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Mothballed airliners cover the desert,
ghosts of an innocent age

By Charles Bremner
The London Times
September 7, 2002

As you drive through the Mojave Desert, 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles, a mirage appears on the horizon: the shimmering tails of hundreds of airliners.

If you did not know better, you would assume that you had stumbled on a phantom international airport, or something out of The X-Files. Such a thought would not be irrelevant, as this is a magical place in aviation lore.

The Mojave is home to Edwards Air Force Base. Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier here in 1947; Neil Armstrong honed the skills that took him to the Moon in 1969; and test pilots still spend their days putting experimental aircraft through their paces.

Yet a spectre does haunt the 350 airliners that materialise as you draw closer on the long, straight highway. It is that of Osama bin Laden.

The aircraft are mothballed in the dry air of the Mojave, like hundreds more in Arizona, because the al-Qaeda leader’s assault on America last September knocked the wind out of the flying business.

Flying passengers for money has always been something of a gambler’s game and a labour of love. When times are good, there is a pile of money to be made. But the business is prone to collapse at the first sneeze of the economy. The last slump, after the Gulf War in the early 1990s, did for PanAm and Eastern. This time the decline is caused by factors other than the economic cycle and the damage runs far deeper.

“Get on the airlines. Get about the business of America . . . We will not surrender our freedom to travel,” President Bush exhorted his countrymen after September 11.

But the events of that day have soured America’s century-old romance with flying. The aeroplane, once a symbol of freedom, has taken on more sinister associations.

The redundant aircraft have been streaming into the Mojave for months, bringing to more than 2,000 the number of jets lying idle in the southwestern deserts, double the number this time last year. Among them are half a dozen British Airways Boeing 747s. One flew straight out to pasture the other day after landing passengers in nearby Las Vegas. Yards away, another flock of flightless Boeings boast the Virgin name.

Most of the phantom fleet belongs to US airlines. Most will never fly again and will eventually be subjected to the aviation equivalent of the knacker’s yard.

“It’s real heartbreaking to see the old planes getting all crushed up,” Rick Quillen, the security chief, said as he drove through the sea of unused aluminium. “Last week they sold off a couple of planes to Korea to be turned into restaurants. I told the Korean guys: ‘You must really like airline food.’ But they didn’t laugh.”

The redundant aircraft, worth billions of dollars, are testimony to a very painful slump. The world’s airlines have lost about $12 billion (£7.7 billion) on international services over the past year and America, which has half the world’s airfleet, big and small, has taken the biggest hit. After losing $7 billion last year, the airlines are expected to lose at least another $3 billion this year.

Tens of thousands of jobs have gone in the airlines, airport services and aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing. Last month US Airways, America’s seventh-largest airline, became the first of the big carriers to seek protection under bankruptcy laws.

John Creighton, acting chief executive of United Airlines, the second-largest US carrier, said: “The world has changed. Unless we lower our costs dramatically, filing for (bankruptcy) protection will be the only way we can ensure the company’s future.”

Leo Mullin, Delta’s chief executive, told his 75,000 employees: “There is no question that we are moving through a period that will later be regarded as one of the toughest in aviation history.”

The picture in the rest of the world is brighter. In Europe, after the slump finished off Swissair and Sabena, the big carriers are on their way back to profit. The low-cost companies, such as Ryanair and easyJet, have continued their rapid growth.

Passengers are gradually returning to the skies above America, home to half the world’s aviation fleet, but there are still 9 per cent fewer than before September 11. And it is clear that flying in America is a world away from the carefree days before hijackers turned aircraft into missiles.

A poll by Travelocity found that 20 per cent of Americans are now too afraid to fly, or do so reluctantly. So great is the fear of an anniversary attack that airlines are cancelling flights on Wednesday and two small carriers, Spirit and National, are giving away all their tickets that day or charging $1 a flight.

Small aircraft have become particular objects of fear, even though no such craft has ever been used in a terrorist attack.

“When I tell someone I’m a flight instructor, it’s like saying I’m a baby killer,” said Henry Plummer, one of many who have lost their jobs in Florida, the state where the hijackers trained. Mr Plummer was speaking from the co-pilot’s seat as I flew a single-engined Cessna around the Boston area to get a feel for America’s “unfriendly skies”.

As we flew out of Bedford airport, we could see in the distance the long runways of Logan International, where ten hijackers boarded the two airliners that brought down the World Trade Centre and America’s belief in the sanctity of its frontiers. After flying northwest I turned back towards Boston at 4,000ft and wondered out loud what would happen if I just kept going, without clearance, towards the city.

“You wouldn’t get very far before an F16 arrives,” Mr Plummer said. It was useful, he said, to keep an ear on 121.5 mhz, the distress frequency that the jet fighters use to hail planes they are intercepting.

The ease with which Americans used to hop on an airliner has gone. Nervous passengers endure long waits to check in, eyeing one another as potential suspects.

Airport bookstalls are heavy with titles such as Fly Safe, Fly Smart, which advises how to stay clear of bin Laden’s men. One tip is to keep away from American Airlines “because it has the name of the country on the side”.

The Government is doing everything it can to restore confidence. In airports across the country, stern-looking federal employees in white shirts are taking over baggage inspection, replacing the low-paid screeners from private firms. No expense is being spared in the drive to restore confidence. As well as taking its share of some $2 billion of nationwide emergency spending, Logan has spent some $165 million of its own money to beef up security. It is now deemed to be among the safest airports in the country.

Thomas Kinton, the aviation director, said there were no guarantees that a terrorist could not get through, but the aim was to make it as hard as possible. “The world has changed for all of us and we are doing everything to change with it,” he said.

Even in the air would-be hijackers face new defences. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of armed federal air marshals are among the passengers. The actual number is secret.

Flight decks have become fortresses with armoured doors. Pilots may soon be allowed to carry firearms. Would-be terrorists also know that missile-carrying jet fighters may be ordered to destroy a hijacked airliner that is believed to be heading for a ground target.

Todd Wissing, a 40-year-old First Officer with American Airlines who flies on the Heathrow-New York route, said that pilots accepted the idea of using missiles as the ultimate defence. He is also a firm believer in the need to arm pilots.

American, the world’s biggest airline, suffered most last year, with the loss of two aircraft on September 11, then the accidental crash of an Airbus on Queens, New York, which killed 265 people. The final straw for American was the Christmas capture of Richard Reid, the alleged “shoe-bomber”, on a flight from Paris.

Some 20,000 American employees have received counselling and pilots and cabin crew talk about a new anxiety permeating their work. On her way from Los Angeles to Boston, one stewardess in her 60s said that she was not afraid of flying “because I’m fatalistic and I believe that God has decided the day you will die, and it doesn’t make any difference to worry”.

But she did worry about the way she was losing her best customers, the businessmen who paid the highest fares. American lost $1.8 billion last year. With further big losses expected this year it has just announced 7,000 job cuts and plans to reduce its services by nearly 10 per cent.

Experts agree that it will take years free of terrorist attacks to heal the fear of flying. But they also agree that the main airlines will survive and emerge healthy again, in pared-down shape.

For Americans, flying is a way of life, and the freedom of aviation part of their culture.

(c) Copyright 2002 London Times

Read the original article raht cheer (until them limeys yank it down.)





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