Word: airings
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...consider that airline performance has been above par - if far from stellar - since travel dropped sharply amid the economic downturn and that both ticket prices and congestion are expected to spike when the staycations end and customers return to the skies. A new report from the Brookings Institution puts air-travel trends into perspective. The U.S. air-traffic system relies on 26 metropolitan hubs to ferry nearly 75% of domestic passengers. Twenty of these are also arrival points for 94% of international visitors. Funneling flights to these bottlenecks has driven the average flight delay to 57 min. in June...
Highlight Reel: 1. Why you can't avoid gridlocked hubs: "69% of all air travelers in the United States traveled exclusively between the 100 largest metropolitan areas. Another 29.9% of passengers traveled through one of the 100 largest metropolitan areas at some point in their trip. In sum, 98.8% of all passengers in the most recent twelve months passed through at least one of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas. In the U.S., air travel is clearly a large metropolitan phenomenon." (See photos of protests against Heathrow Airport's expansion...
...financial difficulties airlines are enduring: "Since 2000, seven major domestic airlines have either filed for bankruptcy protection or merged with competitors due to financial constraints. These financial constraints also reduce the quality of the air-travel experience; news stories abound showing increased traveler dissatisfaction with companies squeezing fewer amenities and more seats onto every flight. Of course, it's hard to blame airlines for cutting amenities when the real price of jet fuel tripled from 2000 to 2008. Together with the recession's effects, these factors contributed to 3.7% fewer domestic and international air passengers on U.S. airlines...
...suggestions that could help curb soaring delays. Among the ideas are congestion pricing, airport privatization and high-speed rail systems as an alternative to flights shorter than 500 miles (routes that carry 31% of all passengers). Let's hope someone's listening. We may not enjoy being in the air, but we're grounded far too often...
...hands immediately shot into the air...