Summer at LAX Likely to Heat Up as Travelers Test Airlines’ Capacity

Pack your patience.

Full airplanes will be more the pattern at Los Angeles International Airport this summer than at any time in decades as officials prepare for the busiest travel season here since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

About 200,000 more travelers are expected to use LAX from Memorial Day through Labor Day compared with a similar period last year, even as the number of seats to U.S. destinations remains flat.

Aviation experts warn that the mismatch could force passengers to be denied boarding even if they have tickets, or lengthen waits when flights are delayed by weather or mechanical problems because no other planes are available.

“Everybody is going to share an armrest,” said Robert Mann, an aviation analyst at R.W. Mann & Co. “Your ability to remain calm in the cabin is going to remain at a premium.”

As the summer travel season kicks off Friday, the country’s entire aviation system will feel the strain. Nationally, 207 million people are expected to fly, up about 1% over June through August 2005, while the number of available seats is down. In Southern California, LAX anticipates 18.7 million passengers through Labor Day, with 800,000 forecast to use the facility this weekend.

Regional airports in Burbank, Ontario and Santa Ana are expecting a record number of travelers. Low-fare carriers have added flights at those facilities, leading officials to predict parking shortages at Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport and scarce seating in temporary trailers that act as boarding lounges at Long Beach Airport. Ontario International Airport, which is operated by the city of Los Angeles, is expected to serve about 2 million travelers this summer, up 50,000 over a similar period last year.

Increasing traffic will lead to longer lines at ticket counters and security checkpoints, especially at LAX, where officials are scrambling to find 150 additional screeners by July 1. The facility is down from its complement of 2,001 full-time-equivalent screeners -- the most in the country -- because the federal government earlier this year shifted responsibility for hiring them to federal security directors at local airports.

The screener shortage has already caused lengthy queues at LAX during busy periods this spring, leading Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) to write a letter to Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff saying she would “volunteer at the airport during peak hours to check passenger identification” if more personnel weren’t hired. Harman and others are concerned that long lines present tempting targets for terrorists with suitcase or vehicle bombs.

To address the problem, officials with LAX , the airlines and the Transportation Security Administration, which manages screeners at the nation’s airports, are bringing in employees from outside Southern California and freeing others who haul passengers’ bags around ticket lobbies by turning those jobs over to the airlines. They are also expediting background checks for applicants.

“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure people have a positive travel experience at the airport,” said Nico Melendez, a TSA spokesman.

Even with the uptick in passengers this summer, LAX still has not recovered from the sharp downturn it experienced after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when carriers cut more flights at the facility than at other U.S. airports.

Even so, airport officials are concerned that crowded flights this summer could cause many travelers to suffer.

The chance of being bumped -- or “involuntarily denied boarding” as it’s known in aviation parlance -- is likely to increase through Labor Day because airlines that typically rely on summer travelers for most of their yearly profits will continue to deliberately overbook flights. Carriers rely on this longtime practice to hedge against business travelers who purchase refundable tickets and then fail to show up.

“If we only sold the exact number of tickets on flights as there are seats, we would have seats going out empty,” said Tim Smith, a spokesman for American Airlines. “One seat on one flight is a product. It’s not like a sweater that if it doesn’t sell one day at a department store they can put it on the shelf the next day -- to us it’s gone.”

Today, airlines have fewer domestic seats to sell. The economic downturn after 9/11, the rising popularity of low-cost carriers and the soaring price of fuel have led airlines to take 750 airplanes out of the system. They have also shifted some larger aircraft to more lucrative international routes and replaced them with smaller jets.

All this has led airplanes to approach 90% capacity this spring on popular routes. Tightening demand and expensive jet fuel forced domestic fares up 11%, on average, in the first four months of this year, according to the Air Transport Assn., an airline trade group. Fares are likely to rise further, analysts say, because they are still 13% below what they were before the terrorist attacks, even though jet fuel prices are up 129%.

A lack of seats this spring has already led to an increase in people not being able to board a flight despite having made reservations.

“As load factors have crept up, we have been seeing involuntary denied boardings go up proportionately, and we’ll see them go up even more so this summer,” Mann said. For the airlines, “The ability to recover from a single large overbooking incident may take days.”

Carriers say they are keeping a close eye on which flights are likely to experience problems, based on reservations already made by leisure travelers, and will adjust their reservation systems accordingly.

“There’s less margin for error because we know we’re going to be very full,” said Smith, the American Airlines spokesman. “We’re paying very close attention to all of the historical information we have in terms of how we book those flights.”

Full flights can be good news for travelers who don’t mind being voluntarily bumped, because airlines are willing to compensate them with free tickets and other perks such as hotel rooms and meals. In the first three months of this year, many airlines, including United, Northwest, US Airways, American, Southwest and Delta, asked thousands of people to give up their seats and fly at a later time.

But with increasingly packed airplanes this summer, these deals are unlikely to be as attractive because airlines may not be able to assure a traveler a confirmed seat on the next flight. And a free travel voucher could have limited value as well.

“As anybody who is a frequent flier knows, having a free ticket isn’t worth a lot because there are no flights to cash it in on,” said Gerald Bernstein, a partner with San Francisco-based Velocity Group, an aviation consulting firm.

Weather and mechanical delays are also likely to throw a wrench into the system. With full planes throughout the day, airlines will be less inclined to cancel a flight on a plane that has a mechanical problem -- even one that takes hours to fix -- because they will not be able to find seats to accommodate the passengers on another aircraft. So travelers will have to wait.

To lessen the stress of flying this summer, aviation officials have some advice: Be on time. Arrive two hours early for a domestic flight and three hours before an international trip. Check in before each airline’s mandatory cutoff time. Get on the airplane when you are called.

“If you miss your flight,” cautions Bernstein, citing packed airplanes, “there’s a good chance you’re not going to get another one