Holiday travel was ‘smooth sailing’

By Brad Foss

Associated Press

Travelers and airline executives were prepared for the worst during one of the year’s busiest weeks for air travel. Instead many are finding themselves pleasantly surprised.

Holiday flyers braced for snarled lines at security checkpoints after the week began with a passenger’s alleged attempt to ignite explosives in his sneakers in midflight.

Yet, like Nancy Franger of Elkhart, Ind., many say it was "smooth sailing" compared to previous years.

Franger didn’t mind when baggage screeners at O’Hare International Airport on Friday confiscated her nail clippers and files as she headed to Keystone, Colo., for a week-long ski trip with her husband and three sons.

"I’m glad they caught that stuff," she said.

The amount of time passengers spent waiting to check-in or to have their bags X-rayed ranged from several minutes to a couple of hours, depending on the time of day, the airport and even the terminal.

Around the country, many travelers, including young children, were asked to walk through metal detectors with their shoes off, while some shuffled through in their socks by choice.

A middle-aged teacher at New York’s LaGuardia Airport was asked to finish her cup of coffee by a baggage screener, concerned something could be hidden inside. A 78-year-old woman with a pacemaker was hand-frisked at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix.

Performing arts instructor Jim Hutchinson, 51, of Fort Worth, Texas, said he didn’t mind removing his cowboy hat, boots and belt buckle as part of the screening process at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.

"I’m kind of shocked things were so lax before," Hutchinson said. "It’s crowded. Check-in takes a few minutes. What’s the big deal?"

Not everyone was happy: At San Francisco International Airport, 44-year-old Mike Fredrickson, an artist who lives in Milwaukee, said the heightened scrutiny unnerved him, and that he may drive rather than fly on future trips.

Airline companies had feared many travelers would stay away from planes, but several major carriers said planes were 90 percent full at their peak — about as packed as jetliners ever get and better than the 85 percent forecast by the Air Transport Association, the industry’s Washington-based trade group.

For the week ending Dec. 27, passenger volumes were down about 11 percent from a year ago, said David Swerienga, the group’s chief economist. That’s better than the 17 percent decline the industry was predicting for the last two weeks of December and the first week of January.

"It has been better than we would have thought four to six weeks ago," said John Tague, chief executive officer of American Trans Air, the nation’s 10th-largest carrier and one of a handful of low-cost, low-fare airlines that have outperformed the rest of the industry lately.

Still, the entire industry is operating with an average of 16 percent fewer available seats because of schedule cuts made after Sept. 11.

And demand remains weak: United Airlines carried more than 200,000 passengers a day on several occasions last week, compared with about 250,000 on its best days a year ago, spokesman Joe Hopkins said.

The largest carriers are not likely to report profits until next summer, at the earliest, because they continue to lure passengers by offering extremely cheap fares, said Ray Neidl, airline analyst at ABN Amro. Delta Air Lines, the third largest carrier, warned last week that it expects to lose $500 million in the fourth quarter.

To better handle the increased passenger traffic during the holiday season, Southwest Airlines dispatched administrative employees from its Dallas headquarters to several airports around the country. The budget carrier even bought out a magazine stand at Baltimore’s BWI Airport to make room for a larger security checkpoint.

In the days before and after Christmas, lines were often more backed up as passengers checked their bags, but the addition of baggage and passenger screening lanes appeared to help move travelers into the boarding gate areas more smoothly.

Crowds were everywhere at Denver International Airport — from check-in to baggage claim areas — but waits were typically no more than 20 minutes.

"Passengers are patient, and workers are just doing a great job moving people through the lines," said Mike Bowers, vice president of stations operations for Frontier Airlines. "Believe it or not, it’s been a good couple of weeks."

Industry officials said airport tarmacs were less congested than a year ago because of the industry’s trimmed-down service, which has made it easier for planes to take-off and taxi to their gates after landing.

Nevertheless, airline executives acknowledged other bottlenecks have emerged in recent weeks.

Wait times have become longer at passenger check-in lines because of new federal regulations that require carriers’ employees to "dump search" some passengers’ luggage, according to Southwest’s senior director of ground operations, Matt Buckley.

Boarding gates are crowded with passengers who arrived a couple of hours before their flights and then found check-in and security screening took less time than expected.

"It’s like a snake swallowing an elephant, at times," Buckley conceded.