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E L L I O T T' S TRAVEL NOTES
Travel news, opinion and analysis

January 5, 2004

Southwest Stars in TV Reality Show
A new TV show follows employees of Southwest Airlines as they deal with weather delays, blackouts and passengers who are running late or too drunk or too smelly to board the plane. There are unhappy travelers and a few shouting matches. "Airline" begins tonight on the A&E Network, which plans to air 18 half-hour episodes. Associated Press | Posted 6:05 a.m.
-- Southwest: Show highlights "outrageous service"
-- A&E: Expect "occasional outbursts"
-- Reuters: "Airline" a behind-the-scenes look at carrier
-- NPR: New show "never gets off the ground"

• No other U.S. carrier would participate in the show, and even Southwest's CEO Colleen Barrett at times reportedly asked herself, "What possessed me?" But the truth is that A&E's "reality" formula would have made most other airlines look awful. | Send us your comments.

South Africa Road "Slaughter" in '03
South Africa's road network may be the most extensive and modern on the continent but it remains notorious due to the scale of the annual slaughter of motorists and pedestrians. Government figures put the death toll at about 10,000, but a survey by the country's medical research council estimated that as many 18,000 had died in road accidents. The Guardian | Posted 6:10 a.m.
<-- CN Traveler: What are the odds you'll be killed?

Mullin, Carty Make "Fallen" CEO List
Delta's Leo F. Mullin and American's Donald J. Carty made BusinessWeek's list of "fallen" executives. Each left for more or less the same reason: money. When Delta pilots learned that Mullin had quietly guaranteed his top 33 executives $45 million in pensions if the airline went bankrupt, he was toast. Carty got canned in April after the airline's unions found out that it had agreed to pay top execs hefty retention bonuses and spend $40 million to protect the pensions of senior managers in event of bankruptcy. JetBlue got an honorable mention for its privacy-related PR blunder. BusinessWeek | Posted 6:10 a.m.
<-- Journal : Carty resigns as American Airlines CEO
<-- AP: Mullin "unexpectedly" quits at pivotal time
<-- Wired: Senators want JetBlue probe

• Who's next? The scuttlebutt is that it's only days before US Airways will see a full-scale management change. Late last year, the airline's pilots demanded a housecleaning at the Crystal Palace. | Send us your comments.

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• And finally ... just as the airline industry congratulated itself on having its safest year ever, we got word last weekend of the tragic Flash Airlines disaster in Egypt. Talk about bad timing. No one really knows if a single accident on this scale is enough to bring one of the weakened U.S. airlines to liquidity. Let's hope we never find out. Posted 6:10 a.m. | Send us your comments.

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