Terrorists win if U.S. airlines should falter
March 19, 2003

If President Bush’s planners are right, the shooting war that is about to break out in Iraq won’t last nearly as long as the preparation that went into getting our forces into position or the strange dance we danced with the French. That’s the good news.

The bad news, of course, is that “taking Baghdad” or even killing Saddam won’t end the threat we face from his forces and friends. Indeed, Muslim fanatics outside Iraq, regardless of their feelings about his regime, are arguing that if we do anything to defang him, we will face the rage of a jihad directed at our homeland.

The loosely structured terrorist international of which Osama bin Laden and his buddies are a part may or may not have the wherewithal to do the sort of damage here that they might like to do. But the nature of the beast is such that they can do some damage and are at least likely to try.

In spite of all the talk about protecting the homeland, there isn’t a whole lot the government can do to guarantee that they won’t succeed. That, after all, is the nature of a war of this kind.

What’s worse, in many ways, is that the mere possibility that they might pull something off is already having serious repercussions in the United States. People are behaving differently and much more cautiously now than they did prior to the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As war approaches, they are getting more and more nervous and less willing to venture far from their homes and families.

Businesses are postponing investments as they wait and see how things shake out. Consumers are also waiting. They may be buying duct tape and plastic, but retailers are hurting. As a result, the economic recovery that many forecasters believed we would be in the middle of by now has been delayed by events.

The impact of all this has been particularly damaging to the airline industry.

Airlines, which weren’t all that healthy prior to Sept. 11, are hanging on by a thread. They’re in a vicious spiral that can only lead to a financial disaster not just for one or two carriers, but for the industry as a whole, the traveling public and for those other industries that depend on freight and passenger airlines for their survival.

Since Sept. 11, the airlines have lost something like $18 billion, two of the largest have already filed Chapter 11 and at least one is expected to slide into Chapter 7 and liquidation. Several others are on the brink of bankruptcy.

They’ve been fighting a new public fear of flying, skyrocketing fuel costs and higher taxes to pay for security measures that may or may not have made the skies safer, but have certainly driven some of their customers away. Those still flying have reorganized, cut the fat out of their management and realized at long last that their first duty is to their customers. It hasn’t helped.

Cutting ticket prices to the bone hasn’t helped either. Fewer Americans are flying and losses are mounting. The industry is expected to lose another $6 billion or so this year, a figure that doesn’t include the losses from a war.

People who project the consequences of such things say the airlines will quickly lose another $4 billion and can expect 52 million fewer of us to buy tickets in wartime.

That, in turn, will result in the elimination of more than 2,000 flights and will leave many small and medium-sized cities without services. It will also mean that as many as 350,000 people in the airline industry and in other industries dependent on it will lose their jobs.

Names like United and American could be little more than memories if all this happens and we’ll be likely to see government move in to re-regulate or even nationalize what’s left to avoid the complete collapse of a vital part of the nation’s transportation infrastructure at a cost of untold billions.

These are among the most foreseeable consequences of the war in which we find ourselves.

The airlines are seeking help on the Hill and from the White House. They may have cried wolf before, but this time the beast is out there and breathing down their necks. If someone doesn’t do something, the terrorists could destroy a vital part of our infrastructure without physically taking out one plane.

And that would be a disaster for all of us.