David Field: June 2006 Archives

Norm Mineta, the longest serving US transportation secretary, resigned after a 5 1/2 year tenure that encompassed the 2001 attacks, the reshaping of aviation security and the airlines' financial crisis. Mineta, 74, one of three remaining members of President George W. Bush's original cabinet and the only Democrat in the group, served two presidents, taking the Bush post after serving as President Bill Clinton's commerce secretary starting in July 2000.

He spent 21 years, until 1995, in the House of Representatives, including several terms heading the aviation subcommittee and one term as chairman of its parent, the Public Works and Transportation Committee. His Southern California district included Silicon Valley and San Jose, where the airport is named after him. As a child, Mineta was forced into a wartime relocation camp for Japanese, although he is a Californian native. In the Wyoming camp, he acquired a life-long passion for baseball. A frequent jump-seat rider in airliner cockpits, Mineta was highly respected by both labour and management. But health problems, including a painful back condition and respiratory problems, plagued his last few years. Still, aides said he would keep working, and noted that he had run Lockheed Martin's intelligent vehicle highway-technology systems after leaving Congress. Mineta's letter of resignation to Bush, released 23 June and highlighting points in his tenure, is here: http://www.dot.gov/affairs/MinetaLetter.pdf

US Airways rolled out its new and improved heritage jet with an Airbus A319 in the livery of a Piedmont Aviation Pacemaker, as the North Carolina-based Piedmont called its jet planes until the old USAir took it over in 1989. To honour its predecessors, the new US Airways, also known as the old America West before their merger late last autumn, is doing up four 'buses in the paint schemes of predecessors such as PSA, Pacific Southwest Airlines, which USAir took over in 1987. The company actually rolled out the Piedmont plane in May at Charlotte, N.C., a former Piedmont hub, but rolled it back into the shops to get the blue of the cheat line just right. And wisely so: throughout the Carolinas, many still believe that USAir bought a better airline in Piedmont, and some old-timers will cite the carrier's practice of giving a passenger a full can of Coca-Cola instead of just pouring a glass full. If those were the good old days...

The recent deal among all the feudin' Texas good ole' boys (and gals) to settle their little ole' spat about Dallas Love Field has brought out the best in all: diplomacy from airport and airline figures, praise of the power of compromise from the mayors of both Fort Worth and Dallas (her honor's a lady), and this from Herb Kelleher, Southwest's chairman and former chief executive. "I have been involved in litigation, legislative struggles, and cuss fights over Love Field since 1972 - a period of 34 years. The fact that Southwest Airlines stands here today - stands here with Fort Worth, D/FW Airport, American Airlines and the City of Dallas - indicates, I believe, that there must be hope for world peace," he said.

Cussing aside, the pact represents a real compromise: D/FW will give up its efforts to lure Southwest out of its home base and into the hub, American won't fight loosening the limits, and local politicians will give up efforts to shut Love, owned by Dallas city and so not governed by the regional compact created for the huge American hub. This is a long way from what was becoming stubborn trench warfare between the two carriers and politicians in both cities. American had unleashed its enormous political power to restrict Love operations, a newly aggressive Southwest was fighting fiercely to overturn the Dallas Love Field limits and politicians on Capitol Hill were telling the North Texas folks to settle the deal in their own smoke-less chambers or face a mandate devised in the smoke free halls of Congress.

The compromise, as Herb says was a longtime coming. Back in the 1970s, Southwest had gone to court, suing for the right to offer service from Love Field, even though the airport was supposed to be shut down to allow D/FW to grow and develop. After Southwest's lawyers, incuding Kelleher, succeeded, Congress legislated restrictions at the behest of then-House Majority Leader Jim Wright, whose district included Fort Worth. The Wright amendment said flights to and from LUV could only go to or from the states that border Texas.

The compromise came about after a big change by American, which had supported the original law and has doggedly fought any changes to the Wright amendment, no matter how small. Until 1997, it always prevailed in squelching challenges. But American, busy with important tasks like staying out of bankruptcy, saw the writing on the walls. That's because in 1997, Congress added Alabama, Kansas, and Mississippi to the Wright perimeter in the so-called Shelby Amendment, named for the Alabama senator who headed the appropriations panel that year. Then late last year, lawmakers added Missouri and its two large cities, Kansas City and St. Louis, to the Wright perimeter when Missouri senator 'Kit' Bond took over the committee. American could ignore the small markets opened up by the 1997 change, but opening up the Missouri markets told American that the limits would disappear, either state by state, depending on rotating congressional-committee chairs, or in one fell swoop. 

American chief executive Gerard Arpey was as realistic as he was diplomatic in a statement afterwards: "Considering all the possible options, we believe this to be a pragmatic solution." The new deal eases the Wright restrictions over the next few years but limits Love activity by capping its capacity at 20 gates and commits Southwest to about $200 million in improvements at the airport. That is supposed to make Love's closest neighbours happy; the pact, which Congress is supposed to ratify, also ends restrictions on how southwest can market Love Field flights and on through checking of baggage, which is supposed to make flyers happy.  

About the oldest rule in the book is see - and be seen. The only change is that pilots now have highly sophisticated ways of seeing each other, as the FAA's recent advances in ADS-B show. In fact, the agency has finalised an agreement with a helicopter trade group to start using the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast system in the Gulf of Mexico, a step the airlines enthusiastically endorse. We mention these advances because we're coming up on an important milestone in the history of US air safety and air-traffic technology. It is 50 years this month since a major midair collision between two packed airliners brought so much public focus on airline safety that Congress created a separate FAA and committed the government to the radar coverage that is still the basis for most air traffic control in the nation.

For so many in this business, it all began with an instant romance with flight, a lifelong affair with aircraft and the whole compelling game. Not so for Gregory Principato (pictured), even growing up near the flight paths of the Newark airport in New Jersey. For Greg, as most everyone in Washington calls him, the flight syndrome caught on when his work lawyering showed the tremendous importance of airports as engines of economic development and tools of trade. So now it's a full time affair for him as the head of the Airports Council International - North America (ACI-NA), the Washington affiliate of the global body.

Principato took over last summer when David Z Plavin, the longtime voice of airports on Capitol Hill and in the capital, decided to leave after some 15 years at the helm of the trade group. At the time, Greg was working for his long-time mentor, former Virginia governor Gerald L Baliles, in a Washington law firm; there, they had worked on international aviation, liberalisation, and on the thorny issue of international limits on aircraft emissions. Baliles, noted as a progressive governor in a deeply conservative state, had also headed a 1993 presidential commission on the airline industry.

This is all a long way from Russian studies, the course that Greg pursued in college as part of goal to enter the foreign or diplomatic service. "Well, that didn't work out, but working on international trade issues with the Governor (as Baliles was called even in his laweyring days) taught me a lot about the value of airports as economic hubs," he says, calling Baliles "the best boss and mentor I have ever had". Among the issues that he worked on while under Baliles' tutelage were an agreement between the then US Air and its Air Line Pilots Association and the US-Japan air services treaty. Together, they were instrumental in the transfer of the capital's two airports-Washington National and Dulles International  - from federal control to local management, a task that gave Greg exposure to the many parties and stakeholders and the questions of local pride and possession that colour most major airport negotiations. 

These issues gave Principato a diplomat's rather than a litigator's approach to conflict; he puts it this way: "you can resolve things when you focus not on difference but on the goals you want to achieve".  Of course, Principato is spared one of the most contentious issues in the airports world, the increasingly heated dispute over airport fees and charges and the airlines' complaint that they are paying for Taj Mahals and White Elephants. He says, "I think we just don't have the issue here in the states to the same degree that you've seen it in Europe." The issue that US airports do have is the looming question of how the federal government will rewrite the formula for paying for the US aviation and airport system. It must do so before September of next year, when the current law expires, and the battle has already begun over proposed fees for air-traffic services, a battle that has already set important US aviation groups apart in opposing camps. The airports have avoided joining one camp or another, and instead, says Principato, "We'll look at all the possible alternatives because the approach we have now just doesn't work. The old ticket-tax formula, in which FAA revenues go down as air fares go down, must be replaced. Our basic view is that everyone ought to come to the table with an open mind instead of set positions. We have to be prepared to set aside attitudes and take a fresh look."  Between now and then, security issues and questions will take up much of ACI-NA's time, and here, Greg sees his challenge as "reminding the security folks that the same solution doesn't work at all airports everywhere. Once you've seen one airport, you've seen one airport." For these thorny and long-term issues, the diplomat's touch will be the one that may well go farther than the litigator's tools.