No, seriously, they do.  This column by Daniel Rubin on Philly.Com HERE has all the details but I’ll summarize.

 

It would seem that some TSA guard decided to search a woman’s luggage and then pulled out a small, clear plastic white baggie filled with white powder and then asked “OK, where did you get it?”  He kept her going for a bit of time and then confessed it was a joke.  The woman, a young college student, was, in the meantime, picturing her entire life crumbling around here and wondering just how someone got to her luggage.  She was, quite literally, in tears as she walked away.

 

Yeah, the TSA investigated and then fired the guard.  So what. 

 

Seriously, so what.  Firing that employee isn’t going to fix an endemic problem.  It isn’t going to send the right message to the other poorly trained guards.  So, so what?  It doesn’t fix a thing. 

 

This kind of behaviour, this lack of professional conduct is seen by travelers every day of the year.  I have watched TSA guards verbally abuse passengers, shout at kids, act with retribution towards passengers who had the courage to question an behaviour and even attempt to steal from people.  Yeah, that last item is something I personally experienced several years ago in the airport in Atlanta. 

 

That’s the problem.  We don’t have a well trained, professional group of agents capable of protecting us.  We have an extremely irregular set of people who apparently are more interested in money, jokes or abuse than doing their job which is, quite literally, to prevent an air catastrophe. 

 

And people wonder why we don’t feel safe in the air.

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It has been 2 weeks since the Underwear Bomber made his attempt to take down a Northwest Airlines A330 en-route from Amsterdam to Detroit.  In that time, we have seen all manner of posturing by the public, government officials and pundits as to this serious security lapse.   My last comments on this are HERE.

 

Since my last comments, I’ve been appalled by a number of people’s statements on this issue.  I’ve been appalled by former Vice President Dick Cheney making political hay out of this.  I’m deeply disappointed at the criticisms and obstruction on the part of Senators Jim DeMint and John McCain with respect to the TSA and its nominated leader, Erroll Southers.  I’m deeply disappointed by President Obama’s administration in describing this as a terrible failure in our security. 

 

The most sensible writing I’ve found on this topic is by Bruce Schneier (which can be read HERE)  and probably because, yes, it agrees with me.  That doesn’t necessarily come easy from me because while I’ve respected Mr. Schneier’s opinions and while I do feel he is dead on right about these security issues (and has been for a long time), I also think he oftens shouts about these issues too loudly. 

 

But he’s right.  This wasn’t a failure in security.  Certainly the terrorists didn’t win either.   Mr. Schneier is correct in pointing out that our security reduced this attempt to a near certain failure. 

 

For the past week, all I’ve heard and read about this issue is that we’re enacting measures to counter an attempt like this in the future.  Well, in some respects, yes, we should do that.  However, many people, including me, Mr. Schneier and others, have pointed out that terrorists, in particular Al Qaeda, *rarely* if ever make the same kind attempt twice.  So, looking for a Nigerian with PETN sewed into his underwear while carrying a syringe on his person is almost certainly going to fail us.

 

Yes, the public does expect something to be done.  And it should.  It is even entitled to see something being done.  Doing something doesn’t mean doing anything.  It means doing something that really does improve both the real and perceived level of security we might experience when traveling.  The biggest part of the problem in this whole debate is that despite excellent security already going on, the public does *not* feel that it either good, real or substantive. 

 

The public is right, too.  At the ground level, we observe too many Keystone Kop events taking place.  Just a few days ago, we shut down one of the largest airports in our country and inconvenienced thousands and thousands of people because a TSA security guard left their post.  Just walked away and allowed a man to enter the sterile gate area unchallenged.  Read about the most recent developments in that HERE and HERE.

 

The TSA says it takes responsibility.  Really?  Frankly, I don’t care.  The TSA and its guards should be one hell of a lot more responsible and professional than that at any time.

 

What is appalling is that TSA video cameras weren’t recording and it took 80+ minutes for the TSA to notify the NYNJ Port Authority (who runs the airports) of the breach and then they had to rely on Continental Airlines’ cameras to try to figure out what happened.   Spokeswoman Ann Davis of the TSA said:

 

Davis said Monday that although the TSA was unable to locate the man, any threat he may have presented was eliminated “by rescreening everyone and re-combing the airport to make sure he didn’t introduce anything to the environment or hand anything off to anyone.”

 

I have an answer.   Having to clear a terminal and re-screen thousands of people and delay untold numbers of flights does not lend credence to the idea that the TSA has a handle on these issues.  It just doesn’t.  Don’t take responsibility for it, do something about it.  Do something real and tangible.  The TSA should be deeply ashamed and shunned for such a lack of professionalism.  Right now, they look like a pack of huckleberries and that is not good.  It gives terrorists the idea that something *is* breachable.

 

Lack of professionalism, good judgement or proper perspective is missing from other quarters as well.  Take this opinion piece by Steve Danyluk on CNN which can be read HERE.  

 

Pilot Danyluk (A first officer for a major US airline) reckons that an emergency alert should have been sent out and a major effort should have been put into action upon this act taking place.  He’s outraged that he learned of the event on his iPhone after flying a 6 hour flight and landing. 

 

That is absurd.  First, there was no evidence whatsoever that this was a coordinated attack.  You should respond in Danyluk’s desired manner if there is such evidence but there was absolute zero evidence that this was a coordinated attack.  None.  Too those who say you can never be too safe, I respond, yes, you can.   To have responded in such a way would have been like presuming an entire neighborhood was under attack after one house experienced a burglary.

 

Second, I wonder what Pilot Danyluk would have done if he had been alerted.  Neither he nor his captain can leave the cockpit and wander among the aircraft searching for suspicious people.  His cockpit door is hardened in such a way that it would probably take more than a fire axe to breach it.  His cabin crew are not the best trained security staff to identify and secure a suspicious person (and I have plenty of that evidence coming up.)   The best thing he could have done was fly his airplane to its destination.  He did that. 

 

Third, an alert would have prepared him no more for an explosion.  Even if he had experienced an explosion, he certainly couldn’t do anything about it any earlier.  And if he had experienced an explosion, he would have been very busy getting that aircraft under control and pointed to a safe landing location.  

 

The truth is, it takes a pretty big bomb to take out a commercial airliner.   Oh, it could have severely damaged the aircraft and possibly hurt or killed someone but the likelihood of someone having enough explosive and a good enough detonator to wipe an aircraft from the sky with our current security in place is extremely statistically insignificant. 

 

Take the example of the DHL Airbus A300 being hit in Baghdad in 2003 by a surface to air missile.  You can read an account HERE.   A large, twin engined, wide body aircraft that had just taken off from Baghdad executing a special rapid climb procedure and fully loaded with fuel was hit by a surface to air missile that was *designed* to take out aircraft and  they still made it to the ground.  Yes, the recovery was due to the professionalism of the pilots and some prior knowledge of how to use differential engine thrust to “steer” the airplane (as a result of the THIS incident) but this aircraft was hit by a flying bomb traveling more than twice the speed of sound with a 6lbs  warhead with a high explosive impact fuse designed to fragment upon impact and survived relatively in tact.  You can’t carry that kind of thing in your underwear. 

 

I understand why Pilot Danyluk is “furious”.  He’s a type A pilot and type A pilots think they can always do something about something.   It’s a nice thought but there really wasn’t anything for him to do that he wasn’t already doing  provided he was following standard security procedures while in flight.   He can stomp his feet and write opinions on CNN all he wants but it does NOT mean that security failed him or anyone else.

 

It isn’t just pilots.  Well, it is pilots (still) but it is also flight crew, ATC and even NORAD. 

 

It would appear that a man became “unruly” on a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Portland, Oregon to Hawaii on Wednesday.   The captain decided to turn back to Portland (probably because it was just as easy to go there as anywhere else) and suddenly the flight is being “escorted” by F-15 fighters scrambled up by NORAD. 

 

You can not make this stuff up.  Read about this incident HERE. 

 

Can’t be too safe, right?  Wrong.   What is notable about this news story is that this aircraft returned to Portland, dropped the passenger off into the waiting hands of the FBI who, after a short while later, determined that no laws had been broken and released him.    This is very suspicious and sounds much more like a flightcrew having a hissy fit over a grumpy passenger rather than someone who was acting in a manner that justified a 90 minute diversion and meeting the aircraft with FBI. 

 

Certainly it would appear that sending F-15 fighters (and spending thousands of dollars) to escort this diversion was a bit foolish and wasteful. 

 

The best security in any situation including on an aircraft is using good judgement.  Good judgement is not “better safe than sorry” but, rather, assessing a situation for what it is rather than what it isn’t.  

 

The pubic will begin to perceive that we have good security not when things like these events don’t happen but when how we handle them becomes professional, efficient and proactive.  We have a decent defensive security process but what we don’t have is a uniform, professional example of it in the most public of representatives, the TSA. 

 

Leaving all good sense and judgement in the closet and overreacting to events like this serve absolutely no good purpose and even weaken security in the long run. 

 

I welcome comments on this post.

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Now that a few days have passed since a Nigerian attempted to set off an explosive device ( I won’t call it a bomb because it wasn’t) on Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, I’ll make a few final comments on the reactions to this event. 

 

The response by the TSA (and other security organizations in other countries), once again, seems mostly aimed as a placebo rather than an in-depth examination on how airline security should be handled.  

 

For instance, this time, airlines are supposed to keep people ignorant of where they are.  For long haul, international flights, I can only imagine how the airlines are dealing with their moving map displays.   I’d bet that at least in most cases, they’re simply turning off the in-flight entertainment systems.    But keeping people ignorant of where they doesn’t stop a damn thing.  You see, there are these things called windows on airliners.  If someone wants to attempt to blow up an airplane near its destination or just near a population center, it remains quite easy to to figure out a good time.  Furthermore, do we really believe that ignorance of location will be any kind of deterrent for a terrorist act?

 

Second, everyone now must remain seated in the last hour of a flight.  Mmm, OK, so, what prevents a terrorist from organizing their device a half hour before that restricted period?  And despite that rules against nominally having something that would conceal such an assembly, why are we to believe that having such cover is absolutely necessary.   This does absolutely nothing to improve security or provide a deterrent to a determined terrorist wanting to explode a device on aircraft. 

 

Third, you’re no longer allowed to have something covering your lap or in your lap.  No blankets, pillows, laptops, etc.   The idea being that no one can conceal the assembly of a device.  Well, what about large coats, sweaters, etc. that a terrorist might wear?  Again, this rule is absurd and does nothing to increase security or provide a deterrent to a terrorist determined to do something on an aircraft.

 

People are also undergoing more rigorous searches and at multiple points.  On the surface, this may provide a small increased measure of security.  But the main problem here is the woeful understaffing of security points particularly in the United States.  At some point, this heightened security will have to be reduced because of a lack of staff to sustain it. 

 

I’m not a security expert and I didn’t sleep at a Holiday Inn yesterday.  However, it would seem to me that we are not addressing the correct positions for better, more extensive security measures.    Surely we could do a much better job of coordinating secondary security against people who are on a list of people of interest?   We have had 8 years to find a system of vetting people scheduled to fly who are on such lists.  We also possess the technology to create a near real-time system for such checks.

 

Second, it would appear that one weakness that has been exacerbated by airlines’ new policies of charging for checked luggage is that a much larger percentage of people are trying to carry-on items capable of carrying liquids and gels (and other substances) that could be assembled into an explosive device.  The fewer of these items that have to be scrutinized during the primary security check, the more time and attention can be paid to those items.  Sadly, I feel the airlines will fight this approach tooth and nail given the revenue streams they are earning from the checked baggage fees.

 

We need to look long and hard at the staff employed to perform security checks.  As a traveler who has flown since 2 years old (more than 40 years), I cannot discern that the quality of staff doing these security checks (at least in the United States) has really improved at all.  Even after the events of September 11th, 2001.   I’d far rather pay a $5 or $10 fee for improved security and see a dramatic improvement in the quality of security both in staff as well as servicing the number of people having to go through security.  It’s a fee I could pay in good conscience and sense real value from.

 

I also wonder if we couldn’t do a much better job of closing gaps in security at airports when it comes to airline and other service staff at those locations.  All too often, I myself see these gaps as I walk through an airport.   Background checks at hiring and occasionally afterwards are important, yes.  However, I’ve observed no great increase in security at the non-public points of entry into airport infrastructure. 

 

Finally, it is time we realized that there is some inherent risk involved in traveling by aircraft no matter what.  Airplanes are (and have been) popular targets for terrorist attacks because, by definition, success results in horrific results.   However, as inherent that risk is, let’s also realize that the probabilities for being on an airliner attacked are so small that they are nearly insignificant. 

 

Terrorists are not lined up by the thousands just looking for an opportunity.  In fact, terrorists willing to (almost) certainly kill themselves in an attack are very few in number and rather hard to coordinate.  Yes, they exist and they will continue to exist and should be considered the risk that they are.   However, the notion that armies of terrorists are ready to board aircraft and create multi-airliner havoc is rather silly.   Fly in peace because you are probably *more* likely to experience a non-terrorist event on an airliner than anything else. 

 

It is time that governments get their act together on real security  and its time for airlines to cooperate with each other and governments rather than act against those measures that may impede their ability to earn yet another dollar.   It is against our interests to have private contractors provide security at $10 / hr.  What we want (and need) is trained law enforcement officers performing this role.  What we want ( and need) is real security measures designed to address the issue before a terrorist passes that security line and which provides a real deterrent in the form of detection.

 

Update 01:  It would appear I’m not the only one who finds these latest measures silly.  Read the CrankyFlier or The Middle Seat Terminal.

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I  have a funny feeling that safety and getting those Delta/Northwest ops combined is about to become a big focus at the airline. 

 

Incident 1: NTSB INVESTIGATING LANDING OF COMMERCIAL JETLINER ON TAXIWAY IN ATLANTA
——————————————————————————–

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the landing of a Delta B-767 on an active taxiway at Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport (ATL).

According to preliminary information received from several sources, on Monday, October 19, 2009, at 6:05 a.m. EDT, a Boeing B767-332ER (N185DN) operating as Delta Air Lines flight 60 from Rio de Janeiro to Atlanta landed on taxiway M at ATL after being cleared to land on runway 27R. No injuries to any of the 182 passengers or 11 crewmembers were reported.

A check airman was on the flight deck along with the captain and first officer. During cruise flight, the check airman became ill and was relocated to the cabin for the remainder of the flight. A medical emergency was declared and the company was notified by the crew. A determination was made to land at the scheduled destination of ATL.

The flight was cleared to land on runway 27R but instead landed on taxiway M, which is situated immediately to the north and parallel to runway 27R. The runway lights for 27R were illuminated; the localizer and approach lights for 27R were not turned on. Taxiway M was active but was clear of aircraft and ground vehicles at the time the aircraft landed. The wind was calm with 10 miles visibility. Night/dark conditions prevailed; twilight conditions began at about 7:20 a.m. EDT and the official sunrise was at 7:46 a.m. EDT.

A team of four from the NTSB, led by David Helson, is investigating the incident.

The issue of runway safety has been on the NTSB’s Most Wanted List of Safety Improvements since its inception in 1990. Information on the NTSB’s work on runway safety is available at http://www.ntsb.gov/Recs/mostwanted/runways.htm
Incident 2: NTSB INVESTIGATING FLIGHT THAT OVERFLEW INTENDED MINNEAPOLIS AIRPORT
——————————————————————————–

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating an incident where an Airbus A320 overflew the Minneapolis-St Paul International/Wold-Chamberlain Airport (MSP).

On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, at 5:56 pm mountain daylight time, an Airbus A320, N03274, operating as Northwest Airlines (NWA) flight 188, became a NORDO (no radio communications) flight at 37,000 feet. The flight was operating as a Part 121 flight from San Diego International Airport, San Diego, California (SAN) to MSP with 147 passengers and unknown number of crew.

At 7:58 pm central daylight time (CDT), the aircraft flew over the destination airport and continued northeast for approximately 150 miles. The MSP center controller reestablished communications with the crew at 8:14 pm and reportedly stated that the crew had become distracted and had overflown MSP, and requested to return to MSP.

According to the Federal Administration (FAA) the crew was interviewed by the FBI and airport police. The crew stated they were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness. The Safety Board is scheduling an interview with the crew.

The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) have been secured and are being sent to the NTSB laboratory in Washington, DC.

David Lawrence, the Investigator-in-Charge, is leading the team of 3 in investigating the incident.

Parties to the investigation are the FAA and Northwest Airlines.

 

It would appear that pilots at the combined companies are allowing themselves to be a bit distracted these days.  I particularly hope that the CVR transcripts for that second incident become available one day.  Something tells me that policy talk wasn’t the problem.

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There is a push to get more and more people to bring carry-on baggage only on most airlines here in the US.  The trend actually started in Europe with airlines such as Ryanair leading the charge but what works there doesn’t necessarily work here.  And the best reasons for it over there are not necessarily the best reasons over here.

 

The duration of trips and even the habits of dressing in Europe are very different from the US / North American markets and lend themselves much more readily to using a carry-on only strategy.   For the LCC carriers of Europe, infrastructure is very different as well.  The secondary airports they often serve have far inferior baggage handling capability than our secondary airports do.  In fact, our secondary airports are often just as busy (proportionately) as they international/hub airports in the same area.  Our secondary airports have to have handling facilities that are commensurate with the traffic. 

 

Boarding and disembarkation is also very different between the two countries.  In Europe, LCC carriers frequently use both entrances to the aircraft (front and back) to disembark passengers while at the same time boarding new ones.  Or they use both entryways to the aircraft at the same time for each function.  Either way, it helps with their turnaround and it’s a model Europeans are accustomed to cooperating with.

 

Not so here.  We board people via one jetway and disembark via one jetway.  Our airport infrastructure was designed and implemented decades ago and is poorly designed to handle thousands of people carrying their life’s possessions.  Our check-in desks are “owned” by airlines and not shared assets.  Our baggage handling is done (primarily) by airline employees instead of shared services provided by ground handling companies.   Our security apparatus wasn’t provided for in the design of airport terminals and, as a result, find us dealing with huge lines that are often bogged down by travelers carrying all their luggage.  Our aircraft fleets are equipped with overhead bins that were really placed there as purse/coat/hat/briefcase storage rather than for heavy carry-on luggage. 

 

And then there is the passenger.   The frequent US traveler is often found carrying more “stuff” such as 2 suits where 1 would do.   This person is often traveling for a longer duration too, requiring more “stuff” as well.  The inexperienced travelers are trying hard to avoid those bag fees but don’t know how to quite do it properly because they learned how to travel in a different time.   How many times have we been behind someone in security who had their cosmetics/shampoo/toothpaste wrongly packaged and packed and holding up the line?  Very few airports have room enough to establish multiple lanes for security and that means we all bottleneck at the least disruption.

 

My own pet peeve is the established frequent flier.  They’ve learned a lot in their time on the road but also engage in practices that inhibit anyone but them.   I’m speaking of the guy in the dark grey suit on my last Airtran flight who boarded, loaded his carry-on into a bin at the front and then walked to the back half of the aircraft to his seat.  Jerk.  He took up space that  others sitting in that area could have used and forced *those* people to put their bags farther back than desired.   This meant that when the plane landed, 4 people attempted to get down the aisle against the flow to gather their own luggage holding the vast majority of people up.  In addition, I had to watch no less than 4 Airtran staff find locations for those bags before we could close the aircraft and depart resulting in a nearly 20 minute delay.

 

My own anecdotal observation is that aircraft aren’t leaving quicker.  The airlines aren’t using fewer people and the flight crew is now taxed with another duty:  policing baggage.   There may be some savings in fuel as a function of less baggage but that could be achieved with stricter checked baggage limits.  Want to bring the weight down?  Set a 30lbs limit per bag instead of 50 lbs.  That will improve things quickly.   Still want a fee for checked baggage and those incremental revenues?  Set that limit at 30lbs for the 1st bag checked and make it free (Set a size limit too!).  Charge $20 for the next bag up to 50lbs.  You’ll still get your incremental revenue but your flows on and off the airplane and inside your own terminal will improve greatly.  Your aircraft turnaround will improve slightly and you should still see some savings on fuel costs as a function of reduced weight. 

 

If you are one of the people that are convinced that airlines lose baggage all the time and for every flight, get over it.  It is an apocryphal story that few have ever experienced.  I’ve been flying for over 20 years and had my luggage “lost” once and twice more it was delayed 2 hours (came in on the next flight.)  I’m not luckier than anyone else.  Does it happen?  Sure.  In most cases, people are reunited with their luggage hours after their arrival in their destination city.  In a few more extreme cases, they see it the next day.  The number of people left after that are so small as a function of the number of flights each day that they aren’t even statistically significant.

 

You can’t add fees without looking to also increase or improve service or you will get extreme backlash in the form of complaints that result mostly from higher expectations.  You can add fees if you change those expectations with reasonable limits and improve the overall perceived service value. 

 

Just because everyone hates most every airline presently doesn’t mean that will always be the case.  Some airlines are already discovering that improving the perceived value is as important as any incremental revenue from fees.  Those are the airlines that will continue to thrive.

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I’m glad that there has been a dialog on excessive flight delays for the past few years.  Just having the dialog has helped, I think.   But now people are starting to talk about real solutions as opposed to shouting out “there ought to be a law!”.  I agree, there should be a law but I also agree with airports and airlines that the law ought to be sensible too.

 

The cause of long delays on the tarmac derive from a variety of factors.  Certainly weather is the biggest one of all.  Severe weather is somewhat unpredictable both in timing and severity and I get that.  You just can’t always guess right.  But I think there are some issues that are getting ignored in the discussion.

 

First, I would ask why we allow airlines to board airplanes and send them out in droves when it is clear that airport operations are about to be impacted severely by an arriving storm?   I blame airlines, airport management and the FAA for that.  When an arriving severe storm is on the horizon, cramming people into the airplane and trying to rush it out for take-off before it (the storm) arrives is just a bad strategy.  Every airline is pursuing that at the same time and that means maybe 10% of all the aircraft are going to make their departures. 

 

Airlines have several incentives to behave that way.  One, if they leave the gate within 15 minutes of scheduled departure, they get to count that as an on time departure.  That counts in the evaluation(s) of virtually every airline employee working that particular flight.  Bad idea because it allows them to shove the problem on someone else without consequence.  Wouldn’t it be better for the Department of Transportation to set criteria for these “on time” departures that reflects both reality and common sense?  Isn’t it better to declare an amnesty on on time stats during severe weather on the part of airlines?  You need to dis-incentivize that behavior during those times.

 

The big unspoken problem that airlines haven’t really mentioned is the impact to their operations system wide.  If an airline starts canceling flights in a hub city, that impact will start to be felt all over the country in as little as 2 hours.   Canceling flights has an impact potential for creating disarray in airline operations for days.  Delaying them but ultimately getting them to their destinations that day has far less of an impact.   There could be a few solutions to this problem such as a mutual aid pact between airlines.  Why not consolidate 2 delayed flights onto one aircraft, share the revenue and return to normal asap rather than try to send 6 delayed flights to the same destination at the end of a storm?  There is a history of mutual aid pacts among airlines but they largely disappeared with deregulation.  However, that doesn’t mean they can’t be encouraged again. 

 

Airlines need flexibility but the drive to equip a fleet with as few different aircraft types as possible means that they lost some flexibility.  I wonder if the costs of sorting out a massive disruption aren’t worth an extra aircraft or two to mitigate against problems.  Again, airlines used to have a history of having backups for these kinds of problem but lean operations demanded by shareholders don’t really allow for proper risk mitigation.  Better fleet planning and utilization might allow an airline to fly a 767 with 2 flights of 737 passengers to a destination during a severe disruption to operations.  By consolidating the passengers into one flight, getting them to their destination instead of stranding them and eliminating some departure congestion, every one’s best interests and pocket book might be better served.  But it requires us to allow some cooperation among airlines and some long range planning too.

 

If you make it the law that a passenger must have the right to get off an airplane and abandon the flight after 3 or 4 hours, you won’t solve anything.  There will be as much congestion (and possibly more) and the potential for greater delays.  However, if you allow the FAA to “prioritize” departures under certain circumstances and meter the flow, airlines won’t be so quick to board airplanes and shove them out onto the taxiways.  Airports and airlines should be forced to consider the whole picture before boarding an aircraft.  If it has no opportunity to taxi to the runway and take off within one hour, it shouldn’t be leaving the gate in the first place. 

 

Airports could help better too.  You can’t expect them to accommodate every displaced passenger during a storm but you can expect them to have a good emergency plan that includes keeping restaurants and stores open, overflow areas for passengers to park themselves for longer durations and equipment that allows disembarkation during storms that keep ground personnel indoors. 

 

Right now, you have people saying that airlines should allow individual passengers off an airplane if they want off after three or four hours.  That potentially further delays 100+ passengers for the benefit of 5 or 10.  Instead, airlines should simply be required to return to a gate and accommodate passengers reasonably if they haven’t departed within 3 hours.  Like it or not, a flight should be an all or nothing proposition. 

 

Finally, airlines should be required to consider what the diversion options are.  Airlines have been increasingly using alternate cities that are close by but non-standard stops for their business.  Should American Airlines keep aircraft on the ground at an airport that doesn’t have proper ground handling equipment or facilities for those passengers?  Absolutely not.  The context of potential diversions should be considered when planning a flight.   If an airline is faced with potential diversions when flying to a particular area, it should carry enough fuel to divert outside of that area of disruption and to a location where they can reasonably accommodate the aircraft and passengers. 

 

It does absolutely no good to anyone to send flights to Rochester, MN when MSP is shutdown if the airport can’t accommodate the aircraft and passengers in the first place.  For that particular event, it would have been far better to send that aircraft to Milwaukee, Des Moines or Rockford where the airports were experienced in accommodating diverted flights late at night. 

Without genuine cooperation between airlines, empowering the FAA and air traffic control and requiring airports to plan for the worst rather than the best, this problem doesn’t get solved to any one’s satisfaction.

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The Cranky Flier had a post today discussing Continental’s new moves in LAX which include new flights to Hawaii.   Continental will have an all 737 base in the Los Angeles area with two 737’s serving new flights from Orange County to Hawaii.  It made me think.

 

Back in the pre-regulatory days, flights from the mainland US to Hawaii were served by large aircraft such as the 707, DC-8 and, later, the 747, DC-10, L-1011 and even the 767.  The routes allowed airlines to serve huge numbers of customers with large aircraft and make money.  Braniff International had the franchise for Dallas to Honolulu in the 1970’s and served it with a 747 and an amazing 16 hours per day utilization.  

 

Then deregulation came and airlines slowly began to develop new routes.  It was no longer necessary to fly to a “gateway” city to catch a flight to Hawaii.  More and more cities found themselves being served with those routes to Hawaii.  Again, Braniff International, at one time, had a 747 flight from Portland, OR to Hawaii.  (It carried little traffic, however.)

 

There was some consolidation after airlines learned that not everyone in a particular city was dying to fly to Hawaii.  But the big change for Hawaii has been ETOPS or twin engine flights overseas.   This allowed airlines to serve smaller markets with aircraft both capable of the loads as well as the distance.  The truth is, when the airlines don’t have to feed 150 passengers a day to a gateway city but can fly them directly, they make more money.    20 years ago, I would have chuckled if someone told me that 737-700 aircraft would fly to Hawaii from the mainland. 

 

Boeing and Airbus have different views for the roles of widebody, large capacity aircraft.  10 years ago, Boeing forecast that the market would continue to fracture with more and more direct routes being employed as opposed to large capacity hub to hub flying.   Airbus, however, believed that the crowded skies would force more large capacity hub to hub flying onto the airlines.   It turns out that Boeing was more right. 

 

The markets drive these changes and when an airlines can make more pure profit using right sized aircraft flying direct, they will.  Yes, the legacy airlines of the US (and other parts of the world) continue to follow a hub and spoke model primarily but they’re all learning that more direct flying where the loads fully justify it is a good and profitable thing.

 

Accordingly, this is where I think Boeing continues to have a winning strategy with its 787/777 product line.  Yes, there are a few airlines capable of filling an A-380 and those airlines will make money from using that aircraft.  But as more and more nations open up their skies to more competition, that is going to change.   Having the right aircraft for the right route will be key to a manufacturer’s success and Boeing seems to have a better feel for the world market whereas Airbus seems more plugged into the Euro/Middle East markets they already do so well in. 

 

I’m no longer sure there is a real place for the new 747-8 aircraft.  Boeing’s 777-300 is just as capable in almost every case and carries a massive number of passengers without being so big that it adds risk during seasonal low periods.  The same is true for the 777-200. 

 

And what happens when aircraft such as the 787 family begin flying?  This family is roughly 767-sized in capacity but its range is far greater and that means even more markets can be accessed via long haul direct flying.   An international airline can probably make more money (through passengers *and* cargo) using the 787 and 777 families for more direct flying with aircraft that are “right sized” for the markets than they can using much of the Airbus family.

 

Airbus has one aircraft model suitable for this right now.  The A-330.  the A-340 is essentially dead since it under performs against the 777 in virtually any mission.  The A-330 is right sized for a number of the current markets and many more of the future markets.   The A-380 is suitable for only a few markets and those are already dwindling for some airlines.  For instance, QANTAS has introduced the A-380 on their routes to the US.  However, with a new Open Skies treaty between the two countries, there are also new entrants to the market like V Australia and Delta who are vying for customers with United and QANTAS very competively.  Those airlines understand that it will take a while to develop their routes and build relationships with airlines in both countries to feed traffic but it will happen.  As that traffic shifts from what was originally two airlines (QANTAS and United) to four airlines (QANTAS, United plus V Australia and Delta), what happens to each airlines’ loads? 

 

It’s notable that QANTAS flies the 747 and A380 to the US and United flies the 747 exclusively.  The new entrants are using the 777-300 and 777-200 for their flights.    The 787 and it’s longer range capabilities will quite possibly fracture that market even more by making it possible to fly from the interior of the US to Australia instead of having to use a west coast gateway city.  At that point, I don’t know that QANTAS has a use for very many A380s or 747s and, additionally, they don’t have any right sized aircraft for the route(s) until they start receiving their 787s which are late and somewhat deferred. 

 

The Airbus A350 is capable of competing on many 777 routes and while it does have slightly lower trip costs vs the 777, it also has less revenue capabilty because it can’t haul as much cargo on the same missions. 

 

The world’s airline routes are going to continue to expand internationally and at a far greater rate than traffic grows between any two nations.  Having the right equipment for the right moment is going to be key for any international airlines survival.  Those who don’t plan for it now and have it arriving in the next 5 to 10 years are going to wither to a slow death.

Filed under: Airline Fleets, Airline Service, Airports, Deregulation by ajax
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In my last post, I mentioned that I was traveling Airtran.  My flight was from Dallas / Ft. Worth to Newport News, VA (Patrick Henry Field).  The Newport News airport is close to Williamsburg, VA where I have family and far more convenient than Richmond or Norfolk which are far more common for flying into that area. 

 

First, I’ll mention my booking and check-in experience.  Airtran’s website works pretty well these days and even accommodates the pre-payment of checked luggage when you do your online check-in.   My biggest criticism of the Airtran site is that you have to go through many different pages to complete the reservation and/or check-in process.  I suspect many airlines will be adding more pages to their processes if only because of the a la carte nature of the new airline business model.

 

I’ve mentioned in other, earlier posts that some airlines are developing and implementing electronic boarding passes to be carried on one’s PDA.  During my struggle to maintain 3 sheets of paper for each day of travel, I began to long for being able to use such a system on Airtran.   On my two leg trip from DFW to PHF via ATL, I had to have 2 different boarding passes on two separate pieces of paper (why, I don’t know since they are to be scanned) and I carried my receipt for pre-paying my checked baggage in case of trouble when I arrived at the airport.  Having those boarding passes and that receipt on a PDA would help immensely with simply managing the paperwork.

 

DFW to ATL (Boeing 737-700) Seat 18A:       This aircraft was clean and generally well cared for but my particular seat kept wanting to recline without being asked to do so.  As a consequence, I kept raising my seat back during the 2 hour flight and found my back feeling a bit strained after awhile.  As a rule, I don’t recline my seat when sitting in coach on such a flight simply because it’s truly discourteous to do given the little leg room and personal space that is afforded in coach.   Ordinarily, I enjoy the Airtran 737 because they use a nice Recaro seat that seems to fit my body very well.  This flight was an anomaly compared to previous experiences.

 

The gate agents loaded the plane quickly and efficiently and the flight attendants and other Airtran staff were quick to “solve” any passengers problems with stowing carryon luggage.  They did it politely but firmly and kept people moving.  As a result, the boarding process actually felt streamlined and we were able to push back precisely on time. 

 

Arriving in Atlanta, I remembered what I really don’t like about Atlanta’s airport.  It isn’t the terminals, the crowds or the often required dash to another concourse for your next flight.  It’s the taxi time from the terminal to the runway or vice versa.  It is as if you land and then travel another 40 miles to the terminal.  It feels excessively long and since your aircraft is usually behind another, you get the unpleasant aroma of burning kerosene to keep you company.  That isn’t Airtran’s fault though.

 

The Atlanta terminal is just as I’ve experienced it in the past.  Despite common complaints, you can actually move quite quickly from one gate to another as long as you’re sensible enough to get your info and read a terminal map.  If you can’t do that or won’t learn how, then you deserve what you get.   One thing I did notice about the ATL concourses was that the stores goods seemed to be priced much more fairly than usual.   They weren’t selling $3 bottles of water or $2 candy bars.  Yes, the prices were a little more expensive than the average convenience store but reasonably so.

 

ATL to PHF (Boeing 717-200) Seat 21F:  I like the Boeing 717.  Yes, it’s a tad smaller but there is something about that aircraft that suits me very well. Again, this aircraft was well cared for, staffed by flight attendants who acted as if they enjoyed going to work and my seat worked properly.  This flight had an even longer taxi time than my inbound flight but once it reached the runway, we took off quickly and seemed to get routed on a very direct path out of ATL. 

 

Both flights had a drink service with pretzels and both services were done with good cheer.  As we approached PHF, I remembered something peculiar about flying into that general area.  For some reason, the approaches feel like you arrive at high altitude and the pilot suddenly dives the airplane to the airport.  It seems as if every flight I’ve taken to that general area finds the aircraft shuddering and straining to slow down and lose enough altitude to land at the airport.  Touchdowns are always very firm and positive instead of being floating greasers. 

 

PHF is a great little airport.  It’s secondary to Norfolk but served regularly by both Airtran and Delta.  Airtran with mainline equipment and Delta by a mix mostly dominated by regional jets.  It’s convenient to most of the southern area of the peninsula bracketed by the York and James rivers.  Best of all, flights to PHF tend to be about $100 cheaper than similar flights to Norfolk or Richmond, VA.   The airport is very clean, feels very new and is easy to navigate.  You can get to I-64 in just a couple of minutes drive and be on your way to just about anywhere you need to go in the area. 

 

I’ve always liked Airtran.  They offer a superior coach product compared to most legacy airlines and they continue to adjust to the changing environment in ways that, if not exactly accomodating, are at least less punishing than most. 

 

Next post will be my return flight(s).

Filed under: Airline Fleets, Airline Service, Airports by ajax
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The Fort Worth Star Telegram’s aviation Blog, Sky Talk, writes about Delta beginning service from Dallas Love Field Airport to its Memphis, TN hub today.   The flights will be flown by Delta’s regional jet provider, Pinnacle Airlines, under the Delta Connection name.    They will start 3 daily flights on July 6 and use CRJ200 aircraft which are exempt under the Wrigth Amendment and Wright Agreement since they have less than 56 seats. 

 

It’s an interesting move for Delta and I do wonder how they identified that segment being of good potential.  Since it is a Delta hub (ex Northwest Airlines), it can provide connections to a wide variety of destinations but I’m not sure if the destinations are where the typical Dallas business traveler wants to go.

 

One thing is for sure.  If history is anything to go by, American Airlines may already be re-thinking its withdrawal from Love Field and trying to identify how to answer this challenge to its turf. 

 

I do wonder whose gates Delta is going to use.  Currently, AA and Continental hold the only usable gates in addition to Southwest’s.   Delta has not identified which gates it will use so far and American Airlines has said it has not negotiated any sub-leases either.  Continental perhaps?

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The Dallas Morning News is reporting that American Airlines has decided to close its operations at Dallas’ Love Field airport . . . again.   American has tried a number of different strategies at the airport including the most recent exercise of flying EMB-145 jets from DAL to ORD (Chicago).   By all reports, this latest strategy actually was successful but in a case of winning the battle and losing the war, those flights will now go away.

 

Why did they go away if successful?  Because they were only successful in a very small way.  AA never had much luck in operating any other flights from Dallas to other destinations including Austin, Kansas City or St. Louis.  They needed more than 6 successful round trip flights a day to make operating at Love Field a worthwhile enterprise.

 

Notably, AA has apparently signed a new long term lease that keeps keeps their 2 gates at Love Field in their hands.  Why sign a long term lease and then leave?  Because the brokered dissolution of the Wright Amendment gives 16 gates to Southwest and 2 each to American Airlines and Continental.  If AA were to give up those 2 gates, they would likely be snatched up by another low fare carrier to be used to further infiltrate AA’s routes.  My guess is that it is a blocking exercise.  Besides, they are valuable property and may offer AA the opportunity to sub-lease them to other airlines if they don’t use them.

 

Why didn’t AA stick with the Chicago flights?  Because while those flights were successful, they could only be flown with aircraft that have 56 seats or less (for now.)  That means that the only growth available was more frequency.  Airlines such as AA really can make much more profit by flying more capacity on such a route.  In other words, they could do much better if they were able to use MD-82 or Boeing 737-800 aircraft on the route.  They won’t be able to until 2014.

 

I would, however, speculate that AA could have made more money on this route using reconfigured CRJ-700 aircraft from American Eagle.  These aircraft could have been reconfigured with a business class and economy section down to 56 seats and probably flown much more profitably.  However, these aircraft probably don’t lend themselves to being reconfigured in such a way.  How do you efficiently place business class seating in an aircraft that is already limited to 2+2 seating in economy?

 

American is doing what is good for American.  However, what would be better for Dallas is another airline taking over and using those gates for a good purpose.  Yes, even Southwest Airlines could use a little competition these days.  Imagine jetBlue offering Austin / Dallas flights that connect back to the East coast through Austin.  Or how about Airtran connecting through Little Rock or Houston?

 

In the end, Love Field will not see much if any real competition develop.  Not while 3 very successful and very large airlines control all the gates there.

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First, let me apologize for the dead silence on the blog.  I’ve been very ill and way overtaxed at my day job for the past week.  I feel better and my work load is manageable again.

 

Southwest Airlines has announced in fairly quick succession service into 3 airports that, traditionally, Southwest has not wanted to fly to.  Minneapolis / St. Paul, New York La Guardia and now Boston’s Logan airport.  Southwest purists are no doubt predicting Southwest’s demise and Southwest fans are no doubt cheering Southwest’s cheekiness. 

 

The fact of the matter is that Southwest is evolving again.  Like every other successful airline, Southwest has evolved at important moments in the airline business.  Oddly enough, Southwest really started out as more of a businessman’s airline than anything else in the early 1970’s.  It served the Texas businessman with routes to Texas’ major cities with high frequency and low fares.  By basing themselves at inner city airports (in Houston and Dallas anyway), they made themselves more convenient for those travelers.

 

Then they evolved to a regional airline serving more than just businessmen but also increasing their market share by becoming attractive to the people who wouldn’t have flown but for Southwest’s low fares.  They became the Low Fare airline through the 1980’s. 

 

Then in the 1990’s, they began to evolve again.  This time they became the continental airline.  A low fare but not Low Fare airline that instituted service to major and minor cities throughout the US that were underserved with low fares.  This saw growth on both coasts of the United States and mid-west.

 

Well, the airline industry, for Southwest anyway, has changed again and instead of ignoring those changes, Southwest has clearly decided to evolve once more.  Mind you, I don’t know if this next evolution will be successful.  Only time will tell.  But it shows that Southwest is indeed paying attention to its business.

 

This next evolution is really about the business traveler.  It doesn’t mean Southwest is giving up on being a low fare airline.  It means that Southwest recognizes that in order to grow its business, it is time to serve new(er) demographics such as the business traveler (again) and the markets those travelers want to fly to.

 

This was first evidence by Southwest remarketing its same day fares as a kind of Business Class fare.  Smart because that really is what they are.  Then they began to rework their gates at various airports to better serve that business traveler by offering outlets to plug laptops and cell phones into, offering better and more comfortable seating and some variation on priority boarding. 

 

Now I think Southwest is identifying important markets that their loyal business travelers need to access.  Their Mid-Atlantic customers need to get to places like New York City and Boston.  Their Mid-Western customers need to get to places such as Minneapolis / St. Paul and Denver.   So Southwest has began working to serve those markets.

 

There is one glaring omission so far and that is Atlanta.   Most pundits believe that Southwest will never enter the market fearing Delta and Airtran’s response.   While I agree that the reaction by those two airlines will be fierce, I also think it is inevitable that Southwest find a way to fly there some day soon.  Will it be a focus city?  No, probably not. 

 

It is the most important city in the Southeast that so far goes unserved by Southwest.  With a strong customer base in Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Lousiana, Texas, Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, of course they need to find a way into Atlanta.

 

And they will.  It won’t be a big start.  Just as Boston, La Guardia and Minneapolis / St. Paul have all been announced as very small operations, so will Atlanta.  But Southwest will find a way to connect Atlanta to their focus city system in short order and begin serving those routes for their business customers. 

 

There are a few other cities I’m looking at for Southwest service in the next couple of years.  Charlotte, North Carolina would be a good destination and so would Colombia, Greenville and Charleston South Carolina.  Milwaukee, Wiscsonsin should become attractive too.  Why?  Because they have important routes to places like Minneapolis, Atlanta, Washington D.C. and into other parts of their network.

 

Southwest isn’t crazy.  They aren’t desperate and they aren’t misguided.  Gary Kelly, the new CEO isn’t behaving stupid or incautious.  Southwest is simply evolving again.  With each evolution, there comes risk but to Southwest’s credit, they have identified where they can grow effectively and they’ve even recognized the risks and challenges involved.  They feel prepared to take on those risks and challenges and I suspect they are ready.

 

 

 

Filed under: Airline News, Airports by ajax
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Mitchell who?  Only airline aficianados, residents of MIlwaukee and airline employees generally know that Milwaukee’s airport is General Mitchell International Airport.  Named after General Billy Mitchell.

 

According to USA Today’s Today in the Sky Blog, they’ve launched a new mobile-friendly website at:  http://mobile.mitchellairport.com/

 

This is a good idea and one that I hope many other airports will follow.  Frankly, most airlines could stand to have a mobile friendly website.  While some claim they do, the only truly mobile friendly site I’ve seen so far is Continental’s. 

Filed under: Airports by ajax
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As I suspected, the new focus on airline safety is all about bird strikes.  The Middle Seat Terminal Blog (a Wall Street Journal blog) has THIS post.  After the US Airways Flight 1549 ditching, I suspected that there would be lots of chatter about preventing bird strikes and there has been.

 

Some of this chatter is about putting screens in front of the engines, for instance.  No one stops to think just how strong and well engineered a screen would have to be to withstand the force of an 8 pound bird and well as how fine it would have to be to keep debris from entering the engine.  Nor does anyone consider that by putting such a screen in front of an engine, you are effectively disrupting the air flow into the engine and that will, at the least, reduce engine efficiency if not keep it from operating as designed.

 

Consider a goose that weighs about 4 kilograms being struck by an aircraft going about 250mph.  That is just about the exact scenario for Flight 1549.  Such an impact represents over 27,000 joules of energy.   In very rough terms, that is enough energy to move more than 3 tons of weight about 1 yard.  By the time you engineer a screen for that jet engine, you need a better, more powerful jet engine to carry all that extra weight. 

 

The truth is that bird strikes are not uncommon and almost always result in non-event.  In fact, engines and other parts of aircraft structure have to be engineered to withstand most bird strikes likely to be encountered.  Jet engine makers have to prove their engine can take a strike and not furiously disassemble itself and damage a wing or fuselage.  Cockpit windows have to be able to take a punch too. 

 

The truth is that commercial aircraft handle these events very well and what happened to that Airbus A320 was actually a statistical anomaly.  It is so rare for a commercial jet to encounter birds and lose both engines to the point that the aircraft cannot return to an airport that in my research, I cannot find another instance.  Oh, it may well have happened but it is exceedingly rare. 

 

Put another way, you have a far greater likelihood of experiencing an “incident” from turbulence than you do from a bird strike.  That doesn’t keep you from flying does it?   From my perspective, this incident proves that nothing more does need to be done to mitigate problems from bird strikes. 

 

First, it is rare for them to disable an engine but it does happen.  A jetBlue Airbus encountered a bird strike this past weekend and rejected its take off.  After returning to the terminal, evidence of a bird strike was found.  Any other week, this would not have made national news.  For birds to disable both engines is virtually unheard of and that is a good thing.  Any modern two-engine airliner is capable of taking off, losing an engine and maintaining climb power to go around and return to an airport. 

 

Airports do their part to prevent this problem.  Unfortunately, airports happen to be places that attract birds because of the wide, open areas that are flat and which generally contain a lot of what birds want.  Airports scare them away and do their best to make flight areas a very unattractive place for them to flock to.  And they are very successful at that in general. 

 

One of the other points that I think escapes what happened to US Airways is the altitude that they encountered these birds at.  It was at about 3000′ above the ground and how common do you think it is to find birds at that altitude?  Very rare.

 

The traveling public is quite safe when it comes to bird strikes.  This was an anomaly and you are just only now hearing about this “problem” because it just rarely happens to ever truly affect a flight. 

Filed under: Airline News, Airports, Trivia by ajax
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It’s always fun to make predictions about the coming year, right?  Of course, I may well review my predictions in December of 2009 and decide against doing it again.

 

Boeing 787:

 

This aircraft will finally experience its first flight and I believe it will occur on or about its new scheduled time (early April).  For Boeing, credibility is now at stake and they really do have to begin meeting deadlines.  Financial analysts are becoming too skeptical of the company for comfort and airlines want their airliners.  Boeing does have a reputation for being able to pull itself together and get something done in a crisis and that should serve them here. 

 

I also believe we’ll see both static airframes begin their tests and new build airframes begin to flow from Boeing in about 6 months.  My prediction?  The 787 will prove to be a very capable aircraft and will meet or exceed its performance promises.

 

Airbus A380:

 

Airbus met its revised schedule of delivering 12 A380 airliners in 2008 . . . barely.  Originally it was scheduled to deliver 13 in 2008 and 25 in 2009.  Now Airbus says it will deliver 21 in 2009.  However, it is becoming clear that Airbus is now quickly learning how to build these aircraft and turn them out.  I predict they’ll exceed their 21 goal in 2009 by at least one aircraft.

 

Boeing and Airbus:

 

Both aircraft makers will begin to speak about the future of short to medium haul aircraft again.  With milestones for the 787 and A380 being met, I suspect they’ll become more comfortable in speaking of the future of their aircraft lines.  Look for discussions on both the 737 and A320 aircraft families and what interim technologies might be employed to improve their performance.  I suspect we’ll hear about both weight saving materials being adopted as well as the potential of new incremental improvements on existing engines.  Particularly the CFM-56 engines used by both makers. 

 

US Airlines:

 

First, let’s take a look at my deathwatch candidates.  The sudden and precipitous drop of oil prices allowed each of them to take a breather.  Midwest Airlines, however, continues to speak little, fly only a little and its investors have got to be running out of patience.  I still believe that they’ll ultimately go away.  How they do it is the question.  Rather than bankruptcy, I believe it will either be a sale or as a subsidiary airline of Delta/Northwest with the latter being most unlikely.  Who will they be sold to?  Good question.   Perhaps Airtran will get what they wished for and develop indigestion.

 

Frontier continues to muddle along but faces rather intense labor strife still.  I think their situation improved not only because oil prices dropped but because United continues to offer some of the worst product in the industry and because Southwest slowed its growth and took a breather.  While I firmly believe United will do nothing to improve its product, I do think Southwest will return to its goal of killing Frontier as a Denver competitor some time in the late spring.   I suspect Frontier will emerge from bankruptcy this year but I also firmly expect them to be out of business or acquired by December of 2009.  Who buys them?  I’ll bet on Jet Blue.  The aircraft fleets are compatible and Jet Blue has to start building a hub somewhere else in order to continue to experience strong growth.  Frontier gives them that chance.  The long shot?  American Airlines.  Why?  Because Frontier is working with AMR’s Sabre Reservations system now. 

 

United Airlines, my favorite airline to hate.  The Cranky Flier loves to rag on Alitalia and I love to rag on United.  United has lost a tremendous amount of value over the last year and continues to have some of the highest hourly costs of any US airline.   They’ve done nothing to improve labor relations, their service product or their fleet efficiency.  Glenn Tilton is hated by airline pilots but I predict he is goint to be hated by investors before the end of summer.   What happens?  I’m really not sure.  The best thing that could happen is for them to liquidate.  However, I think some airline will see some value there and attempt to buy United and make use of its assets.  Who?  The logical choice is Continental but I believe they’ll hold on to their independent streak.  So my next guess is a US Air / United V 2.0 merger will come about.  Could it work?  I doubt it but Doug Parker (CEO of US Air) wants another merger and United offers hubs he doesn’t have and some aircraft fleet compatibility.   I’ll go “all in” and bet that we see a US Air / United Airlines merger announcement by December of 2009.

 

Moving on from the death watch, let’s look at other US Airlines for a few minutes.

 

American Airlines will maintain its status quo but will begin to feel pressure to conclude some union contract negotiations this year as financial analysts begin to view their lack of progress less and less favorably.  CEO Gerard Arpey will begin to feel the heat but barring a large mistake on his part, will retain his position as CEO.  One possibility, however, will be bringing on a potential successor as President of the airline.

 

Southwest Airlines will also mostly maintain its status quo but I will predict that by late summer its new CEO Gary Kelly will be under fire from both employees and investors for his shotgun approach to growth.  It is beginning to look like it is unplanned and what people most value in Southwest is its ability to form and execute a coherent plan.   There will be no mergers, no real growth and a sinking stock price by December but I think Mr. Kelly will hold onto his position until 2010 barring a major unforeseen development. 

 

Continental, the best kept secret.  Continental will maintain its status quo with, perhaps, very moderate growth in the international sector while it waits to see what happens domestically.  They’ll enter the Star Alliance (exiting from SkyTeam) but discover it offers little value to them as well.   I don’t think they’ll seek to merge with anyone in the next year but if they did, I’d pick them for going after someone like Alaska Airlines rather than United or US Air. 

 

Stay tuned for Part II.

 

 

Filed under: Airline Fleets, Airline Service, Airports, Death Watch by ajax
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It’s 2009 and I still think putting this statue at the viewing center (or anywhere else on airport property) was stupid.   And the candy cane is just plane dumb.  It shows a lakc of sensitivity to travelers with other beliefs and thoughts.

 

I’m sure that the city of Dallas (which owns the Dallas Museum of Art and is a co-owner of DFW airport) wanted to promote the King Tut exhibit currently on display but airport managers didn’t really want such a statue on the premises so it was given a spot at Founder’s Plaza.  However, sometimes you just say no.

 

 

 

 

 

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I went to DFW Airport this afternoon to see a family member off on their flight home.  Since I was there, I decided to visit the Founder’s Plaza viewing center and take some photos with my new (to me) Olympus SP-550UZ camera.  It has a 18X optical zoom (equivalent to 28mm to 504mm 35mm lens) and a great reputation for its dual image stabilization.

 

Before anything else, let me comment on these photos.  First, this was my first practice run and there are some not so good ones.  Second, there are some worth pointing out as well. 

• It still excites me to catch a photo of tire smoke as an airplane lands.
• American Airline’s Susan G. Komen EMB-145 is one that I caught but, sadly, slightly out of frame.  When I shot it, I didn’t notice the pink ribbon or I would have shot another photo. 
• United Airlines has some of the dirtiest aircraft out there now and it is likely it isn’t noticed too much because they have that truly awful paint scheme to distract you from it.
• I got an AA B777 accidentally.  I literally just pointed and shot the photos without knowing what it was at first.
• The Alaska Airlines B737-900 is my family member departing.
• ATR-72 aircraft are very frequent visitors into DFW now.
• That Anubis Statue is still a very strange thing to have at Founder’s Plaza particularly since it was placed there to advertise the Dallas Museum of Art’s King Tut exhibit and it would do a far better job placed at the north or south entrance of the airport.
• DFW is still one of the more boring locations for airplane spotting simply because of the ubiquitous AA MD-80s.

 

So, without further ado, here are the PHOTOS.

Filed under: Airplane Spotting, Airports by ajax
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The Dallas Morning News Airline Biz Blog is reporting that they have placed a 25 foot tall statue of the Egyptian god Anubis at their new Founders Plaza airplane watching area.  Anubis is the god of the dead with a body of a human and the head of a jackal. 

 

There is no doubt in mind that whoever at the DFW airport board decided that this was a good idea will shortly be looking for new careers on Monster.Com.  I’m pretty sure you don’t want to put the god of the dead from any culture anywhere near where people are about to take off on an aircraft.

 

 

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USA Today’s Roger Yu is reporting that Los Angeles Airport, LAX, has now opened a new pay per use lounge for passengers. For $25, a passenger can use these facilities for 3 hours and enjoy free snacks, drinks, Wi-Fi and business services. The new lounge is located in the Tom Bradley International Terminal.

 

This is, without a doubt, an excellent idea and a feature many airports could use.  It combines great value with great convenience and service.

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This was written earlier today by my friend, Dave “Rigger” Vick, who is currently touring with the musical, A Chorus Line.  He reads this blog and since he has been experiencing a variety of travel scenarios for the past several months, we talk often about the challenges in aircraft, airports and airlines. 

 

So here’s some wacky fun…

 

When you fly out of Lester Pearson International Airport in Toronto to a destination in the USA, once you’ve checked in and collected your
boarding pass you have to go through US Customs & Immigration
Pre-Screening, inside the airport, which you might think is still
inside the City of Toronto in the Province of Ontario in the nation of
Canada…

 

But you’d be wrong.  Very wrong…

 

The line to get up to the pre-screening agents is in fact Canada, and
you can enter and leave the line as much as you wish – and they tell
you that, too – *until* you have passed through the pre-screening and
been cleared by the USCI agent there.  Now you are *technically* no
longer in Canada, and if you need to return to the terminal for any
reason, you are required to go through Canadian Customs &
Immigration…

 

However, the next stop after the pre-screen, on the way to your gate,
is the Canadian equivalent of the TSA security screening checkpoint,
which is *not* run by US-TSA agents, but by their Canadian
counterparts, and since the USA does not permit foreign nationals to
run its securty apparatus, ergo, you are *technically* not on US
territory, either.

 

You’re not in Canada… You’re not in the US…  You’re in No-Man’s Land.

 

So what happens when you happen to be, say for the sake of discussion,
the assistant carpenter-slash-rigger of a touring Broadway show,
leaving Canada after 35 days to return to the US for your next
itinerary stop, with your knapsack full of necessary tools; say for
instance two Motorola walkie-talkies, a PLS laser, a Leica Disto laser
rangefinder, a roll of 3″ wide gaffer’s tape, a roll of 2″ wide clear
Jalar tape, an assortment of measuring tapes, a soapstone marker in
its holder, a Pentel paint marker, a laptop computer, and a 9v-powered
Screamin’ Meanie, and consequently the security agent manning the
X-ray machine sends up all sorts of red flags and bells and whistles?

 

You sweat, my friend… You sweat, is what you do.

 

That was about the most nerve-wracking thirty minutes of my life,
trying to explain to a very flint-eyed Canadian woman exactly why I
was carrying all of that drek through from YYZ to BWI at 6:30am this
past Monday. She wasn’t having it, but there was apparently nothing
she point to that was blatantly enough evidence to get me into
rubber-glove-up-the-butt screening, so she had to settle for making me
squirm.

 

 

Filed under: Airports, Trivia by ajax
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No doubt many airports have been working hard to improve their services and offerings over the past 10 years and certainly the improvements are impressive when compared to the state of things in the 1980’s and early 1990’s.   Where there was often nothing, you now find restaurants, shops and even accommodations for cell phones and laptops.  Free wireless is starting to become popular at some airports (Hello Denver and Shame on You DFW) and you can definitely find  a Starbucks at most major airports.  If not Starbucks, at least a decent cup of coffee.

 

But air travel changed during those improvements.  When these changes began to be planned, people accompanying passengers could actually go through security and stay with their friends right up to the gate.   Airlines served something called a “meal” and it was often hot.  Beverages were free and it was usually possible to find an inexpensive flight without traveling before 6am in the morning. 

 

Not anymore.  One of the biggest challenges in picking someone up at most airports is that there is quite literally no place to loiter while waiting.  One hour or curbside parking has been eliminated from anyplace in close proximity of the air terminals.  Go visit a baggage claim area these days and see how that is working out.  There are few seats and because it is often the most ignored area of an airport, it is cramped and far away from other airport services. 

 

Since airlines now insist on passengers arriving earlier for their flights  and because those same airlines can have a lot of trouble keeping a schedule, people have to arrive at the airport earlier and find themselves staying in the terminal longer.  But what about those who have friends they would prefer to visit with longer?  There are no comfortable areas to do so any longer and certainly no restaurants accessible landside.  What if they smoke?  It is highly inconvenient to walk from their gate back outside to have a cigarette and return.  Yet, those people get *real* cranky when they’re forced to sit gateside for hours waiting for an airplane to turn up and unable to enjoy a cigarette.

 

Airports actually need new solutions for these logistical changes.  They need cell phone holding areas on their property where people can park short term and wait in their car for a phone call asking them to pick up their arriving friends and family.  Sure, some airports do have this but they are often located in a poor section of the airport and they are poorly advertised or signed for their purpose. 

 

A few concessions such as newsstands and restaurants on the landside area would be good too.  Certainly most of those concessions should be on the airside of a terminal but having just a few locations landside would provide a huge service for all.  I once had to spend 5.5 hours in a vacant hallway at Philadelphia waiting for someone to drive from Tennessee to pick me up because there were simply no places to go and wait quietly.  Oh, I did walk nearly a mile to a hotel to have a meal and I did clean up in their restrooms but it took some time and effort to find that option too. 

 

On the airside, newsstands still fill a need but those places also struggle to provide the kind of goods that more and more people want prior to boarding an aircraft.  If I were 7-11, I would template a convenience store for airports and get myself into the business of being an airport convenience store rather than a newsstands that sells some water, juice and candy.   Fast food restaurants should look into packaging their food differently so that it can be carried on to an airplane conveniently.   Instead of using combination meals conceived for the rest fo the world, they should look into packaging combination meals that make sense for an airplane or a lobby seat. 

 

Don’t like smokers?  Fine, that’s your right.  However, more than 35% of the adult world does smoke and while you shouldn’t be expected to endure smoke if you don’t want to, it would be a good service to accomodate those who do want to enjoy a cigarette.  Provide a small, enclosed smoking area and be done with the problems that come from people who’ve spent hours without nicotine. 

 

Create a kiosk system of small vendors of things like hot dogs or coffee in the baggage claim area.  Those areas are crammed with people now who are waiting long stretches of times for arrivals and they’ll enjoy the opportunity to buy a snack or beverage while waiting.  Find a way to provide more seats in these areas and offer better information on arrivals.   The more you facilitate these pick ups, the smoother things will go in these areas. 

 

Airline service has had to change and while some airports have done better at accommodating those fundamental changes in the industry, most have neglected those needs in a bad way.  It is time to close that disconnect.

Filed under: Airports by ajax
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