2001 - Transportation

Transportation

A Vladivostok Avia Co. Tupolev-154 en route from Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains crashes outside Irkutsk in Siberia July 3, killing all 143 aboard; the death toll of passengers and crew on the hijacked American and United Airlines planes September 11 is 266, including the 19 hijackers.

Commercial and general (private) U.S. air traffic is suspended September 11 but 140 Saudis are permitted to fly out of the country, including members of the bin Laden family. Flights from abroad are diverted to Canadian airports, and when domestic flights resume a few days later there is heightened security, along with demands that airliner cockpits be sealed off from passenger areas, that pilots be allowed to carry firearms, and that the federal government assume responsibility for airport security. The airlines have lost $1 billion since the first of the year, security at U.S. airports has been lax, the events of September 11 frighten away prospective passengers, and Congress votes September 21 to approve a $15 billion bailout package that will keep the airline industry viable (the Senate vote is 96 to 1, the House vote 356 to 54).

A 12-seat Cessna collides with an SAS McDonnell-Douglas 87 reaching takeoff speed on a runway at Milan's Linate Airport October 8, killing 118; American Airlines Flight 587 takes off from JFK for Santo Domingo at 9:14 in the morning November 12 and crashes 3 minutes later into the Belle Harbor residential neighborhood of Queens five miles from JFK, killing all 251 passengers and nine crew members aboard the A300 Airbus plus five people on the ground. Most of the passengers are Dominicans who had lived in Washington Heights, that community is devastated, and while the accident is not related to terrorism it strikes a heavy blow to the Rockaway community that lost many men in the World Trade Center collapse 2 months earlier. It is the worst such disaster since a United Airlines jet fell on Park Slope, Brooklyn, in 1960 and takes far more lives.

Air France and British Airways resume supersonic transatlantic flights in November after a 15-month hiatus, charging $5,500 for a one-way ticket on the Concorde (see 2003).

Container ship pioneer Malcom McLean dies of heart failure at his New York home May 25 at age 87, having seen containerization come into almost universal use in barge, rail, and truck transportation as well as on the high seas.

Britain's P&O Princess Cruises and Miami-based Royal Caribbean Cruises announce at London November 20 that they will merge in a $2.89 billion deal that will overtake Miami-based Carnival to create the world's largest cruise-ship company, with 41 ships, 75,000 berths under joint management. The travel industry remains in turmoil as a result of recession and terrorism.

Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju Yung dies at Seoul March 21 at age 85.

Bridgestone's Bridgestone/Firestone division announces May 21 that it will end its 95-year-old relationship with Ford Motor Company, blaming Ford for many of the fatal Explorer accidents that Ford has blamed on faulty tires.

The last Plymouth automobile rolls off the Chrysler assembly line at Belvedere, Ill., June 28. Sales of Plymouths peaked in 1973, efforts to reinvigorate the make in the face of foreign competition have failed, Chrysler lost $2 billion in the second half of last year and this year loses another $2 billion, Ford loses $5.5 billion (see 2002). Passenger cars made by Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors have only 47 percent of the U.S. market, down from 64 percent in 1994, Detroit loses money on every such car sold, sales of high-profit sport utility vehicles (SUVs) enabled the "Big Three" to show combined profits of $19 billion in 1999, but Honda and Nissan factories can produce a passenger car in 31 hours (it takes Ford 42), imported cars have higher resale values, union opposition makes it hard for the company to abandon unprofitable lines, and industry analysts predict that profits on domestic SUVs will soon be cut in half.

Rental-car companies suffer large losses as air passenger travel drops off even before the September 11 terrorist events; some of the companies lobby for federal loan guarantees, but industry giants Hertz, Avis, and Enterprise oppose such guarantees in hopes of driving out competitors such as Alamo, Budget, Dollar, and National.

A truck collision in Switzerland's 10.6-mile-long St. Gotthard Tunnel October 24 sets off a fire that kills at least 11 people; another 128 are still missing 24 hours later, the Mont Blanc Tunnel that was closed by a fire in March 1999 is not scheduled to reopen until later in the year, some 5,000 trucks per day have been using the St. Gotthard Tunnel, and the disruption in traffic (75 percent of all freight within the European Union moves by road) cuts Italy off from France and the rest of Europe.