"The fight to keep flying"

Sunday, November 14, 2004

The fight to keep flying 
AmWest, others adapting to increased fuel prices
By Dawn Gilbertson
The Arizona Republic


It's the airline equivalent of easing up on the gas pedal.

With fuel prices in the stratosphere, pilots at America West Airlines are
throttling back in-flight when winds and other weather conditions mean they
can coast without running late. 

"We can slow down, save on fuel and still arrive on time," said America West
Capt. CJ Szmal, head of the airline's pilots union.

The so-called variable-speed schedule is one of a handful of fuel-saving
maneuvers airlines are using or considering to combat oil-sticker shock. 

Stakes are huge. Fuel is an airline's second-biggest bill after labor, and
the bill has grown exponentially this year. Oil prices have flirted with $55
a barrel this fall. They started the year in the low $30s. Every $1 increase
costs the industry $425 million. 

Through September, Tempe-based America West had spent more on fuel than it
did in all of 2003. 

Combine high fuel prices and low airfares given a glut of flights, and you
get what Doug Parker, America West chief executive officer, last week called
an economic crisis to rival the travel fallout from Sept. 11. 

Most airlines, including America West, lost money last quarter and will
again this quarter. Several are in bankruptcy or on bankruptcy watch.

Against that backdrop, America West and its competitors have gone into
overdrive to find ways to conserve fuel.

"It's a major focus of mine right now," said Joe Chronic, America West's
vice president of flight operations. "It doesn't consume every waking hour,
but it's a major issue."

Szmal puts it more bluntly: "We are wringing every last nickel out of
fuel-conservation efforts."

America West, the nation's eighth-largest carrier, created a task force this
fall, bringing together managers and union officials from the different work
groups that play a role in fuel use. They include pilots, dispatchers,
rampers, engineers and load planners.

"We can't control what we pay for it, all we can control is how we use it,"
Chronic said.

That is not as easy as it sounds, he said. Motorists can take several steps
to save money when gas prices spike, from cutting back on trips to car
pooling or taking the bus. Airlines have less flexibility for a variety of
reasons, chief among them safety.

"The way we operate airlines is extremely well-defined and extremely
disciplined," Chronic said. "There's not a huge amount of leeway where you
can go off on some tangent and do something radically different than someone
else is doing."

Given past oil shocks and technological advances, airlines and aircraft had
made gains in fuel efficiency, making it even harder to eke out additional
savings now. Today, airlines are nearly twice as fuel-efficient as they were
in 1980, according to the Air Transport Association. 

Airlines also have to consider their efforts' effects on customers. The idea
of cutting in-flight services such as beverages has come up in the industry
but may not sit well with passengers. Along the same lines, airlines aren't
going to slow down to the point that flights are late.

"At the end of the day are you saving enough to offset some potential ill
will?" said David Seymour, vice president of operations control and planning
for America West.

Still, airlines have found ways to save here and there. With so many planes
in their fleets - America West has 140, Southwest Airlines, 419 - even
little measures help.

"A lot of it is the mind-set, getting people to change their behavior and
look at it with more scrutiny," Seymour said.

Here are several of the moves in use or under consideration, the bulk out of
passenger view.

. Single-engine taxi: Instead of starting both engines, airlines are using
just one until it's time for takeoff.

The practice has been around but has been an option for pilots. With the
fuel crunch, it's now the norm.

"Starting two engines is the exception," Chronic said.

The fuel savings are large, especially at congested airports with long lines
of planes waiting to take off. Szmal said the single-engine taxi can save
400 to 600 pounds of fuel, which is 100 gallons. At $1.60 a gallon, the
price before a recent pullback, that's a savings of $160. 

"You multiple that by the number of flights," Szmal said, and the savings
are meaningful. AmWest has 190 flights a day from Phoenix alone.

The airline has gone from single-engine taxis on 25 percent to 30 percent of
its flights to as high as 70 percent, Chronic said.

That figure will slip in the winter. Pilots generally avoid using
single-engine taxis in bad weather or tight squeezes because the plane
doesn't turn as well on one engine.

. Variable-speed schedule: Most of America West's flight plans had been
based on a set speed for the duration of the flight. With the fuel crisis,
managers analyzed routes where changing the aircraft speed could reduce fuel
use. These generally are routes where there's a good tail wind and positive
jet-stream conditions. At a constant speed, those conditions mean an
extra-early arrival. By slowing down and using the tail wind, you get there
a little early or on time. 

"And we'll have burned a lot less gas," Chronic said. "It's not unlike a
car, if you're going 75 to 80, you're going to burn more gas."

This month, the airline has dispatched about 75 percent of its flights with
a variable-speed schedule.

. Carry less fuel: There are government regulations for fuel reserves to
prepare for possible flight diversions to other airports because of bad
weather or emergencies.

Airlines like America West are trying to lighten the extra load by picking
alternative airports that are closer to each flight's destination and would
require less reserve fuel. In the past, they had selected cities where they
had operations to make things easier for passengers and crew.

Along the same lines, pilots are pushing for more up-to-date information
about a plane's cargo and baggage load so they don't take any more fuel than
is necessary. As it stands now, at least at America West, the amount of fuel
carried often is based on weight-and-balance estimates, and they are often
conservative, Szmal said.

The math for carrying only as much fuel as necessary is compelling: For
every 100 pounds of extra fuel on board, the company uses 60 pounds just to
carry it, Seymour said.

"If you can do a little bit on every flight, that adds up," he said.

. Tankering: This is the reverse of the less-fuel strategy; an airline has
its planes fill their tanks when they go to cities with lower-price fuel,
say Dallas rather than Los Angeles. 

Even though it costs more to fly with a full tank, the difference in price
between cities can be enough to make this a cost-saving measure.

America West does this on 10 percent to 15 percent of flights in any given
week, spokesman Carlo Bertolini said. Use of the practice varies with fuel
prices and such elements as the load factor on a given flight. When
tankering is used, it can save the airline $100 to $120 on a flight between
Phoenix or Los Angeles and the West Coast. 

. Ground power: Instead of using the plane's auxiliary power unit to cool or
heat the plane when it's at the gate, some airlines have started hooking up
to ground power units. Southwest, which is in the best shape of any airline
on fuel costs because it locked in low prices through an investment
technique called hedging, mentioned it as one of its fuel-saving methods on
its quarterly earnings conference call.

America West is studying the issue, Chronic said. 

"It's an area where there are savings to be realized, but there are a lot of
offsets," he said, citing the expense of the units.

He said that the airline has a "good supply" of the ground units, but that
every airport is not equipped at every gate.

. Winglets: These pointy fuel savers perched on the wingtips (think about
the curved tips of Sally Field's hat in the old Flying Nun television show)
have become a big hit with airlines. They save fuel by reducing the
aerodynamic forces, or drag, that want to slow the plane.

Southwest has made a big push, retrofitting its older Boeing 737s with the
winglets. So far nearly 140 planes have been refit and the rest will be
completed by March. The airline's newer Boeings come with them.

Chief Financial Officer Laura Wright says winglets reduce the Dallas
carrier's fuel use by 3 percent or more. 

Overall, Southwest says its fuel-conservation efforts reduced fuel burn by 2
percent in the third quarter, even with fuller planes.


 Do you have an opinion about this story?
Share it with other readers in our CAA Discussion Forums

http://www.californiaaviation.org/dcfp/dcboard.php


*****************************************