News : Travel is still rough, but some costs are easing

Monday, June 5, 2023

Travel is still rough, but some costs are easing

Jun 05, 2023

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By Alex Daugherty

Presented by

With help from Ry Rivard and Tanya Snyder

Quick fix

— Gasoline and airfare aren’t as pricey this summer as the transportation industry rebounds to pre-pandemic employment levels.

— DOT awards more than $500 million to improve or eliminate at-grade rail crossings.

— Two familiar faces played a big role in the debt ceiling deal: Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

IT’S MONDAY: You’re reading Morning Transportation, your Washington policy guide to everything that moves. Send tips, thoughts, song lyrics and recipes you like to adaugherty@politico.com and tsnyder@politico.com. Find us on Twitter @alextdaugherty and @TSnyderDC.

“Pretty face tryna chase the train/And I could look the other way but it still won't erase the pain/And I pray that she stay the same, amazing grace/Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

A message from Regional Airline Association:

When it comes to aviation safety, how you train and what you train on matters. More pilots fail new-hire training than a decade ago because the 1,500-hour requirement does not ensure relevant experience. Pilots spend months away from training flying small, slow, single-engine aircraft in clear weather, and skills deteriorate. Academic flight training and simulation have advanced, but FAA’s structured training pathways have been static since 2013. Safety means following the data. Learn more here.

Driving the day

COUGHING UP DOUGH: This time a year ago, gas prices were close to record highs and airline tickets spiked as travel demand began to rise. But this summer, despite fears of widespread flight delays, traveling won’t be as hard on the wallet — in most cases. Airline fares are about 1 percent lower than they were this time a year ago, while gasoline is down about 12 percent, according to the latest Consumer Price Index report.

— The price of jet fuel has also leveled off in recent months, according to DOT, saving airlines close to $1 billion in fuel costs from April 2022 to April 2023. The combination of strong travel demand and cheaper fuel has been good for airlines’ bottom line, and American Airlines readjusted its estimated earnings this week. But it isn’t all good for travelers. The return of international trips (including your MT host’s first trip since 2019) has led to a spike in air fares for those flights, particularly to Europe.

— Another sign of our new post-Covid travel normal is the unemployment rate, as the transportation sector consistently posted higher unemployment rates compared with the U.S. average since the onset of the pandemic. But in the latest jobs numbers reported Friday, the transportation sector’s 3.6 percent unemployment rate is inching closer to the national rate of 3.4 percent. Airlines in particular have staffed up after shedding jobs during the pandemic. The industry now employs approximately 539,000 people as of last month, up from 516,000 people in February 2019. And airlines have recovered faster than the transit sector, which continues to see low ridership numbers. For comparison, the transit sector employed 493,000 people in February 2020 but still has yet to meet pre-pandemic levels, with 436,000 people employed in May 2023.

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Around the Agencies

MAKING IT RAIN ON TRAINS: DOT announced today that 63 projects in 32 states totaling $570 million were awarded grants from the infrastructure law that aim to eliminate or improve at-grade railroad crossings. FRA said there were more than 2,000 highway-rail crossing collisions last year and more than 30,000 reports of blocked crossings. FRA Administrator Amit Bose said the awards “touch the five top counties nationwide for at-grade crossings.” DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the awards are “a first of its kind program that provides new tools to address a not-so-new problem.” View the full list of recipients here.

— Bose, on a call with reporters, was also asked whether FRA would seek to categorize the state of railroad bridges much as FHWA does for highways. Bose, while saying that the administration would support such an effort to better determine what bridges need fixing, said “that is also a matter for Congress.”

— And despite an ongoing battle with freight railroads over whether or not to impose new safety standards following the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, Buttigieg noted that the freight railroads supported the infrastructure bill and that many projects will include private contributions from the railroads that use the tracks and crossings. “This program highlights cooperation and partnership,” he said.

Aviation

NOLEN REPLACEMENT? The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday evening that DOT Deputy Secretary Polly Trottenberg will be named acting FAA administrator once Billy Nolen leaves the agency, which could happen as soon as this week. DOT, FAA and the White House declined to confirm The Journal's report, which the newspaper said "wasn’t final and could change."

Trottenberg would assume Nolen's acting role and would not be subject to Senate confirmation. The White House has not announced a permanent replacement to lead the FAA after the previous nominee, Denver Airport CEO Phil Washington, withdrew and the FAA has been without a Senate-confirmed leader since April of 2022. Before joining the Biden administration, Trottenberg served as commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation.

SONIC BOOM: NORAD on Sunday confirmed that F-16 fighter jets were authorized to travel at supersonic speeds to intercept a nonresponsive Cessna 560 Citation V aircraft as it flew over Washington and Northern Virginia on Sunday afternoon, startling residents. The Cessna later crashed in Western Virginia, and NORAD said the pilots used flares to draw the attention of the pilot, who was unresponsive.

A message from Regional Airline Association:

Rail

SPLIT SCREEN: Top DOT officials will be on the road this week, promoting the infrastructure law’s rail grants. Buttigieg will be in Grand Forks, N.D., today; Bose will be in Fort Worth, Texas, on Tuesday and Houston on Wednesday; DOT Undersecretary Carlos Monje will be in Stafford County, Va., on Thursday; and FRA Deputy Administrator Jennifer Mitchell will be in Broward County, Fla., on Thursday to highlight the new crossing grants.

— But Amtrak officials will likely face a different reception in House T&I on Tuesday. Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner and Northeast Corridor Executive Director Mitch Warren will testify before the GOP-led committee on “challenges and opportunities for improving efficiency and service.”

BOOKER URGES LNG TRAIN SAFETY — Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is urging federal Buttigieg to "prioritize public safety" as the Biden administration weighs a potential ban on trains carrying liquefied natural gas. A Trump-era rule allows trains to carry LNG, but so far there are no shipments happening. In a letter, Booker praised the Biden administration's "swift action to pause implementation" of the Trump rule, but said allowing LNG by rail has "significant impacts on public safety."

"These derailments are an unfortunate reminder of the dangers of rail transport of hazardous materials, particularly highly flammable and potentially explosive cargo, and the urgent need to strengthen safety protocols and emergency response policies," Booker wrote, in the letter that was sent to Buttigieg on Friday and obtained by POLITICO.

— Democratic attorneys general and environmental groups have sued to block the Trump-era rule, but the case was on hold while they waited to see what President Joe Biden would do. Now, after repeated delays, they want to reactivate that lawsuit given how long Biden's team has taken to get to the issue.

FIRST IN MT: The National League of Cities released an interactive map of train derailments. Zoomed out, it’s a heat map, and you can search by city, town or congressional district. For derailments between 2012 and 2023, you can get granular detail about which railroad was involved, what caused the incident, how much it cost, what the weather and light conditions were, train speed and more.

On the Hill

DUO DOING IT AGAIN: Burgess Everett reports that Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Simena (I-Ariz.) were able to directly influence negotiations on the debt ceiling deal that Biden signed into law on Saturday from behind the scenes. Manchin worked to include the Mountain Valley Pipeline in the deal (angering Virginia Democrats in the process), and Sinema helped the Senate pass the bill quickly on Thursday after suggesting a smaller negotiating team of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his lieutenants on one side, and top White House aides on the other.

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Shifting Gears

R.I.P. Truman, Buttigieg's beloved dog.

Jessica Nigro has been promoted to be head of corporate communications and external affairs at Lucid Motors. (h/t Daniel Lippman)

The Autobahn

— “Baltimore couple, both nurses, save a man’s life mid-flight.” The Washington Post.

— “Austin can now proceed with takeover of private airport terminal in $88 million deal.” Bloomberg.

— “One person dead after plane crashes on Pa. Turnpike at I-83.” York Daily Record.

— “Stellantis, GM pay $363 million in US fuel economy penalties.” Reuters.

— "India’s deadly train crash renews questions over safety as government pushes railway upgrade." The Associated Press.

— “The Fed's inflation fight faces a new challenge: A dry Panama Canal.” Bloomberg.

— “West Coast ports shut down as union workers ‘no show’ after breakdown in wage negotiations.” CNBC.

— “Airlines bask in sky-high summer fares while airports stay stuck.” Bloomberg.

A message from Regional Airline Association:

Special interests are on the Hill denying a pilot shortage that has devastated rural communities, seeking to block critical safety evolution with misleading charts and statistics, while pushing the most experienced pilots out of the flight deck through an unscientific retirement mandate. Why? Some hope a large moat around the career will drive wages – in a profession where first year pay averages $100,000 and top earners make $590,000 per year – even higher. Let’s be clear: airlines propose to strengthen—never erode—pilot training. When it comes to the value of flight time , the FAA said this when it wrote the rule: “The FAA was unable to find a quantifiable relationship between the 1,500-hour requirement and airplane accidents and hence no benefit from the requirement.” Academic flight training courses, flight training devices, and simulation technology have seen tremendous advancements, and should complement flight time for a higher level of safety.