NEWSMAKERS

Host: Pedro Echevarria

November 28, 2007

Guest: Captain John Prater

PEDRO ECHEVARRIA, HOST, C-SPAN’S “NEWSMAKERS”: This week on “Newsmakers” is Captain John Prater, the president of the Air Line Pilots Association. He’s joining us from Jacksonville, Florida.

Our reporters who will be speaking with him over the course of the next half-hour, Tom Ramstack with the “Washington Times,” serves as their transportation reporter. We’re also joined by Eamon Javers of “Business Week,” the Washington correspondent.

Mr. Javers, you have the first question.

EAMON JAVERS, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, “BUSINESS WEEK”: Sure. Obviously, we are right in the middle of an intense holiday travel season. And I’m just wondering, compared to previous years, how are we doing so far?

CAPTAIN JOHN PRATER, PRESIDENT, AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION: I think so far, we started out a little bit rocky. But after that, the weather hasn’t been so brutal as to cause major delays in our northeast hubs.

JAVERS: And we’ve seen so much intense interest over the past couple of weeks over airline congestion. Tell us a little bit just the basics. What’s causing so much congestion these days, and what you think we can do to solve the problem.

PRATER: Well, the first thing we have to do is concentrate on having a world class air traffic control situation. We need to get the FAA reauthorization bill through with the Congress. We need to get it signed. And we need to get the FAA working on the capacity issues. We believe the marketplace will take care of itself. It’s a good thing. We have lots of passengers wanting to travel lots of places. We just have to have the infrastructure.

JAVERS: Right. Lots of passengers, especially this week.

ECHEVARRIA: Mr. Ramstack.

TOM RAMSTACK, TRANSPORTATION REPORTER, “WASHINGTON TIMES”: Mr. Prater, to what extent do you think President Bush’s plan announced last week, that includes opening military air lanes to commercial traffic and increasing compensation for bumped passengers, would reduce delays for airline passengers?

PRATER: Well, let me start in reverse. The bumped passenger thing is just merely a sop to try to get the airlines to book less passengers, which will make it more expensive in the long run. The more important one is the air traffic control and loosening up the military airspace up and down the East Coast. Unfortunately, we need that year-round. We need it more in the thunderstorm season than we do in the fall and winter season. That would help us during the summers when the delays are throughout, 30, 60, 90 days in a row, instead of just over the holiday weekend.

ECHEVARRIA: Do you have a follow-up?

RAMSTACK: Yes. Delta Airlines Chief Executive Officer Richard Anderson said recently that he sees some merit in airline industry consolidations. Meanwhile, industry analysts say a merger between Delta and United Airlines is likely. What do airline pilots generally believe would happen to their industry, if there is another major merger?

PRATER: Well, we’ve been undergoing consolidation in our industry, certainly since deregulation in 1978. What we have told the analysts, what we’ve told the financial planners and, certainly, our managers, “Come to us first. Come to the pilots and we’ll work through the problems involved with these very, very troublesome mergers.” We can work with you, if it’s a good merger. If you take care of the employees, we’ll work with you. If you don’t, you’ll find it’s very difficult to merge labor groups.

RAMSTACK: You said that it’d be difficult to merge labor groups. What action would the Air Line Pilots Association take, if a Delta-United merger moves beyond the talking stage?

PRATER: Well, first of all, if we are able to protect the jobs, protect the contracts of both pilot groups, regardless of which pilot groups may be involved in a merger – that’s our primary goal. We want to have strong companies in our industry, strong U.S. airlines. We’ll work to make sure that happens. But we have to address our issues, our concerns. Again, we always start with safety. Will it be a well-funded, a financially positive company? Or will it just be destroying? Will it be spinning off assets and making a weaker airline, one that cannot support itself?

ECHEVARRIA: Mr. Javers.

JAVERS: Yes. Your concern, obviously, is for the jobs of the people who are – the members of your union.

But the airline industry, historically – you know, almost since the Wright brothers – it seems like almost nobody has ever figured out how to make a lot of money in the airline business. A couple of really successful players, and then a lot of failures over the historic period of time that we’ve had an airline industry at all.

Why is it that this airline industry seems to be so troubled for so many years, and we seem to continue to have the same problems over and over again? You would think that industry would be able to solve that over time. And it seems like that just has not happened.

PRATER: Well, I think you have to look at it from – it’s a very cash-intensive industry. Now, there is plenty of revenue flow, and there’s a lot of people making money in the airline industry. How much of it stays with the airline itself? How much do you reinvest in the airline?

Again, the infrastructure of the company, if you’re not buying those new airplanes, you’re not going to succeed long term. You just turn over the help, and you start up again.

JAVERS: And clearly we have some startups that have been able to be very successful. I mean, the keynote (ph) that everyone looks to in the business is Southwest, which has been around a couple of decades now, and they’re a raging success. Others seem saddled with costs and infrastructure. They just can’t seem to break the logjam.

What do you think the airline industry needs to do going forward, to have more cases like Southwest and fewer cases like so many of the problems that we’ve seen?

PRATER: Well, a lot of it depends upon the business model itself. Southwest has a successful business model. But it’s pretty difficult to get to London or to Europe, or to Mexico or to Hawaii on Southwest. The hub-and-spoke – the legacy type carriers that serve hundreds and hundreds of destinations, in partnership with their regional partners – that’s a complete, entire transportation system. Will there be mergers and consolidation? And will it be good? Most likely, there will be consolidation. That’s what we’ve seen for the last 30 years. We’ll be prepared to handle it. We believe there should be a higher level of reinvestment in companies versus spinning off assets and just draining away the profits.

JAVERS: So, when you talk about the consolidation, how many airlines, ultimately, do you think there will be in the United States? What’s the carrying capacity for airlines in this country?

PRATER: Well, the airline industry is very mature. It will eventually get to three, four major airlines. But there will be plenty of new entrants. There will be plenty of niche carriers, trying to find that place that the legacy carriers cannot make money with. You’ll see a lot of the alliances worldwide. There’s three major alliances right now, providing that global transportation system.

ECHEVARRIA: Mr. Ramstack?

RAMSTACK: Political tensions in the Middle East are creating speculation that $100 a barrel oil prices will be just the beginning of price increases. If fuel prices continue upward, what do you think would be the long-range impact on airlines and passengers?

PRATER: Well, just like we saw in the early ‘70s, and then again in the late ‘70s with oil crunches, there will be ramifications. People will start to use the resources much more efficiently. Will we see a pullback in the customers and the passengers? Most likely. There is a limit to how much people will pay. But remember, we’re still a very efficient, and certainly the most safe form of public transportation. We can move a lot of people, vast differences. And it’s vital to our economy that we do so. So, I think there will be some restructurings, but I don’t think you’re going to see any major downturn in the airline industry.

RAMSTACK: To what extent are these questions about oil prices affecting the talk of consolidations in the airline industry? And what other factors would there be behind that talk of more consolidations?

PRATER: Well, I think the oil is one of the main drivers, the price of oil. I think you’re also – what people haven’t talked about is a shortage of airline pilots. Right now we’re seeing extreme pressure upon new entry pilots. Pilots are not coming out of the military with their eight or 10 years service, or even completing a 20-year career and willing to work for the airlines in this time period. So, I think we’ll see some consolidation in the regional industry, purely for shortage of airline, qualified airline pilots. Other things, the ATC system. The delays in our system, especially through the northeast, have to be addressed. And that may drive some rationalization of the airline industry. Or we need the government to allow the airlines to coordinate their schedule. Give them some relief from the antitrust provisions, so that we can produce a smoother schedule through some of these major airports.

JAVERS: You know, it’s interesting to me that you mention the military. And the pipeline for pilots has always been out of the military. Does the fact that we’re at war right now change at all the supply of pilots who are potential hires for the airlines?

And then secondly, how have you seen that change over the years? Obviously, the military is much smaller now than it has been in past decades. Where do you get airline pilots, if not from the military?

PRATER: Well, when I began as an airline pilot 30 years ago, about 90 to 95 percent of the airline pilots had former military training or military experience. That’s almost completely reversed now – a couple of reasons. This downturn that we’ve experienced since 9/11 really cut into our contracts. We have most of our members who have taken 30, 40 percent pay cuts, maybe lost 75 or 80 percent of their pensions. So, pilots aren’t going to come out of the military with eight, 10 years, maybe an advanced degree. They’re not going to go to work for $18,000 to $20,000 a year, hoping that it gets better. They’re taking their skills and education elsewhere.

The new pilots are coming out of the universities. There’s two-year and four-year type universities. But again, you’re going to invest anywhere between $75,000 and $100,000 to become qualified with just your basic licenses, on top of your college expenses. Why would that individual – why would that young man or woman come into a business where there is no future? That’s one of the reasons the pilot supply has dried up so much.

JAVERS: And you mentioned 9/11. Obviously, a huge problem for the airline industry. How have the security costs changed for the airlines since 9/11? Obviously, up front there was a huge startup cost of imposing all new procedures and new security measures. Today, we’re several years after the incident. What kind of security costs do the airlines bear? And is that number trending down over time?

PRATER: Well, the security costs, unfortunately, have trended, tended upwards, and are certainly passed on to the consumer. I think the real cost of the industry is still the threat, the fear – and the hassle factor. Yes, some of these security techniques are good. Our government agencies are doing their job. But again, look at staffing. This is still a service industry, and you can’t expect people to stand in lines for long periods of time. I do believe, when they’re staffed properly and when all of the agencies are working together, we’ve got a more safe and secure industry.

ECHEVARRIA: Mr. Ramstack?

RAMSTACK: What do you think are the chances of another September 11th style of attack?

PRATER: Well, we’re always certainly concerned about it. As you know, safety and security are just paramount to our industry. We have been pushing for what we call a secondary barrier. Remember, it was the violation of the cockpit. It was taking over the cockpit by terrorists that led to those events. So, the industry responded with the FAA, and we produced a hardened door, a more secure door. But that door is still opened in flight. So, we are pushing for a secondary barrier. The cost – minimal. The costs are very minimal. And we’ve been pushing with the FAA and the industry itself to install these secondary barriers.

We hope the airlines will agree with us this year.

RAMSTACK: But would you say generally that the Transportation Security Administration is doing an adequate job of providing security for airlines?

PRATER: It is still a very troubling – it’s very difficult. In other words, can you stop terrorists? Yes. The FBI, the TSA, the CIA – all of our agencies are working together to prevent another terrorist attack on this country. But when we get into looking for criminal activity, or searching for items like scissors, you know, at the front door of the airport, maybe we’re not doing it as efficiently as possible. When we’re screening airline pilots to the same level as passengers, when we’ve had our background checked by the FBI for 10 years, and we have the keys to the cockpit door, it’s a waste. It’s a complete waste of assets. So, we need to focus on the intent of the bad people, not of the people who just want to get on the airplane and get home for Thanksgiving.

JAVERS: As a traveler, I fly a lot. And it seems like the policies at the gate are changing all the time, in terms of security. You get this policy about gels and things that you can’t bring onto the airplane, and so they’re going through and taking all your shaving cream and shampoo, and whatnot. That’s morphing over time, though, in response to incidents that happened in the past. In that case, where they were responding to something that they saw in Britain as a security threat. What do you think the policy ought to be about what people can bring through that metal detector and bring onto an airplane, and what they can’t? And do you feel like the government is doing an adequate job of shaping those policies right now?

PRATER: Well, our security agencies worldwide are dealing with the threats that they see and the possibilities of those type of activities. So, unfortunately, the 99.9 percent of us who just want to get home for the holidays or want to get to our business meeting are going through that hassle factor. They’re pushing more and more towards trying to check your luggage and push it off. That’s what we saw in the initial days behind the – with the toothpaste and the lotions. Again, you know, someone like yourself who travels all the time, you get used to it. You’re prepared for it. But it’s the people who only travel once or twice a year, there is no certainty. Now, changing up security procedures, that is one of the layers of security. You don’t want to do the same thing over and over. But we understand the hassle factor. We go through it every day, sometimes three and four times a day, to get through security.

JAVERS: And the other thing that we’ve seen in the headlines a lot recently has been this question of, what happens to the passengers on a flight when the flight is significantly delayed. And I’m talking three, four, five, eight hours. There’s been a question about whether those passengers on those flights that are sitting on the tarmac ready to go, but haven’t left yet, have a right to get off the airplane, to be brought back to the airport and let back into the terminal, as opposed to having to sit there in what can be really grueling conditions – if you read the headlines over the past couple of months of stopped up toilets and running out of food and water, and that sort of thing. Where do you draw the line between the airline’s needs to move its airplanes around the way it needs to do that, and the passengers’ rights to be treated with some sort of efficiency and really, basic dignity?

PRATER: Well, it comes down to communications and having enough people to be able to deal with a situation like that. We all know that the weather is going to happen, whether it’s thunderstorms, whether it’s freezing rain, whether it’s snow and drizzle. And the delays are going to happen. Are we equipped to handle those delays on the airplane? Do we have enough water? Do we have some snacks for kids, or even for adults? How packed are the airplanes? They’re very packed. So, our flight attendants have to work very hard to, if you will, keep peace. As long as you tell the passengers what’s going on, they normally want to leave that airport and get to where they’re going.

But if there’s any type of medical problem, you’ve got to be able to get those people off the airplane. Even if you can’t return to a terminal, you’ve got to bring out the stairs and the transportation, to be able to take care of those people that don’t want to stick it out any longer. I’ve had some of those flights on the tarmac that have lasted five, six, seven hours. And I find that, if you keep the passengers involved – highly involved – in what is going on, so that they do understand. You never lie to them. If it’s an air traffic control problem, tell them. If it’s weather, tell them. If it’s a mechanical, tell them. But the bottom line is, keep them informed and try to make the best situation out of something that’s gotten very ugly in this country – not enough infrastructure.

ECHEVARRIA: You’re watching “Newsmakers” with Captain John Prater of the Air Line Pilots Association, and serves as their president. Our reporters joining us are Eamon Javers of “Business Week,” and Tom Ramstack of the “Washington Times.” Mr. Ramstack.

RAMSTACK: You have advocated a return to aggressive bargaining and pilot action in labor contracts with airlines. Does that mean that strikes or other job action by pilots would be more likely under your leadership?

PRATER: Well, it depends on the strike question. What we’re trying to do is convince management to deal with us. You know what? No one likes a strike. But we have to be prepared for it. So that’s what we’re gearing up for nationwide. I formed a national strike committee to prepare each and every one of our 42 pilot groups for the eventuality that negotiations would fail to produce a decent contract. So, we’re prepared to do that. But what we’re really trying to do is convince management that we are a valued employee. We’re career employees. Treat us as such. That means we need retirement. Address the concerns, whether they’re safety concerns or work rule concerns. We have pilots flying 25 percent more than they were before 9/11 for 30 percent less, and they’re not happy. We’re seeing pilots walk with their feet already. They’re taking their skills out of this industry and leaving. So, the pressures will be there on the company to deal with us.

RAMSTACK: So then, if there is another industry consolidation, such as a United-Delta merger, would that then make one of those strikes more likely, do you think?

PRATER: No. It makes the fact that that merger will never come off successfully unless they deal with the pilots up front. We will show them what has to be in a contract, primarily the working conditions. I’ve got an awful lot of members that haven’t had their Thanksgiving dinner yet, because they’re still out flying. Some of them are in Afghanistan delivering supplies to the troops. Some of them are in South America or Australia or Japan. They haven’t been home yet.

What we’re telling our managers is, we cannot keep working to the level we’re working. We are seeing pilots fatigued, day in and day out. The reports that are coming in, we’ve never seen this level of them. So, we then have to tell our pilots, if you’re too fatigued to fly, call in sick, call in fatigued, go home. You will have to cancel the trip. If the airline doesn’t have enough pilots to staff that trip, they don’t have enough pilots on reserve, then that is unfortunately going to come across in the bottom line the wrong way.

RAMSTACK: Could that fatigue be a contributing factor in the current airline – shortage of airline pilots?

PRATER: Pilot fatigue, as far as I’m concerned, is the number one safety issue for pilots today. We’ve seen far too many carriers and far too many pilots reporting fatigue levels. We’re human beings. Yet our schedule can be 16 hours a day, six days a week. We could fly even more than that when we’re flying internationally. Think about what it does to you if you fly to Europe once. Well, try doing that six, seven times a month, back to back, getting your rest off in little dribs and drabs. It is a huge issue. The shortage of pilots is exacerbating it. And the contract levels – what we call safety work rules – they have to be addressed. They will be addressed up front in any combination of carriers, whether it’s United, Delta, Continental, Northwest. Those things have to be addressed up front.

ECHEVARRIA: Mr. Javers?

JAVERS: Yes. I’d like to go back to just this question we were just talking about, of how long passengers should expect to be stuck on a tarmac, if a flight has been delayed significantly, many hours. That’s really provoked a lot of passenger outrage and headlines over the past couple of months. You talked about it a little bit. But do you see an outside limit? Is there a fixed number of hours, do you think, beyond which passengers should not be expected to wait? What’s the time limit here?

PRATER: Well, I think each flight has to be a little bit different. I mean, you have to weigh what is going on with that flight. It depends on how large the airplane and what the facilities are like. But I think what we need is each airline to have, what happens at one hour? What happens at two hours, at three hours, you know? Is that the point? Or if the pilot knows that he’s been told by air traffic control, you’re going to be released for takeoff in 30 minutes, you can’t have a vote on an airplane. You have to be able to make that decision.

JAVERS: The passengers might like that, though.

PRATER: It’s not a democracy.

JAVERS: The passengers might like the chance to have a vote.

PRATER: It would. But when you have a majority and a minority opinion, someone has to make the decision. And that has to be the captain.

JAVERS: Right. I was also interested in this issue of fatigue that you brought up.

There was a story recently in the papers about a flight crew that actually – the pilot and the co-pilot, everybody in the cockpit fell asleep during the flight. This was one of these long haul international flights, I think. Clearly, that’s a terrifying safety issue. But if you don’t have enough pilots, and you have to have this certain number of flights in order to keep the airline afloat, what can the airlines do to make sure that the pilots are, in fact, getting the kind of rest and breaks in between flights that they need?

PRATER: Well, some airlines this past summer – believe it or not, as bad as it was – had to cut back on their planned flying, because they did not have enough pilots to fly the airplanes. Maybe that’s a lost financial opportunity. But better a lost financial opportunity than what leads to the loss of an airplane. We do not want to make mistakes. We are telling the FAA, we are telling our customers, our managers that it’s a problem.

So, if we have to cut back until the supply of pilots catches up, that’s what we’ll have to do. Some of the rationalization, putting larger airplanes on some of the routes instead of as many small airplanes will allow us to move more passengers and combat the fatigue. But the bottom line is, we are operating under federal regulations that were crafted in the ‘50s and ‘60s. They do not take into account the science of – the human science of fatigue. And yet, we’re still working to those rules.

So, we’re going to deal with it in our contracts first. We’re trying to deal with it through the government agencies. Congress has put a provision to do another pilot fatigue study. But we need the FAA to act upon it this time, and not just put it off into a drawer. Let us look at the work rules, the flight time and duty time rules for airline pilots, and address them up front.

ECHEVARRIA: Mr. Ramstack?

RAMSTACK: Last month, Continental Airlines issued a memo to its pilots, telling them to avoid over-filling fuel tanks as an energy conservation method. Do you think that could create any safety hazards?

PRATER: Well, what prevents it from being a safety hazard is, again, the crew. But no crew wants to feel pressured by an airline, by a manager, to save more fuel or to make a decision that even cuts into the captain’s authority, that cuts into the safety level. Remember, our passengers are not just paying us to fly from New York to London. They’re paying us to do it safely. They’re paying for us to say no, if we feel like it’s unsafe. Now, every airline manager will tell you that, oh, we would never push our pilots into an unsafe condition. But they certainly dangle it out there. Consider all the bankruptcies we’ve been through and the losses to our pension plans, to our money. Yet do you want pilots making decisions based upon profit or loss, or safety? We’re going to err to safety. So, when any company puts out a memo that says, well, you can reduce gas and save money, we’re going to look at it very, very critically, in which case our pilots at Continental did that this time.

ECHEVARRIA: Captain Prater, are concerns about global warming going to affect, eventually affect the airline industry?

PRATER: Well, I’m not a scientist, but it has already affected our industry, especially in Europe and the United Kingdom. The people are coming together and looking at how to reduce the emissions. I can tell you one of the best ways to reduce emissions, of course, is to reduce these hour or hour-and-a-half taxi delays while we’ve got our engines running. Allow us to get into the air and be much more efficient. But put that aside, yes, it is going to affect our industry. The taxation that is coming with the – in the method to address the carbon footprint. I do believe you’re going to see some very – quite a bit of pressure coming on our industry, starting in the U.K. and Europe, but certainly here in the States very, very soon.

ECHEVARRIA: Joining us on the “Newsmakers” today from Jacksonville, Florida, is Captain John Prater. He is the president of the Air Line Pilots Association. Sir, thank you for your time.

PRATER: Thank you. Good to be with you today.

ECHEVARRIA: Eamon Javers, you talked a lot about passenger satisfaction on the airlines. Captain Prater talked about what they’re doing to improve passenger satisfaction. What would you – compare what he said to what you’re hearing from passengers.

JAVERS: Yes, well, I mean, clearly there are historical and economic reasons why there are the kinds of delays that we’re seeing in the airline industry. But the passengers don’t know about that, and they don’t really care. I mean, if you talk to somebody who’s been stuck on an airplane for nine hours on the tarmac without leaving, I mean, these people are ready to take, you know, torches and pitchforks and storm the corporate headquarters. I mean, they’re really angry.

And so, the explanations that they get don’t quite solve the kind of anger that they’ve got. And so, that’s a real structural problem for the airline industry going forward. They’ve got to figure out that mix and get it right.

ECHEVARRIA: What’s the key factor in improving that? Is it the ability, like you said, to take them back to the tarmac if it’s going to be a significant delay?

JAVERS: Well, I think that giving passengers some actual rights in a situation like that would help them feel like they’re a little bit more under control. Part of the problem here is that you’ve got passengers on these planes for a long time, and they don’t have any control over their situation. They can’t get off the plane. If there was some mechanism by which they could do that after some reasonably lengthy period of time, passengers might feel a little bit more patience during those first couple of hours when they were stuck, and we might get a better dynamic. But, you know, it’s not up to me, so I don’t know what the answer ultimately should be.

ECHEVARRIA: Tom Ramstack, talking about the pilots, they’re looking for better working conditions. Are those needs and concerns being heard by the superiors of these companies that take care of those situations?

RAMSTACK: From what Captain Prater was saying, the answer is no. In fact, I think the undercurrent of what he was saying was that we may be in for some tough times in terms of labor relations between the airlines and the pilots. I think he was implying that pilots made some severe concessions after September 11th, in order to keep the airlines flying. But now that time is gone, so now it’s time to get tough again. And I think that’s what he has in mind.

ECHEVARRIA: Are strikes inevitable?

RAMSTACK: It looks that way. It looks like it may be coming.

ECHEVARRIA: Factor in, then, concerns about more consolidation within the industry. What’s happening? And what do you see on the horizon as far as where we’re going, as far as consolidation?

RAMSTACK: Well, I think it’s correct that airlines have their persistent problems in making a profit, particularly with the rising fuel prices are pushing us towards more consolidations. And I think, as Captain Prater said, that we may end up with only three or four major airlines.

ECHEVARRIA: Is that the case from the business perspective?

JAVERS: Fuel prices are absolutely the biggest problem for the airlines. First of all, it’s not a problem you can manage your way out of, right. I mean, you don’t have any control over that. You can control the routes, the number of passengers per plane, the times of day that you fly, the marketing. All of these things are manageable from a company’s perspective. Oil at $100 a barrel is not manageable. And if it goes north of that, it’s really going to be a disaster for the airline industry. And they’ve got to figure out something to do, and it’s a very open question of what that would be.

ECHEVARRIA: Is that more of a concern than retirement packages, health care packages and the other needs that pilots have?

JAVERS: I would guess so, yes. I mean, I’m not in the room during these negotiations. But all of those things are inevitably negotiable, because there are two sides to it. Oil prices just aren’t. The airlines cannot go to the oil companies and say, give us oil at $50 a barrel. It’s not going to happen. So, that’s something that’s a fixed cost that they can’t unfix. Everything else can be negotiated around the margins, even though you’ve got sides that are very entrenched. Oil prices – you can’t do anything to change them, so you have to fix the rest of your business around that.

ECHEVARRIA: And Tom Ramstack, as far as the overall efficiency of airlines are concerned, what do we see as far as improving the air traffic control system? Where are we?

RAMSTACK: Well, the FAA continues to make promises that the next improvement will be the last one, and everything will be under control. But we’ve been hearing that for years. So, they’ve been investing in technology, and the technology has certainly improved, but apparently not enough to reduce all the chronic delays. So, the answer seems to be anyone’s guess at this point.

ECHEVARRIA: And is that moving it from a ground basis into a satellite system? Is that what we’re talking about? Or are there other factors?

RAMSTACK: That’s certainly one element of it. But there are other factors, such as reducing unused air spaces, greater use of commercial – of military air lanes, as Mr. Prater mentioned. There are – I think President Bush was on the right track when he said that some of these sanctions that he’s thinking about imposing on airlines may push them, may goad them into greater efficiency.

ECHEVARRIA: Our guest reporters on the “Newsmakers” today have been Tom Ramstack. He writes about transportation issues for the “Washington Times.” And Eamon Javers is the Washington correspondent for business week. To both of you, thanks for being on “Newsmakers.”

RAMSTACK: Thank you.

JAVERS: Thanks a lot.

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