FAA Predicts More Cramped Airliners Soon

Despite ongoing financial woes for several domestic airlines, more people are flying in their planes today than in any time since 9/11... and it's only going to get better. Or, worse... depending on which side of the curtain you're on.

If you run a major airline, you can take some comfort in knowing the FAA predicts annual passenger loads with rise from nearly 739 million passengers carried aloft in 2005, to over 1.1 billion just over ten years from now. That's a 45 percent increase by 2017 -- and analysts predict higher ticket prices will not dampen passenger enthusiasm very much.

It stands to reason that more passengers -- paying higher fares -- should bode well for the airlines, so long as fuel prices don't experience a major spike as they did last year (admittedly, that's a big if.) But if you're like the rest of us and are relegated to flying commercially... you'll likely find yourself wishing more people would take their $%#* cars.

More passengers flying will mean longer lines through security, and less room available on planes that are already lacking in creature comforts -- especially if airlines begin to equip their planes with even more seats than are already stuffed into their cabins.

In any case, it's clear many domestic airlines could use all the help they can get right now, as major US carriers reported operating losses of $1.5 billion (with a B) in 2005 -- far exceeding the $500 million carriers lost in 2004, according to FAA figures.

Of course, you could always buy your own plane and avoid much of that hassle -- but even then, you'll be sharing the skies with more aviators than before. The FAA predicts the GA fleet will increase about 1.4 percent each year through 2017... from 214,591 aircraft in 2005, to 252,775 in 2017.

It's clear, however, that most of the people who fly in the future, will do so on commercial aircraft. Maybe we should all start to get serious about those diets now...

FMI: www.faa.gov