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Who's to Blame for a Bad Year?
The Travel Critic · December 29, 1997

Looking for someone to blame for a miserable year? Try Robert L. Crandall, Leo F. Mullin or John A. Edwardson.

You may not know these men, but you know their airlines. As the executives calling the shots at American, Delta and United, respectively, they're the most influential personalities in their business.

I don't think I'm going out on a limb by suggesting that these three are responsible for giving us a truly horrible year. Consider:

-Booking fees were up. In September, United announced it would reduce commissions to travel agents to 8 percent from 10 percent and placed a $50 cap on commissions paid for a round-trip ticket. The other airlines followed in short order, prompting many travel agents to start charging booking fees of about $10 per ticket to make up for lost revenue.

-More flights were sold out. The strong economy helped fill most seats and airlines unloaded the few remaining spots by aggressively selling discounted tickets online. American's recently redesigned Web site and its Travelocity booking engine were just two of many Internet destinations where extra seats were dumped on incidental tourists. (By the way, Delta takes the award for cramming in the most passengers on its flights this year. It handled more than 100 million passengers in 1997, the first time any airline has flown so many people.)

-Carry-on baggage was restricted. Fuller flights meant less overhead compartment space. Airlines responded by forcing us to choose between lugging the laptop or the overnight bag on board. The Federal Aviation Administration proposed new guidelines for carry-on baggage, too, but the fate of that initiative is uncertain as 1997 winds down.

-Back-to-back tickets went the way of the dodo. Well, almost. Carriers cracked down on a time-honored business travel tradition of buying cheaper tickets meant for vacationers. The tactic involves buying two round-trip tickets and using them to evade Saturday-night stay requirements by flying one leg of each ticket. Travelers trying to elude sky-high business travel fares were punished-and so were their travel agents. Airlines billed offending retailers as much as $100,000, and gate agents confiscated tickets from passengers who failed to use both legs of their round trips or made them pay the difference in fare.

And while we suffered, the nation's top three carriers partied.

United posted what it termed a "stellar" third quarter in October-$499 million in net income, up 5 percent from the third quarter in 1996 and the highest quarterly earnings the carrier had ever racked up. Delta enjoyed a record fiscal year. AMR Corp., American's parent company, earned $323 million in its latest quarter, compared with $282 million a year earlier. "We had a very good quarter," boasted Robert L. Crandall, AMR's chairman and chief executive.

Does this make you as crabby as it makes me? It should. But instead of getting mad at these robber barons of the skies who led their airlines to higher profits at our expense, let us turn or attention on ways of getting even in 1998.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.