Monday, July 26, 2010

Juan Trippe* Too Many For Aer Lingus

'You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer" - Frank Zappa (1940-1993), composer, guitarist, record producer, film director and founder of 'The Mothers of Invention'

The inter-war years of 1918-1939 have long been referred to as the 'golden age' in aviation history. Ten years after Louis Bleriot flew the English Channel from Calais to Dover in 1909, Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Brown landed safely in Clifden, becoming the first pilots to successfully fly across the Atlantic. Steady improvements in manufacturing know how, technology and instrumentation contributed in no small part to these early successes, so much so that in 1927 Charles Lindbergh became the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic, marking the end of an extraordinary first quarter century of aviation pioneering. These momentous milestones in the early history of the airplane brought to an end once and for all the glorious era of the airship. The last of the great zeppelins was disassembled in 1940; a timeline hastened no doubt by the tragic Hindenburg airship disaster of 1937.

At around the same time that Howard Hughes was setting, and resetting multiple air speed records and Adolf Hitler was building the German Luftwaffe into the awesome aerial force that would inflict blitzkrieg on Western Europe, Aer Lingus Teoranta was officially registered as an arline. The date was May 22nd 1936. The airline's first commercial flight five days later, from Dublin to Bristol, was somewhat overshadowed however by the news of the maiden voyage of the luxury liner, 'The Queen Mary', an event that stole the newspaper as well as the newsreel headlines. That being said, at a time when the economic war between the Free State and Britain was having a devastating effect on the young republic, the establishment of a national airline that saw the start of fresh trading, tourism and cultural ties with our neighbor across the Irish Sea was a positive step forward. The air battle for the skies over Britain and the war in Europe stymied the growth of the young airline as regional British airports became inaccessible for commercial flights. At the same time German armies were overrunning the continent before finally giving way to the incessant Allied bombing campaign that pulverized Europe's air infrastructure.

While American aid in the form of the Marshall Plan was helping to rebuild Europe after the war, Aer Lingus began to expand its service to a wider network of British airports as well as planting its first aeronautical routes in some of Europe's oldest capitals. For the first time the Irish diaspora, many of whom had emigrated in the 1930's and immediately after the war and who were located in England in particular, had the ability to fly home at Christmas time or return for the funeral of a loved one. The airline however had its eye on the potential market that existed within the estimated 40 million (at that time) ethnic Irish who lived on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in the United States. Aer Lingus planned to launch a transatlantic route as early as 1947 but a confluence of economic and political circumstances delayed the plan for another decade. It would be 1958 before the first transatlantic Aer Lingus flights to New York's 'Idlewild' airport (later renamed in memory of the assassinated president) would take off from Shannon. Service to America would remain unbroken for 52 years until news came down from the company's management in June that the airline would discontinue service from Shannon to New York and Boston for a 'trial period' from January 5th to March 27th 2011. But more about that later...

James Joyce once referred to the Atlantic Ocean as the 'bowl of bitter tears'. By the time Aer Lingus finally launched its transatlantic service in 1958 the Irish diaspora in America had swelled still further. Chronic emigration during the 1950's brought on by a decade of economic stagnation only made the story of the Irish in America that much more heartbreaking. For the vast majority who left their homeland they knew it was possibly was the last time they would see their family and friends again. News from home came in the form of a hand written letter or a card on a birthday, St. Patrick's Day and at Christmas. The Irish worked hard and saved their money, often sending cash home to help bring a beloved brother, sister, nephew or niece to the great cauldron of opportunity that was America. The launch of the transatlantic route gave the Irish in America the possibility for the first time to travel home on holidays. The reality however was that for the vast majority of the diaspora it was literally only a once in a lifetime opportunity and that was due to one thing, cost. In 1958, an economy class ticket from New York to Shannon was the equivalent of $1883 in today's money - many times the annual salary of a 'JFK carpenter'. Still, the door had been opened and over the course of the next two generations, millions of Irish in America saw the land of their birth again or the home of their forefathers for the first time.

My first trip to the U.S. was sometime around 1998. By that time Aer Lingus had expanded its North American network to the point here cities like Newark, Chicago and Los Angeles had been added. In later years, and after much lobbying from the Irish in the Bay Area, twice weekly direct flights commenced from San Francisco. That route would sadly last less than two years. In the late 1990's and again in the early 2000's I must have flown from Shannon to London Heathrow with Aer Lingus about 200 times. There was a time when I could sketch the layout of Heathrow terminals 1 and 2 on the back of an envelope. Then unbelievably, inexplicably, Aer Lingus abandoned the Heathrow slots they had had for decades. Only after a massive public outcry, intensive lobbying by politicians across the country and a renegotiation of terms with the unions and staff was the route reinstated in March 2009.

For years I have often times gone out of my way, both in terms of flight schedules and financial cost, to give my business to Aer Lingus when traveling back to Ireland. I always felt I was a little closer to home every time I boarded the green airplane with the shamrock on it, whether I was in New York, Boston, Chicago, L.A. or San Francisco. I completely understand that Aer Lingus is a business and as such has to operate profitably to sustain itself through the current tough economic climate and to be ready to expand again in the future when things turn around. On the other hand I am only one of many who believe that Aer Lingus has been hugely inefficient for many years and that the airline is top heavy with staff. I would also agree that a very strong argument can be made that this state of affairs exists largely because Aer Lingus was essentially a government run organization for generations, bringing with it all the classic symptoms of bureaucracy, inefficiency and a culture of entitlement. Organizations need to be lean and nimble to survive in a turbulent 21st global economy. Suspending services from Shannon to Boston and JFK for 3 months (including St. Patrick's Day) in 2011 is not the way to do it.

*Juan Trippe (1899-1981) was an American airline entrepreneur and the founder of Pan American Airways. An airline visionary, he was almost as equally famous for his long running battle for control of the skies with his arch nemesis, Howard Hughes.