Major Airlines

Unions and management at the nation's major airlines are likely to spend the summer wrestling over layoffs and concessions as the industry reels from its latest blow - United Airlines' failure to win approval for $1 billion in federal loan guarantees. UAL Corp., United's parent, is expected to ask pilots, mechanics, flight attendants and others for wage and benefit concessions after the bankrupt Chicago carrier's request for $1.1 billion in guarantees was denied last week, analysts and airline experts said.

One day this week, Dawn Rowley flew to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, relaxed at a resort for eight hours and flew home to Baltimore. Not a bad day's work, she thought. As captain of a 168-seat USA 3000 Airlines' Airbus A320, that's not an uncommon day for Rowley. And it is one she's happy to have amid the turmoil in her profession. She began flying for startup USA 3000 after a seven-month furlough from US Airways, the Arlington, Va. carrier that emerged from bankruptcy last year and plans more cost-cutting than hiring.

The nation's airlines were optimistic that 2004 would be the best year yet in what has been a difficult decade. Instead, the year has gotten off to a turbulent start, both for the airlines and their customers. The major carriers thought the fledgling economic rebound might result in good winter results that would bring them back to break-even levels, and allow them to raise fares. Instead, the year began in chaos, because of security scares overseas that forced delays and cancellations, and bad weather that gripped much of the United States.

IN THE SUPPLEMENTAL budget offered this week by President Bush, he didn't include relief for the nation's beleaguered airlines. That hasn't stopped the carriers and their employees from continuing an intense lobbying campaign in Washington for tax breaks and other aid totaling at least $9 billion. But what's really needed by the airline industry is not the salve of a federal bailout but the discipline provided by bankruptcies. That's their best shot at emerging with financial strength from a lethal thicket of crushing debt, overly generous pay contracts and long-standing inefficiencies.

The golden years lost a little of their luster this summer when several airlines ended discount programs for seniors. But that's no reason to tear up your AARP card. There are plenty of deals, in the air and on the ground, for older travelers. A new online guide, www.seniordiscount.com, has expanded from 25,000 listings of travel and other deals to more than 115,000 since its launch last year, says David Smidt, the president and chief executive. Joan Rattner Heilman, author of an annual guide to senior discounts, is seeing no reduction in deals as she works on the 2003 edition of Unbelievably Good Deals & Great Adventures That You Absolutely Can't Get Unless You're Over 50, due out next spring (Contemporary Books; $14.95 for 2002 edition)

For 30 years, Southwest Airlines Co. has confounded competitors by offering cheap fares on short flights. Saddled with higher operating costs, major carriers have taken solace in the fact that the no-frills airline doesn't fly cross-country nonstop. That's about to change. Beginning Sept. 15, Dallas-based Southwest will offer twice-daily nonstop flights between Baltimore-Washington International Airport, where it is the dominant carrier, and Los Angeles International Airport for $99 each way. It will mark the first time the airline has offered regularly scheduled nonstop coast-to-coast service.

In the Region InfoVista to move headquarters from Columbia to N.Y. InfoVista SA is moving its U.S. headquarters from Columbia to New York, where it already has located its North American operations, finance and human resources functions, and its Northeastern sales staff. The French software company wouldn't say how many jobs will be lost in Columbia, but officials said some of their technical support and customer service employees will remain at the office on Little Patuxent Parkway.

WASHINGTON - Just 15 miles south of here, the federal government is building a $600 million spaghetti-bowl interchange at just one of the zillion intersections of the Interstate Highway System. This follows an investment of at least $200 million to add four lanes to Interstate 95 immediately south of this crowded interchange. There is enough spent there to build a great university campus - complete with medical school, linear accelerator and chemistry laboratories. This mindless splurge, which is being replicated all over the country, will accomplish nothing.

NEW YORK - David Neeleman, chief executive of JetBlue Airways Corp., surveyed the cabin of an Airbus SAS A320 jetliner during its inaugural trip, clicked on the public address microphone near the cockpit and made a marketing pitch. "If you like the flight today, tell your friends and family about us and we'll keep adding service," Neeleman said to 135 passengers as the aircraft cruised at 32,000 feet from Dulles International Airport outside Washington to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. JetBlue, a New York-based, low-fare airline with 21 jet planes that flies to 18 cities in the United States, is expanding routes and posting profits in an industry facing more than $6 billion in losses last year, company officials said.

Midwest Express Airlines is scheduled to announce today that it plans to offer twice-daily service between Milwaukee and Baltimore-Washington International Airport beginning Jan. 31, state aviation officials said. The Milwaukee-based regional airline will become the third carrier to begin new service at BWI since the terrorist attacks Sept. 11 sent the aviation industry into a tailspin. Earlier, AirTran Airways and Pan American Airways helped BWI recover some of the business it lost as major airlines have curtailed flights and laid off thousands of workers.