Joe Sharkey At Large

Continental Airlines, usually the first to report its monthly operational results, says it had a load factor of 87.8 percent in July — 3.1 points higher than the already high load factor in July of 2008.

The load factor is the percentage of available seats filled by paying customers. A load factor above 80 percent means that on most flights, all of the seats are always full.

The current whopping load factors, which will likely be similar on other major airlines, don’t mean there’s an increase in passenger demand. Au contraire. The number of people flying Continental decreased by 3.4 percent in July – but the number of seats available decreased by 6.3 percent.

Meanwhile, passenger revenue — the money the airline collects from its customers — was off by 16.5 to 17.5 percent, Continental estimates.

Do the math and you will achieve a good understanding of what lies ahead. A shrinking system, with planes packed full. And higher fares to jack up those abysmal revenue numbers.

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Sudden turbulence caused injuries to at least 26 passengers on a Continental 767 flying from Rio de Janeiro to Houston this morning. The plane made an emergency landing in Miami.

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I don’t know how secure we should feel whenever we watch the spectacle of the TSA and the local airport cops getting hysterical over a common lunatic, as appears to be the case at LaGuardia today when some nut (drunk and “spaced out” as a vigilant clinician/ticket agent said) showed up with a bag of wires.

Immediate hysteria ensued by the TSA and the Port Authority police (not to be confused with the actual New York City Police Department, which knows how to handle crazy incidents without in the process making them far worse). Here’s the New York Daily News report. Some planes were even called back off the runway and passengers were required to get off.

The TSA we know all about. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police used to be mainly in charge law enforcement of bridges and tunnels, but they’re the main police presence at airports too.

In a real terrorist plot, mass confusion and hysteria — obviously pretty easy to create; I mean how hard is it to find a pliant idiot and hysterical authorities these days? –might be employed as a diversion while the actual plot slips through. The actual plot would be something we weren’t expecting, carried out in the chaos while the authorities ran around barking orders (uncoordinated and conflicting, would be my guess)  and scaring everyone to death.

By the way, the post of director of the TSA has been vacant since January. I’ll repeat that. No one is in charge at the TSA.

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