Over 40 years of experience in commercial aviation including both commercial airline management as well as airport managerial experience. This was followed by 10 years of consulting and writing, first at R2A, a San Francisco Bay Area aviation consulting firm and most recently as a Vice President in the Unisys Transportation sector where I wrote and edited the monthly aviation publication, Scorecard as well as producing articles for numerous other industry publications.
The first thing we need to realize is that there is no such thing as absolute security. Dedicated opponents, willing to die for their cause, have an inherent advantage over those who value life and that divide is almost impossible to breach. But while there has been a global mandate to increase security--especially for air transport--those standards are arbitrary and variable from location to location. In Abu Dhabi I was surprised at having to surrender my safety razor and in China, though my liquids were in a baggie, the baggie could not be in hand luggage. I can fly 12… Read more
This is a (yet another) complex issue that has no clear answer. The obvious response may be that the system's cost should be borne solely by those who use it. That seems fair, though the ongoing debate over just how much of the burden should rest with the commercial industry and how much should be paid by private aviation makes it seem far from easy. But like any national grid, the entire populace benefits from its safe and efficient operation. A sizable percentage of both national and global prosperity and connectivity is rooted in air travel so that a poorly functioning ATC network adds indirect costs for a… Read more
The recent aviation accidents, both involving Airbus aircraft, have yet again focused media attention on flying, with some blogs speculating that Airbus may be in for extraordinary scrutiny and hard times. A similar fixation continues with regards to the Colgan Air crash earlier this year. The media loves an aviation mishap. I decided to look at the overall safety record of long-haul aircraft since the emergence of jet airplanes and the result was striking. The table shows the percentage of airframes that have been destroyed thus far for the aircraft noted. Important to remember is that a destroyed airframe… Read more
I seem to have missed something. It was my impression that the problem is emissions, and with fossil fuels emissions are directly linked to usage. It was also my impression that the long term goal is to find fuels and propellants that drastically reduce or eliminate emissions. If that is the goal, and it is achieved, what is to be gained by limiting usage since the undesirable side effects have been mitigated? Of course, no one likes traffic and maintaining the current levels of usage will continue to make travel, especially at certain times, a chore. However, the planet killing… Read more
Certainly the current credit environment has had an effect, but it is my observation that the US generally has little interest in privatization of aviation infrastructure. It is a topic that gets some overall assessment but the implementation is another story entirely. I have a colleague in the UK who has written a comprehensive management report on US airline privatization and is unable to find buyers. I suspect that there will continue to be considerable discussion but far less progress.… Read more
The first and perhaps last consideration is the complexity of the problem. For better or worse, our society, and that includes much of the developing world, has evolved in ways that make the movement of both people and goods key to the existing economic order. One might argue that moving goods in production over vast distances provides direct cost advantages but has significant hidden environmental costs that have, thus far, been unpaid. But unwinding that well-established supply chain is a monumental task with lots of implications for those in the current system. Similarly, the globe's largest industry is travel and… Read more
In all of the discussion, no one has mentioned intransigent corporate culture as a culprit. Those familiar with always-simple Southwest policies know that reuse of the funds resulting from non-refundable fares is a very straightforward online transaction. It can be done with no agent intervention and requires no paper whatsoever. Here is my legacy story. I had to cancel an international trip and was told that the balance, after a $250 change fee, would be available for a year—referenced against the original PNR. I then booked two tickets to Boston for our summer trip, intending to use that credit for… Read more
Rep. Oberstar, and all those opposed to additional foreign participation in U.S, airlines appear to live in a theoretical bubble that has little to do with reality—or the rest of the commercial world. As a nation we have few problems with the foreign ownership of banks, communications companies and firms dealing with virtually every other aspect of daily life. However, even alliances, generally favored by both airlines and consumers are now suspect for various strategic reasons. The reality simply does not wash. There is first the argument that competition is stifled by the alliance model, but the reality is… Read more
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