Our Aviation Correspondent, Barbara Peterson, appeared on WNYC's The Leonard Lopate Show Monday morning to discuss the trend of air traffic controllers falling asleep, plane maintenance problems, and other aviation matters.

Said Barbara:

"Generally a crisis is what drives these changes—but they come in gradual phases—and everybody wants a quick fix. We haven't had an accident like Aloha's in many years and hopefully we never will again because of what we've learned. But it turns out there are different parts of the plane that are supposed to get different types of attention at different times, and it doesn't always happen that way. Some safety advocates are arguing that they ought to take what they call the fleet leader—there's one plane that has the most miles on it—take that one out, and tear it apart, and look at anything that might hint at problems down the line."

Barbara also discusses the airlines' outsourcing of planes overseas for heavy maintenance—of which we explored in our October issue.

Our aviation correspondent, Barbara Peterson, appeared on public radio's The Takeaway Tuesday afternoon to discuss the ongoing concern about aging 737 airlines operated by Southwest Airlines. Said Barbara:

It isn't really the age of the plane, it's how many flights it does. And Southwest takes off and lands very frequently. In fact, that's their whole business model. It's short flights, it's the quick turnaround. A lot of their planes maybe make six or seven flights a day, which is far higher than the industry average.

On Monday, our senior consulting editor Clive Irving discussed the same issue on Talk of the Nation.

Photo: Flickr/smowblog

Flying out of Newark last weekend for a week out West with my family, I was dreading my encounter with that airport’s security detail. In the past it’s been harrowing experience—not because they’re too good at their jobs but because the whole operation is a mess. Understaffed at the busiest times (as in the Saturday of a holiday week), the situation is made worse by the part-time private guards whose idea of managing crowds is to scream abuse at the mob of hapless passengers who are just trying to make their flight.

I have to report this time it was very well run: lines moved smoothly, the for-hire goons saved their vocal chords, and TSA screeners were polite—even when they hauled off our tennis bag for a slew of tests for explosives and the like after they discovered some contraband: an ancient bottle of tanning lotion hidden in a pocket.

It struck me this performance might be a response to the embarrassment of the previous week’s revelations of a string of security lapses at Newark Airport, ranging from the prosaic—another knife gets past the checkpoint—to the grotesque: a canine carcass carried on board, apparently by the departed dog’s bereaved owner, without the proper screening. (Call in the full body scanners!)

Newark wasn’t the only area airport generating bad news for TSA: over at JFK screeners were apparently all too alert to the contents of the bags they were inspecting, spotting a stash of cash in one bag then making off with what’s said to be more than $40,000.

What’s unfortunate is that, once you get past the odd details, there’s nothing new here. When TSA was created ten years ago, it was with hopes that the lamentable record of checkpoints prior to 9/11 would be fixed once the former cadres of minimum wage workers were replaced with higher paid professionals.

But investigations by in-house government "red teams" and outside sources have shown virtually every year since then, the new screeners aren’t much better at detecting dangerous items (not to mention dangerous people) than their predecessors.

In fact, at least once a year there are stories coming out of Newark Airport about lapses there, which may either indicate that it does indeed have a higher incidence of lapses or that the news just gets leaked more often. Remember the distracted screener who let a non-passenger sneak into the secure area to say goodbye to a girlfriend?

Now after ten years of TSA—which is costing taxpayers and the traveling public more each year—it is especially discouraging to see that in the latest proposed federal budget, homeland security is being spared the sharp cuts aimed at every other federal department; in fact, it’s in line for a funding increase.

This has nothing to do with whether the country needs an effective airport security regime. But this one, marked by ineptitude and overkill and costing $6 billion a year and rising, is rapidly becoming the poster child for big government run amok, with nothing to show for it.

Except, of course, for my bottle of vintage Coppertone.

Photo: Flickr/Katie Brady

Since 9/11 the massive funds that have been poured into securing airports and airplanes have bypassed one obvious area for improvement: the public areas where people congregate both before and after a flight. That's partly because it falls through the cracks of government jurisdiction: Technically, the “land side” of an airport is unsecured—and until the TSA's checkpoint takes over, that territory is typically the business of local, not federal, officials. But the attack at Russia's busiest airport has left a horrific toll—35 dead and more than a 100 injured—and raised questions about whether we should be paying more attention this gaping hole in airport protection.

After all, Russian president Dmitri Medvedev confessed that Moscow Domodedovo's security was in a "state of anarchy," a damning statement from someone who nominally must bear some of the blame. But what, then, should airports do? Some experts, such as the ubiquitous Bruce Schneier, argue that we should do nothing. After all, he says, an airport lobby or bag claim is no different from other public spaces where people congregate in large numbers, like rail stations or stadiums.

Not so fast, say other security experts. Aviation continues to exert a headline-grabbing appeal to terrorists and thus an attack on an airport, sadly, pays more dividends than, say, one on a crowded city street.

But what's to be done—short of throwing more billions at the problem? Five years after 9/11, a Condé Nast Traveler investigation revealed how much was still to be done at the country's airports. Much of it came down to fairly basic, common sense measures like improving the flow of people, positioning uniformed and plain-clothes police near entrances to the airport, and installing more security cameras, including the more sophisticated systems that can pick up on unusual behavior or movements.

Issy Boim, the former El Al sky marshal who assisted us in our investigation, said he still believes that basic common sense plus some low-tech fixes could go a long way to preventing more attacks on innocent air travelers.

Photo: Flickr/Josh Beasley

The first big travel story of the year has to be American Air's somewhat astonishing move to muscle out online travel agencies like Travelocity and Expedia by refusing to pay fees for bookings that come through these sources. Today, Sabre Holdings, owner of Travelocity, struck back by demoting American's flight rankings. (The irony here is that Sabre was created by none other than American way back when reservations systems were in their infancy—and the accusation then was that it was biased in favor of AA). All this may sound like too much inside baseball to the average traveler, but it has major implications for your trip planning, not to mention your wallet. 

The bottom line is airlines want consumers to come directly to their sites to book because it's cheaper—for the airlines. Booking through the carriers directly costs the airlines $1 to $2 versus $10 to $12 for business they get through the online agencies. And airlines also want the fees from ancillary services—hotel nights, car rentals—that consumers might choose to book through them. But what happens if the much-hyped information transparency on the web disintegrates? The big losers, of course are consumers who may find it increasingly difficult to comparison shop.

Which leads us to the second big story of the year: Google's ITA deal is just now getting the scrutiny it deserves. When the giant online search engine last summer announced its $700 million purchase of ITA—which provides the software underlying a number of travel search engines, the assumption was it was just another acquisition that would sail through the approval process. In 2011, it's not looking so sure. Some of the big names in online travel searches have formed fairsearch.org to lobby against it and the Washington Post this week ran an editorial urging the Justice Dept. to thoroughly vet it for antitrust implications—namely that Google could end up with too much control over information essential to making travel decisions.

The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives could have a major effect on travel matters before government. Although the Senate's still controlled by Democrats, the "shellacking" of House Dems took out longtime Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota, who ran the transportation committee for years and wanted to re-regulate the airlines, impose federal taxes on airline fees, and limit airlines' ability to send planes overseas for repairs. The arrival of a Republican successor, Rep. John Mica of Florida, means those ideas are likely dead. On the table this session: modernizing air traffic control and investing in airport safety.

Other stories to watch for:

Boeing Dreamliner's first flight: The much delayed plane suffered yet another setback late in 2010, so only a fool would bet on its debut. But Boeing insists launch customer ANA will get the troubled plane into the air "early" this year.

Airports get even with TSA: The bungled rollout of the controversial body scanners, and the up close and personal friskings visited upon refuseniks, left a bad taste coming as it did over the holidays. Critics, including some powerful legislators, are even urging airports to exercise their right to expel the feds and use private contractors for security—and some major airport operators have suggested they may do just that. (However, don't expect big changes in checkpoint procedure, which TSA must still approve.) And the notion of a "trusted traveler" EZ Pass-style program to pre-screen frequent travelers is gaining some momentum with the return of defunct private sector operator "Clear" although skeptics point out that past efforts have failed.

Part 2 (coming soon): Analysts talk about where air fares and fees are heading.

Photo of Minnesota's mid-December storm: Flickr/Dan

Airports in the northeast were open for business today—but while the snow has ended, the air travel chaos continues. Take just one airport, Newark, where major carrier Continental was reporting average delays of 492 minutes as of early afternoon, due to high winds. No that’s not a typo.

That and other good information came to me via Joe Sent Me, an excellent website that is among a handful of non-airline affiliated sites that were making up for the abject lack of good useful information from official sources. In fact, after two days of foul weather travelers were getting a dose of something else: the reality of a leaner airline industry.

With more than 5,000 flights canceled, the blizzard likely impacted around half a million air travelers. In the best of times that would have overwhelmed support staff, but in the past few years airlines cut back sharply on their customer service workforce—everything from phone reservationists to counter agents at the airport, as they cut costs in a bid to recover financially.

After hearing from a number of people who told me they couldn’t get through to their carrier at all, I tried calling five airlines with a heavy presence in the northeast. Two, Continental and JetBlue, wouldn’t even let me stay on hold (“Due to the weather we are unable to take your call” ); Delta and American had long waiting times; only USAirways picked up fairly quickly.

In the absence of real live human interactions, of course, the web is supposed to pick up the slack, and airlines were doing their best to direct travelers to their sites. But that wouldn’t necessarily get you a seat on the next flight, answer your questions, or give you a chance to weigh your options.

In addition to the aforementioned Joe Sent Me, I’ve found FlyerTalk’s forums to be a good source for updates on airport conditions. Many road warriors rely on both FlightAware and liveatc.net for updates on flight activity.

Having endured more than a few strandings—I’ve slept, or attempted to, on the floors of various terminals around the world—I’ve found there’s no substitute for a real live human being who can help you. Finding one is another story.

Once, after spending two days stranded during a massive blizzard on the East Coast, I managed to get on the first flight out of a completely closed airport—a flight that didn’t technically exist, as it was brought in just to evacuate strandees—by wandering around the airport in the middle of the night until I found a lone gate agent standing at a computer terminal. She initially rebuffed my pleas for help until I told her I had a small child waiting at home (true) and finally after I wore her down, put me near the top of the standby list.

Do you have any stranding experiences you care to share? Any strategies that have worked for you?

Photo: Flickr

2010 saw its share of travel horror stories, what with meltdowns occasioned by volcanic eruptions and a bizarre deep freeze in Europe, along with labor strife and revolts at the security checkpoint. So you could almost lose sight of the fact that this year the airlines actually made money and did a better job—in general—on delays and lost luggage.

1. The airlines, after racking up $60 billion in losses since 9/11, return to profitability, and air fares rise—but not as much as predicted, and mainly on those days when airlines know they can squeeze us.
2. Airlines push through a slew of back-door price hikes, however, with new fees for aisle seats, advance boarding and same-day standby travel. Fees for checked bags continue to grate, but airlines lost fewer of them.
3. TSA's full body scanners and pat-downs spark pre-Thanksgiving backlash, lingering disgust—and questions over whether they’d catch a terrorist anyway.
4. New tarmac delay rules take effect, with big fines for airlines that keep planes on the runway for more than three hours. By late fall, lengthy tarmac delays fall to practically zero.
5. Consolidation continues apace when United merges with Continental, Southwest acquires AirTran, and Delta’s union with Northwest erases the identity of the latter. American and BA get their virtual marriage past government antitrust cops.
6. A disgruntled JetBlue flight attendant goes AWOL by popping the emergency chute, making Steven Slater (briefly) a household name. Indeed, 2010 sees a spike in labor strife, with walk-outs at British Air, Lufthansa, and threats of more to come.
7. Qantas grounds its fleet of Airbus 380s after an engine explodes on a Sydney bound flight right after take off from Singapore, raising questions about the Rolls-Royce engines’ reputation for reliability
8. An Icelandic volcano erupts, bringing transatlantic travel a halt; the airport chaos scenes are repeated in December as a dusting of snow brings Europe to its knees yet again.
9. An attempt to bomb a US bound plane with an explosives laden printer cartridge is thwarted; TSA responds by banning large printer cartridges from carry-ons. (Huh?)
10. Travel apps proliferate; social networking keeps travelers (somewhat) more informed when things go awry (see numbers 4, 8)

Photo of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson: Flickr/Josh Hallett

No matter whether you’re flying this holiday, or sticking closer to terra firma: you won’t escape hearing about airport security in the grossest of terms. The latest news: TSA today apologized for humiliating a passenger (just one?) and more stories about children and other innocent victims of overzealous screening went viral on the web. Delta Air Lines said it would refund passengers who are canceling their trips due to qualms about the new security regime or just the chaos that might ensue on “opt out day” tomorrow. But for those who simply want to get from point A to B with a minimal amount of grief, here’s some advice:

There’s no going back: If you are tempted to follow the lead of the Don't Touch My Junk-ie who objected to his treatment halfway through his pat-down, be aware you could be arrested and/or fined. That’s the law as it’s explained to screeners in training: When you put your belongings on the conveyor belt, that's tantamount to giving your consent to a search even if TSA doesn’t tell you that up front. The consequences of challenging this assumption are, as we’ve seen, not very pleasant.

Choose your line: The full body scanners that have caused the most commotion are not at all airports or terminals; there are about 400 of them at 70 airports, but considering there are more than 2,200 screening lanes nationwide, that leaves a lot with the traditional metal detectors. At most large terminals there’s a mix of new and old. I understand that TSA screeners are supposed to push passengers to the new machines in an effort to acquaint them with the technology, but look for the old style lanes and try to avoid being steered to the new ones if you are concerned.

Travel light: If you do decide to go through the full body scanner make sure you remove everything from your pockets. Even a tiny object will show up and get you sent to the extra screening line for a frisking. And speaking of friskings, you are within your rights to insist on a pat-down in lieu of a full-body scanning. But you may have a lot of company if ‘opt out day’ gets traction.

Arrive an hour earlier: It can’t be said enough: just get there with a lot more time than you think you’ll need. Flights are expected to be more than 90% full and remember that capacity is still down, meaning that there are fewer options if you miss your flight. Check out TSA.gov for estimates of wait times at your airport terminal and check in with Travelocity on Twitter, where the booking site will be posting live updates from a dozen airports on November 23 and 24. And if you believe you may miss your flight because of a long line, let someone know: Airlines typically post personnel at checkpoints on heavy travel days and they can move people ahead of those with later departure times.

Our aviation correspondent Barbara S. Peterson on this morning's edition of The Takeaway

If you're among the 24.5 million Americans heading to the airport this week you’re aware of the nationwide protest of the new invasive airport security regime that’s planned—and I use that word loosely—for this Wednesday.

But "national opt-out day" will likely be a one-day circus for the benefit of TV cameras. What’s more important is what happens after the five-day holiday. Will the mounting disgust over the latest security over-reaction—which is giving some travelers the unpalatable choice of a full body scanning or an extremely intimate frisking—lead to a more enduring dialogue about what the public is willing to tolerate in the name of security?

That was the topic this morning’s edition of public radio show The Takeaway, where I was a guest along with Chris Yates, an aviation security consultant.

I pointed out that the nation’s pilots surprised the security establishment when they started refusing to submit to the full body scanners, concerned about the radiation they’d receive on a daily basis. They then put teeth into their protests by filing a lawsuit challenging the TSA’s right to perform invasive searches as an alternative to the machines. Of course what they really achieved was pointing out the absurdity of giving pilots the same sort of scrutiny as a complete stranger. We not only trust them with our lives, but if you can seriously believe they’d be capable of a terrorist act then think about it: would they need to smuggle a weapon aboard the plane at all?

So, the Obama Admistration finally bowed to the force of this logic and over the weekend announced it would give pilots expedited screening, provided they could come up with a foolproof way of verifying their identity.

So why should the rest of us care? Because if a precedent is set with allowing one group to be vetted in exchange for faster processing, it could catch on. And if that idea sounds familiar, it should. A "known traveler" plan was in the original law that created TSA in early 2002. But the TSA is no closer to delivering on that promise than it was in the early days after 9/11.

Meanwhile, new machinery and the man-handling is causing a lot of ordinary law-abiding citizens to consider acts of civil disobedience—see Mr. “Don’t Touch My Junk”—a reaction that has apparently caught the TSA completely off-guard. But why was the agency so unprepared? More than 300 of the body scanners have been installed at 70 airports in recent months, and it’s now obvious that the TSA thought its main challenge would be to quell fears over invasion of privacy. But it’s radiation from the new gizmos that has people worried—and frankly that’s a lot more compelling a worry than having some screener sitting in a distant room look at a blurry image of you undressed.

While Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano recently claimed that a person would have take one million flights before being adversely affected by exposure to the machines, other credible sources have raised enough questions to give pause to those who fly more than a few times a year. In the process, TSA may have done itself some serious harm. Already Rep. John Mica, who is likely to be the new transportation committee chair in a Republican-controlled House of Representatives, is urging hundreds of airports around the country to exercise their right to kick out TSA and hire private security companies.

Federal investigators this week are trying to figure out how a two-foot hole opened up in the fuselage of an American Airlines 757 as it was heading from Miami to Boston last week. But a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board told me that the area of the plane where the crack appeared—just above a door near the front of the aircraft—likely had not been the focus of rigorous inspections in the past, because “there hadn’t been a pattern of problems there” previously.

John Goglia, a widely recognized maintenance expert who was the first airline mechanic to be appointed to a post on the safety panel, also said that passengers should not be concerned about flying the 757, which he said is a reliable workhorse that has had relatively few problems, considering how many are still in service.

Still, to the 160 people aboard the plane as it suddenly lost pressure, the incident must have been terrifying—it’s not every day you don an oxygen mask after hearing what was described those aboard as sounding like an explosion. The aircraft, which made an emergency landing, has been taken out of service while NTSB sleuths examine the gash in its skin. The FAA and Boeing are considering whether to order all airlines to inspect their fleets of 757s.

If this all sounds vaguely familiar, it should: in a recent investigation for the magazine’s October issue, I reported on a recent rise in FAA enforcement activity against airlines for, among other things, failing to inspect planes for metal fatigue.

While rare, there have been a string of similar incidents in the past year or so. In fact, a month before the American incident, cracks were reportedly found on a United Airlines 757. And earlier this year the FAA ordered airlines to check for cracks on some versions of the 737, after a Southwest plane made an emergency landing.

And some 757s in service are on the geriatric side—some are 29 years old and even the newest entered service about 15 years ago. The American plane reportedly had 16 years under its belt. Goglia said that the reason why some airlines are retiring their 757s now has more to do with fuel consumption than any inherent problems. “It’s a sturdy plane that has more power than it needs and so it burns a lot of fuel for the number of passengers it carries.”

Metal fatigue has more to do with the number of cycles—takeoffs and landings—than a plane’s actual chronological age. And an aircraft operating in hot and humid climates is more at risk. Both of those factors played into one of the worst fatigue-related accidents in memory: in 1988 an Aloha Airlines plane lost part of its roof, and a flight attendant was killed.

Around that time the industry had already begun work on designing planes that could better withstand damage caused by fatigue—at least long enough to get the plane safely on the ground. “In the 1980s we started building damage tolerant airplanes,” Goglia said. “The whole idea was to prevent things like Aloha from turning into a catastrophe.”