By James Pilcher
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Hate the long airport lines created when passengers are delayed or stranded by bad weather, mechanical cancellations or other "irregular operations?" Delta Air Lines hopes to make them a thing of the past, with a new system being unveiled today.

The goal: automate the process of rebooking a passenger on a later flight or onto other accommodations, so the wait is no longer than two minutes, airline officials say.

The move to automate will mostly be in place the week before Thanksgiving for the holiday travel season. It also will cut costs at Delta, which has been hemorrhaging money since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport - Delta's second-largest transfer point - and other airports will be getting machines that can read barcodes on existing boarding passes, then print out new itineraries while automatically checking passengers in for their new flights.

"This would be our latest phase in our attack on airport lines," said Rich Cordell, senior vice president for airport customer service for Delta, which has already streamlined the lobby check-in procedure using automated kiosks - thus eliminating most lines at the ticket counter. "We've fixed the lobby and reduced lines there."

Reyne Haines, who flies almost monthly as owner of a downtown art gallery, said the initiatives appear to be a good idea for the general public. But Haines also said she hoped it would allow someone on a tight schedule to rebook on airlines other than Delta if they were on a tight schedule.

"A lot of us who fly on business need to be somewhere at 10 a.m., and that's that," she said. "But if they can keep people from standing in line for hours to get help, that would be great."

Other upgrades planned include plasma screens that eventually will be equipped with audio, showing individual passenger names and their new flights as they get off a delayed flight that may have missed some connections. There also will be new phone systems hooked into a central reservation call bank.

In addition, someone who is stranded through the airline's fault will get the appropriate hotel and meal vouchers from new automated kiosks and printers. Company officials are looking into expanding that to include the discretionary vouchers it passes out in bad weather, as well as how the program can be extended to regional subsidiaries such as Erlanger-based Comair.

All of this is part of the "irregular operations" program, which Delta officials say will be rebooking delayed travelers while they still may be in the air.

"We once turned 150 people off one flight in about 15 minutes during a test," said Rob Maruster, Delta's director of airport strategy, planning and development. "We would put the printers on the plane if we could, but we're not quite to that stage yet."

Airline executives say along with new technology comes a commitment to accurate and timely information updates to delayed or stranded passengers, something that has not been the airline industry's forte until recently.

"That's the only way this will work, and that is to be able to trust that the people or machines are telling the truth," said Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, representing business travel managers nationally. "This could really be a way for a legacy carrier to really separate itself from the rest of the pack."

Pilots union, management meet

Delta Air Lines' pilots union yielded somewhat in its stance on potential pay cuts, meeting with management Tuesday in Atlanta to hear another company proposal.

Neither side would say how the proposal differs from the 20 percent pay cut Delta already has asked its 8,500 pilots to take.

It was the first meeting between the two sides since the carrier's branch of the Air Line Pilots Association installed new officers.

Previously, the union, which includes nearly 900 pilots at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport had broken off talks, saying it would reopen discussions if the company extends the current contract and spreads any cuts around.

E-mail jpilcher@enquirer.com