Tight Airline Staffing Leaves Little Room for Error

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

THE MIDDLE SEAT
By SCOTT MCCARTNEY

Tight Airline Staffing Leaves Little Room for Error
March 8, 2005; Page D3

Airline operations have deteriorated this winter, and there were more late flights and lost luggage than a year earlier. With airline staffing already thin as we approach the spring and summer rush, all this may be a bad omen for travelers as things get busier in coming weeks and months. In Detroit three weeks ago, baggage piled to the ceiling at a Northwest Airlines check-in counter. In Philadelphia at Christmas, people were stranded along with baggage as short-staffed US Airways suffered an operational meltdown.

(snip)

Why the mess? Airline workers claim that staffing has been stretched so thin at financially ailing airlines that there aren't enough people to get the job done when things get busy. Airlines deny that. But the reality of leaner staffing is that bad weather, school-vacation crowds or even a spate of sick calls can hurt an airline operation because carriers have cut to the bone and left themselves little cushion. Indeed, just last week, the DOT's inspector general issued a report on its investigation into Comair's and US Airways' December debacles, and confirmed the staffing shortages at US Airways played a major role in leaving travelers stranded at Philadelphia International Airport during the holiday-season rush. US Airways was short 320 workers on Dec. 26 in Philadelphia ground staff alone, according to the inspector general.

With fares low, oil prices high and competition fierce, airlines have to run lean. They can't afford as many extra planes, spare crews or baggage-throwers, and they've cut back on overtime. So the new reality for travelers is that it likely will take longer to recover when big crowds or big storms hit -- airlines may not have extra crews to call in, for example. Travelers may fly into more baggage pileups and canceled flights as business picks up. "If you're staffed for 'just enough,' it may work fine most of the time. But if something goes wrong, 'just enough' is not enough," says J. Randolph Babbitt, president of Eclat Consulting, which works with airlines. "You can wind up very short very quickly."

(snip)

Compare the head count at the biggest airlines and how much flying they did, and you'll see they are far more productive now than four years ago, or even one year ago. That has been a necessary change, one driven by technology such as self-service kiosks and Internet ticket booking that eliminate jobs, along with smarter operations, more-productive labor agreements, cutbacks such as eliminating food service, and outsourcing work. Airlines needed to slim up and unproductive union contracts needed to change if money-losing companies are to get healthy again. But it also raises the question of whether airlines have cut too lean. That's because airline operations have struggled more this fall and winter than a year earlier. On-time arrival rates were down in October, November, December and January compared with a year earlier, according to the DOT. Flight cancellations were up in December and January, and the number of mishandled bags rose in those months, according to the most recent DOT reports.

(snip)

Given all the turmoil airlines have suffered, you have to give them credit for performing better on most scores than they did when times were good in 2000. But you also have to worry that recent worsening portends trouble ahead. Fares are cheap, planes are full -- fuller than they were even at the peak in 2000 -- and large crowds are coming this spring and summer. We could be headed back to the good old days -- remember the late 1990s? -- of lost bags and late flights.

• Write to Scott McCartney at [e-mail]

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http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111023942120772837,00.html

[Coastie for Truth]

1. What I am noticing is the jump in "line maintenance" issues

where the flight is delayed for all manner of "minor" maintenance items. Used to be unusual on jet aircraft (common on DC7's and Constellations - dropped with the DC-8 and 707 -- now seems to be happening frequently again)