TABLE OF CONTENTS Transportation is one of the most expansive sectors of travel and tourism PR because of its multiplicity of components. Among them are passenger railroads such as Amtrak, rental car companies, recreation vehicles, and motor coach companies. But the two most dominant components at this time are the airlines and the cruise ship lines. Since the start of the new millennium the former particularly the long-established carriers have been severely battered by the effects of new terrorism threats and other factors, while cruise ship lines have become one of the fastest-growing travel and tourism transportation modes. Airline and cruise ship PR are therefore the two selected focal points of this chapter.
Airlines were the principal transportation mode for the 40.4 million foreign travelers to the United States in 2003. And that same year, airlines accounted for 16 percent of the total domestic U.S. person-trips. Despite this dominance and the record number of air travelers at the beginning of the new millennium, the airline industry was hard hit by the deadly terrorism attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. By 2004, passenger traffic had returned to the pre-9/11 levels, but airline revenues did not similarly rebound in the interim, owing to the onset of several new factors.
The adverse impact on air travel caused by 9/11, plus the advent of many new low-fare carriers in the new millennium, such as Southwest Airlines, JetBlue, and Air Tran, jeopardized the financial future of the so-called "legacy carriers" the long-established lines that include...
