Airline talk.

AIRLINE TALK

PROFESSOR Alfred Kahn, who presided over the liquidation of the old ways by introducing deregulation of the airlines, proudly holds up as testimonial to his good work that the consumer is paying substantially less (20 per cent is a figure commonly used) than he was paying under regulation, and, as they say in the trade, that is the bottom line. In a market society the consumer is, and ought to be, king. However, the question is legitimately asked, To what extent have those airline travelers been riding on credit?

Whose credit? Why, the credit of the capitalist, the investor. If a consortium of investors brings together one hundred million dollars to start airline service between Atlanta and Chicago and sells tickets for ten dollars a ride, the statistician can gleefully note down the savings of Atlanta-Chicago passengers, but before very long, the Madman Muntz Airline is going to go out of business, and statistics on a very different ledger are going to show that one hundred million dollars of risk capital unhappily disappeared.

Last week I flew the hour's flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco, first class, and noted with a start that my ticket had cost $180. Last summer, I flew tourist class from New York to San Francisco and back for $194. That was ten hours of flying, making the contrast dramatic. United was charging ten times as much per hour in the air in the one case as in the other. Granted, one was first class, but it is not seriously suggested that first class should be ten times tourist class: what it is, is the wild scramble for opportunistic fares. Philanthropy today, extortion tomorrow.

All of this will shake down, but when it does, expect that the surviving airlines are going to demand solvency, and many of the apparently eternal advantages of deregulation are going to fly away over the horizon. So . . . Deregulation, Yes; Free Travel, No.

On another front, airlines have, in their service, become slaves to the movies. Flying San Francisco to New York on TWA, we departed at 9:15 A.M. At 10:15 A.M. the passengers were offered a sumptuous --breakfast. Now anyone who has a flight at 9:15 will have eaten breakfast, so that being served at 10:15 is the equivalent of being served lunch at 10:15. Why not wait until noon? To do so gets in the way of the movie. Swissair leaves Geneva for New York at 2:30 P.M. and, I kid you not, serves you a Lucullan meal at 4 P.M., which is milk-and-cracker time for English kiddies.

But it all pales up against the latest social amenity experienced at the hands of Pan Am. The stewardess was taking drink orders for after the passengers were airborne, and had on her clipboard the names of the passengers, alongside which she would scribble in their choices. She came to me and said, "Mr. Buckley. Now, what do you wish to be called?'

This had never happened to me before, and I was struck quite dumb. I recalled the secret name I was assigned during my months in the CIA. The two serial numbers I had while in the infantry flashed through my mind. I faintly recalled being told by my mother that I had been baptized not William Frank, as requested, but William Francis, because the priest had said huffily that there was no "St. Frank,' only a St. Francis. I was able only to gurgle, "Mr. Buckley,' which provoked a cheerful, "Very well,' with just a trace of if-you-want-to-be-stuffy,-it's-okay-by-Pan-Am, and she was off, accosting the gentleman behind me with the same questions. He opted for a Bloody Mary, and to be called Phil.

And what do you, madam, sir, wish to be called? Lillykins? Butch? It would be fun to try it out on the Pope traveling incognito. Ah, Mr. Wojtyla, what would you like to be called? "Just call me Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff, Patriarch of the West, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, and Sovereign of the State of Vatican City.' Evelyn Waugh was right. Intimacy, yes; formality, yes; informality, no.