Testimony of

 

Bob Reding

Executive Vice President - Operations

American Airlines

 

Before

The Subcommittee on Aviation

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

September 27, 2007

 

 

 

Good morning Chairman Rockefeller, Ranking Member Lott, and Members of the Subcommittee.  My name is Bob Reding and I am Executive Vice President of Operations for American Airlines.  I have responsibility for all airport, flight and maintenance operations as well as the operational planning, safety, security and environmental departments for the airline.

 

This morning I would like to focus on our current efforts to reduce delays, the critical need for investment in the next generation, satellite-based air traffic control technology (known as NextGen), and the changes we at American have made to improve our service to customers when they experience delays.  At the outset though, let me simply say that no one has articulated more effectively the urgent need for NextGen and the importance of a truly fair, stable funding stream to support it, than has this Subcommittee.  American greatly appreciates your tireless leadership in this area.

 

As the head of operations for the nation's largest airline, let me assure you that neither we at American, the ATA carriers, or the FAA is simply waiting for NextGen to eventually come along and solve all of our problems.  We are taking tangible steps today to not only reduce delays, but to improve our customer service during delays.

 

In our view, one of the most important efforts underway to reduce delays today is the FAA's plan to mitigate the complexity of the current air traffic flow in the New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia airspace.  American strongly supports FAA's efforts and believes that they will bring significant relief to air travelers not only in the Northeast but throughout the country.  Indeed, delays at the New York-area airports frequently ripple throughout the entire country.  FAA estimates that it can reduce delays nationwide by 20 percent by the year 2011 by redesigning the air traffic routings in the Northeast corridor.

 

In addition, American has undertaken several initiatives to improve our operations, reduce delays, and enhance our customer service efforts.   Organizationally, we announced last week executive leadership changes with the explicit goal of better aligning our technical operations with our airport services.  My expectation is that these changes will foster greater collaboration and cooperation within the company’s key operational departments, improving our operational reliability and customer service.

 

In terms of scheduling, American has actually reduced capacity in our domestic system over the past few years and agreed in discussions with the FAA to cut over 13 percent of our schedule at Chicago O’Hare.  These efforts, as well as not adding capacity to delay-plagued JFK International Airport, are a significant attempt by American to mitigate delays caused by scheduling more flights than today’s ATC system can handle.

 

In addition, at our key hubs in Dallas/Fort Worth and Chicago, we have also spread flights more evenly throughout the day, effectively “depeaked” our operations, to alleviate certain chokepoints during the day.  Finally, we recently decided to add five to seven minutes of ground time, which gives late flights a better chance to catch up and keeps fewer planes sitting as they wait for open gates.  American, who has retained 91 percent of its maintenance in house,  is also focusing on its maintenance practices to ensure that aircraft get maintained and repaired on time and in position for their scheduled flying.

Without question, this year has been a challenging one for all airlines, their passengers and employees.  That’s been particularly true at American, where we have experienced severe weather beyond anything we have seen in decades, leading to a well-publicized tarmac delay.  While December thunderstorms in Texas were virtually unknown until last year, let me assure you that I am not here today to blame the weather.

 

Back in 1999, American Airlines and its regional affiliate, American Eagle, adopted a Customer Service Plan that is available to the public on our website.  We do our best every day to abide by that plan.  This plan provides that during long ground delays we make reasonable efforts to ensure that our customer’s “essential needs” – that is, food, water, lavatory facilities, medical attention, etc. – are met.   Each airport has a plan with specific procedures to meet these essential needs.

 

That said, American Airlines has learned a great deal from this past year’s operational and customer service challenges and has taken additional actions. Even before the extreme weather from late December through July came along, we had launched a grassroots effort within our company to come up with common-sense approaches to ensure we do our best to deliver excellent customer service.

 

Working with our employee groups, we are focusing on six key areas of priority aimed at improving the customer experience at every point along the way. 

The six key areas include:

Task forces within the airline are examining all of these strategic areas. Upcoming changes include blocking seats in key markets on peak holiday travel dates so we can use them to re-accommodate passengers whose flights are delayed or cancelled.  We are programming our computer system to recognize when a connecting passenger is not going to make the connection so his or her seat can be provided to other travelers.  We are adding self service machines on the secure side of the terminal to make it more convenient for the customer to obtain a new boarding pass.  As part of our enhanced communications efforts, we are using electronic displays at gates and even some airport TVs to inform the customer of weather changes.  To ensure that our employees can successfully handle weather-diverted flights, we are providing our diversion-designated airports with appropriate ground service equipment to handle aircraft types that would not normally transit that station.

 

Additionally, in the event of weather or other delays which require us to take our operations off schedule, we now have at our System Operations Control Center a diversion coordinator who keeps up with diverted flights and how long they have been on the ground in the diversion city.  Finally, we have also developed new processes in coordination with the FAA to monitor the status of our diverted flights and ensure that these flights have increased priority for return to their original destination.

 

In addition to the Customer Service Plan, American has implemented a new guideline intended to prevent extraordinarily long ground delays for our customers.  Our policy is that passengers aboard airplanes on the ground for more than four hours will be provided an opportunity to disembark, if it is safe to do so.  If we are unable to provide our customers an opportunity to disembark, these flights will have a priority in getting to a gate for deplanement, but it will most likely result in that flight’s cancellation due to operational constraints such as crew legalities.    

             

We still need closer coordination with air traffic control in these off-schedule-operations so an aircraft diverted to another city due to bad weather is not penalized if it must return to a gate.   Today, they must go to the end of the line for takeoff, after disembarking passengers at a gate, even though they may have been on the taxiway the longest time awaiting ATC takeoff clearance.   

           

In the end however, while American Airlines and others in the industry have implemented numerous customer service changes on the ground, we still have major issues in the air, as you well know.  The bottom line is that there is not much we can do once an aircraft leaves the gate and enters onto the taxiway.   At that point, we come under the control of an antiquated air traffic control system.   As a result, I cannot emphasize enough the urgent need for implementation of a satellite-based ATC system.   The technology exists and we must harness it and put it to effective use.   

 

In particular RNAV/RNP technology has shown great success at airports where it has been deployed.  At a limited number of airports, we have been able to safely allocate existing airspace much more efficiently due to the flexibility that RNAV/RNP procedures can provide.  We support expanding the number of airports using that system as quickly as possible.  

 

Another critical tool in development is a fully Automatic Dependent Surveillance System, also known as ADS-B, which will increase situational awareness for the pilot and allow pilots to make real time decisions regarding traffic separation,  leading to enhanced safety and efficiency.

 

RNAV/RNP is a critical component to NextGen, and we at American are ready to go.  All of our jets are RNAV capable and 70 percent already have RNP equipment installed with plans for every aircraft in American’s fleet to become RNP equipped.     We would hope that all airlines follow suit if they have not already done so.   Over the long term, such a commitment to a redesigned and modernized air traffic control system by all users of the high altitude and high density airspace will be essential in order to make this country’s airline industry the dependable, efficient mass transportation system that we all expect it to be.  

 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement.  I would be happy to answer any questions that you or Members of the Subcommittee may have.