Isn`t flying wonderful? Many will disagree with this thought, particularly those taking off over the holidays.
It means crowded airports, packed planes, lots of discomfort, no place to park at the airport and a peak time for fears about flying. Is this any way to travel?
It doesn`t have to be. But this last Thanksgiving holiday was a peek at the future. The 1.7 million passengers on Sunday, Nov. 25, was less than the two million passengers expected to fly daily in just 10 years, said Drew Steketee, executive director of the Partnership for Improved Air Travel.
The solution to crowding is to build for the future: spend money, lots of it, not only with dollars that are in place, but also with ones that airline passengers are paying every time they fly.
Steketee is talking about the Aviation Trust Fund, which is based on user fees that raised some $4 billion last year. Next year, based on higher taxes and fees for airline passengers and services, even more will go into this fund.
Consumers are paying for improvements, but the government has been using these funds for the federal budget instead of what they were intended for. The Aviation Trust Fund could improve air traffic control, easing delays. The fund also could install the next generation of computers, ones that could pinpoint air turbulence and find tornadoes.
”If we don`t aggressively spend the user-financed Aviation Trust Fund, air travel at the turn of the century will look much like today`s peak holiday periods,” Steketee said.
There is some good news, he said. The government has increased its budget for aviation improvements and has set a 1999 deadline for the retirement of noisy jets, leaving just the quietest around-a move, he said, that should ease community opposition to building new runways.
”We need those runways,” Steketee said.
If improvements to the air-travel infrastructure are not made, Steketee sees rationing of air-travel capacity as the only other solution, one that would force many travelers from air travel, making holiday travel an even greater headache.
Air travelers are paying most of the cost of aviation. What travelers need to do, Steketee said, is to let Congress know they want their money`s worth and that the billions being paid by travelers into the trust fund should be used for what they were meant. For information on the Partnership for Improved Air Travel, call 800-228-7300.
And yes, ”Flying Can Be Fun,” according to Edie Grande, a Newburyport, Mass., resident who has produced a book subtitled ”A Guide for the White-Knuckled Flyer.”
Grande, who overcame a 20-year fear of flying to travel the world, offers an easy-to-read, humorous book with lots of tips on making a flight more enjoyable. (A 1978 fear-of-flying course at Boston`s Logan International Airport ended her phobia.)
Her book is available for $6.95 plus $1.50 for postage by writing to Dyenamiks, P.O. Box 6129, Newburyport, Mass. 01950.
