Commuter Airlines Breed Concerns

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What's in a Name?

Commuter airlines and their smaller aircraft wouldn't be so omnipresent if it wasn't for the parlous financial state of the major airlines, which have farmed out huge chunks of their domestic flying because the commuters pay crews less and operate flights at a much lower cost per mile. Some of that cost savings comes from the hidebound nature of airline-labor relations. Pilot pay scales are based on aircraft size—the bigger the plane, the higher the pay. A top-line pilot flying a widebody jet for a major carrier can earn around $150,000 a year. By contrast, commuter airlines pay new co-pilots as little as $25,000 a year.

The relationship between major jet airlines and their commuter carriers is much more complicated then it appears. Although most are independent airlines with separate licenses issued by the Federal Aviation Administration, the commuter airlines sign code-share and "capacity purchase" agreements with the big airlines. They paint their planes to look like the major carriers' fleets, adopt variations on the big airlines' names and logos, and operate with flight numbers and schedules assigned by the larger carrier. The commuters rely on the big airlines to sell the tickets and market the flights too.

Continental Connection Flight 3407, for example, was not operated by Continental Airlines at all. It was flown by an airline called Colgan, which itself is owned by Pinnacle Airlines. Colgan and Pinnacle also fly under the colors of US Airways Express (the commuter operation of US Airways) and United Express (the commuter carrier for United Airlines). It also runs commuter flights under the Northwest Airlink and Delta Connection names for Delta Air Lines, which recently merged with Northwest Airlines.

Cockpit Concerns
Financial relations between the independent commuter airlines and the major airline partners don't always go smoothly, of course. (A large, financially troubled commuter called Mesa is currently embroiled in a convoluted lawsuit with Delta and a negative court decision could drive Mesa into bankruptcy.) From a business traveler's standpoint, however, it is the commuter's relationships with its own crews that leads to the safety fears.

As big airlines shifted routes to commuters, the commuter carriers were desperate for cockpit crews. Pilots with as little as 500 hours of flight experience were being recruited. ("When I got out of the Navy, I had 1,800 hours of experience before I even got into commercial aviation," one recently retired pilot for a major carrier told me last weekend.) Although all commercial pilots are trained to the same federal standards regardless of the airline that employs them, experience does matter on the flight deck—a reality celebrated last month when 58-year-old Chesley Sullenberger, an Air Force vet with 29 years of commercial flying experience, guided US Airways Flight 1549 to a safe landing on the Hudson River. By contrast, the first officer of Continental Connection Flight 3407 was just 24 years old. The 47-year-old captain had more than 3,400 hours of flying experience, but he'd only been in command of a Q400 since last December.

"It's the combination of things that worry me," a business traveler based in Santa Barbara, California, told me last week. "I see children going into the cockpit of small planes run by airlines I've never heard of and I say to myself, 'Do I really want to be on this flight?'"

Her answer, at least for the moment, is no. She's stopped booking the regional jets operated by Skywest Airlines under the United Express banner for the 262-mile flight to San Francisco. Now she pilots her 2007 Honda SUV up the freeway to meet with her Bay Area clients.

The Fine Print…
US Airways last year became the first large U.S. airline to charge for soft drinks, juice, coffee, and water in coach on domestic flights. But since no other carrier matched its move, the airline has abandoned the unpopular charge. Effective March 1, non-alcoholic beverages will once again be free on all US Airways flights.

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