The summer of our discontent

Before 9/11, the airline industry was flying so full that its biggest problems stemmed from its own success. I remember covering Senate hearings in Washington, D.C., on the growing problem of overbookings and bumpings. Senators fly a lot, and they took the problem very seriously.

By 2001, things had changed. The airlines hadn’t fixed their problems; they hadn’t needed to. A business travel slump left plenty of empty seats, and then the World Trade towers fell and we were in a full-fledged tourism crash. It didn’t last long for Hawaii because Hawaii quickly became the safe alternative destination for people scared of flying abroad. But the industry stabilized with enough empty seats to cover most contingencies.

Now we may be seeing a return to the conditions of 1999 and 2000, not because the airlines are getting a lot more passengers but because they’re parking jets and squeezing passengers onto a smaller nunber of flights to try to control their amazing jet fuel bills.

It’s understandable. Jet fuel prices have risen four fifths in the past year and are still ascending. You’d park jets, too.

But you’re not running an airline; you’re the customer. And you’re going to suffer this summer. If an electrical storm causes enough lightning on the runway to delay or cancel flights, there may be no seats available on later flights that day; you might spend the night at the gate.

I shudder to think what this could do to Hawaii tourism, both immediately and down the road — because anyone who has a terrible trip that ends in a wonderful Hawaii vacation is likely to remember the terrible trip in a future year when a return visit is considered.