It"s getting worst by Claudia Sonea

It is not a good idea to travel by plane anymore. David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, the airlines' trade group, revealed that the situation of US flight delays are not a surprise to them and that they were expecting things to get worst. In June, nearly a third of domestic flights on major U.S. airlines were late, being the highest level of delays in at least 13 years. The reasons are the weather and the rising demand for air travel, both on major airlines and on smaller regional carriers. Complaints of lost baggage and with the government also rose. One of the problems is that U.S. carriers rely on small 40-80 seat jets that are easier to fill up, but that leads to crowded skies and runways. Airline consultant Robert Mann stated that the runways and skies were already saturated, so it may be regarded as intense traffic up there. That is why in 2007 more than 25 percent of flights on the 20 largest carriers was not on-time; Skywest Inc.'s Atlantic Southeast Airlines, a regional carrier for Delta Air Lines Inc. barely managed to score 56 percent of on-time flights, but that was below the 58 percent of AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and the 62 percent of US Airways Group Inc. The Federal Aviation Administration together with the industry is trying to introduce a modern satellite-based air traffic control system, but their actions stumbled on the intense political battle over who will foot the bill. There are too many complaints from the travelers and the problems need to be fixed soon. Good news might come to make both the travelers and the industry happy, but until then, stay connected!

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20070806/ap_tr_ge/travel_briefs_flight_delays;_ylt=AgZFQzXdLH9P.dl_IbpLZKOs0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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