It’s somewhat surprising, but you rarely hear about how people and their families are treated after an accident. What actually happens? US Airways is opening up the kimono a bit here to show us how they’re dealing with it this week. So far, they’re getting praise from passengers on flight 1549, but we’ll see how long that lasts.

A spokesperson sent me a copy of the letter they sent to every passenger on that flight. This letter was accompanied by a check for $5,000 to cover the cost of replacing belongings (above the legal requirement, I believe) and another check reimbursing the cost of the ticket.

Here’s the full text of the letter. Then come back for a little more discussion at the end.

On behalf of all of us at US Airways, we hope that you have returned home and are resting and recovering following the evacuation of Flight 1549 on January 15, 2009. We are extremely grateful that our crew used their combined experience and training to safely land and evacuate all of the passengers onboard this flight. We also thank you, as many of you also played a role in ensuring a quick and safe exit.

We know you have many questions, and that one of your immediate needs is to obtain the items that you had on the aircraft. The purpose of this letter is to tell you what happens next with those items, and also to provide some immediate assistance so that you can begin replacing them. Throughout this experience, you have our commitment that we will do our absolute best to explain all we can about what is happening and why, and with that, we want you to know the status of your belongings and next steps.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has now begun their investigation of this accident, and we are offering our full participation and cooperation. Investigatory protocol requires that the aircraft and all of its contents must be examined and weighed prior to releasing any items onboard in order to verify the weight and balance on the aircraft. This is an important part of their work to understand the reason for the emergency water landing. Unfortunately, this includes all of the personal effects that were in the aircraft’s cabin and cargo hold. The process is to weigh all items in their current state, dry them for eight weeks, and then weigh them again. This means we cannot return your items to you until the NTSB recovers and releases them, a process that will likely take several months. It is also possible that some items may be unrecoverable.

We anticipate that the delay the investigation causes may present an inconvenience and expense for you. We want to do our best to ensure that you do not incur personal expense or hardship while the investigation continues. To assist you with your immediate needs, we have enclosed a check for $5,000. In addition, we are also including a separate check to reimburse you for the cost of your ticket. This is an obvious reimbursement that we wanted to make quickly to each of you.

US Airways is committed to working with you to address any needs you have as a result of this experience. In the initial period following the accident, our employees worked to contact and support you on the ground in New York as well as from our Family Support Center in our Tempe, Arizona headquarters. Your Family Support Center representative will remain engaged with you, and we’ll make every effort to do that in a way that best suits your individual needs. Please let us know if your needs are not being met in any way.

I am truly sorry for what you experienced on Flight 1549. We were all amazed by the actions of our crew, the first responders, and our customers, and we were humbled by the grace displayed by all in the time that followed. Please do not hesitate to let me know how my colleagues at US Airways and I can continue to assist you.

Sincerely,

Kerry F. Hester

If there’s one thing US Airways deserves credit for here, it’s acting very quickly. The answers may be anything BUT what a passenger would want to hear, but at least they’re not mincing words and promising things that won’t happen. (How many friggin’ weeks does the bag have to dry?!?) So far, people seem to be happy with what they’re hearing.

Barry Leonard, a guy who actually cracked his sternum in the accident, said the airline has “bent over backwards” so far. That certainly puts a nice extra warm fuzzy feeling on what so far has been a great story.

I’m sure that once the final reports are in, some people will try to sue for more money after having gone through the experience. Depending upon what the report says, they may even have a case, but we know that doesn’t matter. The sleezy ambulance chasers are circling like sharks, and they’ll convince some people to sue no matter what. But these early measures by US Airways can only help, and it certainly is proving to be welcome by the passengers onboard.

We’ve heard the beginning of this story a million times. Airport wants to expand, people protest, and the process gets bogged down for years and years. On the surface, that’s what has happened with Heathrow’s bid to build a third runway to alleviate congestion and to grow, but underneath, it’s a different kind of situation. And that’s why the recent approval to build the third runway has been met with wide-ranging protests.

Usually, the only people protesting airport expansion are those who live around the airport. They don’t like the noise and the traffic, even though the airport in most cases was there long before they arrived. And while we have seen that with Heathrow, the bigger protest has actually centered around the environmental impact on a broad scale.

It makes absolute sense to add a third runway at Heathrow. The airport is bursting at the seams, and there really aren’t any better options for more capacity, despite London Mayor Boris Johnson’s ill-fated support for a (zany) brand new airport in the middle of the Thames estuary. But many people in the UK are now saying that there shouldn’t be expansion because airplanes pollute too much. They don’t want more plane flights in London at all, despite the benefits that are brought to the population.

Look at some of these headlines . . . “Concrete and calamity at Heathrow” or “Third Heathrow Runway a Massive Step Backwards.” But it gets even crazier than that. “MP suspended from Commons after picking up mace in Heathrow protest” shows how people are really losing their minds over this. Many are saying that the government has let them down in the fight against climate change. I just have to shake my head.

People act like there are no efforts in the world of aviation to reduce emissions. That’s absurd. Engine manufacturers are jumping over each other to reduce emissions and increase fuel efficiency as we speak. And as those emissions come down, there’s no reason that we should restrict further air travel growth because of the tremendous economic benefits it provides.

It’s not like the government is completely ignoring climate change here. With the new runway, they have committed to building an intermodal hub for high speed train travel at the airport, something that may very well kill many short haul flights and encourage people to travel greener. The government will also restrict use of the new Heathrow slots that the new runway will open only to the greenest aircraft flying. On top of that, the government only approved half the new number of flights that were originally proposed.

The new runway won’t be built until 2015 at the earliest, and that means there’s plenty of time for people to predict gloom and doom. Some think the requirements to use only the greenest aircraft will fall under pressure, but I would be surprised. This is the right thing to do, without question, but if anything it will put even more pressure on Heathrow to focus on green initiatives.

American and Virgin America have wi-fi onboard, Delta is beginning installation, Alaska and Southwest are looking to do testing, and well, Continental is at least putting live TV on their planes. But United hadn’t done anything, until now. United will roll out wireless internet on its p.s. flights between New York/JFK and both San Francisco and Los Angeles in “the second half of this year.”

What took United so long to get in the game? They actually started off very early but then fell silent for a long time. I had completely forgotten about this, but spokesperson Robin Urbanski reminded me that back in June 2005, back when I still worked at United, the airline had its 757s certified by the FAA for wi-fi.

Once she mentioned it, the memories came flooding back. I remember thinking how great it would be, but that was three and a half years ago. Others have been at it for awhile, so why did they wait? Urbanski said, ” . . .we wanted to make sure we selected the right service provider that can offer us something that was most cost-effective and most importantly, reliable for our customers.”

So United really sat on the sideline on this one for a long time. They’ve finally now decided they’ve found the right mix of cost-effectiveness and reliability, I guess. But was something else at play here? Urbanski says no, but we all know the competition between United and American over the years has always been fierce. I still have to wonder if American’s addition of wi-fi to their transcontinental routes finally pushed United to act.

Either way, it will be harder for you to fly a plane between New York and LA/SF without internet than with it in the near future. That’s great news for everyone, but probably most of all for AirCell which has the contract with United, American, and Virgin America.

Will United put this on other airplanes as well? It’s unclear. The release simply says, “United and Aircell will assess customer feedback to determine additional rollout plans.” It’s sad to see that United took so long to get onboard here, especially considering their head start, but it’s nice to see it finally getting into gear.

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No, you didn’t miss my first post, but I’m sure you’ve seen about a million since the US Airways A320 plopped down into the Hudson River yesterday. So, I won’t bother to recap what happened, and I’m probably the only site that hasn’t posted pictures of the incident. Let me just say a couple of things.

• Can we just think about what happened for a minute? Un-friggin-believable! A full A320 (nice loads for a midday, midweek trip in January, by the way) ditches into the ocean river, everyone lives, and the plane stays intact.




• I keep hearing that bird strikes brought the plane down, but it’s way too early for us to know that. It sounds like there probably was a bird strike, but that doesn’t mean it was the cause for what happened. Let’s wait until the NTSB tells us more.




• Everyone’s calling the pilots heroes, but I bet they’ll tell you they were just doing their jobs. Also, while the landing was truly amazing, we don’t know that the pilots didn’t contribute to the fact it had to ditch in the first place just yet. Again, let’s wait for the NTSB.




• If I have to watch one more news teaser that says, “We have birds here in LA, see what LAX is doing to prevent them from flying into engines,” I’m gonna lose it.




• What’s the chance this gets people to actually pay attention to the safety demo before the flights from now on? Nah.




• US Airways really put out a lot of communication yesterday with what appears to be four updates, one being a briefing from CEO Doug Parker. That looks pretty good, but the ultimate test will be how the airline deals with the passengers that were onboard. I’m sure the ambulance-chasers are circling as we speak. Grrrr.




• Wanna see something cool? Check out Passur’s AirportMonitor. Put in January 15, 2009 at 15:25 and watch the plane on radar as it takes off, curves around, and finally puts down in the river. Cool.




• As a former America West guy, I first wondered if it was one of the “West” (former America West) planes, but it’s not. It was N106US, an “East” (former US Airways) plane which would have turned 10 years old this year.




• I thought this was the first modern jet to have ditched into the water and maintained full structural integrity, but it doesn’t appear that way. Apparently a JAL DC-8 in 1968 ditched in San Francisco Bay and the plane actually returned to service! See more ditchings, some more successful than others.




• Did you see how fast those ferries got to that airplane? In that freezing weather, that must have really saved some lives.