Airliners will resemble flying sardine cans, with passengers jammed elbow-to-elbow. Legs will crunch against bulging carry-ons — under the seat in front of you, please — because overhead bins will be stuffed.
Fares will be higher and schedules less convenient, so fewer of us will take the kids to frolic at Disney World in Orlando or to see grandma in Seattle. Airline employees by the thousands will lose their jobs, and the travel business will suffer along with the travelers.
Such is air travel in the era of $131-per-barrel oil.
American Airlines said on Wednesday that it will cut about 11 percent of its flights nationwide and lay off thousands of workers. It blamed soaring jet fuel prices, which are up 45 percent this year as of the end of March.
The nation’s largest airline provides 156 of the 348 daily flights from Lambert Field. The airline hasn’t announced yet which flights will be eliminated nationally, but if they’re done proportionately — a big “if” — the cuts would eliminate about 17 St. Louis flights. That would be a relatively tolerable hit, considering that the second-largest carrier at the airport, Southwest Airlines, has added four flights since March.
The passenger count at Lambert has been falling anyway, down 3 percent so far this year. That’s partly because of the slow economy and partly because of a rash of flight cancellations that resulted from a federal aircraft maintenance crackdown.
Meanwhile, airlines have been raising fares and getting away with it. American on Wednesday, for example, boasted that it had led or joined 15 industry-wide fare increases since last month and 14 of them have remained in effect, at least partially. Like American, Delta and United are cutting capacity, which makes it easier to raise fares.
Fees are going up, too. American said it plans to charge passengers $15 if they check even one bag. That’s in addition to a $25 fee imposed by several major carriers earlier this year for checking a second bag. Passengers’ natural reaction will be to try to avoid checking bags, which will put even more pressure on the procedures for handling carry-on luggage.
Another natural reaction will be to look for someone to blame for this traveling misery. We have several nominees, but, oddly enough, the airlines aren’t among them.
The airline industry has gone into survival mode. American Airlines lost roughly $328 million in the first quarter of 2008. The industry as a whole may lose $7 billion this year.
American is one of the only giant legacy airlines that hasn’t filed for bankruptcy at least once. As such, it still carries the debt and pension obligations that some competitors managed to shed in bankruptcy court.
And now American is feeling a double-whammy: The weakening economy is keeping demand for tickets down while oil prices push costs up. American has the industry’s oldest aircraft fleet, and Wednesday’s move will ground some of its gas guzzlers.
Airlines may opt again for mergers that reduce competition and, thus, limit passenger choices. But the broader question is whether American and other older carriers can survive without another round of bankruptcies.
Blame? Most of the jump in oil prices stems from rising demand from developing nations, but we can’t very well blame the people of China and India for wanting their own cars.
We might point, however, a shaky finger at the oil markets. Like the stock market, commodities markets are prone to occasional manias, and some of the recent run-up in the price of oil might be because of plain old fear, which fuels speculation. Such bubbles burst eventually, but they can last a long time.
In the end, we might take a look in the mirror. We were more than happy to guzzle gas when it was cheap, and now we’re stuck with a fleet of wallet-emptying SUVs. Our airlines are in financial trouble. We spent wildly and borrowed madly. Now, the dollar is falling as a result, pushing up the price of oil. There’s no escaping that we Americans must shoulder some of the blame for the fix we’re in.