The White-Knuckle Carriers

Along with its big, intercity trunk air lines and its smaller, regional carriers, the U.S. has still another kind of air service--and it is the fastest-growing of all. More than 4,000 short-haul outfits will carry about 725,000 passengers this year in small planes that fly between convenient downtown airports or to and from smaller towns and cities. For years the lines have been known rather ingloriously as "third-level carriers," but their safety standards have often been so third-rate that some customers call them "white-knuckle airlines."

Passengers have hair-curling stories about many of the little lines, including engine failures, landings with the landing gear retracted, and even running out of gas. Recently, a Cleveland-bound Wright Air Lines flight out of Detroit barely made it across Lake Erie to a safe if silent emergency landing in a field in Canada; the pilot had neglected to check the fuel before taking off. Denver's Aspen Airways navigates around 14,000-ft. mountain peaks while flying at 13,500 ft. without benefit of cabin pressure or oxygen (except on request). Quite understandably, the line bills itself as "the world's fastest ski lift."

Shoestring Taxis. According to Washington's National Transportation Safety Board, the little lines have an accident fatality rate of 7.65 deaths per 100 million passenger-miles. The U.S. trunk and regional carriers, by contrast, have a fatality rate of .25 per 100 million passenger-miles.

The troubles have been caused mainly by the carriers' fast growth. Few of today's 240 scheduled small lines existed as recently as 1964, and regulation lags behind. As FAA rules now stand, all an operator needs before going into the business is a commercial pilot's license, which can be earned with less than 200 hours of training. Pilots for the major airlines need a minimum 1,200 hours, plus instrument-flying proficiency.

The better third-level carriers, including some of the scheduled services that the FAA calls "commuter air carriers," demand airline-style experience of their pilots--but most do not. At the bottom are the unscheduled "air taxis," many of which are Mom and Pop outfits that hire out for various chores and use smaller and less well-equipped planes than the commuters.

Such shoestring operators are responsible for most of the third level's harum-scarum reputation, but things get a bit dicey at times even on the better commuter lines. Cleveland-based Wright and TAG airlines of Detroit accounted for all of 29 ground alerts at Cleveland's Burke Lakefront Airport during one recent twelve-month period. Eight of the alerts involved closing the airport and rolling out the fire engines, though there were no accidents.

The commuters mostly fly small prop planes, but they owe their development to the jet age. Larger airlines have left the field clear for them in towns and cities where meager traffic will not support the costly big transports. And in many cases, the small carriers have made themselves essential. Rural Spencer, Iowa, found itself so isolated that town officials invited Minnesota's Fleet Airlines to provide regular service to larger cities and happily agreed to make up any losses.

Even where major airline service is available, businessmen sometimes find the little lines more convenient. Chicago's Commuter Airlines offers 20 flights a day between lakefront Meigs Field and Detroit City Airport. The great jets fly between the cities much faster (in 40 min. or so, v. 1 1/2 hrs. for Commuter), but Commuter customers avoid the long drive to outlying airports and get from downtown to downtown more quickly. Industry analysts expect that mergers will eventually whittle the present 240 scheduled operators down to a much smaller number of well-financed, more closely regulated carriers--and that only the best will survive.

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