=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/c/a/2006/01/15/INGMDGMDT1= 1.DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, January 15, 2006 (SF Chronicle) Airborne love affair on the rocks -- why bother?/Flying used to be fun, but= now it's too much trouble to get decent treatment Brian Banmiller It was love at first sight. March of 1964. My wild bunch of college sophomore buddies had just conned our parents into letting us fly from Philadelphia to Raleigh, N.C., to cheer on our Villanova Wildcats who were up against Connecticut in the eastern regional of the NCAA basketball tournament. March Madness for them. But for me the start of a lifelong love affair with aviation. I still remember that four-engine, propeller-driven Eastern Airlines plane with bucket seats rolling down the runway. By today's standards it was loud, noisy and slow. But it was exciting for me and my twin brother David. So much so that after graduation in 1966, he joined the first management training class for Trans World Airlines in New York. TWA was at that time one of the world's largest and most prestigious carriers. I enlisted in the Air Force in hopes of flying fighters in Vietnam. But being slightly color blind, I was stuck flying a high-profile desk as a headquarters squadron commander for the SAC wing flying U-2 spy planes, with temporary administrative missions to Vietnam and the Far East. I commanded some 400 men at the tender age of 24, and saw the world, not flying from "the left seat" but still on the airplane. After a transfer to Tehran, I served as a captain for the Middle East Postal and Courier Service. My job included flying aboard flag carriers such as Pan American and TWA, transporting top secret documents around the world. Believe me, landing in Monrovia, Liberia, or Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, was a heady experience. Americans stationed at the embassy would wait for hours at the terminal just to see their American flag carrier make a pit stop. My brother rose through the ranks at TWA, then became president of Air Cal, the popular Orange County airline he helped sell to American Airlines. After stints at American and Air Jamaica, he is CEO of Aloha Airlines in Hawaii, and about to fly that carrier out of bankruptcy protection and hopefully into sunnier skies. I moved on to the news business. But along the way I took flying lessons to become a private pilot. And I've logged thousands of commercial miles reporting news events from Russia to China. So for decades my twin brother and I have shared two common bonds. Birth and a love of aviation. But while we still love each other, my love of aviation no longer matches his. He still loves the daily challenges and excitement of running an airline in an industry with a glorious past, and an uncertain future. But I am just a passenger, and an unhappy one at that. My own love affair with aviation is on the rocks. If you fly, you know why. Where once your travel agent handled everythin= g, they are now an endangered species. (During a recent call to a major carrier, the operator based in India could not even locate the city I wanted to fly to.) Check in at the airport. Carriers now charge two bucks to check your luggage at the curb. One pound overweight. Another few bucks. Make a ticket change. Big bucks. Get on the airplane. Feel like a sardine. Want a meal. Better bring your own sardines. Or cash for a box lunch. Want a drink. It's cheaper to check in to Betty Ford. (Is this jilted lover getting too cynical?) And like any lost love, it's easier to blame the other person. But just who? Oil prices have cut into profits. And pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and ground personnel fell too hard for an industry that has not loved them back. Now too often they strike back at the passengers. Perhaps government should have seen the dark clouds brought about by de-regulation and helped navigate around them. Where once prices were set by government, now it's the free market that prices your seat. I have no problem with that, until I try to get a deal. On a recent trip to New York I was quoted a round-trip coach fare of $663 for an advance purchase. I forgot to call back and confirm. The following week I bought a ticket on the same flights for just $380 round trip. Airlines call it yield management. Price the seats to sell. I call it buyer beware. (Dallas must have been popular at Thanksgiving. I paid $980 round trip coach for a flight a lot shorter than the one to New York.) You see, airline revenue-management folks are rewarded for "filling the buckets" as they call it. Over one 24-four hour period, major carriers can have thousands of fares being juggled by very smart computer programmers. You and I don't stand a chance. And the look over the horizon is not rosy for flying in the "cheap seats= ." Terry Trippler of Cheapseats.com predicts leisure fares will rise 10 percent in 2006. And you could soon be charged extra for booking aisle or emergency-exit row seats. You may want to pay the price. According to USA Today, one out of every = 20 seats that U.S. airlines flew a year ago is gone. Capacity is shrinking as demand rises. No wonder ticket prices this holiday season were up 14 percent from a year ago. And the Department of Transportation reports that complaints about U.S. airlines jumped 29 percent last year. All this bad news for you may be good news for the industry. The Wall Street Journal reports strong demand for travel, lower fuel prices and cheaper labor costs are helping give the industry a financial tailwind going into 2006. They'll need it. U.S. carriers lost $32 billion in the past four years, and may lose $10 billion more when results are in for 2005. Still, that love of aviation has bankers willing to make loans, and employees willing to work for less. I do admit a spark does sometimes return in my own heart. But now it's just a one-flight fling, when I score that last minute upgrade to First Class. Brian Banmiller is a national business correspondent for CBS News Radio, and former television business news anchor in San Francisco. Contact us at insight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx --------------------------------------------------= -------------------- Copyright 2006 SF Chronicle