Airlines: the Changing Scene

For two decades Californians have been spoiled by having their own airlines to take them around the state. Old-timers remember the days when Pacific Southwest Airlines first flew between Sacramento and Los Angeles for as little as $11 on a prop-jet, $13 on an all-jet, flight--a fraction of others’ rates. PSA and Air California waged spirited, and often friendly, competition for California travelers. Until last Wednesday, if there was any hitch in a PSA flight at Los Angeles International’s Terminal 1, the California air passenger merely walked across a corridor and caught the next Air Cal flight to San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland or Sacramento, or vice versa.

Farewell to this happy age. Welcome to the uncertain future. Air Cal formally has been absorbed by American Airlines. American is a national airline with a fine reputation. It ranked No. 1 as the preferred line in a 1984 survey of the International Airline Passenger Assn., and Air Cal customers probably can count on good service under the new colors. But the change at least has broken up that old Terminal 1 camaraderie. Former Air Cal flights now dock at Terminal 4.

The merger also resulted in American/Air Cal’s losing two highly prized flight allocations in Orange County to United Air Lines. Other changes are bound to occur, although American pledges to remain competitive on Air Cal routes--including the busy Los Angeles-San Francisco run.

The next step will come when USAir, based in Washington, D.C., completes its takeover of PSA (“Catch Our Smile�). While American ranked tops in the IAPA survey, USAir was listed as the second worst. Perhaps USAir has overcome its “Useless Air� image in recent years. The IAPA will release its new survey this fall. Regardless, PSA passengers will be faced with change. USAir has said that it plans to bolster PSA’s California corridor service with the creation of a commuter subsidiary similar to Allegheny Commuter, which feeds USAir trunk lines in the East and Midwest. The outcome might be more commuter service to more California communities, but fewer full-size-jet flights to some.

USAir has a challenge facing it in pleasing PSA’s spoiled California customers. Some of those customers chuckled at a recent USAir advertisement that said, “Soon we’ll be one big airline known as USAir. And there’s no telling where that could land you tomorrow.� The PSA regulars, smiling skeptically, actually had in mind an airline that would land them at the same old destinations that PSA has been taking them to.