Travel Holiday

After years of record prosperity and sales, the business jet industry went into a nose dive at the end of 2008.

No one yet has a firm handle on the situation (the General Aviation Manufacturers Association is issuing an industry review on Feb. 17), but it’s obviously dire, with corporate flight departments cutting back or bailing out entirely, and with a glut of used planes on the market.

More background on that later, but stats released today by Aviation Research Group/US show a sharp drop in domestic flight departures in December. Compared with December 2007, departures of business aircraft were down 22.8 percent.

(On the other hand, the December figures showed an improvement over November 2008, when departures were down 33 percent.)

Here’s a breakdown of the December departures:

–Departures of “Part 91 aircraft” — corporate and private aircraft (jets and turbo-props) were down 15.3 percent, with the biggest drop (not counting turbo props, which were off 23.2 percent) in large-cabin jets (off 16.9 percent).

–Departures of “Part 135″ aircraft — that is, aircraft used for charters, were down 33.3 percent, with the biggest drop in large-cabin jets (down 44 percent).

–Departures of fractionals were down 32.1 percent, though the biggest drop was in small-cabin jets (down 44.2 percent).

Aviation Research Group/U.S., Inc. provides specialized aviation services to companies that manufacture, finance, operate, maintain, and market commercial and business aircraft, as well providing products and services to end-user consumers worldwide. It also performs on-site safety audits for corporate flight departments, charter operators, and commercial airlines.

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—SINGAPORE ADDS 777s ON HONG KONG ROUTE — Singapore Airlines is phasing out its 747s in favor of a service upgrade – with fewer seats — on its San Francisco-Hong Kong-Singapore route, replacing the 747 with a Boeing 777-300ER on daily flights. And on the existing San Francisco/Seoul/Singapore route, Singapore is adding a second Boeing 777.
The new aircraft feature 278 seats, including eight 35-inch wide first class seats; 42 horizontal-flat business class seats and 228 seats in coach. With the switch to 777s, the routes will offer Singapore’s top-of-the-line in-flight entertainment amenities, including larger LCD monitors with an in-flight entertainment system that has more than 1,000 on-demand options; iPod and iPhone connectivity; Berlitz language courses and word processing software.
The 747s being phased out have 372 seats — 12 in first class, 50 in business and 310 in coach.
Singapore’s passenger fleet consists of 101 passenger aircraft: 14 B747-400s, 76 B777s, five A340-500s, and six A380-800s.

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—NEW PREMIUM LUFTHANSDA LOUNGE AT JFK — Lufthansa opened its new lounge last week at Kennedy International Airport. At nearly 16,000 square feet, it’s about twice the size of the airline’s original JFK lounge, and features three levels, one for each of the airline’s premium segments. The $10 million upgrade is part of Lufthansa’s $200 million lounge-renovation program. The new facility is located directly behind security in Terminal 1.

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—ANOTHER RESTAURANT CHAIN FOUNDERS — ARG Enterprises Inc., which operates 69 Black Angus Steakhouse restaurants in seven states in the western U.S., filed for bankruptcy protection, citing a business falloff in the economic slowdown. Among other casual-dining chains that have filed for bankruptcy in the last year are o file for protection in the last year, including Bennigan’s Steak and Ale restaurants and Buffet Holdings Inc.

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—FOLIES FINI — After a 49-year run, the Les Folies Bergere topless revue at the Tropicana in Las Vegas is closing March 28. The Parisian revue opened on Dec. 24, 1959, under entertainment director Lou Walters, the nightclub impresario and father of Barbara Walters.

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—SAFETY AWARENESS — Following up on the US Airways plane that ditched on the Hudson last week, with all 155 on board rescued, TripAdvisor.com says most passengers pay attention to safety instructions on planes. In a survey of more than 2,100 U.S. respondents, conducted from January 16 - January 20, 68 percent said they frequently pay attention to the in-flight safety presentation and 30 percent said they always do. Of the 32 percent who said they rarely or never pay attention to the in-flight safety presentation, 81 percent said it is because they already know it by heart. Twelve percent said they avoid booking an exit-row seat because they don’t want the responsibility of opening the doors and assisting the crew in an emergency.

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Sometimes flight attendants can save lives, as was the case last week on US Airways Flight 1549, ditched in the Hudson River.

And most flight attendants do their jobs very well, despite the hammering they have received on salary and work conditions over the years from airline managements.

But too often, an overly entitled flight attendant, self-appointed as a junior G-lady or G-man, can grossly abuse their authority, as in this shocking case and others in which passengers who run afoul of a martinet in uniform can be labeled as terrorists. This sort of thing happens more often than we think.

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Under the general rule that no good deeds go unpunished, US Airways has taken a little heat for a perception that it has pitched Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III as the singular focus of the story about the amazing crash-landing and survival of all aboard on the Hudson last week.

In fact, let me say that a review of US Airways’ media updates and press releases since the afternoon of the crash shows that 1. The airline was forthcoming, timely and useful in its statements. 2. The airline consistently made note of the entire crew and did not overtly single out the captain in its updates.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle, mostly created by the pilots’ and flight attendants’ unions, over the way Captain Sullenberger was presented in the media as the hero of the day, with almost no recognition given to the co-pilot and the three flight attendants whose skill, courage and level-headedness obviously were key to helping those 150 passengers (who were apparently also level-headed) get safely off that sinking airplane.

The unions blamed the media, but in recent posts I have groused that the basic problem was that detailed information on the co-pilot and flight attendants simply was not available to reporters on deadline. Sullenberger’s CV, on the other hand, was readily available from the Web site of Safety Reliability, a company he had earlier formed to promote aviation safety. That’s where the media also got the photo of Sullenberger that has been widely used.

Last Friday, the day after the event, US Airways CEO Doug Parker went to New York for a city ceremony honoring the first-responders — the maritime workers of the New York harbor whose brilliant performance on the river also saved lives.

Here’s what Parker said as regards the US Airways employees:

“I, like the rest of you, am extremely proud of our crew for their quick and heroic actions. Today they are safe and doing well, and along with so many other members of our team, are assisting with the official investigation, and they also extend their gratitude to all of the organizations I just mentioned.”

A US Airways spokesman, Jim Olsen, said today that the airline’s comments throughout have emphasized the role of the entire crew. The numerous timely US Airways updates on the accident — starting within a half hour of the crash — support that assertion, by the way.

“The language was very clear that we wanted to publicly thank the crew for their quick thinking,” Olsen said. “We totally understand how the perception might be that we were trying to pitch him (Sullenberger). I can assure you 100 percent we have not been pitching this story at all. We have been very much in reactive mode” in handling press requests for interviews.

In fact, the first time US Airways mentioned Sullenberger was in a statement on Friday afternoon that provided the names, ages and some career background on the captain, the co-pilot and the three flight attendants.

Now, obviously, Sullenberger was the main guy who saved the day. If he had not managed to set that crippled airplane down so skillfully in the Hudson, and then with great aplomb overseen the evacuation from the plane, we would be talking today about a far different kind of story.

The other crew were overlooked because reporters knew almost nothing about them. An investigation is under way, and obviously the crew can’t be holding press conferences.

But the unions could have been more on the ball last week and put some useful information about the crew. They could have released photographs, for example. I absolutely guarantee you, crew photos would have been prominently used in the news accounts.

Instead, they issued turgid proclamations that looked like they had been written by a committee and that contained no useful information. Now they’re carping this week about how the media largely overlooked the other four crew members?

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An investment consortium including Citigroup, which in turns owns Citibank — and which received a $326 billion rescue package from U.S. taxpayers in November — wants to buy London’s Gatwick Airport, according to a report today by Reuters.

Reuters reports from London:

“A consortium consisting of Citi Infrastructure Investors, Vancouver Airport Services and John Hancock Life Insurance company has made an indicative bid for London’s Gatwick airport, a spokesman said on Monday. The group is bidding under the name the Lysander Gatwick Investment Group …”

Gatwick, London’s second largest airport, is now owned by the Spanish company Ferrovial, which is soliciting bids. The Times of London newspaper says in tomorrow’s editions that the bids, by five competitors, range up to $2.95 billion.

In May 2007, Citigroup’s Citi Alternative Investments unit established City Infrastructire Investors to “invest in and manage infrastructure assets.”

Reuters said then that Citi was “building a $3 billion fund, including $500 million of its own capital” for the unit to make infrastructure investments partly as a “hedge against inflation.”

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US Airways management, as well as unions for pilots and flight attendants, are scrambling to re-position themselves on the US Airways crash-landing in the Hudson last week — amid richly deserved criticism that the co-pilot and the three flight attendants did not get proper credit for their roles in the amazing evacuation and rescue from the half-submerged airplane.

As I said yesterday when the US Airways pilots union issued a statement complaining that the media was at fault for focusing almost exclusively on the heroism of the captain, the unions are a little late out of the gate complaining about this.

In a breaking news story, reporters (and in this case the Times led the way, leaving the two feckless New York tabloids in the dust) are hauling butt to get the facts and get to the people who were there. Reporters found dozens of passengers to interview, and it so happened that a photo and detailed information about Captain Sullenberger were readily available.

And there is no question that Sullenberger’s skill in landing that crippled airplane on a river and helping to get everyone out safely was the main story.

I immediately took note of the obvious brilliant performance of the other crew members when I first posted about the crash immediately after it happened. But information on the co-pilot and the flight attendants was simply not available.

US Airways, which had rushed to get into the act and lionize the captain, issued a statement today that is an obvious reaction to the criticism that the rest of the crew was overlooked, if not ignored, in the aftermath of the crash and rescue. It said:

“US Airways is extremely proud of the professional Crew of Flight 1549. All five of these outstanding aviation professionals performed in an exceptional way under extraordinary circumstances. The company also appreciates the generous outpouring of support these five employees are receiving, and we recognize the media’s good intentions to speak with them as soon as possible. As the US Airline Pilots Association (USAPA) and the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) have also said in a statement, the crew has communicated their willingness to share their experiences at the right time. At this stage of the process and investigation, however, they are respectfully declining all media interview requests.

“US Airways will continue to work with the crew of Flight 1549 and their union leaders to determine when media interviews are appropriate.”

OK, airline, unions and flack-shops hired to do damage control: Stop whining about the fact that the stories are not adequately being told, if the subjects of said stories are not available. But trust me, this story, like most, has a sell-by date, and a new president is being inaugurated tomorrow. Very fast, this story passes into the realm of book-deal.

Meanwhile, here is the statement, purportedly issued late last week but seen here only today, from the flight attendants union. Like the pilots union, the flight attendants union seems to believe that dry proclamations, approved by bureaucratic committee and reflecting nothing from the actual participants nor any detail that reporters have not already dug out themselves, are sufficient to drive a story forward:

“US Airways flight attendants, represented by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) were instrumental in the evacuation of 150 passengers earlier this week as Flight 1549 made an emergency water landing in New York’s Hudson River. Mike Flores, AFA-CWA US Airways President issued the following statement praising the professionalism of the three Charlotte, NC crew members:

“‘What began as a normal flight suddenly turned into something far from normal. US Airways Flight 1549 departed New York’s LaGuardia airport shortly after 3 pm. Within minutes of becoming airborne the crew faced a seemingly impossible situation.

“‘While the investigation of Flight 1549 will take months to complete we do know this much - the skill and professionalism of the entire crew made all the difference.

“‘Never in the history of aviation has a commercial jet made a perfectly successful emergency water ditching. That history is forever changed now because of the actions of the crew of flight 1549.

“‘Once the aircraft came to rest in the water, the years of experience and training of the flight attendants took over. All 150 passengers were safely evacuated and the crew was the last to exit the aircraft. That did not happen because of luck. The only way this happened was because flight attendants are first and foremost safety professionals, trained for an event such as occurred yesterday afternoon.

“‘The media is calling the event the, ‘Miracle on the Hudson’. Obviously the end result was remarkable. Others may judge the result as a miracle but AFA-CWA believes what happened yesterday should be renamed to ‘Professionalism on the Hudson’. Clearly, the entire crew were heroes.’”

[My note, the "media" did not coin that asinine "Miracle on the Hudson" term, which came from New York Gov. David ("Hey, It's a Miracle I Got This Job") Paterson.]

Nevertheless, I agree with the flight attendants union. Or I should say, they agree with me.

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[Right: Captain Sullenberger]

An e-mail to members went out today from US Airline Pilots Association, which represents 5,200 mainline US Airways pilots.

The union says it wants to address the issue of “the way the press emphasized the captain of the flight, seemingly ignoring the crew.”

“This has not gone unnoticed by any of us,” the union says. “It is apparent the press wanted a ‘hero’ and Captain Sullenberger was selected.”

Quoting Captain James Ray, the union’s “media sub-committee chairman” (and its spokesman), the union statement said:

“We all share the frustration about the press omitting, to a large degree, the efforts of First Officer Jeff Skiles and the three flight attendants.”

The statement went on, “In talking to countless reporters over the last several days, Captain Ray attempted to stress the point and educate them on the matter of ‘crew concept.’ For whatever reason, they generally chose not to mention this in many of their reports.”

Well, the “reason” may be that the media had very little to go on, so far as the other crew members were concerned. A union guy making statements to “educate” the press about the crew concept is not going to do it.

In defense of the media, let’s look at the facts:

–Captain Sullenberger himself brought that plane down safely, through great skill and level-headedness (and with no small thanks to his experience as a glider pilot).

–Sullenberger, a dashing figure in his uniform, stood out on the West Side dock where many reporters rushed after the crash. Though he wasn’t commenting, he was obviously the Guy in Charge.

–A stock photo and detailed online background information were readily available of Sullenberger. And US Airways officials rushed to lionize him.

–Information on the SIC (the co-pilot, Jeffrey B. Skiles, 49) was not as readily available. Nor did US Airways, or the union representing the flight attendants, get out timely information on the three flight attendants: Sheila Dail, 57, Doreen Welsh, 58, and Donna Dent, 51.

–While the most heads-up reporters, mostly from the Times and local T.V., managed to interview dozens of surviving passengers, who were readily available, as far as I know the flight attendants and co-pilot were not readily available.

This was a breaking story, union. Reporters are hauling butt to collect accurate information and get it online, into print, or on the air. They can’t wait for you to draft your statement, get it cleared through union bureaucracy, and issue it three days later.

Stipulated: Captain Sullenberger, First Officer Skiles and flight attendants Dail, Welsh and Dent did a great job. It was a crew working together, as trained.

So let’s hear from them all. In what’s left of a timely manner.

Meanwhile, flight attendant Welsh, who had a badly cut leg, was released from the hospital “and all crew members have now departed from New York,” the pilots union’s “special update” — today — says.

And now the squabbling over book and movie “rights” begins. That’s never pretty. Also, I see that the rapacious therapy industry is circling the survivors, hooks baited with lucrative diagnoses.

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Rachel Maddow, on her nightly news and opinion program on MSNBC, adroitly picked up the right theme about the US Airways crash in the Hudson River. She stressed that a skilled, drilled and ready force of civilian and governmental first-responders was the heart of that amazing rescue — and that this is the essence of that aspect of “homeland” security.

The rescue did not happen by accident or through a feat of deering-do, but rather as a result of investment, quality training and steady maintenance in systems, equipment and people, whether they worked on civilian ferry boats or for the various local and state agencies that maintain the New York harbor maritime infrastructure.

Meanwhile, US Airways yesterday released the names and some background on each of the crew members on the flight, starting with the famous Captain Sullenberger. I’m glad to see the co-pilot and the flight attendants get some of the credit:

–Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger, III, age 58, joined US Airways (PSA Airlines) in 1980. He has a total of 19,663 flight hours.

–First officer Jeffrey B. Skiles, age 49, joined US Airways (USAir) in 1986. He has a total of 15,643 flight hours.

–Flight Attendant Sheila Dail, age 57, joined US Airways (Piedmont Airlines) in 1980 and has more than 28 years experience with the airline.

–Flight Attendant Doreen Welsh, age 58, joined US Airways (Allegheny Airlines) in 1970 and has more than 38 years experience with the airline.

–Flight Attendant Donna Dent, age 51, was hired by US Airways (Piedmont Airlines) in 1982 and has more than 26 years with the airline.

(You might note the various iterations of US Airways in those resumes).

And there are two letters to the editor in the Times this morning that make excellent points.

One, from Kathryn Keene, a former flight attendant, of North Conway, N.H., says that “it is time for the flying public to inspect the way flight crews, pilots and flight attendants are treated by their respective airlines. For many years, retirements have been stolen, salaries have been pillaged and airlines have merged mercilessly, belittling the highly skilled and impassioned professionals to whom so many millions of us entrust our lives.”

And another, from Ellen Steinbaum, of Cambridge, Mass., makes this salient point after noting the great performance by crew, passengers and rescuers:

“But what does it say that the feel-good story of the week is about a plane crash?”

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Hotel numbers are tumbling as travel chokes.

The U.S. hotel industry experienced declines in all three key performance measurements, including double-digit drops in occupancy and revenue per available room, during the week of January 4-10, compared with the same period a year ago, according to Smith Travel Research.

Occupancy fell 16.9 percent. Revenue per available room, the benchmark figure for hotels, dropped an amazing 22.9 percent. And finally, daily room rates — which had remained fairly steady as the hotel industry tried to hold onto rates despite the reality of a demand collapse — fell 7.2 percent.

At the luxury segment, which is reeling, occupancy was down 24.4 percent, and revenue per available room was down 31.1 percent, while (posted) rates were down only 8.9 percent. Every luxury hotel is now ready to deal on rates.

After years of record profits, the hotel industry is staggered by these numbers, and no one knows when and where it will end.

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Of course, the “miracle” workers are at it again. That is, the media keep referring to the spectacular crash-landing and brilliant rescue of passengers and crew from US Airways Flight 1549 yesterday as a “miracle.”

Can we please grow up and get off our knees and stop invoking the supernatural, media? The stirring rescue of 155 on board that Airbus A320 half-submerged in the Hudson River off 48th Street yesterday occurred not through divine intervention but through a combination of skill, courage, comportment and preparedness.

And we should be proud, again, of New York in a crisis.

Here is what happened. Knowing the plane was not going anywhere but down, the captain, C.B. Sullenberger, 58, with consummate skill and steadiness, glided that baby onto the river as if it were on pontoons.

In the cabin, flight attendants steadily directed passengers toward the exits. Passengers got out calmly. The captain made two passes through the cabin to make sure that everyone was out, and then he left the literally sinking ship.

Outside, boats of all kinds from the Hudson River waterfront were already nudging up against the airplane. Rescue operations, some of them very harrowing, began immediately. New York’s legendary maritime navy swarmed the scene and performed brilliantly — just as it had, remember, during 9/11.

All 155 on board the plane were saved.

This was not a miracle. This was another magnificent performance by people who do not cave. This was New York at its finest, again.

The miracle theme, repeated incessantly in the media today, was also picked up by New York’s Governor David (”Hey, It’s a Miracle I Got This Job”) Paterson, who has been prattling on about the “Miracle on the Hudson.”

Get a grip, people. I’ve been in a bad airplane crash, and surviving it was no miracle. In my case, it was due to luck, dumb luck, coupled with great skill by pilots who managed to wrestle down an airplane that seemed doomed.

Here is my problem with this “miracle” baloney.

Horrible things happened all over yesterday. Innocent children died in Gaza. There were hideous car accidents all over. People lost their homes and went into the cold due to Wall Street thievery.

Somehow, divine intervention is never cited for the horrors.

When I got home after I went down on a plane in the Amazon two years ago, the television crews trooped to the house like trick-or-treaters (or, as one of my neighbors said, “as if you were a serial killer”). Especially the local ones, they kept asking me about some “miracle.”

Here’s what I told one of them, who looked crestfallen to have his angle kicked away.

“No, I don’t believe in miracles. I believe in good luck and bad luck. If this was a miracle, what do you call what happened to those 154 people who died in a mid-air collision that I walked away from?”

I happened to TiVo that interview on TV that night. The anchorwoman introduced it by saying, “Now we have an amazing story about a local man who doesn’t believe in miracles.”

And the caption on the screen beneath my face reiterated the point: “Doesn’t Believe in Miracles,” it said.

That is correct.

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