Summer Travel Forecast: Fewer Fliers But…

Seats Will Be Scarce As Carriers Expected To Park Planes To Offset Surging Fuel Costs

(CBS/AP)  Fewer Americans are expected to fly this summer, but don't expect more empty seats as carriers park planes to help offset surging fuel costs.

The trade group for the nation's largest airlines on Tuesday forecast 211.5 million passengers will travel on domestic carriers between June 1 and Aug. 31. That would be a 1.3 percent drop from last summer.

Airlines are reducing their carrying capacity amid slower economic growth and rising jet fuel prices, the Air Transport Association said.

But planes will be nearly 85 percent full and delays emanating from New York-area airports will remain a problem, ATA President and Chief Executive James May said. Late flights cost carriers more than $10 billion annually, a drag on profits that have them "doing all they can to avoid lengthy delays," May said.

"It's in our best interest to minimize those delays to the fullest extent possible," May said. "They cost us in terms of customer loyalty ... (and) real dollars."

Some large U.S. carriers last week said they again raised ticket prices to offset surging fuel costs. Raising fares and charging for extra bags and other amenities have been the preferred coping mechanisms for airlines paying about 82 percent more for jet-fuel than they did a year ago.

Still, May said further fare hikes this summer are "inevitable."

Elsewhere, the current economic conditions present a "good news-bad news" scenario for international carriers that serve the U.S., said Steve Lott, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association.

"International air traffic originating in the U.S. this summer will likely be slower ... (but) the weak dollar and economic growth in other parts of the world makes the U.S. an attractive destination and a good value for inbound leisure passengers," Lott said.

Meanwhile, the Airports Council International (ACI) says U.S. airports are preparing for the summer travel season and possible extended delays, reports CBS News producer Carter Yang. Most are ensuring that at least one food vendor remains open 24 hours and many have cots, blankets, pillows, etc. for delayed passengers.

The last summer that domestic airlines carried fewer passengers was 2006, which was down 1 percent from the prior year, according to the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics. But domestic airlines carried about 213.8 million passengers last summer, a record number for that period.

During last summer, the Federal Aviation Administration expanded the use of an air traffic control strategy intended to minimize weather-related delays that led to cost savings of $68 million between May 2 and Aug. 30, agency spokesman Paul Takemoto said Tuesday.

The "airspace flow program," which was introduced in 2006 in seven high-traffic, air-travel regions in the Northeast and expanded nationwide last year, allows airlines to choose either fly longer routes to avoid stormy weather or accept costly and aggravating delays.

But last summer's record delays prompted the Transportation Department to impose flight caps at all three of the New York-area's main airports this year since problems there cascade throughout the system.

New Jersey's Newark Liberty Airport and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport last year had the nation's lowest on-time arrival rates. The flight caps are designed to result in fewer scheduled flights during peak hours, and to create more options during the middle of the day.

The ATA and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey opposed the caps in favor of flight-path changes and improvements aimed at increasing the flight capacity at airports.

To avoid delays this year, the ATA and the Airports Council International-North America urged passengers to print out boarding passes before arriving at the airport, check their flight's status online, see what if, any food, will be served and know the carrier's carryon and checked-baggage policies.

[veteran72]

When they start handing out the "Serf" uniforms and inform us we must now address them as "Lord" and "His" and "Her Majesty", and to deliver the crops to the "Castle", I wonder if the Bushies will still be telling us how swell they are???.....Probably.....

[sistatee-2009]

America is a developing country. It''s developing into a third-world country.

[veteran72]

Cars That Never Need Gas

Wish you never had to fill up again? Darrell Dickey doesn''t. He drives an electric car that''s charged by photovoltaic panels on the roof of his house. He''s one of three drivers who told us how they got into owning cars that are charged by wind or solar power. As Dickey puts it, "For $45,000 we got a car and fuel for the rest of our lives."

[missingamerica]

Well, you have to admit the Republican plan is working: Eliminate enough jobs and/or stifle wage growth long enough and/or raise prices enough to keep the "riffraff" - middle- or working-class America - out of the higher-end resorts and off the nation''s jets.

I truly believe that their whole plan was and is to roll America back to what they view as "the good old days" at the turn of the 20th century.

You know - "the good old days", when in just the railroad industry 230,000 American workers were killed on the job between 1890 and 1917...and they just had to take it.

[hunterdon6]

The airlines can''t afford the jet fuel to fly. A simple solution is to stop flying. When the oil execs have to drive everywhere, maybe the price of oil will come down. You can''t tell me our government can''t do anything about the high cost of oil. It just that all our congressmen and women are getting huge kickbacks from the oil industry.

[nolalou]

They should''t be able to fly the *** things unless they are at 70% capacity. Posted by Edward1975

How on earth would a policy like that work? Let''s say you book a flight a few months in advance, for vacation or a buisness trip or whatever. The flight only sells 60% of the seats. At what point to they contact you to say, sorry, your flight is canceled, your vacation is ruined, the buisness trip where you were going to close on that big contract is not happening! In other words, that is the stupidest, most unworkable idea I''ve heard of yet! You think the flying public is mad now! Try implementing a policy like that! What the heck have you been smoking!

[rudy654-2009]

Fewer fliers but...the airlines who we bailed out with our tax money, will continue to treat us like cattle.

[danrogers5]

There is a quick and easy fix to the high jet fuel prices which American air carriers have been paying. Jet fuel can be made from coal. We know how to do it, and its production costs per gallon are now about equal to the cost of jet fuel made from petroleum. The DOE could be directed to start producing it as a pilot project and selling it to the airlines at a cut rate price, treating each airline equally, rationing the production based upon route miles flown in the previous week or month. We need to broaden the sources of supply for this product and thus give a downward push to its price.

[edward1975-2009]

They shouldn''t be able to fly the *** things unless they are at 70% capacity.

[killtheliars]

just make sure the govt'' does not give one airline any bailout money. Just like homeowners, if they cannot weather the storm they can go out of business and loose everything. More important then the economy is the principal that if the tax payer does not deserve a break either does big business.