Essay: ON FLYING MORE AND ENJOYING IT LESS

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Congestion turns this miracle of organization and technology into a minatory monster. It devalues air transport's most salable commodities: speed and reliability. It increases hazard; more than 100 near-collisions of commercial planes take place every month. Yet the greatest costs may be social. It is the general public which pays for traffic jams on the highway between airport and city. How is public loss of time and impatience with noise and air pollution to be compensated for?

Despite all obstacles, the growth of air traffic shows no sign of slackening. Ninety-seven percent of the world population has yet to fly. But 45% of U.S. adults have done so at least once, and seductive ads are luring in more and more each year. In the U.S., the volume both of air travelers and freight doubles every six years. Today the civilian air fleet consists of some 2,400 airliners and 112,000 private planes, from tiny Piper Cubs to swift corporate jets. By 1975, the fleet will increase to at least 3,480 jetliners and an overwhelming 170,000 general aviation craft. Can the airways hold them?

Not under the present air-traffic control system, designed in pre-jet days, which not even FAA's $200 million purchase of electronic equipment has succeeded in modernizing. One problem is crowded radio communications which can create dangerous misunderstandings between pilots and controllers. In addition, most airports lack automated landing systems that would permit denser traffic with less danger. As a result, huge "blocks" of airspace are allocated to each plane, limiting the number of planes in any given area and increasing delays.

"Horizontal Elevators'

Only 19,000 air-traffic controllers—20% too few even for present needs—guide the proliferating flocks of planes. Each can monitor only a few aircraft at a time. Despite their life-and-death responsibilities, the controllers earn a maximum $22,178 a year, compared with as much as $65,000 for airline captains. At work, they cannot afford a single mistake. In one dramatic—and symptomatic—incident, a controller who watched a mid-air collision over Maryland on the radar screen later committed suicide. But a number of others show signs of breaking down under the stress of the job.

Most obvious shortage of all is in "concrete"—the industry name for runways, terminals, towers. The U.S. has about 10,000 airports, but 70% of them are just grassy strips. Only 535 are served by scheduled airlines; and of these, a mere 189 have instrument-landing systems. Only 118—the biggest and most congested—use radar.

Theoretically, when an airport's capacity is reached, it should easily be enlargeable. But expanding an airport's facilities is like feeding pigeons; no sooner is demand satisfied than new flights start to arrive and the cycle begins anew. Airlines take great pains to avoid selling the same seat on a flight to two different passengers, yet think nothing of scheduling several peak-hour departures for precisely the same runway and moment.