High Anxiety and Rage

By Stephen Koepp

Gazing out of her window as she rode a jumbo jet from London to Newark last * Wednesday, Passenger Candi Meacham was enjoying the clear blue Atlantic vista when her reverie was rudely shattered. Suddenly what had at first seemed to be just a speck in the sky became another airliner that was streaking right toward her Continental Airlines 747. "I knew it was going to hit us," the Jacksonville homemaker recalled with a shudder.

The oncoming L-1011, which had strayed 60 miles off its London-to- Cincinnati flight path, was traveling at the same altitude as the 747 and closing quickly. At the last moment it appeared to dive and passed only about 100 ft. beneath the 747. Meacham and other passengers could easily make out the DELTA lettering as the airliner rushed by at more than 500 m.p.h.

After the near collision, the shaken pilots talked by radio about what had happened -- a conversation that was recorded by a nearby Air Force jet. The tape revealed that the pilots had discussed the possibility of not notifying aviation authorities about the incident. One pilot reportedly said, "Nobody knows about it except us, you idiots!" But the pilots ultimately decided that they had to notify authorities of the mishap. Meanwhile, a crew member moved discreetly around the Continental cabin, seeking to soothe passengers who had noticed the near disaster. "He told me they were aware of it in the cockpit," said Meacham, "but asked that I keep it their little secret" to avoid upsetting other passengers.

But the "little secrets" of the airline industry are out in the open and stirring unprecedented public outrage. In the increasingly overcrowded skies, snafus that threaten safety are on the rise, and everyday service is deteriorating. As more than 100 million U.S. travelers take to the air during this year's peak summer travel season, the Federal Government is recording a surging number of delayed flights, near midair collisions and air-traffic- control errors. The airlines, on the defensive as never before, are scrambling to improve conditions in the hope of easing a growing indignation in Congress and thus heading off a wave of legislative proposals to crack down on the industry.

The past several weeks, though, have been a public relations disaster for the airlines. While no deaths have occurred on a major U.S. carrier in the past 22 months, frightening incidents seem to abound. Consider:

-- Just a day after last Wednesday's near disaster over the North Atlantic, a Pan American jet and a Venezuelan airliner came within 300 ft. of each other as they flew near Bermuda. An air-traffic controller apparently put the two planes at the same altitude -- about 39,000 ft. -- by mistake.

-- A Delta 737, whose pilots had been thrown off course by thunderstorms, landed at the wrong airport in Kentucky. The pilots set down smoothly at Frankfort's airport, but they thought they were landing at Lexington, where the runways have a similar layout. The event occurred just after midnight, a time when neither airport's control tower is manned.

-- A Delta 767 taking off from Los Angeles on June 30 suddenly lost power in both engines at about 1,700 ft. when one of the pilots inadvertently bumped two fuel cutoff switches while in the process of reaching for an adjacent engine control switch. Passengers donned their life jackets and prepared for an emergency landing in the Pacific as the jet glided to within 600 ft. of the waves. At the last moment, the crew managed to restart the engines and resume the trip to Cincinnati, but the pilots were suspended on arrival. The Federal Aviation Administration immediately ordered the installation of plastic switch-guard shields on the control panels of 767s and similarly equipped 757s to prevent a recurrence of the pilot error.

Particularly alarming for passengers from the Southeast was the occurrence of so many mishaps on Atlanta-based Delta, which has long been one of the most highly regarded carriers. Wags at other airlines in the hotly competitive industry promptly dubbed Delta the "Glider Airline." A spokesman for the company called the episodes an "incredible coincidence of bad luck," and experts seemed to agree. Delta will have to work hard, however, to restore confidence.

So, in fact, will the entire industry. Reports of near midair collisions in the U.S. jumped to 840 in 1986, from 758 the previous year. Potentially serious errors by air-traffic controllers rose to 141 in June, up 50% from the same month in 1986. "I pray a lot," says Valerie Jones of Basking Ridge, N.J., a passenger last week on a Bermuda-to-Newark flight. "You just can't take anything for granted anymore."

At the heart of the problem is overcrowding, which has put a strain on the traffic-control system and has stretched thin the airline industry's corps of experienced pilots and mechanics. While three years ago the traffic-control system rarely handled more than 100,000 flights of commercial and private aircraft a day, the average daily volume now exceeds 140,000. Airline % companies point out that the air-traffic-control centers have suffered from a manpower shortage ever since President Reagan's firing of 11,400 striking controllers in 1981. Last week the National Transportation Safety Board said it had found that limitations in the air-traffic system were the primary cause of the midair collision last August of a private Piper aircraft and an Aeromexico DC-9 near Los Angeles in which 82 people were killed.

Sensitive to public alarm, Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole has sped up programs to bolster the FAA's staff and equipment. She has proposed a fiscal 1988 budget supplement of $51.5 million to hire 955 more air-traffic personnel, including 580 more controllers. That would bring the total ranks of controllers to 15,805. Meanwhile, the FAA is in the midst of a ten-year, $16 billion project to upgrade air-traffic computers, radar and other systems so that controllers will be able to handle swarms of planes with far greater precision.

At least some of the safety worries stem from the penurious attitude that airlines have been forced to adopt because of the low fares they have been charging. One area in which airlines may be tempted to cut back is aircraft maintenance, and several airlines -- among them American, Eastern and Pan Am -- have received hefty fines for violations of federal regulations. Even so, the FAA has been slow to step up its inspections in keeping with the growth of airline fleets, according to a General Accounting Office study published in May. From 1981 until 1983 the ranks of FAA inspectors actually shrank, from about 1,750 to 1,500. But at least partly in response to the GAO's study, the FAA is carrying out plans to expand its staff of inspectors to more than 1,900 by September.

Less frightening than safety concerns but more frustrating are the countless delays, baggage mix-ups and other irritants that have become the bane of U.S. travelers. During the first five months of this year, consumer complaints to the Transportation Department about poor airline service reached 9,812, an 81% increase over the same period last year. The number of flight delays of 15 minutes or more at the 22 busiest U.S. airports, as compiled by the FAA, rose by 13% in the first three months of 1987 compared with the first quarter of last year. Says Nozomu Kaneda, of Kingston, N.Y., an IBM technician who flies often: "Delays occur so frequently that I feel lucky whenever one lasts less than an hour." A Government study of service by Eastern and Delta at Atlanta's Hartsfield airport showed that many of their regularly scheduled flights were delayed at least 70% of the time; a few had 100% records of lateness.

Next week Plummer Hamilton, 40, a computer consultant from New Rochelle, N.Y., is scheduled to go on trial in Cook County (Ill.) circuit court on disorderly conduct charges for allegedly using profane language to stir up passengers aboard a delayed Chicago-to-Newark flight on Continental. At the time he spoke up, passengers had spent an hour aboard the waiting plane, which suffered from faulty air conditioning. After four police officers hauled Hamilton off the plane in handcuffs, some 45 fellow passengers signed a petition calling the airline's action "unjust, outrageous and barbaric."

The airlines cite overworked air-traffic controllers and bad weather as reasons for delays. But the carriers bear much of the blame because they routinely bunch too many flights into the most popular travel times, thus creating what might be called winglock on the runways. As one remedy, Secretary Dole suspended antitrust rules in March to allow airline executives to sit down together and arrange their schedules for more realistic departure times. American Airlines, for example, has rescheduled 1,537 of its 1,600 flights and added 150 hours a day of flight time to its timetables.

U.S. Senators found occasion last week to vent their anger about the situation during confirmation hearings for T. Allan McArtor, President Reagan's nominee to be the new head of the FAA, replacing Donald Engen, who left office July 2. McArtor, 45, a senior vice president of Federal Express who flew combat missions in Viet Nam and did a stint with the Air Force's Thunderbirds precision-flying team, is expected to win easy confirmation. The Senators, however, put McArtor on notice. "You have got a crisis on your hands," declared Ernest Hollings, the South Carolina Democrat. Warned Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican: "If it remains as fouled up for the rest of the summer as it has been in June, we will have ((legislation)) by September to answer it so it doesn't happen again next year." Congress is currently considering scores of separate proposals, including such measures as allocating more money for air-traffic control and airport expansion and forcing airlines to report their on-time performance publicly.

FAA Nominee McArtor, for one, hardly needs to be convinced. "I think airline service is rather poor," he told Senators last week. "I have stood ) in line and have been delayed and have been denied and have been bumped and canceled and lost my bags and have been frustrated along with the rest of the passenger public."

Ironically, anxiety and irritation about air travel are rising just as the industry is entering a period of robust financial health. Passenger traffic on U.S. carriers reached a record 418 million in 1986, up from 382 million the year before. During the first half of 1987, traffic rose another 15% or so. Wall Street analysts expect the 22 major U.S. carriers to earn operating profits of as much as $3.5 billion this year, far exceeding the previous record of $2.4 billion in 1984. Even TWA, a perennially struggling carrier now run by Corporate Raider Carl Icahn, is expected to enjoy a banner year. "The airlines are living in the best of all possible worlds," declares John Pincavage, who follows the industry for the Paine Webber Group investment firm.

The surge in traffic reduces the need for airlines to continue engaging in price discounting, which has been the chief benefit that deregulation has brought for consumers. After years of relentless cuts, the average fare this year is expected to rise about 10%. Example: one-way New York-to-Los Angeles fares, which hit $99 during the heaviest discounting, are now typically $159. But bargain fares will never go away completely, experts say, because airlines are dependent on discretionary pleasure travel for 55% of their revenue, compared with only 45% when deregulation began.

Yet consumers care about more than just prices, as they are letting the airlines know. Reliable service and increased safety measures could be the airline industry's next competitive arena. Indeed, two Texas-based archrivals, Continental and American, have both endorsed proposals that airlines be required to disclose monthly statistics for on-time operations, baggage handling and other areas of performance. That might give passengers a welcome chance to find out what kind of ride they will get long before they strap on their safety belts.

With reporting by Gisela Bolte/Washington and Thomas McCarroll/New York