I’m back from my vacation, well-rested and ready to dive back into aviation policy blogging. My flights to and from the West Coast were aboard Virgin America, which, despite the several operational kinks they have to work out, offers an in-flight coach experience equal to or better than anything else in the market. I owe [...]
Archive for July, 2008
Daily departures, back from the dead edition
Posted in Daily Departures on July 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Is The No-Fly List A Punishment Tool?
Posted in 1 on July 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today’s guest blogger is Benet Wilson, a reporter for Aviation Week/Aviation Daily and primary author of Towers and Tarmacs, a fantastic blog that allows her to share her unparalleled knowledge of airports and how they operate. Enjoy! –ES
I really appreciate Evan asking me to do a guest blog. I work from home 4 days [...]
Small City Air Service in Oregon
Posted in 1 on July 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
When Evan asked me to guest post, I was honored. On my blog, The Cranky Flier, I write broadly about airline travel but I don’t often get to dig in deep to look at policy issues. The more I thought about what to write, the more I kept coming back to the Bay [...]
Happy (con)trails
Posted in Daily Departures, tagged misc. on July 17, 2008 | Comments Off
I’m headed off to the West Coast for a week; in the meantime, a few of the aviation blogosphere’s top writers have graciously agreed to offer some policy perspectives in this space. I hope you enjoy their writing, and I’ll be back with you soon.
FAA safety reform bill exposes agency’s institutional schizophrenia
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged congress, dot, faa, regulation, safety, Southwest and the FAA on July 16, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Yesterday, Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) and three cosponsors introduced bipartisan legislation to ensure “arms-length” safety regulation of airlines by the FAA. The legislation comes as a result of the inspection debacle that took place this spring. During hearings on the subject, Oberstar repeatedly criticized what he called a “cozy” relationship between the FAA and the airlines [...]
FAA orders peak pricing . . . sort of
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged airports, delays, faa, regulation, travel, usa on July 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Over lunch today with Daniel Hall, we talked about the nation’s chronic underinvestment in infrastructure (and infrastructure maintenance). One of the key problems is what to do in the in-between time between our current system and our hypothetical, complete infrastructure Nirvana. The best way of allocating scarce transportation space — from highways to runways — [...]
The collar-color identity crisis of the airline pilot
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged labor on July 14, 2008 | 3 Comments »
As I was preparing this post, I noticed that Sean O’Neill at This Just In has written something similar. So, go read his work, then come back here for further reflections.
Commercial airline pilots: blue-collar or white-collar? Working class or middle class? (Never mind the fact that “working class” and “middle class” are swiftly becoming relics [...]
Kansas City weighs airport light rail
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged airports, transit, travel, usa on July 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
…and finds that it’s not really a local priority. “We have other issues that are far more compelling,” says visitors bureau president Rick Hughes. And little wonder: Kansas City is a low-density, sprawling, suburban city without a solid downtown residential core. Most people would have to drive to rail stations to use the system. Kansas [...]
“Stop Oil Speculation Now” won’t make oil cheaper
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged budget airlines, business, congress, energy, network airlines, regulation on July 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I’m going to resist the airline lobby’s link bait for their Stop Oil Speculation Now website (google it if you care), but the airline CEOs’ letter calling for passengers to lobby Congress for tighter regulation of oil futures “speculation” deserves some attention. The aviation blogosphere sees through this as the bad proposal it is (see [...]
And now a word about Secretary Peters
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged 2008, delays, Deregulation 2.0, dot, faa, regulation, travel on July 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Transportation Secretary Mary Peters usually gets a bad rap in aviation policy circles. Even though her professional background is in highways, she ought to be better versed in aviation than this or this suggests. But I am very unimpressed with her latest initiative, announced Tuesday in Atlanta: a comprehensive national transportation policy. It is based [...]
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