Former aviation official criticizes airline industry

A Former official of the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has gone public with harsh criticism of an airline industry that he believes is unsustainable and chaotic. George Donohue published a book earlier this week and argued that the commercial airline industry has turned into a veritable mess, with just about every passenger citing at least one “horror story” when it comes to their travel experience. The book’s title-Terminal Chaos-says it all, when it comes to Donohue’s dark view of an industry, where airlines regularly refer to high fuel prices in order to deflect the blame and anger when they then go ahead and cut service to smaller cities, or decrease capacity on routes.

Some of the largest legacy carriers in the US-like American Airlines and Delta and United-have already indicated their plan to cut back on their service, which will negatively impact small to medium-sized airports, like those in Fort Lauderdale, New Haven (Connecticut) and Chattanooga (Tennessee). The industry’s current problems, as Donohue sees the situation, has less to do with high fuel prices and much more with a long legacy of poor administrative and business decisions, which stretch back around two decades. For example, the FAA has often been unrealistic when it comes to weather projections and this has led to unwarranted optimism in terms of scheduling. When the likelihood of poor weather is not taken into account, airline schedules become impossible to keep and delays ensue.

Donohue also believes that the era of discount travel may soon be coming to an end. The large legacy airlines are likely to try and dislodge low-cost airlines from many routes, leaving passengers with higher ticket prices, fewer prices and non-existent in-flight service.

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