=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/chronicle/archive/2002/07= /28/TR216635.DTL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, July 28, 2002 (SF Chronicle) No-frills lines battle for European skies/Push to 'make time' raises safety= issues Alan Cowell, New York Times London -- Europe's low-cost airlines are scrambling for the continent's cheap-ticket market, which has boomed as the traditional flag carriers have suffered after Sept. 11 from the decline in business and trans-Atlantic travel. EasyJet, one of the leading British no-frills airlines, is in the process of buying Go, another low-cost carrier that used to be part of British Airways, in an ever-sharpening contest with Ryanair, based in Dublin, the leading no- frills carrier in Europe. And British Airways, which once sniffed at cheap-ticket travelers as it went after the top-dollar customers in business and first, announced in June that it would cut European fares by up to 80 percent on 42 routes. The fierce competition for budget travelers has begun to raise concerns = in the airline industry that some safety procedures are being overlooked as low- cost airlines pressure their pilots by packing as many flights per day as possible into their schedules. In June, an unofficial British industry watchdog known as the Confidenti= al Human Factors Incident Reporting Program published a report by an unidentified air traffic controller alleging that pilots from at least one no-frills airline had disobeyed air traffic control instructions, trying to save time by landing too quickly to meet safety requirements. Those allegations were eclipsed by the crash in early July of a chartered Russian jet in Swiss airspace that raised far broader questions about air traffic control procedures in Europe's cluttered skies. But even the suggestion of unsafe practices at the budget airlines broug= ht a sharp response from Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive -- even though no airline was identified by name as the alleged culprit -- who insisted that since his airline saves on landing and other fees by flying into secondary airports, its pilots were under less pressure than those on full- service airlines facing the congestion of Europe's major airports. EasyJet, too, rejected the accusations saying in a statement that low-co= st airlines have to work almost doubly hard on safety. "If we have an accident it would probably kill the airline," EasyJet officials said.=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2002 SF Chronicle