  We've also heard things like AirTran-Frontier, Southwest-Frontier and even AirTran-Alaska.

So while we wait to see what happens, I though now was the time to bring in a voice of reason to give some perspective on these potential mergers.  Henry Hardeveldt is the vice president and principal analyst for Forrester Research's airline and travel practice.  He was recently named one of the 33 most influential people in the travel industry by Travel Weekly magazine.  If anyone can make sense of all of this, Hardeveldt can.  You can click here to listen to my 5:10 minute Podcast with Hardeveldt.

British Airways Launches Open Skies Subsidiary

British Airways held a breakfast in New York City yesterday to announce the creation of a new subsidiary -- dubbed Open Skies -- that will begin direct flights from New York to Brussels and Paris in June, which I covered in the Jan. 10 issue (subscribers only) of Aviation Daily.

The ink was barely dry on the U.S./EU Open Skies pact signed last March before airlines on both sides of the Atlantic began jockeying for position to fly between key points in the U.S. and Europe. 

Starting with one Boeing 757, the airline-within-an airline wants to add service to cities that include Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Madrid, Milan and Zurich, along with Boston, Washington and Philadelphia, said Managing Director Dale Moss. “We hope to fly out of JFK Airport, but we’re waiting” for government approval, he said.

The aircraft will feature a three-class, 82-seat cabin – 24 seats in business class, 28 in premium economy and 30 economy seats. Business class will feature seats that convert into six-foot-long flat beds, while premium economy will have 52-inch seat pitch. The carrier plans to add another 757 this year and have six aircraft by the end of 2009.

Seats will be 2/2 abreast in business and premium economy and 3/3 in economy, said Moss. “We feel three segments are best way to start. But if the market responds to two of these segments, we can adjust because we only have a few aircraft,” said Moss. “We can be a lab for BA and share what we’ve learned.”  You can click here to listen to my 3:10 minute Podcast with Dale Moss.