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Crush on the Ground. Strikes aside, many of the airlines' most pressing problems lie on the ground. The Federal Aviation Agency recently forced U.S. carriers to cancel 100 flights a day into Washington National Airport to relieve the pressure on swamped baggage, ticket and parking facilities. New York's three airports and Chicago's O'Hare, the nation's busiest, are nearly as congested.
The jam seems sure to get worse, even though the airlines are pressing federal and local authorities to expand terminals and other ground facilities. By 1970, the "whale" jets, such as the 490-passenger Boeing 747, will be operational. They will require a separate building for each flight, with docks to unload passengers from exits on both sides of ten-abreast cabin seating. They will also need computer-routed, color-coded baggage and a vast expansion of parking space.
This week TWA's directors are sched uled to decide whether to order 15 of Boeing's "whales," at a cost of $21 million each. Overhanging that decision is the fact that ground facilities to accommodate them may cost more than the fleet itself, as well as the specter of 1961's overcapacity. But Tillinghast notes that despite the growth of air travel, some 60% of all Americans (and 97% of the people of the world) have never been on a commercial plane. The potential market is huge. Moreover, most of the industry figures that the spacious 747 will double in gold as a moneymaking cargo carrier.
And then there is the SST. By 1975, the supersonic transport should be crossing the nation in a mere 2 hr. 10 min. Contemplating that prospect, Tillinghast not long ago suggested what a business trip by an oil executive might be like. Boarding an SST in Tripoli after breakfast, he will outrace the sun across the Atlantic, lunching aboard but arriving in New York at 8 a.m., in time for a conference at headquarters. Helicoptering back to Kennedy Airport, he will board the 1 p.m. flight to San Francisco, lunching again en route, but arriving on the coast in time for a business lunch at 12:30 p.m. with his colleagues there. Slipping onto a 5:30 p.m. flight, he will down his fifth meal, nap and arrive in Tokyo at 4 p.m., in time for another conference and a dinner. Of course, by then it will be the next day. Joked Tillinghast: "If this vision is accurate, management people who do much traveling may have to form their own union and lobby for a three-day work week. Each of the three days may be 36 hours long."
What all this tampering with time and distance will do to the passenger's psyche and physique remains to be seen. But air transport's fundamental attraction is speed and convenience, and the prospects of SSTs please Tillinghast so much that he has reserved the first U.S.built production model for TWA. For all its inconvenience and high cost, the airline strike surely would be only a pause in the almost breathtaking advance of air travel.