European airlines face crisis
High number of flights are overloading air traffic control system
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) —
Furnishing sushi bars and sex shops,
Frankfurt Airport offers travelers plen
ty of ways to occupy their time before
flying.
Yet there may be demand for even
more: Nearly half of last month’s flights
to and from the airport were delayed at
least IS minutes and some were hours
late.
The tardiness is so severe that
Lufthansa AG has begun keeping three
jets with crews on standby here just to
fill in for flights that are seriously
delayed: All three replacement jets have
been busy, the airline says.
In sides across Europe, unprece
dented numbers of passenger flights
are overloading the region’s fragment
ed air traffic control system.
A surge in flights packed with
vacationers heading for the
Mediterranean has added to the strain.
Holiday travel increased just as the
skies were clearing of disruptions
caused by NATO’s spring offensive in
the Balkans.
“We have once again reached a cri
sis situation,” said Emanuela Petracchi,
a Geneva-based spokeswoman for the
International Air Transport
Association, an airline trade group.
Similar problems in the United
States have contributed to a doubling of
delays and cancellations by U.S. air
lines in the past year.
At airports in 32 European coun
tries, airline deregulation and cheaper
fares helped boost the number of pas
senger flights to more than 734,000 in
July, a 17.6 percent increase from three
years ago. Delays due to air traffic
problems have risen even faster, 33.5
percent in the same period, LATA says.
In Spain, a shortage of air traffic
controllers caused delays earlier this
year, and a strike by baggage handlers
affected flights to the Canary Islands, a
popular tourist destination. »
Fhghts to Switzerland and southern
France suffered delays after the French,
fearing potential job losses, halted
efforts to reorganize control of the air
space along the Franco-Swiss border,
Fetracchi said.
By the end of July, delays topped
the list of complaints by passengers in
Europe, said Hans Krakauer of the
International Airline Passengers
Association, a consumer group based
in London.
Other passenger gripes? Poor ser
vice on the ground and in the air^
cramped seating and dirty rest rooms.
' Delays have been most severe at
Milan’s Malpensa Airport, where 75
percent of all departures and arrivals
were late in the April-June quarter.
Barcelona and Madrid fared almost as
badly, while Scandinavian airports had
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u
We have once again reached a crisis
situation.”
Petracchi
~ International Air Association spokeswoman
the most punctual flights, according to
the Brussels, Belgium-based
i of European Airlines,
irankfiirt to suffer widespread
has become. ?
Flughafen Frankfurt/Main AG, the
busiest airport in cqh^ntal Europe,
long prided itself onftslificiency. Yet
departures in the f|q|F quarter of the
year to 36 percent utjgge second quarter.
In July, 48 percent of all departures
were delayed. #
Aviation officials blame most of
the problem on air-traffic bottlenecks
elsewhere in Europe.
A charter flight from Frankfurt to
Adana, Turkey, was one of several to
suffer delays on a recent afternoon. Jhe
reason: last week’s earthquake in
Turkey. it,
The main obstacle to timely fights
in Europe is the region’s poorly orga
nized airspace—a patchwork of zones
managed by 65 different air traffic con
trol colters using 35 different monitor
ing systems.
Aircraft often must adjust their
speed, course or altitude each time they
enter a new air traffic control zone.
Many countries also make passenger
planes fly around airspace reserved for
their military aircraft.
* Lufthansa, which is headquartered
in Frankfurt, says its jets have used up
$16 million worth of fuel this year just
to make such adjustments.
Airlines and airports blame
Europe’s disjointed flight control net
work on politicians intent on jealously
guarding sovereignty over national air
space at the expense of Eurocontrol, an
agency in Brussels that supervises
regional air traffic.
“They created an artificial curren
cy called the euro,” said Frankfurt air
port spokesman Klaus Busch. “So why
can’t they do something in die air traffic
business?”
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Islamic
rebels
keep hold
in Russia
MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP)
- Islamic rebels held ground in a vil
lage in the Caucasus Mountains,
despite being hammered by Russian
jets and artillery for days, Russian offi
cials said Monday.
The Russians have been targeting
the mountaintop village ofTando,
which lies along the supply route that
has brought fighters and weapons from
the breakaway territory of Chechnya.
Russian officials even claimed Sunday
that they had taken part ofTando.
They backed off that claim
Monday, acknowledging that 100
rebels were still in Tando, where they
are encircled, according to the Interior
Ministry. Up to 1,000 militants were
still in the whole of Dagestan, the
Defense Ministry said.
The rebels tried to send reinforce
ments to Tando on Sunday, but they
were repulsed in heavy fighting, the
Defense Ministry said.
The Russian military claimed it
carried out 68 bombing runs and killed
140 rebels Sunday, many in Tando. The
claim could not be independently con
firmed.
The rebels, who invaded the repub*.
lie of Dagestan from Chechnya on
Aug. 7, still hold five villages, accord
ing to the Russians. The militants say
they have even more. However, they
have not been able to expand their oper
ations beyond the small hamlets they
captured in their mftialassault r >
The militants are fighting forpp
independent Islamic state in southern
Russia but are heavily outgunned by
die Russian forces, which are believed
to number seyeralthqusantL, rmtem *
In Moscow, President Boris Yeltsin
held talks on the conflict Monday with
Dagestan’s leader, Magomedali;
Magomedov. $
After the Kremlin meeting,
Magomedov said Dagestan had
warned Russian authorities about the
possibility of an attack before die Aug.
7 invasion. But Russian forces still
appeared unprepared when die assault
came, Magomedov was quoted as say
ing by die Interfax news agency.
He praised the Kremlin’s strong
response following die rebel incursion.
Yeltsin “has given concrete orders ...
for the liquidation of the bandits,”
Magomedov said.
Dagestan's secular politicians and
moderate religious leaders, along with
much of die population, are opposed to
the militants.
Dagestan has been plagued by kid
nappings, crime and periodic border
clashes, all part of the spillover from
the war in Chechnya, where rebels
fought a war against Russia in 1994-96.
Chechnya has been effectively inde
pendent since the end of the war, but
Chechen leaders have not been able to
bring stability to the lawless territory.
Officials in Dagestan, an impover
ished Caucasus Mountains region west
of the Caspian Sea, say more than
11,000 civilians have fled the remote,
rugged conflict zone.
The Dagestan fighting is the worst
in Russia since government troops
withdrew from Chechnya nearly three
years ago. The Kremlin is pouring sol
diers and weaponry into Dagestan but
wants to avoid a repeat of the Chechnya
debacle, particularly ahead of
December parliamentary elections.
Russian officials say up to 700
rebels have been killed in the two-week
conflict, though the rebels say that fig
ure is hugely exaggerated. Moscow has
acknowledged losing about 40 sol
diers.
While support for separatism in
Chechnya was widespread, most peo
ple in Dagestan oppose the militants,
and many Muslim leaders in Russia
have also condemned the rebels' vio
lent tactics.