Friday, Aug 29, 2008
Not even being lionized in Rome can keep the pilot from gloomy thoughts about the future of commercial aviation -- including the likelihood that he will never fly again.
Sep 23, 2005 | So the news from back home is bleak, dire, disappointing -- and fully expected. On Sept. 14, already referred to as "Black Wednesday" in some circles, Delta and Northwest joined the sad fraternity of U.S. airlines operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Atlanta- and Minneapolis-based giants join earlier filers United and US Airways. United, senior member of the club, filed for protection nearly three years ago, while US Airways has been to court twice since 2002. (For what it's worth, US Airways' latest reorganization plan received court approval on Sept. 16, positioning the airline, which in May announced a merger with the smaller and vaguely more solvent America West, for Chapter 11 reemergence by the end of this month. Of course, they've been there before.)
To put this in sobering perspective, these Four Airlines of the Apocalypse represent about half of all the seats sold in America and include two of the world's three biggest carriers. Delta, the third-largest airline in the world, has managed to amass an astonishing $28 billion in total debt, while Northwest, the eldest major in the United States, owes $18 billion. The restructuring of that debt will be arguably the biggest challenge faced by these companies as they attempt to reorganize.
Not long after Sept. 11, 2001, the most pessimistic analysts were predicting the inevitable bankruptcy of all of the country's top-10 carriers, with the possible exception of the perennially, maddeningly successful Southwest. Four years later those doomsayers are halfway there, even as the mechanisms of this en masse tailspin have been different than anticipated. Now that passenger volume has surpassed pre-attack levels, and in fact has been that way for some time, a direct Chapter 11-Sept. 11 correlation is an increasingly difficult one to make. Planes are full while losses continue to mount. Of late, the single critical factor has been the surging cost of jet fuel. Labor and fuel are the two biggest pieces of an airline's cost pie; sadly, billions of dollars' worth of wage and benefit concessions have been eaten by petroleum prices skyrocketing past $70 a barrel -- a gallon of Jet-A kerosene now costs twice what it did two years ago.
You can blame Iraq if you want to, but it's more than just that. Forgive me a moment for tipping things politically, but as the world thirsts for ever more oil, the ill-conceived invasion of a Middle Eastern country together with a hideously mismanaged energy policy have done nothing to stabilize energy prices. Handicapping an already beleaguered industry by imposing burdensome taxes and security surcharges hasn't helped either. Carriers are seeking relief from the present 4.3 cent-per-gallon jet fuel tax, but that alone won't be enough.
If I sound defeated and depressed, that's because I am. Having to report on this latest and perhaps darkest setback to date is a bit like writing about my own funeral. From the consumer's perspective, air travel remains a buyer's market. At least for now, while the embattled majors are forced to match rock-bottom fares with their low-cost competitors, bargains abound. But as for me, and thousands of other pilots, it becomes more and more unlikely that I'll ever fly a plane again.
Here in Rome, though, I've had more than ample distraction from the psychological ravages of an imploded career.
Setting aside their contributions to the arts, as well as their impassioned, histrionic attention to the value of aesthetic, the Italians deserve praise for two things. First, they have relatively little trouble pronouncing the surname "Santosuosso." (If you don't understand what I'm talking about, shame for not being more intimately familiar with this column and the personal history of its author. And if you can't fathom how rewarding it might be to hear this pronunciation, free of apprehensions and without accompanying smirks and looks of pity, you were never an Italian kid with a funny name in a prep school. I'm told the old family bones reside about two hours south of here, near Avellino on the back side of Vesuvius.)
Second, Italians have taken a surprising interest in aviation of late, duly reflected by the unexpected popularity of my column here and the release of my book by an Italian publisher. "Chiedilo al pilota -- Tutto quello che avete sempre voluto sapere sui voli aerie," is a hot seller. It wouldn't be fair or accurate to take all the credit, though. This past summer's surge of crashes is mostly the culprit. Proximity to Greece and Sicily, sites of two of August's disasters, has for better or worse thrust air travel into the headlines of Italian newspapers and magazines.
One of those magazines is called Internazionale, a well-regarded newsweekly that reprints a translated (and truncated) version of Salon's "Chiedilo al Pilota" every Friday. The publishing wing of Internazionale is named Fusi Orari, and they are the ones who've put out my book. The text was organized and edited by Alberto Notarbartolo, Fusi's direttore editoriale gran maestro -- with whom I've shared many e-mails over the months, discussing in equal parts the finer points of airplanes and the best older songs of Billy Bragg.
My plans to visit Italy provided Alberto and Fusi the opportunity to arrange a short promotional tour, which turned out to be quite a whirlwind. Possibly it's an Italian custom to decadently flatter one's guests, but I wasn't quite prepared for all the attention.
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