Category: Transportation

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon one of those old "Airport" movies. In this one Dean Martin is the pilot, and an unhinged passenger brings a bomb on board. What struck me about the movie was how air travel has changed since then. Despite the mad bomber, flying back in 1970 was a pleasant experience. Passengers had room to move around the cabin, and they even got fed.

Today flying is a lot of things, but I wouldn't call it pleasant. Cabins are packed with passengers and there are no meals, except in business and first class. You also have to get to the airport two hours before a flight; pay to have your bag checked; then risk having your bag unloaded in Omaha when you're flying to Miami.

Deregulation has a lot to do with the change in air travel. It opened the skies to more carriers. That additional competition made fares cheaper, allowing more people to fly. The problem is airlines can't make money on $200 tickets. They make money when passengers pay double or triple that amount. Throw in gyrating fuel prices and you end up with a broken industry.

John Storm is the kind of businessman who gives me hope about American manufacturing. Storm grew up on a farm in Indiana. He developed an interest in engineering as a boy when his dad took apart a tractor engine and asked him to reassemble it. The tractor engine resulted in a metallurgical engineering degree from Purdue University, followed by a ten-year stint at as an engineer at General Motors.

At GM, Storm came up with the idea to quickly harden metal parts using electricity versus the old fashioned way of baking the parts in an oven. GM passed on the idea, but GM's loss was Storm's gain. He patented the system and for the past 20 years has been charging GM, Chrysler, and Ford to do the work for them. He's also sold them equipment to do the work themselves at plants in the U.S. and abroad.

Today the last Chevy Tahoe produced in Janesville, Wisconsin rolled off the assembly line. General Motors donated the sport utility to the local United Way which plans to auction it off later. While the money the United Way is likely to make from the raffle will help the charity, it won't plug the $400,000 deficit United Way of Rock County faces next year.

The closing today of GM's 90-year-old Janesville assembly plant is leaving a gaping hole in the community, including the United Way. It is only one charity that has depended on the generosity of GM employees for years and now must look elsewhere for funding.

I've spent most of my life in the Midwest and I've probably crossed the Mississippi River a hundred times, maybe more. I never gave much thought to the significance of the river, except when it flooded. But as we traveled the length of the river for "The Mississippi" series airing this week producer Hart Billings, photographer Mike Malanga, and I realized what a majestic body of water it is.

Early one Sunday morning we watched a group of giggling school girls walk across a series of rocks on the Mississippi's headwaters in northern Minnesota. There, the river looks more like a stream. But, 2500 miles south in New Orleans we marveled at the huge expanse of the river. There we watched barges load grain onto huge ocean-going cargo ships. It was almost unimaginable that it was the same river that we saw in Minnesota.

I remember being a kid and thinking the airline industry was so prestigious that I wanted to be a flight attendant. I thought their uniforms were elegant and classy. But now all I read in the headlines is that the airline industry is in major financial trouble. Whether it’s the FAA fining a company millions of dollars for safety regulations or airlines laying off hundreds of employees, charging more for extra bags, and of course raising fares because of fuel costs, it’s apparent the industry is suffering. But, so are its customers.

I was one of the unfortunate people to get caught up in the mess in Atlanta last Monday. It took me nearly 15 hours to fly from Indianapolis to Ft Lauderdale. I had never had any really terrible airline experiences, except for the occasional delay. This time was just ludicrous.

I’m a planner. Always have been, probably always will be. Case in point: My wedding is in two weeks, and already I’m scheming as to where my future husband and I might “settle down.”

I know, I know, let’s worry about saying the “I Dos” first, right? Cut me some slack. Dreaming up our future abode is infinitely more fun than making seating charts.

But in all seriousness, when it comes to thinking about where I want to be, I’m really torn. On the one hand, I want that suburban idyll: a lovely house on a peaceful stretch of road that greets you like a hug at the end of a long day. But on the other, I adore the convenience of the city, in particular my access to the public transportation system, which means my fiancé and I can get by with only one car.

In doing research for tonight's Zipcar story, I found that I’m not alone. High gas prices and constrained energy supplies have made the suburban sprawl of the last few decades untenable. We will have to change the way we think about transportation to deal with modern realities.

It seems like I’m always blogging about oil prices….but I guess that’s the “topic du jour.” Anyhow, one thing I came across in today’s reporting that did not make it into my story was that crude futures are falling much quicker than retail gas prices (big surprise there…right?). In the last seven days of trading the price of crude oil is down about 13 percent…now at $128 a barrel. In that same time frame, the national average for a gallon of gasoline has dipped only 6 cents or 1.5 percent to $4.05 a gallon. I’m not exactly sure why this is the case…although I could probably hazard a few guesses. But, I do know that gas prices moved higher at a much slower clip than crude prices. So, it’s only fair that they fall at a slower pace. Right?

Both Microsoft and Google released quarterly earnings reports after the close yesterday which, while not exactly bad, did not meet the exuberant expectations of some Wall Street pundits. Both of these companies have some tough questions to answer going forward, as I discussed in a special Tech Talk report in last night's program.

And look at IBM, good, old, staid, and low profile. IBM just keeps on rolling. A truly global company, IBM keeps growing earnings and share price, quarter after quarter without the melodrama which seems to surround the Microsoft’s and Googles and Yahoo!s of the world.

The last two times I filled up my tank the total cost for my gas guzzling SUV was $99 dollars…not a penny more or a penny less. That’s pretty darn awful…right? What’s more awful, however, is what’s happened to the “value” of my monster car …also known as a GMC Yukon. About 8 months ago, my husband and I considered trading in our 2004 model for a newer version. We were offered xx dollars for the “trade in”. We opted to wait…as the car was in good shape with less than 40,000 miles on it. Last weekend we checked back with the same dealer…and surprise…surprise…they were now offering us 55 percent less for the trade in. The car is still in good shape…with not much more miles on it. Understandably, oil prices are up dramatically in that timeframe...making large SUVs far less desirable. But, a 55 percent price drop? Am I being gouged??

Another day, another restructuring. Since the beginning of this decade U.S. auto companies have announced a steady stream of capacity cuts, plant closings, and cost-cutting measures. As the auto industry reporter for NBR, I've covered all of these announcements. I haven't been surprised by the content of the announcements, but something caught my ear today.

In today's restructuring GM estimated that auto companies will sell 14 million cars and trucks in the U.S. this year and next. That is a startling number and a precipitous drop from last year. In 2007 Americans bought about 16.1 million vehicles. Only a few weeks ago when I was in Detroit, J.D. Power & Associates economists were estimating sales at 14.9 million units.

I couldn't fathom how sales could fall so far, so fast. But, Global Insight Auto Analyst Rebecca Lindland put it into perspective for me. She said for every $10 increase in a barrel of crude oil, vehicle sales decline between 190,000 and 200,000 units annually. So, if you factor in all of the run-ups in oil prices, it makes sense.