This week’s featured link
Boeing’s MCAS on the 737 Max may not have been needed at all – The Air Current
This long read is outside The Air Current’s paywall. Any time that happens, there’s a good chance you’ll find me posting it here because it’s always so fascinating. Be warned, this may just make you mad at Boeing. Then again, what else is new?
Two for the road
CNN grounds Airport Network after 30 years, citing pandemic and streaming – Los Angeles Times
Great news! I like how they call this a “beloved” brand. I don’t know anyone who liked this. Airports are noisy enough, and this just added to the madness.
Could Charter Jet Service at John Wayne Airport Be Revived? – Voice of OC
It’s the new year, and JSX is still flying from Orange County… but only thanks to a temporary ruling. Here’s an update on that fight.
24 comments on “3 Links I Love: MCAS Not Needed, CNN Airport Network Dies, JSX at Orange County”
CNN Airport will not be missed solely because it adds partisan noise into an environment where no one is lacking for connection with the rest of the world and where airports need to be more peaceful and calm and not where passengers have to talk over the TV, regardless of what content is on it.
CNN Airport network is being turned off. FAKE NEWS!
CNN’s biased network channels were very obvious to myself and the C Suite of the company I work with; we were in the Bahamas waiting for our flight (with CNN on) and they were talking about the Charlottesville riots/protests and what not. Imagine all of our surprises once we got back to the US and, while watching CNN, it was a 10000% different spin. I’m not sure if that was CNN International or Airport Network, but it was just mind blowing to hear the completely different style of reporting and even “spin” on it.
I’m not a fan of any news network – be it CNN, MSNBC, Fox, RT, etc — I always hate seeing it on while in an airport lounge (or gate area) & would always try to change the channel. Even my friends who work in bars hate having ANY news on – just gets people riled up.
I definitely will not miss the absence of CNN’s Airport Network, though it seems that more and more airports and public places with TVs on are turning on the closed captions and muting the TVs, which is nice.
I can usually find an area to wait in an airport where my thoughts don’t have to compete with the audio coming from a TV, but in the event that I cannot (or if I am in a medical waiting room or a place like that where I can’t escape the noise pollution from a TV that no one appears to be watching), I have a little keychain device (“TV-B-Gone”) that can be surreptitiously used to turn off most TVs. Well worth the investment if you find unmuted TVs in public as obnoxious as I do, though again I do my best to avoid using it by walking to another area, and won’t use it if people appear to be actively watching the TV.
Glad CNN Airport Network is gone. Now they just need to get rid of the business travelers that talk so loud into their phone that the entire terminal can hear their conversation.
I think the pandemic has for the most part taken away that problem. It’s the annoying tourists taking selfees, talking so loudly you can hear them a mile away & they want you to – they are the real issue.
I have always wanted (but have always been too polite) to walk right up next to a person talking way too loudly on a cell phone in a public place, pull out my phone, and pretend to have a call with a friend in which I quite loudly discuss a gross medical condition in lurid detail, then proceed to follow Loud Talker around the terminal when they try to get away from me.
Did I mention that noise-cancelling headphones help keep me sane? ;-)
Kilroy
Your example is why the FAA is SO wise in banning cell phone voice calls in flight. Could you imagine sitting in the middle seat between two loud talkers?
I am sure if Dante were alive, that would be a new circle of hell for his inferno! :)
I have done something like that, a few years ago. It wasn’t a guy yapping into his phone, but some ignorant business traveler (based on suit) sitting in a lounge and watching a movie on his laptop with sound coming out of the speakers, for everyone in the lounge to “enjoy”. Stinky eyes from other travelers didnt do anything.
There was no real way to escape the noise (small lounge) but some empty seats near the guy. So I walked over and sat down right next to him. Pulled out my cellphone and started to call imaginary for conversations. Took about a minute for him to realize what message I was trying to send.
Sadly, active noise cancelling headphones aren’t designed to cut out conversations or screaming kids. They muffle them, and if you have music playing, it might be okay, but they don’t restore peace and tranquility.
Good riddance to CNN at airports everywhere! Noisy, annoying and – over the past several years in particular – biased and partisan cramming of a one-sided opinion onto a captive audience. It’s demise is the best news of the week.
You haven’t lived until it is on a direct feed into your work area… AccuWeather too.
Wow I never realize CNN airport was a thing.
But for everyone who doesn’t like isn’t it more likely they just replace it with the regular CNN feed or HLN?
Don’t think they would as they might have stories inappropriate for airports (plane crash stories or material not suitable for children).
Cranky, The portion of today’s post, re: CNN Airport TV. You should have said what you said and made it the sole subject of your post Add in a lead comment, certainly not unexpected, by who else, one with which I agree in part, maybe not in full, the comment section might have gone off the charts.
But, as usual, I have no data, or none from known experts, on none that can withstand full and proper analysis. So, I retreat to reading my morning digital edition of the Washington Post.
Wishing you and family a Happy New Year!
No one was ever forced to watch CNN Airport Network. It was almost impossible to hear anyway. As for Boeing, its employees are human. No company is pefect. The Max is now one of the most scrutinized aircraft in the sky. I’ll take one anytime with confidence. People make mistakes. People can also fix them. If I had a dollar for every mistake I’ve ever made, I’d make Bill Gates look like a pauper.
Wow, we can tell what side of the fight the OC writer is on. JSX is a “high-end charter jet service?” Really? Does the writer even understand what JSX is?
And then the reference to JSX’s “unusual arrangement” where they can fly out of the FBO. I guess in OC “unusual” means like most every other US airport.
Good bye and good riddance CNN at airports. 20 years ago when CNN wasn’t partisan, it was nice to be able to catch up on the news of the world while switching planes or waiting for a flight. But it’s been an annoyance for some time now and glad to see it’s going to end. Whatever the airports select going forward, give us the news and we’ll form our own opinions.
Less cable news being pumped into our lives is a positive! Everything thing the news networks have on is negative, the world needs less negativity. CNN is among the worst with the constant countdowns and counters on every screen prominently displaying how many covid cases and deaths there are…nothing like instilling fear into the populace like a constant barrage of negative information.
It’s worth noting that CNN, which developed the concept of 24 hr cable news, is now #3 out of the big 3 cable news networks. They can claim the pandemic but CNN’s own poor financial performance is forcing CNN owner AT&T through Warner Media to figure out what to do with CNN.
The airport channel’s need for custom content made it expensive to produce.
Not sure if this has been brewing for a while but the new SLC terminal does not have CNN Airport while in DTW it fills monstrous displays in the gate houses (at least in concourse A which DL uses). You can rip out TVs hanging from the ceiling but those massive screens in DTW have some real marketing value. Not sure if CNN paid for those or the airport.
Not sure if your concern, or that of other commenters, here is about airports showing a channel of TV news, or just that the channel is a CNN one? Would you be as concerned if that channel were Fox Business, Fox News, Bloomberg, MSNBC, CNBC, or the local ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, PBS, or independent over-the-air channel.? How about if the channel were devoted to sports, like ESPN, or one run by the local tourist bureau, or one about travel, nature and wildlife, history, comedy, music, cartoons, shopping, investing, religion, you name it?
Love to see a channel at Hartsfield that loops (odd hours): “Next time, Fly American!” or, (even hours): “Next time, Fly United!”
For me, just remove the monitors. If they must stay, I suppose they could be turned over to TSA for public information.
I think the world is better off without any TVs in public, confined, high stress areas. You can’t find any channel that pleases everyone. and few actually want the noise. Close-captioning channels that put all kinds of content on the screen doesn’t work.
I merely noted that CNN is financially struggling so the notion that this is all about the pandemic is only partially true.
“CNN is financially struggling” – got something to back up that claim?
Seems they have been doing okay last year as far as viewers are concerned
https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/network-ratings-2020-top-channels-fox-news-cnn-msnbc-cbs-1234866801/
“While everyone else braces to see how low they can go, the three major news cablers had a glorious year. No surprise, as the election, pandemic and movement for racial justice gave audiences plenty of reason to tune in. And they did: Fox News was up 43%, MSNBC climbed 23% and CNN jumped 83%. Fox News was even a top 10 network in adults 18-49, despite its older skew, while CNN was up a whopping 95 percent in that demo. Meanwhile, CNN had its most-watched prime time ratings ever in 2020 with both total viewers and the key 25-54 news demo.”
They are probably still behind Fox (though I think their numbers have dropped this year), but I’d like to see some data supporting your claim.
For the record, I stopped subscribing to cable TV years ago and don’t watch any of the three major cable news networks. My favorite TV news source is PBS, coming to my TVs over the air.
I will agree with you that we have way too many TVs in public spaces. I generally avoid restaurants that have TVs. Our world is too noisy and distracting as it is.
Disregard last email