Analysts: Comair's Christmas failure could hurt airline in long run

<p>The computer failure that shut down Comair's national flight schedule on Christmas could hurt the airline's reputation with travelers in the long run, industry analysts said Tuesday.</p><p>Comair, a regional carrier based at the Cincinnati airport, will have to work to prevent losing customers because of the cancellations, said Suzanne Betts, an analyst with Argus Research Corp. in New York City. Federal officials said they will investigate Comair's shutdown to try and prevent a recurrence.</p><p>Betts said the shutdown happening on a holiday weekend is especially damaging for Comair, which parent company Delta Air Lines has been considering selling as Delta recovers from financial problems.</p><p>"They ruined Christmas for a lot of people," said Terry Trippler, who owns a travel consulting business in Minneapolis. "Comair's going to have to do what they can to assure people that the next holiday, they'll have it under control."</p><p>Comair, which serves about 30,000 passengers daily and flies to 119 cities, canceled all 1,100 flights nationwide on Saturday. Comair officials said about 75 percent of flights were running Tuesday and it expected to resume its full schedule Wednesday.</p><p>Multiple scheduling changes during a severe snowstorm collapsed Comair's computer system used for daily operations, including flight and crew scheduling. The shutdown will cost owner Delta many millions of dollars in reimbursing passengers, paying for lodging and meals and providing replacement flights, Trippler said. That cost will pinch the profits that Delta needed to make during the lucrative holiday travel period, Trippler said.</p><p>"How an airline can allow themselves to be this vulnerable is a question that has to be answered. It just blows my mind," Trippler said.</p><p>Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta on Monday ordered the agency's inspector general to review customer service and on-time performance of all airlines as part of an investigation into thousands of holiday cancellations by Comair and US Airways.</p><p>The reasons Comair's computer system collapsed and how a recurrence can be avoided will be a focus of the investigation, inspector general Kenneth Mead said.</p><p>Mead's office would not comment on possible outcomes of the investigation or how long it will take.</p><p>He also will examine US Airways' cancellation of hundreds of flights over four days because triple the usual number of flight attendants called in sick.</p><p>Comair President Randy Rademacher promised cooperation with the federal probe.</p><p>The company is focusing on accommodating all inconvenienced passengers, Comair spokesman Nick Miller said.</p><p>"Just getting airplanes up in the air and people on their way, that will be a tremendous benefit," Miller said.</p><p>Comair already planned to replace the computer system in the next few months, Miller said.</p><p>Delta CEO Gerald Grinstein said this month that his airline will evaluate whether it wants to keep or sell subsidiaries Comair and Atlantic Southeast Airlines. Delta receives feeder business from both those airlines and doesn't necessarily need to own them to receive that benefit, Grinstein said.</p><p>Comair has coordinated its schedules since 1984 with Delta, long before Delta bought it in January 2000 for $1.8 billion. The schedule coordination helped Comair grow from humble beginnings in 1977 as a commuter carrier operating three propeller-driven planes. It now operates a fleet of more than 150 jets and carried more than 10 million passengers in 2003, up from 8.7 million in 2002.</p><p>Its ownership by Delta helped Comair recover quickly from a three-month strike by pilots in 2001 that cost Comair more than $200 million in lost revenues and forced it in 2001 to reduce its fleet from 119 aircraft to 82.</p><p>Delta and Comair do not disclose separate financial result for Comair, which employs about 6,000. But in its most recent report to the Transportation Department, Comair reported a net profit of $32.1 million in the second quarter of 2004.</p><p>Miller, Comair's spokesman, declined comment on whether Delta might sell Comair.</p><p>Fewer than a dozen delayed or canceled Comair flights were listed on monitors at one point Tuesday at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. The rows of unclaimed baggage for Delta, Comair and other airlines that had stretched longer than a football field a day earlier had shrunk considerably.</p><p>Arletta Shores of Guymon, Okla., said her Comair flight last Thursday from Oklahoma City to Cincinnati was canceled, along with two others she tried to rebook. She didn't arrive to visit relatives until 3 a.m. Saturday on a Delta flight, the fourth she booked.</p><p>"I always have problems when I fly _ a canceled flight, lost luggage," she said. Her Comair flight home was to leave Tuesday but was delayed until Wednesday.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x2862f90)</p><p>HASH(0x2863038)</p><p>HASH(0x286311c)</p>

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