Security lines at airports
James Fallows on Security lines at airports, which I complained about years ago.
James Fallows on Security lines at airports, which I complained about years ago.
From FiveThirtyEight: Do Americans Really Hate Flying? Or Really Love Driving?, an amateur analysis of inter-city travel statistics that includes a discussion of gravity models. The comments are worth reading as well.
Aerial Anschluss: EU approves Lufthansa's Austrian Airlines takeover - Today In the Sky
From Chris Briem at Null Space Delta Watch - Cincy negotiating to keep international flights. Airlines are now threatening to move flights out of cities unless the city guarantees a certain number of passengers or revenue.
Original article here.
This is of course a terrible idea (unless you personally fly direct from CVG to London).
(In 1840 Cincinnati was the the sixth largest city in the US. In 2000 it was 63rd. (the metro area of course is larger, ranking 23rd in 2000). This relative decline is not reversible by direct flights to a few foreign cities.
From NY Times Nothing to Hide in Airline's Campaign. Really. an interesting tact by Air New Zealand. Not as far as the now deceased Hooters Air.
Via TechDirt, from Things with Wings Clear Shuts Down Registered Traveler Lanes
"The pilot program was rolled out with great fanfare July 18, 2005, in Orlando. Travelers initially paid $99 a year for a card that was supposed to target those who posed a minimum security risk, and give them a special line that would process them through airport security more quickly."
These were the equivalent of HOT lanes for airport security. They have failed in the marketplace, people will only pay so much for queue jumping.
When we see a local angle on a national news story, it is always of the "can it happen here?" variety. (e.g. Ebola, can it happen in the Twin Cities, tonight on Fox 9 at 9).
The Northwest Delta merger of course is a local story in Minneapolis (and Atlanta), but clearly it is also a story in Albany (this article is #2 on Google News at the moment on the topic):
From The Business Review (Albany):
Delta, Northwest merger completed; Albany Int'l official calls it a "positive" step
Now Albany is not a hub for either airlines, and apparently isn't yet cutting service to the capital of New York, yet the CEO of Albany International feels obliged to endorse the merger of two of his biggest customers.
From the article "Delta carries nearly 11 percent of Albany International Airport's passenger traffic and has 21 employs in Albany. Northwest handles 8 percent of Albany's passenger traffic and employees 21 people in Albany."
Now we see why Delta acquired NWA, its employees were far more efficient.
The TSA responds to the Goldberg article: Response from the TSA
From the Atlantic Magazine on Security Theater:
The Things He Carried
From James Fallows: Air taxi chronicles: bad news
Via Marginal Revolution, from the Times of London: Exclusive: I followed jetman Yves Rossy during the historic Channel crossing
Now, this is the transportation of the future: person in jet pack and wing going 100 knots. No word on fuel consumed, but can't be too much given the size of the jet pack.
From Megan McArdle,: auctioning landing slots
"Landing slots are a scarce public resource that are being overused because they're underpriced. "
This of course is true. Interestingly enough though, even airports with a monopoly airline (like say NWA at MSP) still have congestion problems, even though congestion is nominally internalized within the airline. In part this is because the delay is suffered by passengers as much as the airline itself (while airlines must pay more for fuel and salaries, the value of time of 150 passengers is pretty high, and not fully considered, especially when there is no competition).
An interesting series of papers by Joseph Daniel discusses this.
including:
Daniel, Joseph I. Distributional Consequences of Pricing(1998). University of Delaware Economics WP No. 98-03.
Available at SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=106668
Daniel, Joseph I. and Pahwa, Munish, Comparison of Three Empirical Models of Pricing(1998). University of Delaware Economics WP No. 98-01.
Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=106648
A nice post on: Why Airline Travel Sux: Big Air Responds! by Christopher Hayes
Why Airline Travel Sux: Big Air Responds!
From SFGate: KCBS traffic reporter's plane crash-lands; no serious injuries
"(06-30) 16:15 PDT OAKLAND -- A small airplane carrying a traffic reporter for KCBS radio was forced to crash land in an Oakland rock quarry just south of the Interstate 80 approach to the Bay Bridge this afternoon, authorities said.
The pilot of the Cessna 172 suffered minor injuries and the reporter was unharmed when the plane touched down hard just before 1 p.m. at 2020 Wake Ave., near the East Bay Municipal Utility District's wastewater treatment plant, said Oakland fire Capt. Melinda Drayton.
The 35-year-old pilot was treated at a hospital for a cut to his forehead. His name was not released. KCBS identified the reporter as Alan Brooks.
Motorists using a nearby off-ramp were delayed briefly."
From The Atlantic by James Fallows: Taxis in the Sky about the emerging market for air taxis connecting smaller cities not served by point-to-point service.
"Herriott and Sawhill have developed a model to simulate the individual decisions that go into every one of these business trips. The model starts with the likelihood that a person in any one city, let’s say Mobile, will want to go to another, say Savannah, on any given weekday (for now, DayJet is a weekday-only service). These predictions are based on average income in each city, business relations, and other factors, and are constantly tuned to reflect real data. “It’s like the pull between two planetary bodies,� Herriott said. “Almost a Newtonian law!� (He was joking.)"
Could they be using a version of The Gravity Model, which implements a version of Tobler's First Law of Geography "Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things."
I have drafted a Memo to the Next President of the United States on Transportation Policy.
The memo outlines ten visions, which are summarized here, for fuller discussion, see the full memo:
Full memo after the jump
Continue reading "Memo to the Next President of the United States on Transportation Policy" »
From the Strib: Northwest Airlines agrees to be acquired by Delta
1) Will the new Delta be any less dominant at any hub than either airline was before?
2) Will there be more service or lower prices?
3) Will fuel prices be lower?
4) Will labor costs be lower?
A merger really only makes sense (for the acquiring company) if it increases benefits (revenue) or lowers costs. I.e. are there synergies or economies of scale/scope to be had, and do those benefits outweigh the transaction cost of the acquisition and integration of two organizations. Given that airlines have not been cumulative profitable over their history ... as Warren Buffett has said
(quoted in New York Times) “If we knew then what we know now, we’d have shot the Wright Brothers down.� (“A Profitable 18 Hours That’s All Business,� Tuesday March 11, 2008, C-6) "
it is doubtful a merger really does much of anything, especially since airline alliances and inter-ticketing are as seamless as regular air travel (not seamless, just "as seamless")
This article looks at the issue more formally, suggesting profits are centered on zero and are getting more and more volatile, and that the cause is part the large capital orders of airplanes, which have a long lag, are ordered in good times and arrive in bad times, exacerbating the excess capacity problem.
From a local pride issue, the Twin Cities loses another headquarters. However NWA has been steadily slipping in the airline league tables (along with MSP airport in the airport league tables), so this was probably an inevitable loss. But since MSP remains a hub, one expects a similar level of non-stop service and similar level of semi-monopoly prices. If MSP were to lose hub status, a low cost carrier could move in and allow competition to drive down prices, which would not be too bad.
From the Guardian: Heathrow's Terminal 5 launch not so good: T5 launch marred by delays and cancellations . Problems included a failed baggage handling system (a software problem), and flash mob protestors. The cost of the terminal was £4.3 billion ($8.6 b), which is pretty amazing, I mean, you could build 10 stadiums.
From the Times:
Cancelled flights and baggage chaos mar Terminal 5 opening
And from the Telegraph:
Heathrow Terminal 5 flights cancelled amid luggage chaos
From the Independent:
Disastrous opening day for Terminal 5
This has been controversial, and issues remain about runways, but clearly some of the terminals at Heathrow were obsolete; the question of "what is to be done" included encouraging traffic at other London airports, though Heathrow was the most convenient by far, with a stop on the Piccadilly Line.
From Popular Mechanix (1939) via Boing Boing - Modern Mechanix: Skyscraper Airport for City of Tomorrow
If only air travel could be this simple. Presumably the building would be robust to planes crashing into it.
Slick movie on You Tube: Flight Patterns which visualizes daily US flight patterns and then does lots of artsy stuff.
Another NYT piece: Ugly Airline Math: Planes Late, Fliers Even Later citing some work by MIT's Cynthia Barnhart on airline and passenger delay. Is this due to weather, demand (and high load factors removing slack in the system), or poor labor relations?
The article focuses on Northwest and Continental, though the observations are I am sure more general. The 25 minute average delay seems low to me, but I am operating off anecdote here.
Bruce Schneier's Blog: Second Movie-Plot Threat Contest Winner aimed at forcing the TSA to ban something totally innocuous. (highly amusing).
Nightmare at National Airport -- an update The TSA, rather than protecting its borders, would prefer to protects its ass. They have posted two videos and the official report of the incident.
Though Rashoman-like, the videos clarify nothing. The only question is whether Ms. Emmerson intentionally dumped her water (she clearly spilled it ... intentionally?, "he informed the passenger that the child’s container was too big and would have to be poured out" ... apparently she did so on the spot, which is probably inappropriate, though the guard did not provide a place to do so) and perhaps whether she tried to pull rank, though the videos have no sound, so this is quite unclear).
Still, it is clear the water was no threat, so why must it be disposed of.
A nice post by Bruce Schneir: Portrait of the Modern Terrorist as an Idiot
... Security is the enemy of efficiency.
Nightmare at Reagan National Airport: A Security Story to End all Security Stories |
The story speaks for itself. One only hopes that the abuse of power sows the seeds of its own destruction.
Northwest doesn't need the flight attendants strike to have CHAOS.
The proposed flight attendents strike on Northwest Airlines aims to induce CHAOS on the aviation system by targetting specific flights (unknown to NWA or passengers in advance). Clearly NWA has problems on its own, this flight, which I will be on in four weeks, was diverted to Duluth (
NWA Flight 44 Passengers Feeling VERY Minnesota). Okay, so there were mechanical problems, that happens from time to time (not encouraging, but they did fire all of the mechanics last year).
But they did not ask (or allow) passengers to leave for 10 hours, first trying to fix the problem, but eventually realizing that the crews were on duty for too long. A little bit of foresight would be helpful (but then with foresight, they woudn't be a bankrupt carrier).
This is not the first time NWA has held passengers prisoner. (1, 2 (9 hours) and here , 3 (28 hours) I myself was trapped on an NWA flight in summer of 2004, sitting on the runway for 3 hours, that due to weather at DCA (National), could not take off, and ultimately had to deplane passengers so it could take off on the shorter runway. (Just a few more people off the plane, and we can take off).
The pilot did buy alcohol for the passengers (alas, I don't drink), and NWA did give me 1500 airmiles, but frankly, I would rather someone be able to plan 15 minutes in advance and not board planes that won't be allowed to take off.
From today's a[er ... USATODAY.com - More airports try to keep drivers out of the loop. The article reports on parking lots at airports designed for people picking up passengers, who are no longer allowed to wait at curbside. So drivers wait with cars in lots, and when the passenger calls on the cell phone, the driver can pick up the passenger. An interesting intersection of information and communication technology and transportation.
Since I live 20 minutes from the airport (MSP). I have people call when landing, and by the time they pick up their luggage, I am outside. The synchronization is pretty good, though the airport cops do try to move me along, I am usually sufficiently stuck behind other pick-up drivers that there is no problem. MSP does not have a cell-phone lot, I guess we are behind the times and need to close the cell-phone lot gap.