LaHood Protecting Consumers? Pretending To Protect Consumers?

Some time ago, I asked this question to an audience of airport executives:  If the airline industry is consolidating, shouldn’t the infrastructure supporting the industry consolidate as well?  The converse action of consolidation is fragmentation.  Fragmentation of markets has long been a practice of the US airline industry that has attempted to be everything to everybody.  Fragmented industries earn poor returns.

For example, the LA Basin is served by five airports:  Los Angeles (LAX), Ontario (ONT), Orange County (SNA), Burbank (BUR) and Long Beach (LGB).  Not every airline serves all five of the Basin’s airports.  But in every case the core traffic is Los Angeles traffic and by serving different airports the industry is fragmenting the Basin’s traffic.  Now Los Angeles may not be the best example given its huge population base and underlying wealth.  Nevertheless, the concept is as prevalent in Indianapolis as it is in Atlanta as it is in Washington, DC.

Between 1980 and 2010, LAX has accounted for increasingly less of the region’s domestic traffic.  To compound the problem of intra-regional competition, nominal domestic air fares at each of the five Los Angeles airports were lower in 2010 than they were in 1980.  This is but one reason why the infrastructure needs to consolidate.  Fragmentation produces unsatisfactory and unsustainable financial results.  As individual carriers increasingly realize, airlines cannot be everything to everyone.  Just last week, the following news story hit the wires:  Delta to Adjust Service to Smaller, Underperforming Markets.

As Jad Mouawad wrote in his recent New York Times article Air Service Cutbacks Hit Hardest Where Recession Did:  “. . . the [air service] cutbacks are redrawing the nation’s air service map to reflect the industry’s new priorities and changed economics. As recently as a decade ago, the airlines put a premium on growth, competed on every possible route and sought to connect to even the farthest outposts. Now, they are emphasizing fiscal discipline, which means paring back service to many cities and forgoing unprofitable destinations altogether as higher fuel prices weigh on their bottom line.”

I’ve weighed on this topic before:  Regional Airline and Small Community Air Service: It’s Time to Regionalize, Not Marginalize, the System.  As has analyst Mike Boyd of Boyd Group International whose thoughts in his weekly Hot Flash make clear the topic also will be discussed in depth at The Boyd Group International’s 16th Annual International Aviation Forecast Summit, August 28-30, in Albuquerque, NM.  As with many things Mike, the conference is a no-holds-barred discussion of third rail issues that affect the entire industry, whether airports, airlines, vendors, media, manufacturers and government, to name a few.

Under structural consolidation, a number of airports will ultimately lose direct air service, and more Americans will have to drive farther to get to an airport.  No doubt that for many communities this will come as a shock.  But as is the case with even urban areas, travelers already often bypass the local airport to take advantage of lower fares at another airport a bit farther away.

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration isn’t doing much to help an industry already burdened by regulations, battered by the economy, squeezed by oil prices and constantly beset by competition. Consider the response of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood who, in the classic tradition of “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” last week unveiled a new proposed federal rule to force airlines to report more data on fees, baggage and mishandled wheelchairs..

This is an industry that earned a scant two cents on every dollar in 2010 and yet the government wants to dig further into the file cabinets of every airline in the country in a misguided attempt to account for the money those fees are bringing in. In case you have been living under a rock, the genesis of ancillary fees has been among the most covered and scrutinized stories since 2008.  In 2010, US airlines generated $3.4 billion in baggage fees and another $2.3 billion in reservation change fees for a total of $5.7 billion.  What about the fact that the industry’s fuel bill in 2010 was $6.5 billion higher than in 2009?  The Air Transport Association forecasts that the industry’s fuel bill in 2011 will be $14 billion more in 2011 than it was in 2010.  Remember, it was the rising cost of fuel in 2008 that served as the catalyst to unbundle the airline product.

This latest proposed rulemaking coming out of LaHood’s agency under the guise of consumer protection is anything but.  Today fees are not taxed.  The government wants to get its paws on any new revenue it can find and of course the airline industry is targeted.  LaHood’s proposed rule would require airlines to report 16 additional categories of fee revenue in addition to the baggage and reservation change fees.  Outrageous.

Let’s turn the tables.  As a consumer and a taxpayer, I’d like to see a complete breakout of the special aviation fees and taxes collected by the government.  All I get on my ticket is a total: an amount that includes what the ATA counts as 10 categories of special aviation fees and taxes. 

I want to know how much the passenger facility charge is on my ticket.  I want to know how much is going to the Department of Homeland Security for the September 11 fee, immigration fee, the customs fee, the Aviation Security Infrastructure Fee (ASIF) and APHIS Passenger and Aircraft fees.  I want to know how much is going to the FAA in the form of domestic and international passenger taxes, jet fuel tax and the cargo waybill tax.  If the airlines are to report out on 16 incremental items in the name of consumer protection then I want to know where each dollar of taxes and special aviation fees goes.

So as the industry struggles to earn a meaningful profit, LaHood grandstands.  As he states in the DoT press release: “Our goal is to improve the quality of data we collect from airlines and make airline pricing more transparent. In an era of rising fees, passengers deserve better information about how airlines are performing, particularly when it comes to fees, baggage and accommodating passengers in wheelchairs.” 

Meanwhile communities are losing air service.  Maybe if some or all of the tax and fee revenue were returned to the airlines, then fewer markets would be underperforming and thus avoid service cuts.

The conversation about regionalizing air service should begin with a sober assessment of the market and clarity from the Secretary of Transportation on this administration’s vision of what constitutes the right air transportation market. 

This difficult discussion already is underway in some markets, including in Kansas where Dodge City and Garden City are discussing whether or not to form a regional airport. 

The article notes new urgency on the issue in Kansas because Congress may decide to eliminate the Essential Air Service program.

"The EAS program has come under attack in the past, but never really did we feel that the program was in jeopardy," Dodge City Manager Ken Strobel is quoted. "This year, however, there's more concern that the program may be phased out or funding cut substantially.”

The EAS program is but one reason for communities with marginal air service to consider “regionalizing.”  A stark example of another market is Pittsburgh and its catchment area.   There is one strong airport in that catchment area that includes Akron/Canton.  Latrobe, Morgantown, Franklin, Johnstown, Clarksburg, DuBois, Altoona, Parkersburg, Cleveland, Youngstown and Erie.  All have realized decreases in traffic or a total loss of service since 2000.  But demand within this area is the same as it was in 1990, signaling that fact that some areas have far weaker economies than others.

As the industry’s route map is redrawn maybe the Department of Transportation should be thinking about bigger picture things than wheelchairs, data reporting and fee transparency.  Rather than threatening the existing Essential Air Service Program, begin to define what is tomorrow’s essential.  Work with industry to identify the airports of tomorrow (airports serving a region that can fill either a large regional jet or turboprop or mainline with sufficient local traffic) and ensure that money is being spent wisely (as opposed, for example, to building air traffic control towers in Johnstown, PA.)  If it is determined that certain airports are closed to commercial air traffic, then each of those airports should remain closed to that traffic to ensure that regionalization produces positive results for an industry that desperately needs to be run like a business as opposed to a make work project.

Maybe the Department of Transportation turns out to be the agency that behaves the way former Congressman Oberstar behaved toward the industry – standing in the way of progress in building a sustainable system.  But I certainly hope not.

Mayday! Mayday! NOT.

April 29, 2010 is not May Day, rather a sad day.  A sad day in that an ill-conceived tarmac delay rule became a reality. 

Legislate, regulate only serves to resuscitate bad practice.  Now we will have irate at the gate.  A Kate Hanni update:  the mandate you helped create will only placate.  Chronic late at the gate will cause the flight to terminate and thus demand to dislocate because the system cannot immediately reaccomodate.

Speechless that this rule has become reality.  All the while there is talk to legislate that fees cannot be charged for carry-on luggage.  Where does it stop when it comes to this industry?  A real sad day when Chuck Schumer and Kate Hanni are acting as experts and are influencing rules under which this industry must operate.  Really sad.

At least there might be an interesting consolidation story to think and write about.  But I am sure that will be anti-consumer when the Kate Hanni love-in is pro-consumer.  NOT.

It is not lost on me that the airlines themselves invited this rule to be imposed.  What is lost on me is the fact that this industry is not permitted to compete with a structure that mirrors other industries competing in the global marketplace.

Much more to come.

Swelblog’s 12 Airline Industry News Items of 2009

It is that time of the year again when it is time to put the packages under the tree. The packages represent my 12 days of Christmas, or the 12 airline industry issues that took place in 2009 that I find important. I have placed my packages under the tree in descending order of importance.

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Sacred Cows and Fatigue

Last week, I was in Boston listening to the students in MIT’s Airline Industry class make group presentations on six US airlines.  It is always refreshing to hear the analysis, reflection on strategies and recommendations from really smart kids who aren’t burdened, like me, by three decades of taint or cynicism. 

Do We Have a National Aviation Policy?

The student presentations got me thinking about the role of national policy on the U.S. airlines. Michael E. Levine, now a Distinguished Research Scholar and Senior Lecturer at  the New York University School of Law, wrote an op-ed in the December 1, 2009 Aviation Daily titled:  “We Have a National Aviation Policy.”  Many will remember Levine as one of the minds behind and framers of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978.  Levine went on to serve in numerous senior management positions at a number of airlines along the way.  To the serious industry observer, Levine is a must-read.  You may not always agree with his viewpoints, but you always know that the work will be well researched, thoughtful and provocative.

Levine’s Aviation Daily piece has its roots in the recent comments by former American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall and Business Travel Coalition President Kevin Mitchell suggesting that the U.S. lacks an effective  aviation policy.

Levine disagrees:  “Our government has an excellent aviation policy:  continuously improve safety, promote environmental goals, maintain consumer choice, and allow the general public access to a system not run specially for the benefit of stockholders, banks, elite purchasers, aircraft manufacturers and workers more privileged than they are,” he writes. “We even have a mechanism in place to make sure that service is provided where social policy demands it and the market won’t pay for it.”

In Levine’s view:

• Profit is the job of managements and shareholders, not government
• Air transportation must be safe
• Government’s job is to ensure that aircraft are safe, not new
• Airline wages and career options should be no more or less a government concern than they are for workers in general
• US airlines should compete in world markets, and our government should eliminate impediments put in their way by other governments
• The terrible accident in Buffalo raises issues about pilot experience, fatigue and past performance that underscore the need to revisit negotiated seniority rules and pay scales that pay pilots more to fly bigger aircraft, leaving some of the least experienced pilots to do some of the most demanding flying
• Pilot fatigue comes not only from duty assignments but also from lifestyle choices that have pilots commuting to work from homes that may be thousands of miles from their jobs.

I encourage readers to find a copy and read Levine’s piece in its entirety.  It is good.  And of course many of the ideas are those espoused here at swelblog.com.  If I have a quibble at all with Levine’s piece, I would say that the US government and the narrow-minded thinkers in Washington who are in power positions on committees overseeing US commercial aviation produce at least as many impediments as do other governments. 

Levine’s analysis is also well timed to the formation of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s Blue Ribbon panel to study the industry. A mind like Levine’s would serve the industry well because unlike Crandall and Mitchell, he does not have a dog in the fight.  Furthermore, his writing reflects the need to cut to core issues that govern US aviation today and fix the things don’t work – even if those things include some sacred cow(s).

Pilot Fatigue

Last week, FAA Administrator Babbitt testified before the Senate Commerce Committee’s Aviation Subcommittee on a variety of safety issues including pilot fatigue. As I have written here many times, there can be no productive discussion on pilot fatigue until the issue of commuting is included in that discussion. 

Until last week, any Congressional testimony fatigue or flight time/duty time regulation changes centered on the work of an FAA Advisory panel that met during July and August to recommend changes to existing rules.  But that committee -- comprised of labor, management and other stakeholder groups  -- decided that commuting was “outside the boundaries” of their mission.  So it is left to Babbitt and the FAA to seek comment on commuting with respect to the proposed rule changes.

Commuting, of course is among the industry’s most sacred cows. I don’t know how many airlines would be willing to go first in telling a pilot, or a flight attendant, that they cannot commute or that they have to live within X miles of their assigned domicile.  Clearly,  Babbitt is not convinced that commuting is the only major factor in the fatigue question. So for now, Babbitt’s mantra is the right one:  Show up fit to work.

But commuting is a management issue as well.  Back in the day when I was flying, pilots were paid moving expenses and had the company buy their house (in the event it could not be sold) if they were displaced to another domicile.  As the industry began to grow and merge and create new hubs and thus new crew domiciles, the moving expense issue was a big one for companies to consider.  Lo and behold, it was one of the early concessions airlines sought from pilot contracts in their efforts to cut costs and the industry structure began transforming itself.

I am glad that we are looking at fatigue and flight time/duty time regulations with a learned eye to make fixes where science suggests fixes need to be made.  What doesn’t make sense is this hue and cry that fatigue is an issue because airlines have worked to improve productivity by getting their pilots to fly an additional eight hours a month.

Montie Brewer: Five Reasons Why the Airline Industry Will Never be Profitable

Stuffing Romy’s Thanksgiving Turkey with Items for Secretary LaHood to Consider

On Friday, November 20, Montie Brewer, most recently Air Canada’s President and CEO, made a presentation at MIT titled:  “Five Reasons Why the Airline Industry Will Never be Profitable.”  Prior to making his way to Air Canada in 2004, Mr. Brewer (Montie) held senior positions at United Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Republic Airlines, Braniff and Trans World Airlines. He has planned and developed over 20 hub operations worldwide and played an integral role in the founding of the STAR alliance. 

I sat down with Montie following his presentation with the intention to write about it, but also to use his talk as context as Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood considers establishing a Blue Ribbon panel to study the woes of the U.S .airline industry.  It seems like the perfect stuffing for 2009’s Thanksgiving turkey.

Brewer’s Five Reasons Why the Airline Industry Will Never be Profitable

The boom and bust cycles of airline industry earnings are well documented, as is the fact that subsequent down cycles to industry up-cycles destroy those earnings and more.  The fact remains that any annual airline industry profits rarely exceed the average pre-tax earnings for U.S. corporations. As a preface to his talk, Brewer made clear it would be wrong to surmise individual airlines will not be profitable. Instead he contends the industry will always suffer due to structural reasons.  

  1.  It’s A Capacity Lead Business Model (Causes Constant Overcapacity)

Since deregulation the airline product has been commoditized.  In the commodity framework, the only way the industry, or an airline, can grow revenue is to grow capacity.  Then, the Computer Reservations Systems and the Global Distribution Systems institutionalized the notion that in order for an airline to grow revenue, it needed to offer more and more capacity even before demand warranted.

The addition of capacity led to low and lower operating costs.  On the margin, revenue exceeded cost.  Uneconomic capacity was being deployed each and every day.  Ultimately an industry too big to be sustainable was created.   

The GDS’s were a major contributor to the commoditization of the airline product.  Based on this fact, airlines that distribute directly to the consumer have the best likelihood of differentiating, and more importantly, not commoditizing, their product.  This fact contributes to the notion that certain airlines can do well while the industry suffers. 

  2.   Airplanes Don’t Go Away (They Just Become More Efficient)

A bad airline industry assumption is consolidation of the industry, whether through a merger or carrier liquidation, leads to industry capacity reduction.  The airline industry time and again has demonstrated that once a carrier’s capacity is pushed to the edge, that carrier’s capacity (efficient and inefficient) does not go away.

With the working premise that the only way to grow revenue is to grow capacity, then new aircraft need to ordered.  The problem is aircraft do not go away, and: aircraft do not make their way from an inefficient operator to a more efficient operator; aircraft CAN fly forever; even when an airline tries to retire aircraft, they come back like a bad spaghetti sauce (remember ValuJet using Delta’s DC-9s to compete directly with them in Atlanta); and, when carriers grow they realize great efficiencies. 

An example of those efficiencies is a 3 percent growth in capacity results in only a 1 percent increase in total operating costs.  However, this works in reverse when carriers pull capacity down as the cost savings cannot be achieved commensurate with the reduction.  This fact is what plagues the industry today as a floor is created on just how much capacity can be reduced by any one airline.  

[Note:  If Brewer had his way, Airbus and Boeing would each be allowed to produce 10 new aircraft per year but he would allow the manufacturers to charge whatever amount they could earn on each of those 10 aircraft.]

  3.   Labor Leverage (Political Organizations Cannot Manage Commercial Reality)

Labor organizations are not structured to manage the responsibility they possess.  In Brewer’s view labor has tremendous leverage over the industry.  However, they are highly simple political organizations and, as such, only have a short-term view.  For the politicians, the short-term view is to remain in their elected position.  To overcome this flaw, labor organizations need to completely overhaul their governance structure. 

Like the ordering of airplanes, management historically reaches agreements with labor at the very end or the peak of economic up cycles and then faces the prospect of paying the bill during subsequent downturns.  Given the high fixed costs of the industry, airlines can rarely afford a strike or intermittent work stoppages.  During negotiations, both the airline and labor pretend management is in control.  According to Brewer, the working assumption is management will not allow labor to take too much, but in reality, labor can take all it wants - - then both live with the outcome.  Brewer believes, when costs like labor, fuel, maintenance, airport fees are factored in on a daily basis, the typical airline has 10 - 20 profitable days a year.

With 10-20 days of revenue to spend, some in labor have asked, “Why would management agree to a contract it can’t afford”?  Well, because somewhere during the year, fuel exceeded budget, or the government issued a new airworthiness directive involving aircraft in an airline's fleet, or airport fees increased, or…….the false belief that management will contain labor’s desires from doing stupid things.

  4. Input Costs are Too Volatile (Revenue Cycle and Cost Cycle Out of Sync)

Even in the best of years, the airline industry is a low margin business where it is not uncommon for any number of input costs to increase at least 20 percent.  A low margin business with volatile input costs is a toxic mix.  A good example occurred in 2008 when the price of oil increased from $80 per barrel to $147.  As is typical in the airline business, tickets are often purchased months in advance.  During the first half of 2008, it was not uncommon for passengers to be flying in June on a ticket purchased when oil was $50 per barrel cheaper.

Is the relationship of volatile costs relative to revenue impossible to manage?  No, but it would require companies to maintain outsized cash balances. Cash balances that look good to labor during contract negotiations and to financial raiders seeking to buy a company to harvest that cash.

  5.  Nobody Really Wants It to Be Fixed

Brewer makes a powerful case that things are fine the way they are… and, for the most part, the airline industry value chain, consumers and the government know it.

When it comes to low fares, the consumer can shop the internet and find some market on sale. They may even find the price of a ticket today equal to, or less, in nominal dollars than a fare charged two decades ago.  When adjusted for inflation, it is hard to find any consumer item that is a better bargain than air travel.

Taxes and fees are nearly $60 - or 20 percent - of the price of a ticket today.  This compares to $22, or 7 percent, in 1972.  The government is getting a bigger share of a shrinking pie. 

Perhaps, most compelling is the industry's value chain like airline catering, aircraft lessors, ground handling, manufacturers, airports, distribution systems, fueling; travel agents, maintenance repair organizations and freight operations.  Each of these industry sectors in the airline industry value chain earn a higher return on invested capital than the airline companies that keep them in business. 

Some Questions for Secretary LaHood to Ponder

• Can a commodity business (airline business) that does not have to be a commodity business (too much supply) be permitted to change sufficiently by its stakeholders to achieve sustained profitability? 
• Can an industry where inefficient capacity never leaves achieve sustained profitability? 
• Can an industry where organized labor has outsized leverage but cannot manage the inherent responsibilities that come with that leverage change sufficiently in order for the industry to achieve sustained profitability? 
• Can an industry with widely volatile input costs raise sufficient capital to manage its business without being raided by either a financial investor or a stakeholder seeking outsized payments?
• Can an industry where every stakeholder seems to be happy with the way it is, including governments and their constituents, consider making the necessary changes in order for the industry to achieve sustained profitability?

Any Discussion Must Begin With a Plan for Roads, Rail and Runways

To date, the only public suggestions that I have seen for the Secretary to consider in forming the panel come from Kevin Mitchell at the Business Travel Coalition.  Mitchell, who participated in the Secretary’s discussion with various stakeholders on November 12, wrote LaHood outlining five issues that need studying by the proposed commission:

• No National Air Transportation Policy
• Airline Over-Scheduling
• Broken Industry Work Force Model
• Obsolete Air Traffic Control Technology
• Airline Industry Financial Failure

Mitchell also outlined causes of each, including unbridled faith in market forces; lack of government and industry foresight and leadership; lack of a productive labor-management model; unworkable industry financial model; ineffective FAA management; fragmented industry positions and lack of Congressional leadership. While Mitchell is thoughtful about the problems and their causes, parts of his list of those affected sounds more like advocacy for his clients.

Swelbar’s View

Among the best of Mitchell’s observations is the need for a coherent transportation policy.  That policy, though, should not focus on an alleged broken regional airline business model; tarmac delays; that the industry is no longer a desired profession; pressure on safety margins; loss of skilled jobs; lost service; or a loss of international leadership. 

The transportation policy should be about roads, rails and runways -- period. After all, there must be some very good reason why Warren Buffett is spending $34 billion to buy Burlington Northern? For aviation specifically, it should address the need to define, resize and equip the desired infrastructure for the 21^st Century. For airports that might be disenfranchised from the air transportation grid, do highways need to be built that easily facilitate a different access point for those air travel consumers?  It should not be about championing a unique labor force that already has considerable power and very good paying jobs relative to the overall work force or the calls of various consumer advocates.

Organized labor was a force behind LaHood's consideration to form a commission to study the airline industry.  But nowhere based on what I have read does labor accept any responsibility for the current condition of the industry.  Times have changed, and unions need to understand that. For organized labor – and by extrapolation, airline labor – to be successful, the unions can no longer be in the business of keeping themselves in business. It has to be about meaningful change. Change that entails understanding the new economic realities, or as the Harvard Business Review recently opined “that there will be no going home again…that the landscape of business has been forever altered.” [actually this question can be asked of every airline industry stakeholder] Can unions change or adapt to the idea that instead of being in business to secure decent jobs for the greatest number of people it might be better off securing great jobs for fewer workers?

Mitchell identifies the right stakeholders, but doesn’t ask ALL of the right questions.  Brewer poses the right questions and does not suggest the market can answer them all.  The answers lie in what this blog is about -- change:  can industry stakeholders change and surrender unrealistic expectations of the past?  Despite all of the cuts, we still have too much capacity, leading to too many inefficient operations, which lead to a government that really does not want to get out of the way --- because it has a stake in that inefficiency.

I hope that the administration is really going to evaluate the industry and recognize that all stakeholders need to change.  And much of the change that needs to take place begins and ends with government accepting that an industry 50 years old ... well, needs to change.

More to come.