Transportation Secretary Slater Discusses Airline Traffic, Bridgestone/Firestone Tire Recall
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Travelers, you have a lot to think about this Labor Day weekend: the airlines, gas prices, the Bridgestone/Firestone tire recall. So let's bring in Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, who joins us from Washington to talk about some of these issues. Good morning, Mr. Secretary.</s>RODNEY SLATER, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Good morning, Carol.</s>LIN: Well, you saw the Gallup poll. Are you surprised?</s>SLATER: I did. I'm not surprised. I'll tell you, it's good to hear the news. We've known that we're actually performing better this year as compared to last year. We did have some difficulties. We had the situation with United, but they have corrected that situation and I know they're committed to providing quality service, and that's management and labor, the pilots as well. We had the difficult month of June: 19 bad weather days as compared to five last year, 12 of those consecutive. But overall, we've seen improvements over the course of the spring, summer months.</s>LIN: Well, at the same time, though, your department and the government is looking into the possibility that airlines are overscheduling themselves. In fact, United is now running these commercials saying that they're going to fly fewer planes and try to have less crowded skies. So do you think overscheduling is still a problem then?</s>SLATER: Well, there's only so much capacity in the system. And when you've got the longest economic expansion in the nation's history, people able to fly, and you've got good ticket prices, you can tax the system a bit. We have load factors in the 80 percent range. On average a couple years ago, it was around 65 percent. So we're moving a lot more people, we've had challenges with the weather, but I think, overall, we've done a good job here and we've worked together in doing so.</s>LIN: One more quick question on air travel: I found it very interesting that we're borrowing airspace from the Canadians and we're also working with the Department of Defense on some new technology to deal with weather problems?</s>SLATER: That's right. And here I want to commend our FAA administrator Jane Garvey and the team that we're working with across the airline industry to look at ways that we can expand the capacity of the system. And, you're right, we're working with Canada and we're also working with the Department of Defense, and that gives us, especially, additional space here on the East Coast and up in the Northeast portion of United States where we have a lot of congestion and the most significantly congested airspace in the country; and for that matter, some of the most congested airspace in the world.</s>LIN: Well, let's talk about safety right here on the ground, with the Bridgestone/Firestone recall well under way now. Jac Nasser of Ford is saying he will testify before Congress, and he says he's going to bring documents which will prove what they knew about these tires and when they knew it. Is that going to satisfy you that Ford did not know ahead of time that they were getting potentially defective tires?</s>SLATER: Well, I think it's very important for Ford to step forward, along with Firestone. We all have an obligation here. We say that safety is a promise that we have to make and keep together for the benefit of the American people. I know that safety is the number one transportation priority for this administration, so I'm looking forward to hearing more. I can tell you that we've been working very closely with Ford and Firestone. We have updated our figures as it relates to the fatalities. That number is now at 88. We've also identified about 250 people who've been injured.</s>LIN: Mr. Secretary...</s>SLATER: I'm looking forward to another briefing earlier this morning, and we may have a bit more to say about this later.</s>LIN: Do you suspect collusion here, though?</s>SLATER: I wouldn't say that. We're just trying to get to the facts. I think it's very important not to point fingers, to expect people to be honorable and up front, forthright in providing information, and I think that's what we're going to have here. We're talking about two fine companies, and clearly we're talking about a dedicated NHTSA staff within the Department of Transportation. And we're going to get to the bottom of it, and we're going to then focus on the future and the safety of the traveling public.</s>LIN: All right, thank you very much, Secretary Slater. Happy travels to you this weekend.</s>SLATER: Thank you.