Last week, I was back in Washington, DC for the first time in about 5 years. What was the occasion? I was invited to speak on a panel at the American Bar Association’s Forum on Air and Space Law Update. We were supposed to focus on passenger rights, but ultimately, we ended up focusing almost entirely on the 3 hour tarmac delay rule. It was excellent to finally get some hard cancellation numbers from the airlines, but the response from the DOT couldn’t have been more frustrating.

The most interesting thing about the discussion was that airlines actually came prepared with hard numbers, something I’ve wanted to see for a long time. Unfortunately, the DOT’s representative disregarded them with “I don’t know where those numbers come from.” Let me explain in greater detail.

There were five of us on the panel. The other four were:

• Sam Podberesky- Assistant General Counsel for Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings, DOT
• Charlie Leocha – Director, Consumer Travel Alliance
• Denis Barrett – Director, Operations Control, US Airways
• Leila Lahbabi – Airport Attorney, Charlotte Douglas International Airport

Sam brought the DOT’s basic stance that there were no additional cancellations in 2010 as compared to the previous year, so the rule was great because it killed tarmac delays. That was the argument he used throughout the panel.

I began to argue that a simple year-over-year comparison means nothing because there are far too many other factors, like weather and operational changes, but I was interrupted by Sam to repeat his basic argument for the first of many times.

This is where it got interesting. Denis brought numbers with him regarding the number of flights canceled by US Airways since the implementation of the rule, something that I’ve been hoping to see for ages. He said that including US Airways Express, there have been 927 flights forced to return to the gate because of the three hour rule. Of those 318 canceled.

Those cancellations inconvenienced 16,000 passengers but that wasn’t all. Those airplanes were needed elsewhere after those flights and that meant further flights had to cancel. Another 12,000 people were impacted because of that.

What’s the most interesting stat here? On those 927 flights that returned to the gate, no more than 20 people elected to get off. So even the flights that did eventually go had to take delays just to return to the gate, often without a single person deciding to get off. We’re talking thousands and thousands of impacted passengers here. And that’s just US Airways.

When Sam repeated his original argument, someone from Delta stood up in the audience and said that they also had seen cancellations from this. Delta saw 279 airplanes return to the gate and 88 cancel, but that didn’t include Delta Connection.

Add this to comments made by American’s SVP of Government Affairs Will Ris in an earlier panel that the airline had definitely been forced to cancel more flights because of the rule, and the result seems clear. There has been a serious impact on passengers, and not in a good way.

Charlie jumped in and suggested that the airlines would just need some time to adapt to the rule and that within 18 months, they’d figure it out. The airlines didn’t seem convinced.

I tried to interject once again and say that year-over-year comparisons are not valid. What really matters is comparing what would have happened this year had the rule not been in place, and the airlines are clearly showing that cancellations would have been lower without the rule. Sam clearly didn’t agree.

How could we have two people sitting on the same stage seeing the complete opposite results? I suggested that maybe the DOT and airlines needed to get together to create a reporting standard since clearly that hasn’t happened.

Sam first suggested that it would be technically difficult because some of those flights that airlines reported as canceled would have canceled anyway, but that’s the reason I suggested getting together to create an acceptable standard. He then shrugged it off and sarcastically said, “I’m sure the airlines want to give more data.”

I proposed that the airlines would be happy to give data if it enabled them to help tweak the rule, but that seemed to fall on deaf ears. And that was that.

So where did this leave us? The DOT still says there has been no impact on cancellations (or at least very minimal impact), but Sam did give a little lip service to the problem at the end by saying “whether [the rule is] creating other issues is something we’ll have to look at.”

In the meantime, cancellations continue to mount, if you accept the airline interpretation of the data. And more people end up being inconvenienced than need to be. Hopefully one of these days, the DOT will come around and decide to see how it can really improve the rule instead of just arguing that it hasn’t had a negative impact.

In the Trenches: Reconsidering My Web Host – Intuit Small Business Blog
This one was from last week, but I forgot to include.

Who cares about expiring miles? It’s upgrades that matter – CNN Out of the Office
This week’s column was about how Delta’s lack of mileage expiration doesn’t matter for frequent fliers. It’s upgrades that count.

Airlines vs. Airports: United and American Balk at O’Hare Modernization – BNET Headwinds
United and American and in an epic battle with Chicago over the future of O’Hare. This is a tough one to know who is right.

Delta’s New Pitch: Fly Frequently, Get Great Parking at the Ballpark – BNET Headwinds
Delta is giving elite members access to good parking spots at Braves games. I like this kind of cooperation and I bet we see more.

Oil prices are rising over $100 an that ain’t good for airlines. It’s certainly going to mean rising prices as well. Discuss.

In the world of aerodynamics, every little improvement can add up to big savings. One of the areas that airlines are constantly experimenting with is paint. Now, easyJet has announced it will start using a new kind of paint that might save some gas for the airline. But why do they even use paint at all? Keep reading.

This new paint is supposed to do a couple of things better than existing paint. First of all, it weighs less than traditional paint, and even a couple of pounds less can add up to big savings when looked at per year across an entire fleet of aircraft.

This magic paint also creates a smoother surface on the skin. That can help reduce drag, if ever so slightly, but it also prevents debris from stacking up in the small crevices that exist with traditional paint. Apparently, easyJet thinks it can improve fuel consumption by 2 percent. If that pays for the cost of the paint, then it’s a worthwhile move.

But it does beg the age-old question . . . why use paint at all? People will often look at American Airlines and think it has an advantage because it just uses a bare metal skin instead of one that’s painted. As you’ve probably guessed, the suggested benefit isn’t really clear or everyone else would be doing this as well.

First of all, while paint does weigh something, it also provides excellent protection for the skin of the airplane. It’s a buffer to keep the elements from eating away, as has been known to happen over time.

To combat this, airlines with bare metal finish can use other materials to protect the skin, but that then takes away from the cost advantage of going without paint. They also have to polish the skin to keep it from looking awful and that adds more cost.

Another issue with bare metal is that fewer and fewer airplanes are actually made with metal. The newest ones down the pipe use composites and that means you can’t get that shiny metal finish. This isn’t a performance issue but it does make your airplanes look really bad.

That’s why when American took delivery of its A300 aircraft long ago, it painted them gray. In later years, they were put into the metal scheme, but as you can see above, the entire rear of the airplane remained gray because of the composites. The A300 doesn’t have nearly as much composite as the newer airplanes like the 787 so it’s only going to become more of a problem.

If you’re still skeptical that paint is a good idea, you can look no further than the airlines that actually have tried to go with a bare metal scheme to see if it saved any money. Notably, Air Canada stripped the paint off a 767. (See a picture of this ugly bird) The benefit wasn’t there and the paint returned.

So paint is here to stay, but what kind of paint? If easyJet can really get 2 percent better fuel consumption, then others will likely follow.

[Photo via Flickr user egmTacahopeful/CC 2.0]

Virgin America has been talking about serving Chicago even before its first airplane took to the skies. Now, 37 years later, it is finally rolling into O’Hare. This should be a good route for the airline, but why is it just starting it now? There are a lot of reasons, but ultimately, it can thank Delta.

Virgin America hasn’t been shy about telling people that it’s wanted to go to Chicago for a long time but it had plenty of problems. First of all, it didn’t want to go to Midway and only wanted O’Hare. Even after going into Ft Lauderdale as an alternate for Miami, the airline still had no interest in Midway.

But when it tried to go to O’Hare, it said it couldn’t find gates. That’s not entirely true. It could have operated out of the international terminal, but it didn’t want to pay the higher costs and it didn’t want to have to use buses to get to airplanes. (Apparently all the gates in that terminal would have been full during some desired departure times.) It also could have gotten itself gates from legacy airlines at the airport, but I’m sure it just didn’t want to pay the price of admission. So it waited . . . and waited.

What’s changed? Concourse L, that’s what. O’Hare has a problem in that it controls very few of the gates at its own airport. The rest are on long term leases to airlines. So when a new airline wants to come into the airport, O’Hare can’t really get very involved in that process other than to facilitate discussions. Then an opportunity came up with Concourse L.

Delta controlled the 11-gate concourse L in Terminal 3 at O’Hare. When it merged with Northwest, it opted to move into Terminal 2 and take over the old Northwest gates instead. That left Terminal 3 with plenty of room. Six of those gates are actually leased out to American already. (American controls the rest of Terminal 3.) But those other five gates were in limbo as Delta worked on a deal.

Just last week, Delta agreed to turn over Concourse L to O’Hare. American will still use those six gates, but now the airport controls the other five. That opened the door for Virgin America to come in for a lot less than it would have had to pay otherwise. It also leaves the door open for others to come in as well, if they cared. It doesn’t have to stop there. That particular concourse has a little room to add on a couple of gates if they get creative enough, so there could be a nice operation there for anyone who wants the gates.

Now Virgin America will start service May 25 with two daily flights to LA and 3 to SFO. As you can imagine, this is not enough to take a big bite out of American and United but it can still do well. It’s the same problem the airline had when it went into Dallas. It brought a knife to a gun fight. Let’s look at this visually:

If Virgin America wants to be a real competitor, it needs to fill out its schedule more. For example, if you want to come to LA, you can leave O’Hare at 845a or you have to wait until 715p. It’s hard to really take a chunk of the market with a schedule like that. But that doesn’t mean Virgin America can’t do well here. Like Dallas, this is a market that should work for the airline if it’s going to be able to survive at all. It’ll be awhile before we see any meaningful data on these routes, but this is one of those markets that I’ll want to watch closely.

In the meantime, enjoy those low fares. Virgin America has decided to jump in with a $99 fare each way.