CNN: Fear of Flying Not Well Grounded

Huh, turns out all that effort the media put into bashing the airlines was [insert pun about airlines here]. Turns out they're doing pretty good. Oops.

"Airlines might not be doing as badly as it feels they're doing," said CNN's "American Morning" anchor Kiran Chetry after introducing a report November 6 on improved flight delays.

Remember Chetry reports from the New York bureau of CNN, that's important.

The CNN report revealed that the nation's 31 largest airports are actually down 8 percent over last year...except for one gridlocked city.

"Steer clear of New York where flight delays are up 23 percent," reporter Alina Cho said. "Even Chicago's O'Hare and Atlanta's Hartsfield airports, two of the world's busiest, posted improvements."

Cho added that one solution to fix, "those epidemic delays at JFK" that has been tossed around would be, "charging airlines fees for taking off during peak travel times," and, "putting caps on the number of flights that can take off during those times."

The media have been making it "feel" like airlines have been underperforming for quite some time.

As the Business & Media Institute  pointed out on August 29, while the networks were quick to blame airlines and CEOs for flight delays, the media were not as willing to blame the government-run air traffic system - a common theme that ran through 2007.

"And new airline industry numbers out today show that while millions of passengers suffer through record delays, cancellations and lost baggage - airline profits have been soaring," ABC "World News" anchor Charles Gibson said September 17.

Meanwhile, November 6's USA Today said "the FAA's ‘next generation' air-traffic control system-which will rely on satellites instead of ground radar-won't be ready until at least 2020.