"Slump Hurts Orange County, Calif.-Area Airport's Concourse Businesses"

September 24, 2001

Slump Hurts Orange County, Calif.-Area Airport's Concourse Businesses
The Orange County Register, Santa Ana, CA


The layoffs announced by major airlines this week only added to the
uncertainty for the people who make their living at John Wayne Airport.

Industry experts estimate that up to 100,000 airline employees could
lose their jobs as a result of the problems crippling the airline
industry in the wake of last week's attacks.

Unions for flight attendants and pilots haven't given yet been given any
solid numbers on how many of each will be cut.

Leslie Mayo, a flight attendant from Aliso Viejo and spokeswoman for the
Association of Professional Flight Attendants, said the union will take
measures to keep people on payroll, with health insurance.

Mayo said some flight attendants can take early retirement, while others
can split legs of a flight among several people.

"It won't be a full job, but it will be better than putting people on
the street," Mayo said.

But even people who don't work for the airlines feel the pain of the
slump.

Louela Maglalang, a server for HMS Services at one of John Wayne's snack
bars, said business has slowed to a crawl.

Since only passengers are allowed past security checkpoints now, the
food courts and gift shops next to the gates have fewer customers.

"No one can go inside (past the checkpoints)," she said. "Every day, the
company is losing money."

Maglalang and the other employees of HMS have already had their hours
cut, she said. It hasn't put a big dent in her paycheck yet, "but I
don't know what's next."

At John Wayne's taxi stand, supervisor Francisco Barragan looked over
the worksheets that tally the number of passengers American Taxi ferries
from the airport.

Usually, the daily count is about 1,100 rides, Barragan said. The tally
sheets for Thursday showed less than half that.

"The fewer planes there are, the fewer passengers we get," Barragan
said.

"You go in the airport, you see it on every screen: canceled, canceled,
canceled."

The number of flights is getting back to normal -- John Wayne had 270
daily commercial flights before the attacks -- but the number of
passengers is still down, said Yolanda Perez, a spokeswoman for the
airport.

"This whole thing has made travelers a little nervous about flying," she
said. "Passenger loads, obviously, are not where we want them."

And even with the $15 billion government bailout of the airline
industry, it will take a long time before the airport reaches cruising
altitude again.

However, Moarrefian said, in light of last week's tragedy, losing her
job doesn't seem as bad.

"It could be a lot worse, when you think about what people are going
through in New York and Washington," she said.

"At least we're alive."

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