By
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON-Responding to a summer travel season marred by thousands of flight delays, Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater yesterday announced formation of a task force to monitor airline service.
Slater acted after summoning airline industry leaders to a meeting that he said was "a necessary first step in resolving some of the challenges" faced by the industry.
Some 670 million Americans will fly this year, up 20 million from a year ago and an increase that is taxing the system and could not have been foreseen, Slater said.
At the session, participants from airlines, unions, airports and other groups discussed ways they could better cooperate, said Slater, who added that yesterday's gathering "will result in improved service" in both the short and long term.
Slater said the newly formed task force on airline service performance will monitor the carriers and report back to him in 90 days.
He also noted that the difficult and busy summer season is nearly at an end. That could help matters by reducing the demand for service.
Increased numbers of people traveling, a spate of bad weather and - at least at one airline - labor disagreements have made this summer a time of air travel discontent for millions of Americans.
The Federal Aviation Administration reported more than 44,000 flight delays in July alone, and that was an improvement from June.
Following the meeting, Slater said the airlines agreed to improve their notification of the FAA when they have flight delays or cancellations so air traffic controllers can use available air space better.
He said several choke points in the air traffic control system have been identified and efforts are being made to solve problems at those points.
Slater also said he has asked the airlines to develop contingency programs for extremely busy periods such as the upcoming Labor Day holiday and the Thanksgiving and Christmas travel seasons.
Earlier in the day, the president of the American Automobile Association offered suggestions for improving air travel.
Speaking to the Atlanta Rotary Club, Robert L. Darbelnet called for privatizing the air traffic control system and urged Congress to fully fund aviation improvements. He also proposed expanding the system with new airports or better use of regional airports and said airlines should be required to collaborate with the FAA and Congress.
"Now is the time to act," said Darbelnet. "We must work together - quickly, creatively and cooperatively."
While this has been a summer of extraordinary air travel problems, the issue isn't new.
Beset with complaints about delays and poor service, the airlines staved off congressional action last year by promising to treat customers better and to be more forthright with passengers all the way through their travel experience.
Yet, when Transportation Department inspectors checked earlier this year to find out whether the airlines were living up to that pledge, they found varying degrees of success.
"Airlines are making a clear and genuine effort at strengthening the attention paid to customer service, but bottom-line results to date are mixed," the department's inspector general said in a preliminary report to Congress. "The airlines have a way to go to restore consumer confidence."
Indeed, when flight delays reached record numbers in June, the airlines blamed the air traffic control system, the FAA blamed the weather, and delayed passengers blamed everybody in sight.
Things improved somewhat in July but, as FAA official Peter Challen admitted, "if you're a passenger who is delayed, these numbers don't mean anything to you."
The overall performance gain is clouded by ongoing problems at United Airlines, the nation's largest carrier, where the combination of a dispute with pilots and bad weather has resulted in scores of flights delayed or canceled.
