3 Links I Love: Jet is Another Etihad Failure, Pittsburgh Fight, Mr Awesome’s 727

Apr 19, 2019

More Reading on This Topic: Jet Airways, Links I Love, MIA – Miami, PIT – Pittsburgh

This week’s featured link

Jet Airways temporarily shuts operations as lenders refuse emergency funds – Times of India
I’m going to go ahead and call that headline misleading even if it may technically possibly be true. If Jet couldn’t get funding to keep flying, what’s the chance it can get money to actually make this a “temporary” grounding? My expectations are low, just like they are for every airline Etihad has invested in. Watch out, Virgin Australia. Let’s hope the Etihad curse somehow can’t stretch that far from Abu Dhabi.

map — Image of the week (via Great Circle Mapper): I was challenged to see if I could get from the LA to Nashville on small airplanes. Indeed, I can. Red is Boutique Air, Purple in Contour, Light Blue is Advanced Air, Dark Blue is Southern Air Express, and Black is Air Choice One. Only the two green segs can’t be flown today, but you can nearly do a roundtrip without overlapping. (All are props except for Contour on an ERJ.)

Two for the road

Original midfield terminal architect: Airport’s $1.1 billion modernization ‘doesn’t make sense’ – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Well this is fun. The architect behind the original terminal’s design says that this new plan to fix PIT is going to cost a ton more. The airport says he’s just mad his old firm didn’t win the project. I guess we’ll find out who is right once the final numbers come in and the project is done.

Miami Airport’s Awesome Full Size Boeing 727 Tribute To My Late Son – Airways Mag
If you aren’t familiar with what happened to Chris Sloan’s son, Calder, it’s a heart-breaking story. But on the 5th anniversary of his untimely death, the Miami Airport did something pretty great. I like to share stories like these, because there aren’t enough of them. The Miami Airport deserves some atta-boys for this one.

Brett

7 responses to “3 Links I Love: Jet is Another Etihad Failure, Pittsburgh Fight, Mr Awesome’s 727”

Air Boss

Apr 19, 2019 at 4:53 am

Another damning outcome for the McKinsey ‘Hunter’ investment strategy.

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Fake Bob Crandall

Apr 19, 2019 at 5:35 am

Great article on Calder. We need more of those.

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A

Apr 19, 2019 at 5:43 am

There are a lot of Architects that won’t admit their design failed or that time has passed it by. That could be part of the open letter on PIT. The other being (assuming he lives in Pittsburgh) he honestly thinks it’s an expensive boondoggle. I found it curious that in the article the poll is 2:1 with people saying the project is too expensive/not needed.

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DesertGhost

Apr 19, 2019 at 8:04 am

It’s nice to see a good story once in a while.

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James S

Apr 19, 2019 at 11:02 am

The PIT terminal design was very innovative, but the architecture itself was dated even in 1992 when it opened. Tasso Katselas was big on the concrete brutalist look, which was out of fashion by then. I remember passing through PIT a year or so after it was finished, and thinking that it looked like a freshened-up 1970s design… not nearly as much natural light and airiness as other airports opened in the same era.

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Alex

Apr 20, 2019 at 8:23 pm

I agree thar the PIT renovation sounds like a total boondoggle. Do extensive renovations to the existing facilities, update them, especially the airside concourses. Tear down half of 2 of the Xes if you want to reduce overhead. It sounded like overkill when they first announced eliminating the tram (which is pretty cool BTW), rebuilding everything landside including the roads, but now throw in the fact of all this elevation change and it sounds like a massive overrun waiting to happen

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Ben

Apr 21, 2019 at 12:23 am

AA once offered me a standard award LAX-XNA-LGA on CRJ700s. (https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=201709) I kindly declined that transcon option. For what its worth, that routing is now E175s on both legs. #WalmartExpress

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