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LOS
ANGELES—Imagine two scales at the airline ticket
counter, one for your bags and one for you. The price of
a ticket depends upon the weight of both.
That may
not be so far-fetched.
“You
listen to the airline CEOs, and nothing is beyond their
imagination,” said David Castelveter, a spokesman for
the Air Transport Association (ATA), a Washington,
D.C.-based trade group. “They have already begun to
think exotically. Nothing is not under the microscope.”
He declined to discuss what any individual airline might
be contemplating, including charging passengers based on
weight.
With
fuel costs almost tripling since 2000, now accounting
for as much as 40 percent of operating expenses at some
carriers, according to the ATA, airlines are cutting
costs and raising revenue in ways that once were
unthinkable. US Airways Group Inc. has eliminated
snacks. Delta Air Lines Inc. is charging $25 for
telephone reservations. AMR Corp.’s American Airlines
last month became the first US company to charge $15 for
one checked bag.
Even a
cold drink may be harder to come by aloft.
Singapore Airlines Ltd., whose shares have fallen 7.5
percent this year, is “trying to eliminate unnecessary
quantities of extra water” to save weight, chief
executive officer Chew Choon Seng said in an interview.
“When
you hear some people talking about putting showers on
their planes, that strikes me as counterintuitive,” he
said.
After US
airlines reported combined first-quarter losses of $1.7
billion and crude oil jumped to a record $133.17 a
barrel on May 21, almost double from a year earlier,
fares based on a passenger’s weight may be a logical
step, said Robert Mann, head of R.W. Mann & Co., an
aviation consultant based in Port Washington, New York.
“If you
look at the air-freight business, that’s the way they’ve
always done it,” he said. “We’re getting treated like
air freight when we travel by airlines, anyway.”
“Laughter aside, the airlines are just in a desperate
situation,” said David Swierenga, president of
consulting firm Aeroecon in Round Rock, Texas, who
dismissed weight-based ticket sales and steep price
increases as unrealistic.
Since
December, eight companies have ceased flying, largely
because of fuel costs—MaxJet Airways Inc., Big Sky
Transportation Co., Aloha Airlines Inc., ATA Airlines,
Skybus Airlines Inc., Eos Airlines, Silverjet Plc. and
the charter-flight operator Champion Air. Air Midwest, a
division of Midwest Air Group Inc., is ceasing
operations this month.
Airlines
may report combined losses of $6.1 billion this year,
the worst since 2003, the International Air Transport
Association (Iata) said Monday in Istanbul. Swierenga
said the only meaningful way for them to reach
profitability is to idle a portion of their fleets,
which would allow them to reduce costs associated with
fuel and labor.
“The
solution lies in capacity cuts,” he said.
That’s
already begun. American said on May 21 up to 45 planes,
most of them aging Boeing Co. MD-80s, will be dropped
from its 655-jet fleet along with as many as 40 aircraft
from its 305-plane Eagle regional unit.
“Most
other airlines will have similar cuts, as well,” said
Jim Corridore, an analyst for Standard & Poor’s in
New York.
Airlines
have also taken shorter-term steps even if they have
stopped short of weighing passengers.
Japan
Airlines Corp. is using crockery in first-class and
business-class cabins that is 20-percent lighter than
the service items they replaced.
Southwest Airlines Co. is flying slower—by 72 seconds,
for example, on Houston-Los Angeles flights, which now
take 3 hours and 14 minutes. That saves 8.7 gallons of
fuel for each of the airline’s four daily nonstops on
the 1,387-mile route, 34.8 gallons a day overall, said
Marilee McInnis, a company spokeswoman.
Southwest comes closest to charging for weight, asking
passengers to buy a second seat if their girth prevents
the armrest from lowering.
American
Airlines has switched from using onboard power units
that draw down jet fuel while planes are parked at gates
to electrical generators on the ground, said Steve Lott,
a spokesman for the Iata.
Deutsche
Lufthansa AG, Europe’s second-largest airline, is one of
several that has begun washing planes more frequently,
said Lott, pointing out that dirt on a fuselage
increases wind resistance.
Cathay
Pacific Airways Ltd.,
Hong Kong’s largest carrier, is ordering money-saving changes that
passengers won’t notice, said managing director Tony
Tyler, who declined to cite them.
“Customers notice quickly if you start to take away
service elements,” he said. “We operate in a very
competitive market and can’t afford to let the
competition get a march on us.”
One
airline that is unlikely to start weighing its customers
is Dubai-based Emirates, the largest carrier in the Gulf
region.
“That is
something that, when I was a check-in agent in the early
’70s, I used to do, and it was the most horrific
experience, trying to get people to stand on scales,”
said Tim Clark, the airline president. “It’s not
something that we would do.” (With reporting from
Istanbul and Dallas. Bloomberg) |
