This is my weekly newspaper column, published May 22 and also available online at:
http://cumberlink.com/articles/2008/05/22/opinion/columns/rich_lewis/doc48357fed1af48122328860.txt********
They float through the air, use less gas
By Rich Lewis
Last updated: Thursday, May 22, 2008 10:15 AM EDT
A few weeks ago I wrote about “peak oil” — the idea that once worldwide oil production reaches its “peak” and begins to decline, the price will rise steadily and cause economic catastrophe for those industries and countries that rely on cheap oil.
And then last week I mentioned that one of the 250 recordings on the National Recording Registry is Herbert Morrison’s radio broadcast describing the 1937 crash of The Hindenburg.
This column brings those two topics together, and the subject that unites them is airplanes.
Oil, $60 a barrel a year ago, reached a new record high of $134 a barrel Thursday.
And while rising oil prices may be putting stress on your family budget, they are killing the airline industry.
Jet fuel now exceeds $3.20 a gallon — up 81 percent from a year ago.
Dave Emerson, the head of Bain & Co., an airline consulting firm, said recently, “The reality is that there’s no U.S. airline that has a sustainable business model if $117-a-barrel oil prices endure.” Much less $134 a barrel, or the $150 a barrel that corporate raider Boone Pickens, a former oilman, recently said we would hit this year.
The Washington Post reported on April 23 that, “Faced with skyrocketing fuel bills, major U.S. airlines have announced nearly $1 billion in losses for the first three months of the year.”
Already we are seeing bankruptcies, mergers, rising ticket prices, service cutbacks, safety compromises and fewer flights to fewer places. For example, American Airlines, the nation’s largest carrier, announced Thursday it will start charging $15 for the first checked bag, cut domestic flights and lay off thousands of workers — all because of fuel prices.
And there is no quick fix.
As airlines expert Patrick Smith wrote in Salon last week, “Airplanes, unlike cars, are already extremely (fuel) efficient,” so no savings are likely there.
Other transportation systems have been or can be powered with alternative energy sources. For example, cars and trucks can run on batteries, boats on wind or even nuclear power, boats and trains on steam.
But you can’t run a commercial jet airliner on batteries, wind, solar, nuclear or steam. So no help is coming from that direction.
No one is predicting the end of the airline industry (yet), but rising fuel prices might soon put air travel beyond the reach of all but the very rich and make jet planes a prohibitively expensive way to ship cargo. It would mean huge changes with respect to personal and business travel -- and consumer prices.
Which brings us to Manchester Township, N.J., on May, 6, 1937.
That was the day the German airship, The Hindenburg, built by the Zeppelin company, caught fire and exploded while landing at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station. Thirty-six people died in the accident. The event was recorded on the radio broadcast mentioned above, during which Morrison famously cried out, “Oh, the humanity!”
The tragedy ended the use of rigid airships in commercial air transportation. Airplanes soon relegated them to history and hobbyists.
But the deepening woes of the airline industry may bring them back.
In fact, they are here.
First, you have to realize that “airships” come in three types: rigid, semi-rigid and non-rigid. Non-Rigid models are just gas-filled bags with small compartments underneath (like the Goodyear Blimp). They aren’t good for much except surveillance and advertising.
Zeppelins (the company name is now a word for rigid airships in general) have complex skeletons that allow compartments large enough to hold hundreds of passengers or tons of cargo to be built inside the bag.
Zeppelins are much slower than jets. They can’t fly in severe winds.
But they are safe (the Hindenburg accident was easily avoidable), virtually silent, almost pollution-free, able to land on any reasonably flat surface (including water) — and vastly more fuel-efficient than jets.
My research turned up at least two companies betting that airships have a future.
Worldwide Aeros Corp., based in California (www.aerosml.com), recently received preliminary FAA certification for its “Aeroscraft” — a ship 210 feet long, 118 feet wide and 56 feet tall that cruises at 138 miles per hour.
“The capabilities of the Aeroscraft ML866 create new prospects for all kinds of travel needs,” the Web site claims. “The interior cabin can be configured with amenities from private state rooms to a fully functional business and conference center.”
The Aeroscraft is “also intended for the cargo industry” and would “deliver products more efficiently with reduced cost.”
England’s World SkyCat Ltd. (www.worldskycat.com) offers a complete line of airships, including the SkyShuttle for “highly economical mass passenger transport” and the SkyFreight for heavy freight.
Obviously, I can’t go into all the technical details of airships in a short column — nor discuss all the pros and cons. You can easily find a lot more about this on the Internet.
I am just suggesting that one of the “givens” of the modern world — jet airplanes — may not be a “sustainable” form of transportation if oil prices actually do continue to rise rapidly.
That would be pretty shocking.
But it may not mean the end of “flying” — but a return to an earlier technology made “obsolete” by those very same planes.
And that’s not mere gasbaggery.
Rich Lewis' e-mail address is: rlcolumn@comcast.net
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