The article below from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@xxxxxxxxx /--------- E-mail Sponsored by Fox Searchlight ------------\ THE CLEARING - IN THEATERS JULY 2 - WATCH THE TRAILER NOW An official selection of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, THE CLEARING stars ROBERT REDFORD and HELEN MIRREN as Wayne and Eileen Hayes - a husband and wife living the American Dream. Together they've raised two children and struggled to build a successful business from the ground up. But there have been sacrifices along the way. When Wayne is kidnapped by an ordinary man, Arnold Mack (WILLEM DAFOE), and held for ransom in a remote forest, the couple's world is turned inside out. Watch the trailer at: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/theclearing/index_nyt.html \----------------------------------------------------------/ Forsaking Short-Haul Flights for the Joys of the Road May 4, 2004 By MARK A. STEIN Business travelers who switched to cars after Sept. 11, 2001, are not cooperating with the airline industry's recovery plans. After a two-year slump driven by terrorist attacks, airport frustrations, a weak economy, SARS and the war in Iraq, the airline industry is showing signs of reviving. Traffic for major American carriers rose 8 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to the Air Transport Association. The Federal Aviation Administration forecasts that domestic air travel will grow at least 6.5 percent annually this year and next. But the recovery is coming in fits and starts, complicated by sharp increases in fuel prices, continuing terrorism fears and, for the big American carriers, a price war with low-cost carriers like Southwest. The airlines need every customer they can lure back, and with the economy recovering, business travelers are indeed flying more. But not on short-haul routes, which just five years ago accounted for more than half of all flights. Having rediscovered the joys of driving two and a half years ago, many business travelers see no reason to return to the airport security delays and crowded planes they left behind. "For 500 miles or less, I'm driving," said Spencer Jessee, the Midwest regional sales manager for Senco Products, which makes pneumatic nail guns and other fastening tools for construction. Like Mr. Jessee, many of those who have switched to driving say they are not coming back. Christa Metcalf, corporate travel manager for the Richard Wolf Medical Instrument Corporation in Vernon Hills, Ill., said that while most of her company's travelers stuck with planes because of the long distances, many who visit clients in the Midwest turned to cars, and "those who have gotten used to it still do it." >From March 2000 to March 2004, airlines cut the number of short-haul domestic flights in the continental United States by more than a third, or three times the pace of the reduction for all domestic commercial flights, according to BACK Aviation Solutions, a consulting company in New Haven. For competitive reasons, airlines are reluctant to discuss in detail whom they fly where or how they plan to keep their customers, much less how they hope to win back the defectors. But consultants say it will not be easy to entice them out of their cars and back to the airport. "Quite frankly, I think they're gone for a long time because I don't see anything changing on security anytime soon," said David Swierenga, chief economist at AeroEcon, a consulting firm in Vienna, Va., and a former economist with the Air Transport Association, the industry group for commercial airlines. "They're just put off by the hassles of security and they would just rather drive." Indeed, some business-travel bookers say that their clients' resistance to flying short distances has only hardened in the last year or so. Wendy M. Broome, travel coordinator for the Progress Energy Corporation in Raleigh, N.C., says more employees are opting to drive on shorter trips to cities like Charlotte, N.C., or Washington to avoid airport delays, "reduced flight choices, lack of customer service and just the whole issue of air travel inconvenience.'' "While our travelers understand the need for heightened security, the days of pampered, user-friendly air travel are far behind us," Ms. Broome said. "They consider it a better use of their time to either hitchhike on the corporate craft if available, teleconference, or to hop behind the wheel." Travelers have returned to the airlines for longer distances, and the airlines have responded by adding flights on these routes. For example, the number of flights at distances of 1,800 to 1,999 miles has grown 25 percent since 2000, BACK Aviation found. Airlines say they have been able to fill those planes. By contrast, the number of flights under 400 miles has fallen 25 percent, a shrinkage that has helped fuel the switch to cars. Another development encouraging the trend is the industry's embrace of regional jets, generally defined as aircraft with 100 or fewer seats. While most of these smaller jets are powered by turbofan engines like those used by big commercial planes, they often have a single aisle with two seats on each side. The result is that even if the number of flights between two cities remains steady or grows, the number of seats can shrink and passengers rarely find an empty seat beside them. Whatever the discomforts of driving for a few hours to a business meeting, many travelers say, they pale beside the aggravations of flying. "A one-hour flight gets to take four hours by the time you get to the airport early, park, check in, clear security and pick up a rental car at the other end," said Elaine Kretten, the travel and fleet manager of Senco Products, which is based in Cincinnati. "Tack on another hour, and you can drive there yourself." If two or more employees drive together, the savings are even greater, she noted. That is one reason the company has scrapped its national sales meeting this year in favor of six regional meetings. The sites for each gathering were chosen to let the greatest number of sales representatives get to a meeting by car. Ms. Kretten said that would cover about three-fourths of all employees who attend. Hiring six hotel meeting rooms instead of one ballroom may cost more, she acknowledged, but the process over all will be cheaper. "We'd rather do that than spend the money on air," she said. Encouraging Senco employees to drive as much as possible will pare the company's travel bill by about 10 percent, a saving as great as $400,000, she estimated, even with high gasoline prices. There are even some benefits for travelers' families, Ms. Kretten said. Rather than ask employees to give up their weekends to qualify for cheap flights that require a Saturday night stay, she said, they now often drive home on Friday afternoons and leave on Monday mornings. "It takes some time from selling, maybe half a day," she said. "But they actually have more time at home." Still, traveling by car does mean that people spend many hours watching the road, not working on a laptop computer in an airline lounge or a seat on a plane. Mr. Jessee said that he and his sales representatives compensated by using driving time to phone customers, conduct conference calls or listen to audiotapes describing new products. In any case, he said, driving is less annoying than the rigmarole he used to follow to find cheaper flights than those available at Cincinnati, where Delta accounts for 92 percent of the flights. He said it was not unusual for him to drive an hour or an hour and a half to airports in Columbus or Dayton, Ohio, or even Louisville, Ky., where there was more competition and lower fares. Many of the flights he would start at one of those airports would be on a Delta plane that connected through Cincinnati. "I often found that I'd spent four and a half hours and gotten nowhere - I was right back in Cincinnati - just to save money," he said. Compared with that, he added, hopping into his roomy sport utility vehicle is a breeze. Readers are invited to send stories about business travel experiences to businesstravel@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/04/business/04drive.html?ex=1084677780&ei=1&en=97d7431e19c26e76 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! 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