Mayor Pete

[The Frankish Reich]

6 minutes ago, sherpa said:

 

It is a highly regulated industry regulated by far less skilled and talented people from the gov.

Carter's deregulation was a bit before my time, but the industry has been in turmoil since then.

Countless bankruptcies.

Not my point.

 

But, I saw the incompetence from the front left seat for years, and the further you get the gov away the better.

 

My favorite FAA story, and I have many.

In 2013 there was some solar airplane travelling cross country. Highly publicized.

It was to land at JFK at 3AM on a Sat. morning. That was agreed to to prevent disruption of traffic, as they planned on shutting down the airspace on its arrival.

 

Anyway, they claimed they had some tear in the fabric of a wing panel, and wanted to change the plan an land at about 11:30pm.

 

I was flying a 777 to Tokyo that night.

Number two for takeoff, they advised they were shutting down the entire New York airspace for two hours so this 35mph thing could land.

 

Scores of international departures on the ground.

There is a rule that a flight that is longer than eight hours needs an extra pilot, an augmented crew.

The eight hours are measured from gate departure to touchdown.

Many airlines, especially European airlines with western European destinations like London or Paris, don't have augmented crews at certain times of the year because the flight times are less.

Anyway, one after another, during taxi they went back to their gates and cancelled because of the eight hour rule.

Thousands of people involved. Thousands of hotel rooms, rebooking etc.

 

In the interim, three airplanes that were to land at LaGuardia, also closed, declared fuel emergencies and landed at JFK.

An absolute cluster****.

 

Goofy thing lands with great media fanfare and JFK re-opens.

That is what you get with these guys.

 

What you get with the current group is understaffed controller operations resulting in schedule cancellations, a NOTAM distribution system that fails and results in a nationwide shutdown of the system.

 

But.....We have spent money time and assets to de-gendered language in the industry, forced employees to watch stupid workplace sensitivity programs, send appointees to Congress who have no knowledge of the system and couldn't/didn't come close to Congressional approval,  and now will tell them how to price the product and fine them.

 

 

Thanks - I've said before that one reason I still hang out here is once in a while someone has actual knowledge/experience that helps me learn something or understand something better.

 

So with that in mind: privatize air traffic control? Have privately-owned airports on the European model? Completely deregulate airline pricing and go with an open competition on fares and perks is the best way to ensure the passenger gets what he pays for? What about new models like JSX (a great customer experience, by the way), ostensibly operating charter flights and avoiding major airports and TSA?

[sherpa]

13 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

Thanks - I've said before that one reason I still hang out here is once in a while someone has actual knowledge/experience that helps me learn something or understand something better.

 

So with that in mind: privatize air traffic control? Have privately-owned airports on the European model? Completely deregulate airline pricing and go with an open competition on fares and perks is the best way to ensure the passenger gets what he pays for? What about new models like JSX (a great customer experience, by the way), ostensibly operating charter flights and avoiding major airports and TSA?

 

I would absolutely privatize the FAA air traffic portion, using other country, successful models.