Cranky on the Web (April 18 – 22)

Apr 23, 2011

4 comments

4 responses to “Cranky on the Web (April 18 – 22)”

Arie Boris

Apr 23, 2011 at 9:31 am

Regarding the ATC contollers sleeping on the job…I may be showing my age, but why has no one made a connection to the state of air traffic control TODAY and CURRENT staff policy/perfomance QUALITY to Reagan firing all the professional union ATC Contollers back in THE early 80ty’s? He just wanted to break that “mean” Union and all those pros were let go…obviously the training ovet the last three decades has had a negative impact as a result of the loss all those professionals who would have trained todays controllers….Perhaps Washington National Airport should be renamed after the President of the Air Traffic Contollers Union before it was busted in the early 80ty’s …’and who cannot fondly remember Liz Dole as Sec of Transportation under Reagan who addressed the endless ATC delays by telling the airlines to add an hour to their schedules rather than actually fix the ATC mess at the time…AH the good old Days….And thank you to the “Frontline” broadcast last weekend exposing the dramatric shift by our major US airlines to outsourcing major maintanence to substandard MROs here and abroad to cut their expenses at the expense of our saftey..(United, US AIR big time)…with FAA not having near enough inspectors to ensure quality of work here or abroad….Boy, I wish I could just go back to complaining about not enough availability to get a frequent flyer ticket on the dates I want to travel….. rather then worrying if the wing is going to fall off or the ATC controller knows what he is doing(or is awake..)…

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1. Sanjeev M
  
  Apr 23, 2011 at 7:10 pm
  
  Interesting. Lots of points there.
  
  -I don’t know much bout 80’s unions. Was born in the early 90’s.
  
  -I agree with your second point, however there is a limit to how many airplanes can fit in a system, with or without good ATC. Our problem is we have too many airplanes trying to fit through too little space. This is why the Fed Gov opens up a Northeast military corridor during Thanksgiving every year.
  
  -How about just LESS PLANES? Why do we allow 16 daily US Airways Express LGA-PHL slot holders? Can’t Amtrak and Chinatown/Bolt/Megabus take care of this market? If I had the power, I would limit flights at EWR and JFK down to 70 from the current 81/82 an hour. Why do we need a Comair CRJ flying JFK-IAH? This will force AA and especially DL to upgauge A/C at JFK and UA can just move unnecessary ERJ flights to IAD. I’m not saying it should become like LHR (basically all mainline) but currently NYC is ridiculous.
  
  -Once again, the advantages of Midwest hubs (DTW, CVG, PIT, STL, MEM) is becoming clear. Plenty of space. Connections easily doable in 30 min.
  
  -BTW, if you’re worried about wings flying off (no pun intended), Megabus is awesome. And $2.50 roundtrip beats the 9/11 fee alone, much less airfare. Granted, Megabus can’t get you across oceans, but you get my point.
  
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Ron

Apr 23, 2011 at 9:12 pm

U.S. Airways first class: one annoying feature of U.S. Airways online reservations is that they show an itinerary as first/envoy if there’s just one segment in first. So when they display those LAX–TLV options, some “envoy” flights are just marginally more expensive than coach, but these turn out to be flying LAX–SFO on a United code share in first class, and continuing SFO–PHL–TLV in coach. Quite deceptive, if I may say.

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landscape companies

Jul 24, 2011 at 7:42 am

So after four months is there any feedback on whether or not adding the first class seats has benefited US airways?

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