Airlines face turbulent future

Beefed-up security measures and a nation fearful of flying could propel an already reeling industry into crisis.

[AP photo] Massachusetts State Police troopers armed with automatic weapons patrol the terminal at Logan International Airport in Boston on Saturday.

By BILL ADAIR

© St. Petersburg Times,
published September 16, 2001

WASHINGTON -- Flying might never be the same.

The stepped-up security after Tuesday's hijackings is only the beginning. In coming months, passengers are likely to see more extraordinary security efforts that will bring frustrating delays, less privacy and higher fares, airline analysts and retired executives say.

There might be time-consuming bag searches, probing questions from airline employees and possibly armed guards on every plane.

Airlines will have huge new security costs but a dwindling base of customers. Many people will be afraid to fly. Others will find it cheaper and more convenient to drive.

The changes will have a profound effect on one of the nation's most important industries. Airlines already were reeling from the economic downturn and cannot withstand a severe blow, industry analysts say. Several big carriers might be headed for bankruptcy court soon if Congress doesn't approve a bailout.

"This," analyst Darryl Jenkins says, "is the biggest crisis the industry has ever faced."

No more knives

We got accustomed to breezing through security checkpoints.

All we had to do was show a driver's license and answer a few questions about our luggage. The questions became so rote, many travelers could recite them before the ticket agents did.

But last week, the Federal Aviation Administration banned curbside check-in, restricted boarding areas to ticketed passengers only and banned travelers from carrying knives. (Until this week, passengers could carry knives with blades up to 4 inches long.)

The measures are probably just the beginning. The government likely will impose more stringent security rules over the next few months.

FAA officials say it's too early to predict what they will do.

"We are constantly evaluating the situation and what additional measures might be needed," FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said Saturday. "The new security guidelines include a lot of measures we have never required before, and we're going to need to evaluate how those are working."

Robert Crandall, the former chairman of American Airlines and the prime architect behind many industry innovations in the past 20 years, predicts there will be sweeping changes in how passengers and bags are screened before a flight.

"It will make travel less convenient," Crandall says. "But it will give the public a sense of security."

Crandall says airlines need to ask passengers more personal questions to verify their identities. He says airlines should expand the use of "profiling," a controversial practice of identifying suspicious passengers by their names, appearance or the way they bought their ticket.

"You have to question passengers and go ahead and discriminate," Crandall says. "People traveling on passports from hostile countries are going to have to put up with some inconvenience."

Questions upon questions

Some people believe the United States should adopt the rigorous security procedures used by El Al, the state airline in Israel. The airline's employees ask passengers a battery of questions to make sure they're not terrorists.

Here are some of the questions an El Al employee asked Tracy Sullivan, a reporter for the Connecticut Jewish Ledger, before she was allowed to check in for a flight:

"What is the purpose of your trip? Why are you going to Israel now? What type of newspaper do you work for? Do you have a copy of the newspaper? What's your editor's name? What is your editor's phone number? What computer programs do you have on that laptop? How long have you had that computer? Do you have newspaper articles saved in your laptop's memory? Does the paper have a Web site? What's the Web address?"

An El Al security worker then called her publisher to make sure she was legitimate.

By asking such probing questions, El Al is trying to ensure that a passenger is not traveling under a false identity. A terrorist could have a fake ID but might not know a small detail such as the newspaper's Web address or the editor's phone number. El Al employees repeat many questions to look for inconsistencies.

That kind of lengthy, in-your-face interrogation might not be popular with U.S. passengers, however.

"I don't mind it a bit, but I think a lot of Americans would be offended," says Ted Chavalas, a Los Angeles manufacturing company executive who travels a lot.

Michael E. Levine, a Harvard University law professor, says the tradeoff between privacy and security is one of the "not very pretty choices we're going to have to make. To make the system work safely, we're going to have to know who is getting on an airplane."

Security also is likely to change in the sky.

The FAA has sky marshals who fly undercover on a few randomly selected flights. The government won't say how many sky marshals exist, but there's a growing consensus in Washington that the program should be expanded.

The FAA also is likely to consider strengthening cockpit doors. They are made to be lightweight and breakable so pilots can escape in a crash, but the weak doors might have allowed terrorists to take control of the four airliners on Tuesday.

"We have to look at things differently now," says Liz Verdier, a Boeing spokeswoman. "We have to look not only at the door but at the whole system."

Making the door stronger, however, could create a bizarre situation for pilots. They might be instructed to remain inside the cockpit during a hijacking, while passengers or flight attendants are injured or killed.

Says Levine: "It's an awful world we're talking about creating."

Holidays at home

Making security changes will be costly and difficult for the airlines.

They already were facing tough times because of the sagging economy. On Saturday, Continental Airlines announced it would lay off 12,000 of its 56,000 employees and reduce flights by 20 percent.

The companies are losing millions of dollars in bookings because many people are too scared to fly, says Jenkins, an aviation analyst at George Washington University.

"Come Christmas, people are going to stay home," he says. "If they do go somewhere, they are going to drive."

To make matters worse, additional security measures could add 15 minutes to an average flight, he says. That doesn't sound like much, but for airlines such as Southwest that have planes making 10 or 11 flights a day, that could add up to a lot of time. It could mean one or two fewer flights each day -- a dramatic reduction in revenue for an industry in trouble.

Jenkins and Crandall predict the security changes will lead to a complete restructuring of the airline business. Instead of 500-mile flights in small planes such as the Boeing 737 or Douglas DC-9, airlines will focus more on longer flights in bigger planes such as the Boeing 757 or Airbus A330. Crandall says, "If we put in real security systems and really protect our citizens as we should, it's going to push the airlines toward less frequency and larger (airplane) sizes. There won't be as many flights to any given destination."

Says Jenkins: "The airlines are going to have to shrink."

But others say the pain will be spread evenly among the airlines, regardless of the size of the planes.

There is no question that the airlines are facing a crisis. Some members of Congress are preparing a bailout plan they hope to pass this week.

Jenkins says that won't cure the problems, but "it gives us a couple of months that we can breathe and figure out what to do with this mess."

Prepare for more questions

Heightened security could lead to a more thorough questioning of passengers. Here is a recent list of questions asked of a reporter before she was allowed to board a flight on El Al, Israel's state airline:

What is the purpose of your trip?

Why are you going to Israel now?

What type of newspaper do you work for?

Do you have a copy of the newspaper?

What's your editor's name?

What is your editor's phone number?

What computer programs do you have on that laptop?

How long have you had that computer?

Do you have newspaper articles saved in your laptop's memory?

Does the paper have a Web site?

What's the Web address?

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