Joe Sharkey At Large

That Phony Healthy-Airport-Food Report, Back Again

First off: Happy New Year.

Here, incidentally, is how that ball-drop tradition in Times Square got started.

And now to less festive matters:

Once again, the news media credulously report the annual “healthiest airport food” press release from an outfit that calls itself the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

It’s 2008 tomorrow, and I am growing weary. Don’t reporters ask basic questions anymore?

The grandly named Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is, in fact, a social-agenda organization run by a psychiatrist with clear ties to the zealots at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

All of us are for ethical treatment of animals, of course, but we all know that P.E.T.A. has other agendas, among them an opposition to eating meat or dairy products, and a holier-than-thou attitude about food in general.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a nice salad.

The annual “Physicians Committee” report — which generally defines “healthy” as “not meat or dairy” — used to get a lot more publicity before, uh, someone blew their cover 3 years ago.

Any reporter who picks up their press release without identifying who is behind it is simply sloppy. (And the link in the fifth paragraph is by no means the only example.)

The annual “survey” still gets giddy treatment in local media, especially television news outlets, which typically gush when the “physicians report” gives good marks to the local airport.

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Again I draw your attention to Chicago O’Hare, while most of the travel media are still running around clucking like geese about Kennedy flight caps and the grossly overstated problems of mishandled bags and overbookings.

Yesterday, according to FlightStats.com, 621 departures and arrivals were canceled at O’Hare — and this time it was American Eagle and American combined that led the pack. So as the month winds down, American Airlines passengers as well as United passengers need to be especially wary. Check those flight schedules well in advance.

So far this month, more than 3,000 flights have been canceled at O’Hare. And the month isn’t over.

As I’ve said, weather is part of the problem — but we always have weather. And in past years, a good number of the canceled flights would have been flown — subject to delays, which get recorded statistically.

And this year, there has been a trend toward stranding passengers on idled planes on tarmacs for long periods of time, which has given the airline industry some of its worst publicity ever.

With the passengers’ rights movement gaining force, the last thing airlines want is pictures on TV and in the papers of passengers stuck in planes amid deteriorating conditions. And thanks to Kate Hanni’s coalition (www.flyersrights.com), some of those stranded passengers have cameras in the cabins and know where to send the videos and pictures to get attention.

So that’s one factor.

Another is pilot and other flight-crew shortages as the end of the month and year arrive. This has been an especially acute problem with United Airlines, incidentally. Crews “time out” near the end of any month, but United especially doesn’t seem to have enough resources in place to keep the planes flying.

Anyway, it’s another peak holiday travel time, and an awful lot of passengers are simply not being flown on flights that disappeared from the schedules. Those flights don’t show up as delays, of course.

Meanwhile, an awful lot of planes — and crews — are out of position, scattered all over the Midwest and beyond.

It’s a good time to stay home.

If you have to fly in the next week, well, good luck to you and a happier new year.

As I have said before, the air-travel story this month is not delays — which continue to be terrible. The story is cancellations.

If it’s canceled well in advance (and evidence shows that’s happening), a canceled flight doesn’t generally draw hundreds of passengers to the airport, where their misery is publicly manifest, and where the unhappy crowds make for compelling news photos and video. Cancel the flight well enough in advance, and a lot of the affected passengers don’t even arrive at the airport.

How many of those cancellations are being made preemtively by the airlines to keep the mounting problems out of sight?
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The only real business travel being done this week is by the poor devils running in primary elections in godforsaken places — and the reporters whose sorry job it is to follow them around and try to appear clever to each other, day after dreadful, soul-murdering day.

Via Drudge, who doesn’t ever do any actual reporting but would have made one heck of wire editor on some old Hearst paper (assembling other people’s work in the dead of night), the latest on Huntsman Huckabee.

The link is to a Chicago Tribune blog, incidentally.

Sweet Sufferin’ Jayzus, another Elmer Fudd emerges! Can’t we require some basic firearms-safety training, at least, if tough-talking politicians who managed to “duck” actual military service themselves are going to be packing heat on the campaign trail?

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The airlines have plenty of nightmares beyond the obvious ones like $150 a barrel oil. One of them is the spreading trend in the states to adopt legislation, modeled on a New York State law that takes effect New Years Day, spelling out what airlines must do when they strand passengers on parked planes for three hours and more.

Under the New York law, which has become the model for other states’ initiatives, airlines are required to provide food and water and to empty the toilet tanks when they’re full. These would not seem to be measures that you’d need a law to address, but airlines have demonstrably failed to address these problems on their own.

And they continue to strand passengers on idled planes, as they have since this fandango began last Dec. 29, when hundreds of planes were diverted from Dallas and thousands of passengers were stuck on planes idled at airports like Austin for eight hours, without food,  and as sanitary conditions deteriorated.

Legislators in New Jersey, California, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Florida are planning to introduce legislation similar to the New York law. Now a state senator in Arizona has stepped up to the plate.

The year-end holiday mess has begun at airports. United Airlines is canceling flights by the hundreds, partially because the airline’s flight-crew scheduling procedures have melted down as the month wanes.

Look for the passengers’ rights movement to gain traction in 2008. And when it does, the airlines will scream bloody murder about what the airline industry regards as misguided interference in operations — interference that they claim will have unforeseen negative consequences for the traveling public.

Whatever. A strong grassroots populist movement is afoot, and the airlines have no one to blame but themselves.

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Keep your eye on United Airlines as the month runs out, especially if you’re flying United, of course.

United has been canceling a pretty hefty number of flights lately, and its pilots union claims that bad weather in the Midwest isn’t the only reason. As the month and year wind down, a lot of flight crews are at their limits, procedurally and emotionally. And United, it seems, according to this Chicago Tribune report, has been having a hard time getting enough pilots on the job.

At O’Hare, according to FlightStats.com, there have been 339 United cancellations as of 5.30 p.m. Central time today (there were 3,246 departures and arrivals scheduled for the entire day, with the evening crush still ahead).

Yesterday, there were 636 departures and arrivals cancellations of United flights, out of a total of 2,773 departures and arrivals all day.

Press reports usually note only the departure cancellations. I count both departures and arrivals because both categories represent flights that were not flown at O’Hare, so please be aware of the distinction.

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We’ve been hearing about stranded passengers all year, from numerous instances in which airlines have kept passengers on idled planes on tarmacs for six, eight, 10 and in some cases over 12 hours.

Kate Hanni has done an astonishing job organizing a grassroots movement to press for passage of federal legislation to address these strandings, which are a direct consequence of a system stretched too tight to accommodate weather and other disruptions . See the Web site of the stranded passengers coalition at www.flyersrights.com

You’ve read about them. But now more people are recording their experiences, especially after this video on YouTube was widely disseminated. It shows what it was like on a Delta flight stranded on a tarmac for over 7 hours. Listen to the song and dance, shuck and jive, that emanates from the cockpit.

(This Delta flight wasn’t even close in its misery to many others. Overflowing or stopped-up toilets, sick, frightened and hungry passengers, and foul air have been standard experiences on these flights).

My prediction: Now that New York State has stepped up to the plate and passed its own version of a passengers rights bill that will force airlines to provide basic health, safety and sanitation provisions to passengers stuck on tarmacs for 3 hours or more, there will be strong pressure in 2008 for Congress to move on the federal passengers’ rights bills that have been languishing most of this year in the Senate and House.

Airlines, meanwhile, are doing everything they can to prevent any more of these videos and graphic reports from stranded flights.

Bad weather isn’t the only reason they’re canceling so many flights that would in the past have been flown, subject to delays. The airlines are very seriously worried about more bad publicity, especially now that some passenger back in seat 23B has video rolling.

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MaxJet went bankrupt and ceased operations today. The all-business-class discount airline had flown between the U.S. and London Stansted Airport for two years.

I mentioned here Dec. 8, after MaxJet abruptly halted trading in its shares in London and didn’t have the gumption to tell its customers why, that travelers should avoid the airline.

If you hold a ticket on MaxJet now, you’re what the bankruptcy court calls an unsecured creditor — meaning you’re at the back of the creditors’ line when it comes to divvying up any assets that might be left. But credit card companies issue refunds for services not provided, so if you’re holding a MaxJet ticket, call your credit card company immediately.

MaxJet’s end comes two months after American Airlines began flying daily for the first time between New York and London Stansted, in what was seen as a strategic move to grab business-class market share from MaxJet and Eos, which also flies to Stansted, an airport more convenient to London’s financial district than Heathrow.

American, as is its wont when barreling into a market to fight a competitor, also undercut MaxJet’s fares on its new Stansted service.

Eos, meanwhile, issued a statement saying that its load factors were over 73 percent in September. “All signs point toward continued growth” next year, said Eos, which flies 757s outfitted with 48 business-class seats. MaxJet flew 767s with 102 seats.

Lawrence Hunt, the chief executive of Silverjet, which flies all-business-class 767s from Newark to London Luton, told me today that Silverjet “should be profitable by March.” London-based Silverjet is the only of the four all-business-class startups that also offers a non-transatlantic route, between London and Dubai. The other all-business-class start-up is l’Avion, which flies between Paris and Newark.

(In May, British Airways is expected to launch a new mini-airline — being developed under the code name Project Lauren and said to be formally named “Open Skies” — with mostly premium-class seats between Paris [or perhaps Brussels] and Kennedy [or perhaps Newark]. The official announcement is scheduled for Jan. 9.)

MaxJet’s statement today about going belly-up did not say so, but Reuters reports that MaxJet “prepaid Eos Airlines for about 500 seats” to accommodate passengers it has stranded. I haven’t been able to confirm that yet.

Meanwhile, here is the sad and sorry Christmas Eve statement from MaxJet:

“Dear Friends of MAXjet:

It is with deep regret that I must inform you that MAXjet filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 24 December 2007.

With today’s fuel prices and the resulting impact on the credit climate for airlines, we are forced to take this drastic measure. Our top priority is to assist our customers, particularly those who already have begun their travel with us, in securing alternative flight accommodations.

MAXjet has contracted with Eos Airlines for seats on Eos’ scheduled all-Premium service to accommodate passengers awaiting a return flight between New York and London.

Passengers needing return travel between London, Los Angeles and Las Vegas will be contacted regarding their flight re-accommodations. Any customers who choose to make flight accommodations directly should seek a refund from their point of purchase (credit card or travel agency) for the unused leg of their journey.

We have also secured hotel rooms in London, New York, Las Vegas and Los Angeles through early January 2008 which we will provide to affected passengers whose travel plans have been disrupted.

On behalf of the entire MAXjet family, we extend our apologies to you for the inconvenience. We are extremely saddened to discontinue a service that we so passionately believe in, and we thank our loyal flyers who helped build MAXjet since our start in 2005.

Sincerely,

William D. Stockbridge

President and CEO

IF YOU HAVE STARTED YOUR TRAVEL… MAXjet is contacting customers with their new travel itineraries in priority order based on date of departure. Please contact MAXjet Customer Care at: US phone number: 1-866-837-9880 UK phone number: 44 (0)1279 216 478 Email: mailto:intransit@maxjet.com

Please have your contact information and either a confirmation number or flight date/number ready. Any customers who choose to make flight accommodations directly should seek a refund from their point of purchase (credit card or travel agency) for the unused leg of their journey.

IF YOU HAVE NOT YET BEGUN YOUR TRAVEL, BUT HAVE BOOKED TICKETS… Seek a refund directly from your point of purchase (credit card or travel agency). For further information, passengers who have not yet begun travel may contact: US phone number: 1-888-435-9629; UK phone number: 44 (0)1279 216 428 Email: mailto:%20info@maxjet.com Please have your contact information and either a confirmation number or flight date/number ready.
Investor Relations ”

–end of MaxJet statement.

Incidentally, MaxJet said it had “contracted” with Eos, the all-business-class carrier that started up operations about the same time, to fly passengers awaiting a return flight to New York from London. Those passengers will be accommodated when seats are available on Eos, which stands to gain considerably from MaxJet leaving the New York-London Stansted market.

Keep in mind that a “contract” by a bankrupt company to secure services is a questionable proposition. Have a backup plan if you’re one of those affected.

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(Road Warrior Stocking Stuffer? Caffeinated sugar-free mints. See last item.)

What is the German carrier Lufthansa thinking, buying a 19 percent stake in JetBlue, which has no overseas routes but a whole lot of point-to-point routes into Kennedy airport? (Cost of investment: $300 million.)

Two words: Open Skies.

At the end of March, under the new Open Skies agreement between the U.S. and the European Union, European carriers will be able to greatly expand operations in the United States — assuming they can get the scarce, and soon-to-be-scarcer, airport slots.

And what does JetBlue have? Lots of slots and gates at Kennedy — where the feds are about to crack down on allocating slots. Not to mention a very good reputation for customer service, last Feb. 14’s ice-storm strandings notwithstanding.

Suddenly, it makes a whole lot of sense to me. With British Air already committed to launching a subsidiary airline to fly from European cities to Kennedy and other U.S. cities in May, and with other carriers looking for entry and gateway slots, a new game is about to begin in international air travel. And the buy-in is high.

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I like rodeo and professional bull-riding, which are two separate things. I admire the hell out of rodeoers, male and female, and I am in awe of the skill and stone courage it takes to get on the back of a bull who’s been trained to be mean. Or let’s say even meaner than your average bull.

If I’m on a business trip somewhere and there’s a rodeo in town, I’ll try to make it.

On the other hand …

There’s been a lot of press lately about bull-riding as a great spectator sport, the “new NASCAR,” as it’s being called. That’s wildly exaggerated, but it’s true enough that the sport is gaining lots of new fans.

But there’s no mention of the physical realities of bull-riding, a sport in which a 30-year-old who’s been on the circuit for a dozen years is often over the hill physically.

I like to ride. Horses, not bulls, of course. Like most recreational riders, I tend to frown on a horse that’s bucking in any form. If a frisky bucking horse can’t be lunged out, stay off it unless you’re prepared possibly to get dumped.

Riding in the Southwest and West over the years, I’ve gotten to know a fair number of cowboys and wranglers, some of whom have been on the bull-riding circuit. The bull riders often share two things in common: Very severe physical injuries and a lack of health insurance.

Every horse rider has been dumped on occasion.

But try it on a raging bull, in a sport where the best of the best are hoping to hang on for 8 seconds. (The bull always wins, no matter what.)

Here is the reality of professional bull-riding. And these guys are the money guys at or near the top of the sport. Behind them are hundreds of itinerant cowboys scrounging gas money to get to the next event, without the dough to do more than stumble into an emergency room hoping for a quick patch-up before heading off into that sunset.

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