CNN article on problems in Air Travel, as seen by FAA

Mxsmanic wrote:

Martin writes:

Guess?

My guess is a poor instructor.

Indeed. How on earth can you properly manage the complex microsoft
flight game controls in such a position?

--
(*) ... of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
http://www.davidhorne.net - real address on website
"He can't be as stupid as he looks, but nevertheless he probably
is quite a stupid man." Richard Dawkins on Pres. Bush"

On Sep 17, 9:01 am, (David Horne, _the_ chancellor
(*)) wrote:
Mxsmanic wrote:
Martin writes:

Guess?

My guess is a poor instructor.

Indeed. How on earth can you properly manage the complex microsoft
flight game controls in such a position?


By RTFM?

:P

Martin wrote:

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:01:22 +0100, (David Horne, _the_
chancellor (*)) wrote:

Mxsmanic wrote:

Martin writes:

Guess?

My guess is a poor instructor.

Indeed. How on earth can you properly manage the complex microsoft
flight game controls in such a position?

Years of yoga training?

That's given me a horrible image!!! Maybe, he's not using his _hands_...


--
(*) ... of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
http://www.davidhorne.net - real address on website
"He can't be as stupid as he looks, but nevertheless he probably
is quite a stupid man." Richard Dawkins on Pres. Bush"

Viperdoc writes:

MXS probably doesn't have rudder pedals on his computer, so he won't know
what they're for.

Actually I do (if "MXS" means me).

"Martin" wrote in message
...

You should see how he simulates flying in zero visibility.

It's pretty much how he approaches everything, innit?
--
dgs

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:30:58 +0000, John Kulp wrote:

Why? Why didn't we take the path I saw? *That* makes me wonder about
airspace control issues, but I'm just guessing that that might have been
the cause. It could have been a myriad of other issues as well.

You ignoring all the other traffic that the airport was handling at the
same time which most likely made your flight do what it did. You can't
just do as you did and assume that space is available for your aircraft.

Why not? There is a lot of sky, even in only one direction. A single
airway at a single altitude can accommodate three new aircraft every
minute at 200 Kts. Admittedly, this is a gross simplification of time
and separation, but it's also only a single airway at a single altitude.

The airport itself was launching some traffic, but not much. And, at
least at the start of this wait (while the weather was pretty far away),
local weather wasn't an issue. This did change later, however.

What other limit(s) might be at issue? That's what I wonder.

- Andrew

On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:26:38 +0000, John Kulp wrote:

Have heard of them and even use them at times. Unless you are IFR,
they are NOT needed at a vast majority of airports in the United States.
Most airports in the U.S. do not have a control tower, and many of those
who do do not have a 24 hour control tower. No local or ground
controllers. No ground control.

These aren't the airports that have much traffic or are the problem.
Those are major airports, which do have ATC.

That's rather the point. This idea of congestion is an airport issue,
and it is limited to those airports where GA has little-to-no presence.
There are a few possible exceptions to this (ie. TEB), but it's also
worth remembering that TEB exists as a reliever precisely because of the
congestion at EWR etc.

- Andrew

On Sep 19, 9:35 am, Andrew Gideon wrote:
On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:30:58 +0000, John Kulp wrote:
Why? Why didn't we take the path I saw? *That* makes me wonder about
airspace control issues, but I'm just guessing that that might have been
the cause. It could have been a myriad of other issues as well.

You ignoring all the other traffic that the airport was handling at the
same time which most likely made your flight do what it did. You can't
just do as you did and assume that space is available for your aircraft.

Why not? There is a lot of sky, even in only one direction. A single
airway at a single altitude can accommodate three new aircraft every
minute at 200 Kts. Admittedly, this is a gross simplification of time
and separation, but it's also only a single airway at a single altitude.

The airport itself was launching some traffic, but not much. And, at
least at the start of this wait (while the weather was pretty far away),
local weather wasn't an issue. This did change later, however.

What other limit(s) might be at issue? That's what I wonder.

First of all your pilots would have had to request it. They would
have had to file the appropriate flight plans (which admittedly
they can probably amend via the radio as they sat). But
furthermore, they would have to figure out the relative fuel
burn for your alternate itinerary and the one they originally
intended. Large route changes cause excess fuel use.
They can sit and idle on the taxiway a long time before
they burn up that kind of fuel.

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:02:58 +0000, John Kulp wrote:

No airline flies from say POU to ATL (ie. there is no airline
service
at POU), but several airlines fly from LGA to ATL. Anyone going from
POU to ATL needs to drive 90 miles to LGA to then fly to ATL. The
airline derives revenue from that person for the LGA to ATL flight.
That's how the airline derives revenue from a maket (POU) that it
doesn't serve.

I see what you mean now, but it's a bit bizarre. By this analysis,
anytime anyone drives from a podunk town to an airport served by a major
they should be counted as indirect revenue.

I don't see it as "indirect", so in that sense I agree that this label is
odd to me. But it certainly is revenue.

First, there is no way of
measuring this that I can think of.

Does it need to be measured for the airlines to - intelligently, I
believe - be concerned? However, it's pretty easy given the proper data
to at least get a perspective. These flights are partially identifiable,
with some false positives and with no way to do this at the destination
side, by comparing home/work zip codes with the airport's location.
Imperfect, but it does help provide a picture.

[Hmm. If airlines and ground transport firms (car rental, limo, etc.)
share data than an even better picture can be constructed.]

They are profiting with record loads.
Leave the junk to these guys and go after the cream. It has worked very
well.

First: are they "profiting"? High load doesn't necessarily translate to
this (ie. the old "make it up in volume" myth).

Next: Yes, they've optimized. Passengers pay for this optimization. One
such payment is in the ground travel. The "problem" for the future is
that there may be an alternative which is cheaper for the passenger when
the ground travel is considered. This eliminates that as a source of
savings for the airlines.

[...]


This is part of the reason, of course, but not all. Other factors are
the government ripping off the trust fund money that was supposed to go
to improving airports, a lousy, inefficient ATC systerm, etc.

I'm curious how you see these applying. Would the airlines still be
serving smaller markets if the trust fund money were being spent on those
airports? How is an inefficient ATC making it the proper choice to put
more/smaller aircraft in the air at fewer airports?

And, of
course, better loads means better money to a point. But sometimes, they
have lost money on 100% loads because costs were too high. That why
they abandoned a bunch of them.

Higher loads mean more profit iff there's profit on the service.
Competition can make this tough, as margins are shaved.

[...]

So would I. No one will stay in business long running unprofitably.

Nobody disagrees - as far as I can see - that the airlines have not
behaved in their own individual best interests. But, with regard to
airport delays, there's a commons problem. And with regard to the
potential for competition from the VLJs, I think it wise for the airlines
to be worried.

That doesn't mean, though, that actions in their best interests are in
mine (or in the best interests of the pool of potential aviation
passengers).

- Andrew

Marty Shapiro wrote:
(John Kulp) wrote in
:

[snip some of Jon & Marty's comments for length]

What market are you referring to? Flights of 3 hours or less? There
are a lot of flights on the majors from 1 to 3 hours and they are not using
regional jets on all of them. I've flown DEN to SFO/SJC on everything from
737/A320 up to 777 and 747. My last flight, scheduled for 1:20 was on a
737.

That's because 1) Denver is a major hub for United and 2) the 777 and 747 were
either being repositioned or Denver was an interim stop for a longer flight.
For example, I've been on 747 DEN-ORD that was 70% empty. Why? Because it
was the aircraft for ORD-Frankfurt or similar. Or it was used for
JFK-DEN-SFO-Sydney, etc.