Aviators accept that an airplane must be kept in aerodynamic trim to maintain smooth and efficient flight under changing conditions. Despite the omnipotent demeanor of many pilots, we have never overwhelmed the laws of physics, but really only learned to live with them.

The airline industry is just about the most beautifully complicated industrial ballet one could imagine. And like most complicated endeavors, to the single constituent perspective of employee, customer, regulator, or vendor, the airline industry is like a huge iceberg revealing only a small portion of its true bulk to any single water-level perspective.

But one element of the airline industry common to all perspectives today is change. Many of those changes have been predicted, and most of the painful dislocations felt by nearly everyone involved have resulted from the industry’s "too-late" recognition of those changes. When a pilot engages the autopilot and subsequently fails to recognize that the autopilot is not trimming the aircraft to accommodate changes in weight, speed and density altitude....when the autopilot eventually disengages, it is always a shock.

Did the airlines really think that they could emulate the Federal Government, and continually spend more producing a transportation service than what they were able to collect for that service? Did the airline customers really think they could expect forever the luxury of flying on half empty airplanes operating on convenient frequencies? Did Washington expect the airlines to thrive under the FAA’s upside-down marketing philosophy (first imposed during the 1981 PATCO strike) that requires the airlines to restrict their demand for ATC services based on the FAA’s willingness and/or ability to provide those services? When negotiating labor contracts, did the airlines and unions ever look over their shoulders at the relative labor productivity of the post-Deregulation “start-up carriers?” Did the equipment manufacturers and lending/leasing institutions not see a connection between airline profitability and their long-term ability to pay for new aircraft? Did our newly minted TSA bureaucracy think that airline passengers would tolerate forever the often silly, and frequently inconsistent procedures of airport screening inflicted upon them post 9/11 under the guise of “security?”

Our beloved airline industry is "out of trim"... and has fallen off autopilot.