But who's that flying back in cargo?

BY VERNE GAY | Newsday Staff Writer

October 18, 2006

Travel Channel's Peter Greenberg takes a look at American Airlines. (Travel Channel Photo)

Amazing the stuff you can learn just by flicking on the TV, and amazing the stuff you perhaps don't care to learn. Case in point: tonight's "Inside American Airlines - a Week in the Life," which informs viewers that the cargo containers labeled "Jim Wilson" are the ones holding cadavers.

Yes, cadavers.

American Airlines carries thousands of them to their final resting place each year. It's a macabre detail, and "Inside" (thankfully) doesn't tarry long on this gruesome-if-vital trade. But it does establish that the airline business is hardly for the squeamish or knock-kneed. This is a hard industry, where a few extra on-board copies of (say) Golf magazine can add thousands of dollars in additional expenses a year due to the added weight, and where a few (ahem) nonfare-payingcustomers can even help the bottom line, too.

The image of American here - doubtless accurate - is that this has become more a game of inches instead of miles flown. You have to save every dime, cut every cost, lose every in-flight copy of Golf magazine (and many others) just to make ends meet. No wonder its legendarily acerbic former chief executive Bob Crandall tells the producers that he's never invested in an airline stock.

"Inside American Airlines" produced, reported and narrated by the "Today" show's veteran travel editor Peter Greenberg - is a headwind of facts and figures, but they all add up to an engrossing portrait of the world's biggest airline. (Indeed, there is so much here that you might prefer to take in just a little tonight, then wait for the repeat - and at CNBC, they do love to repeat - to absorb the rest.)

"Inside" is packed with so much detail, all conveyed by Greenberg in such an amiable and clear-sighted way, that by the time 11 p.m. rolls around, you will know this legendary airline from the nose cone to the rudder. You will learn that: a 767 carries just over 10,000 gallons in fuel for one trip, or enough to fill over 500 minivans ... mechanics have saved $1 million since 2003 just by sharpening tools ... 200,000 pounds of mail are carried each day ... by cutting just 100 pounds per flight, the airline saves over 1.4 million gallons of fuel per year.

If this were all some sort of gee-whiz logorrhea of facts and figures, then "Inside" would be a bad waste of two good hours. It is not. Greenberg and friends avoid the common pitfall of these "day/week-in-the-life-of" exercises - puffery without point of view - by organizing their week logically (we visit everyone from machinists in Tulsa to flight attendants learning martial arts), and by asking good questions.

For some wide-eyed kid out there thinking about a career in this once-glamorous business, "Inside" is a great place to start. Meanwhile, avoid those cargo bins labeled "Jim Wilson."

INSIDE AMERICAN AIRLINES: A WEEK IN THE LIFE. A lot of facts, and a lot of good perspective, too. Documentary airs tonight at 9 on CNBC.