“The Cardinal” is back once again with another guest post here on Cranky Flier. I’ve been absolutely swamped with Cranky Concierge’s launch (adding new clients daily), and he had something he wanted to write about. Here, he’s taking on the EU.
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The European Union (EU) has generally done a decent job in pursuing European airline deregulation. When European airline deregulation has been stymied, it’s generally been through the actions of individual European governments, often in Southern Europe, where, for some odd reason, airlines are viewed as a symbol of national virility. Cranky’s done a good job of covering the machinations of the Italian govt to keep Alitalia flying, but he could have just as well picked on the French govt for its blatant subsidy of Air France in the early 1990s (which, trust me, the French govt would do again in a heartbeat, if it again became necessary) or the Greek govt for its support of various versions of the chronically loss-making Olympic Air/Airways/Airlines over the past 20-25 years (during this time, Olympic has been overtaken by private Greek carrier Aegean, though Olympic was itself finally sold to the private sector last month…). We should mention that the plucky Belgians, by contrast, let their late, unlamented flag carrier, Sabena, crater in 2001. Yay Belgium. Boo Italy. Boo France. Boo Greece.

However, with the downturn the EU has, unfortunately, come to the rescue of the traditional carriers. And of course, the traditional carriers want even more.

Europe’s traditional carriers are represented by the AEA — the Association of European Airlines — which bills itself as the alleged “trusted voice of European airline industry for over 50 years.” Yeah, like we’d trust the fox with the henhouse. The AEA is the rough equivalent of the US ATA — the Air Transport Association. The ATA represents the likes of American, United and JetBlue (that JetBlue pals around in the same trade association as American & United is another indication that notwithstanding its hip image, at heart JetBlue is the youngest legacy major). Similarly, the AEA represents dinosaurs such as British Airways, Air France, KLM (which has a separate membership, despite being the same company as Air France), not to forget the ultimate European throwback, Alitalia. European low cost carriers have their own organization, the ELFAA, which is where Ryanair and EasyJet, among others, hang out.

So what has the EU done for the AEA and what does the AEA want it to do?

Many European airports, particularly the big main airports (e.g. London Heathrow, Frankfurt, etc) are slot controlled, and of course these are the airports where AEA airlines play. EU rules say airlines have to use such slots 80% of the time or lose them. That the traditional airlines have most of the slots (and the European low cost carriers don’t) provides the traditional types with a degree of protection from the barbarians. The barbarians are largely relegated to the alternative airports, despite which they’ve done a great job of eating the AEA’s intra-European lunch.

The problem is that in a downturn like this, the AEA carriers can’t afford to keep using all their slots 80% of the time. So surely this means a breach in the city walls through which the barbarians can enter?

Oh, except that the EU has waived those rules to accommodate the AEA. Life is tough, says the AEA, you should let us off the hook and let us keep our slots even if we’re not using them. And the EU did just that. City walls intact, barbarians largely remain mostly outside them.

This, of course, is pungent bull-merde (appellation controlee, no doubt). Use-it-or-lose-it becomes meaningless if the moment the traditional airlines can’t afford to use the slots, the EU allows them not to. There are airlines in Europe doing just fine, they, unfortunately, just happen to be low-cost airlines. God forbid they should somehow gain better access to the biggest airports. Frankfurt might become overrun with airlines that don’t (shock!) offer business class. And where would we all be then?

Unfortunately, there’s a precedent for such sordid and blatant protectionism on the part of the EU for the AEA. It did exactly the same thing for the AEA after the airline downturn after 9/11. Again, there were
European carriers that continued to make money at the time, they just happened to be, from the point of view of the AEA, the *wrong* airlines. Yeah, Ryanair and that rowdy bunch.

The EU should know better — putting your finger on the scales of economic justice once just encourages the beneficiary to ask for more (just ask the Obama administration about all the favors they’re being asked to do for their Wall St pals after having pulled their undeserving chestnuts out of the fire).

In particular, now the AEA wants the EU to, get this, finance aircraft for its members. Yes, the AEA wants the European Investment Bank (EIB) to step in and provide credit to its members to purchase aircraft. This, of course, is ridiculous. If AEA members can’t finance aircraft purchases, then said members should make do with what they have. Period. Again, it’s not as if aircraft finance is unavailable to all airlines — it’s just that the financeable airlines happen to be the same barbarians (e.g. Ryanair) who don’t offer business class on their flights. If AEA members were profitable, chances are they’d be able to finance their aircraft. That they’re not profitable suggests that they need to either shrink or die. But going back to the issue of airlines as symbols of national virility, Seinfeld-style shrinkage is not something many European governments view with equanimity.

Unfortunately you have to imagine that such financing is, at the very least, a distinct possibility. Many AEA orders are for aircraft made by… wait for it… Airbus. So by financing AEA airlines, the EIB would also be helping out Airbus. We cannot rule out the EIB financing aircraft deliveries even to antediluvian specimens such as Alitalia. Also, to be thoroughly cynical (but probably not totally wrong) if the barbarians end up killing too many AEA members, EU bureaucrats might have to travel with the great European unwashed (there’s a cheap joke here, but I’ll leave it be) on the likes of Ryanair and EasyJet.

The only silver lining to the gruesome prospect of the EIB financing aircraft for Alitalia is that it would provide Cranky with rant material for the foreseeable future. I like Cranky, but that would be so not worth
it.

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The Cardinal is a long time industry observer, who is currently a [redacted] at [redacted]. Prior to working at [redacted], he worked at [redacted], [redacted] and [redacted]. He resides in [redacted] and in his spare time enjoys [redacted with extreme prejudice].

When we last saw “The Cardinal” he commented on Virgin America, stirring up a lot of emotions in the process. This time he tackles something I bet will be less controversial — today The Cardinal proposes that Delta CEO Richard Anderson should buy Alaska (the airline, not the state) as soon as it possibly can. He benefits from discussions with “The Rabbi”, another pseudonymous source who I know is well-informed. All mistakes remain the responsibility of The Cardinal.
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Delta is in the middle of digesting Northwest, quite a meal. For dessert, we suggest Alaska Airlines, which should be sweeter for Delta than for any other airline in the US.

Alaska Airlines theoretically makes sense as a merger partner to just about all the major US airlines with the exception of Southwest and United. Southwest is out because a lot of what Alaska does is outside of Southwest’s mission (and Southwest has only truly merged once in its lifetime — with Morris Air — plus it took over, re-branded and then shut down Muse Air) and United is out because it would probably cause anti-trust issues, given United and Alaska’s overlapping networks on the west coast.

US Airways would probably love to merge with Alaska (any port in a storm) but there’s no way it could afford it. It might make sense for AirTran too — giving AirTran geographic reach it simply does not have at the moment. Again, AirTran probably can’t afford it. Neither of these is likely to be a serious bidder if Alaska was ever in play.

But Alaska’s value is really to the legacy majors with international systems — American, Continental and especially Delta. The value is Seattle.

Seattle ought to be a substantial international gateway, but it’s not, because the dominant hub carrier (Alaska) has no intercontinental flights. Seattle, in fact, is potentially the best hub to Asia in the whole lower 48, simply because it’s closer to Asia than any other large lower 48 city. It also results in shorter connections to many (perhaps most) US mainland points. Check it out for yourself on the Great Circle Mapper. Try a bunch of connecting itineraries from say, Tokyo (NRT) or Seoul (ICN) via Seattle (SEA) or San Francisco (SFO) to some interior point, like Kansas City (MCI) (put “NRT-SEA-MCI, NRT-SFO-MCI” in the “Paths” box and hit the “Display Map” button to compare the lengths of the paths from Tokyo to Kansas City via Seattle and San Francisco).

Buying Alaska is one of the rare situations where a merger with a largely domestic airline would yield substantial benefits to the international side of the purchaser.

Alaska’s operations would also give greater access the US west coast to each of Continental, American and Delta. But Alaska is worth more, by far, to Delta. Why?

First of all, Delta has a big Tokyo operation inherited from Northwest, so like United it has a powerful Asian operation. What Delta lacks, however, is a west coast hub/gateway to anchor its Asian operation. Delta is in the unusual position of having a lot of ways to bring people to the US from Asia but not having a good distribution system on the part of the US mainland which is closest to Asia — namely the west coast. Compare to United with its big San Francisco hub/gateway.

Continental and American also lack west coast hubs/gateways, so Alaska would be valuable to them too. However, their Asian systems are not as powerful as that of Delta, so Delta could leverage Alaska’s Seattle hub far more than either Continental and American.

Seattle has another feature that matches up well with Delta. Delta’s fleet is unusually heavy in small widebodies — it probably has too many 767s. The interesting thing about Seattle is that it’s the one large potential US hub from which the 767 has sufficient range to reach useful parts of Asia,including Japan and Korea. In other words, a Seattle hub would give Delta’s probably underemployed 767s something to do — imagine 767 nonstops from Seattle to most of the significant Japanese cities, plus Korea, plus maybe parts of northeast China, especially as Delta is adding winglets to some of its 767s to give them more range.

But wait, there’s more. Seattle would do some great things for Delta on the domestic side as well. In particular, it would fix a long-time problem in the Delta network, namely the relative weakness of its Salt Lake City hub against United’s Denver hub.

Denver has always been, and will likely always be, a far better place for a hub than Salt Lake City. Denver’s a larger city, it’s placed better for domestic traffic flows, flights from Denver are allowed to fly into New York LaGuardia airport (as opposed to those in Salt Lake City, which are not, because of the idiotic perimeter rules of the Port Authority) and so forth.

Delta has struggled for years to make Salt Lake City work in the shadow of Denver. Really the main thing Salt Lake City has going for it is that it’s the only other plausible city for a hub in the Mountain West other than Denver. It ain’t much, but it’s something.

The merger with Northwest has already helped a little bit. Delta is now more relevant to a section of the Great Plains/Upper Midwest/Montana, etc, because it can provide access from two directions with the combination of Salt Lake City and Minneapolis. It’s not as good as United’s Denver + Chicago, but it’s better than Salt Lake City by itself. The new Delta is already to likely see some market shift in its favor because of the Salt Lake City/Minneapolis combination.

Imagine, however, the influence Delta+Northwest+Alaska would exert over basically the entire northwest quadrant of the lower 48 from the combination of Seattle, Salt Lake City and Minneapolis. Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North & South Dakota, Wyoming & Nebraska would all find the combination of Delta’s services to be a powerful competitor to United’s San Francisco + Denver + Chicago hub combination.

Neither Continental nor American would benefit the same way. Neither of them has hubs that are close enough Seattle to have a similar effect.

Lastly, it’s worthwhile noting that Alaska and Delta have similar pilot pay structures these days. You can check that out for yourselves by looking at rates at Airline Pilot Central. You can see that Delta & Alaska have similar 737 pay rates. This is important — prior to 9/11, Alaska’s rates were a lot lower than those of the “big ugly” airlines like Delta, meaning that a merger of Alaska with an airline like Delta would instantly impose significant additional costs on the Alaska route structure. That’s nowhere near the problem it once would have been.

Given the extraordinary benefits to Delta, we’d even go so far as to say that Delta would be nuts not to pursue a takeover with Alaska as soon as it is able. There are few occasions where a “fill-in” acquisition like Alaska could yield such benefits.

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The Cardinal is a long time industry observer, who is currently a [redacted] at [redacted]. Prior to working at [redacted], he worked at [redacted], [redacted] and [redacted]. He resides in [redacted] and in his spare time enjoys [redacted with extreme prejudice].

I know, I know. I’m not on vacation anymore, but when industry veteran Hubert Horan sent me this rebuttal to Evan Sparks’s piece, “Why International Alliances Are Good for You,” I just had to post it. What do you think?
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I was in charge of international network planning and scheduling at NWA in the early/mid 90s, and developed the first (NWA-KLM) alliance network in 1993. Within 18 months we expanded hub-to-hub flying from 2 to 9 daily flights, establishing the network model subsequently copied by Delta-Swissair (in 95) and United-Lufthansa (in 97). I later spent four years at Swissair/Sabena, so I have worked these alliances from both sides of the Atlantic. I’ve not only built up alliances that actually worked from a customer/financial standpoint, but I’ve helped shut down alliances (America West-Continental, the European Qualiflyer alliance) that didn’t. In recent years I’ve published a variety of articles on alliances, the dynamics of international competition, the EU-US treaty negotiations, and related topics. Thus when I say that the arguments in the 13 April post “International Alliances Are Good For You” demonstrate a profound ignorance of international airline competition and the economics of airline alliances, there is a substantial body of analysis and experience behind my claims.

The current applications for alliance antitrust immunity will completely end meaningful competition on the North Atlantic. 23 airlines that used to compete independently have applied to the US and EU governments to consolidate into three Collusive Alliances. There are active press reports that two others may join in the near future (see list below). The three Collusive Alliances will control 97% of all North Atlantic traffic. The three groups would function as a North Atlantic Cartel with the Lufthansa and Air France groups dominating Continental European traffic (75-80% of the total North Atlantic) while the British Airways-led group would dominate the US-UK market (the other 20-25%). None of the members of this cozy Cartel would have any incentive to compete aggressively with the others.

The central issue here is whether you think this radical North Atlantic consolidation is “Good For You”, as the author of the 13 April post believes, or would cause lasting damage to consumers and industry efficiency. A few factual points are critical to understanding the economic issues.

1. These Collusive Alliances, which explicitly eliminate competition, function totally differently from the longstanding “Branded Alliances” (Star, Skyteam, Oneworld) which are enhanced frequent flyer programs, and are not anti-competitive. United can collude on prices and schedules with Lufthansa and other European “Star” members, but faces aggressive competition from ANA, Thai, Singapore, and other “Star” members. Reciprocal frequent flyer “alliances” date to the early 80s, long before the Collusive Alliances began. Oneworld has functioned fine for ten years without any antitrust immunity arrangements; if its members were not granted immunity to collude on North Atlantic pricing, Oneworld would continue to function in its present form.




2. The North Atlantic, like other Intercontinental markets, has huge barriers to competitive entry. It is absolutely impossible to compete on the North Atlantic without a large scale hub operation on at least one side of the ocean. This is a pure “network airline” market; no LCC or niche competitor has ever achieved more than a miniscule share of the North Atlantic. Many of the most important airports (JFK, EWR, LHR, CDG, FRA, ORD) are highly slot constrained. Even though there has been active entry and dynamic growth in most of global aviation since deregulation, there has been almost no net entry into the Intercontinental sector in the last 25 years. There is no plausible evidence to support the claim that any anti-competitive behavior by the Alliance Cartel would be quickly disciplined by new competitors entering the market.




3. The three original Collusive Alliances (NWA-KLM, Delta-Swissair, Lufthansa-United) benefited consumers in the early mid-90s by providing improved schedules and lower prices to one previously underserved piece of the market, the so-called “double connect” markets. These St. Louis-Berlin or Jacksonville-Munich type city-pairs, where no one offered “online” service, actually accounted for about 25% of the North Atlantic in 1990. You could fly interline, but fares were high. The original alliances provided good schedules in these markets and the full range of discounts found elsewhere. But by 1997, this market gap had been fully closed. After 1997, the Collusive Alliances didn’t offer consumers any new services or prices that hadn’t been available before.




4. As late as 2003, the North Atlantic had healthy competition and was strongly profitable. The three largest competitors served about 55% of the market; no one had anything close to the “market power” that would permit the type of oligopoly behavior that could harm consumers. The three Collusive Alliances (focused on connect markets) combined had about 45% of total traffic; they competed with each other and with the non-alliance carriers that focused on larger nonstop markets (BA, Virgin Atlantic, AA, US Airways, Continental).




5. Prices paid by North Atlantic consumers have been climbing rapidly (chart below). In the 1990s, transatlantic average fare trends closely tracked US domestic trends. But this changed after 2000; as North Atlantic concentration levels (top 3 share) rose from 47% to 67% in 2007, average North Atlantic fares rose 40% more than US domestic fares. The threat of consumer price gouging will surely increase further as concentration grows from 67% to 97%.









6. Each of the 23 (soon to be 26) previously independent airlines went to the US and EU governments with a petition to either merge, or for antitrust immunity to actively collude on prices, schedules, service and everything else (which is exactly the same as a merger). The big Legacy carriers have invested millions in lobbying and public relation efforts advocating “industry consolidation”. The move to radical consolidation had nothing to do with consumers, efficiency, or “market forces”. The shift from a market where the top 3 competitors had a 55% share, to a world where they have a 97% share, resulted from government officials agreeing with the requests from these airlines to eliminate competition.

Why are the current antitrust immunity applications and the larger trend towards radical North Atlantic consolidation Bad for Consumers and Industry Efficiency?

• Because none of the consolidation since 2003 generated any new consumer benefits or offsetting productivity gains that could have possibly justified the reduced competition.




• Because extreme concentration in markets with high entry barriers always creates huge risks, and there is zero probability of new competition that would ever threaten the hegemony of the 3-alliance Cartel–Southwest or Easyjet will never invest the tens of billions that would be needed to mount a serious competitive challenge.




• Because once it is in place, it will be much more profitable for the 3-alliance Cartel to steadily raise prices while cutting capacity and service—classic oligopoly behavior—undermining the growth that airports and local economies depend on, and undermining the pressure for innovation that is critical to long-run industry efficiency




• Because airlines will use the totally artificial profits from the protected North Atlantic Cartel to distort competition in the US domestic market—for example Delta can use these artificial profits to subsidize competition against more efficient shorthaul carriers such as Airtran and Southwest.




• Because having a radical shift towards concentration totally driven by government action—explicitly favoring the interests of the big Legacy airlines over the interests of consumers, communities and non-Legacy airlines—makes a travesty of the basic principles of deregulated competition and Open Skies.

How can the author of the April 13th post, and the Legacy Airline PR people claim that merging 26 independent North Atlantic airlines into a 3-alliance Cartel is Good for Consumers?

• Try to confuse people by conflating the frequent flyer benefits of Branded Alliances with the anti-competitive impacts of mergers and Collusive Alliances




• Use false and deliberately misleading evidence, i.e., claim that an academic analysis demonstrating that consumers benefited when the original alliances were first introduced in the mid 90s under vibrant competitive conditions proves that consumers will achieve new incremental benefits if these alliances are merged together and competition is totally eliminated in 2009




• Ignore historical evidence (recent pricing data), or simply fabricate false claims, i.e., that reduced competition is a necessary response to the recession, ignoring the fact that all of these mergers and alliances were planned years ago when the market was strongly profitable, and ignoring the fact that no one is demanding radical consolidation of the much more competitive domestic market




• Consider every transaction in isolation, without ever considering competitive responses, or ever examining the overall evidence of accelerating North Atlantic consolidation. The reviews of the Air France-KLM and Delta-NWA applications ignored the inevitable follow-on applications from Continental, BA-AA and others




• Make sure there is no regulatory scrutiny by objective outsiders of any merger/antitrust immunity claims; the only public evidence of the DOJ review of the Delta-Northwest merger is a one page press release touting the lower prices and expanded service that the reduced competition would allegedly create

As witnessed with the financial industry, the fight for airline consolidation has been led by people who claim to be true believers in “free markets” but are actually fighting to get governments to intervene in favor of badly managed (but politically powerful) big companies. The “free market” consolidation argument is really a demand to gut remaining antitrust and regulatory protections for market competition so that those big companies can merge into “too big to fail” global airlines. The “free market” case isn’t based on any data or analysis that can be objectively verified, and insists that anyone who disagrees must be a self-serving politician, if not an evil socialist. People who care about the future of commercial aviation shouldn’t ever tolerate this kind of nonsense.

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Hubert Horan is a Phoenix-based aviation consultant with 25 years of industry experience. His website is horanaviation.com

Note 1—the 23 previously independent competitors that have merged, or have formally applied to merge into the three Collusive Alliance groups: United, Continental, Lufthansa, Air Canada, Austrian, Swiss, SAS, TAP, Turkish, LOT, bmi, Brussels into the Lufthansa-led group; Delta, NWA, Air France, KLM, Alitalia, Czech into the Air France-led group and BA, AA-TWA, Iberia, Finnair into the British Airways-led group; Aer Lingus, Virgin Atlantic, and US Airways are also widely reported to be pursuing membership but have not yet formally applied for antitrust immunity. The largest carriers outside the Collusive Alliances would be Aeroflot (0.5% of transatlantic capacity in 2007) Aerosvit and flyglobespan (0.2% of capacity each).

Cranky is on vacation, but I’ve lined up some excellent guest bloggers for you while I’m gone. Today I have Frances Colleen Barton-Wolf. As far as I can tell, she’s not a blogger at all nor is she an airline dork (just married to one). I chose her post because it’s always good to get some perspective from regular travelers. Besides, her husband’s name is Stephen Wolf. I’m guessing there’s no relation. The other Stephen Wolf probably wouldn’t have “settled” for a business class seat.
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I know how much readers like travel logs with a message. Here goes . . . .

We had had a splendid holiday to the Northern Neck of Virginia. For our trip home, we decided to upgrade to Business class on our Air France return flight to Paris (CDG) from Dulles (IAD). It was our little wedding anniversary treat to one another. We took full advantage of all the lovely business perks of the trade, including the separate queue for security checks, which can otherwise be rather trying, the Business class check-in, and of course the best perk of them all is . . . spending our pre-boarding time in Air France’s luxurious Business lounge, where all food, drink and reading material are at hand, comfortable seating, pleasant staff at our service, and all with a smile. There were even Japanese heated toilet seats in the cloakrooms! It was all first rate. In fact, it was probably one of the best executive lounges that I’ve set foot in.

The food and service on board the flight were superb, as one would expect in Air France business class. It was all linen napkins, and white table cloths; excellent wine, the full “silver service” from the moment we entered the plane, and were handed a glass of Champers, until the final minutes when the stewards handed out our coats before landing. A pity it all didn’t last, because the moment we touched down at Paris-CDG, “It all went to a ball of chalk!”

After landing on-time, we spent a good twenty minutes or more taxing around, (taking the “scenic” sightseeing route around the entire CDG airport grounds,) until we finally came to a halt . . . but not at a terminal! We then all had to wait in the plane whilst the portable steps were attached, which took another 15 or more minutes of trial and error (the ground staff were having difficulty with the attachment mechanism, due to the early hour I suspect). We then had to walk out of the plane, down the stairs, cross the tarmac, and board a bus. (This was an Air France Triple 7 plane, and they didn’t have an air bridge for one of their trans-Atlantic flights at CDG. Amazing?!)

We ended up in the new Air France Terminal 2E, built specially for the A380. Eventually arriving at Passport Control around 6:30 am, and what did we find? A massive, massive queue of people waiting (see the picture). UNBELIEVABLY . . . THE PASSPORT CONTROL WASN’T OPEN! NO STAFF were in sight. (Goodness knows how long some passengers had been waiting before our flight arrived. I should have asked the woman in front of me.) Just what you need after a long flight. Slow hand claps and jibes started to gain momentum. By the time the immigration staff did turn up for work, the restless passengers were literally ready to storm the doors. It was close to 8:00 am by then, and the entire Passport Control and beyond was full of thousands of passengers, from several more flight arrivals after us. NOT a representative from the airport or Air France turned up to inform us of the problem . . . no one apologized or even announced the reason for the delay. NOT a sausage. “Bienvenue à Paris!”

When we did finally get moving, some French tried their best to queue jump, but met their match from a number of disgruntled passengers, us included. And, they were firmly, but politely, put in their place. At passport control, not a word of apology was uttered to us. We felt like saying something, but figured there was no point, they weren’t worth our breath. They must have known these flights were arriving early! But we did enjoy hearing a French traveller giving them what for . . . . Most importantly for us, we ended up losing almost an hour and a half there at the passport control. Our baggage was found by dead reckoning and some luck, since our flight had dropped off the airport computer. The worst thing about all these delays (after an on-time arrival I have to say), was they put us squarely in the Paris rush-hour for our taxi ride home. And yes, it took us over four hours (instead of 90 minutes) from touchdown to setting foot in our flat, close to the then-blocked (sans fluide) Paris Periferique. Ah, the joys of international travel.

And yes, the message of this log . . . . If you are travelling to Paris-CDG don’t arrive before 8:00am, the French are not early risers. And after October, the A380s begin arriving at this very terminal. Can the French cope?

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Frances Colleen Barton-Wolf is the long-suffering wife of the wind-tunnel expert, aviation enthusiast extraordinaire, and photographer Dr. Stephen Wolf (nickname “Spitfire”). We have lived on four continents, and travelled worldwide. In my spare time, I dance “dance classique”.

Cranky is on vacation, but I’ve lined up some excellent guest bloggers for you while I’m gone. Today I have The Traveling Optimist, who is a frequent commenter and previous guest poster on the blog.
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Recent articles have highlighted inexcusable stealing out of passenger baggage. It does not happen often based on the number of bags handled every day but consider the phenomenal temptation in that volume, what you personally pack in your luggage and what you can do to reduce the likelihood of it happening to you.

Statistics are not easy to come by but here’s a few “wow” numbers to ponder for three main international gateways:

Where there is bountiful chaos there is always opportunity and theft can occur at any point from check-in to drop off at baggage claim. A commuter hop might have 20 checked bags on board but the late night 747 full of migrant workers going home to the Philippines, however, can easily “max out” at 1200+ pieces. I once wanted to bring an ancient battle mace from Scotland back to Washington D.C. on United Airlines. The ticket agent at Heathrow agreed to additional security measures so no one on board would be alarmed. I never saw it again.

Security screening devices reveal solid, bulky objects in recognizable shapes. Consider that statement. While paid to look for weapons, other things come across the screen in front of bored or opportunistic eyes. The thief is looking for bling while the honest agent is looking for weapons but comes across a bag full of non-lethal but very personal items. Nothing like luggage loaded with rather long and large sex toys to perk up a dull shift.

Job cuts mean that most airport workers simply don’t have time to rifle through your belongings. Further, baggage should not announce embarrassing riches inside; the exotic destination bag tag does all the broadcasting. Two Louis Vuittons stuffed to the gills, screaming at the stitches and fresh off an inbound from Hong Kong or heading home to London? It doesn’t take a brain surgeon.

Overstuffed bags or faulty zippers burst every day. That is on you for using old, cheap or poorly packed luggage. But is the worker faced with the situation truly pilfering or simply trying to stuff your junk back inside as best as possible? You’ll know when you unpack. Avoid ostentatious or even matching luggage, pack nothing you can’t afford to lose and for Pete’s sake, leave the bling and the bedroom toys at home.

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The Traveling Optimist lives in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and believes glamor and excitement still exists in the airways of the world. A 24 year veteran of the airline industry, he now peacefully earns his living in mortgage financing. Presently working on projects that will redefine his life yet again, the Optimist is ever ready for the next adventure, plane ride and vacation to the far corners of the only planet he’ll ever live on.