Posted in 1, tagged airports, delays, humor on July 24, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Gothamist calls it “almost certainly a Swiftian satire,” but there’s something striking about the Manhattan Airport Foundation’s “plan” to convert New York’s long underused Central Park into the closest in on close-in airports.
There are already aviation buffs out there saying “oh please, oh please” — if only to experience an approach that would rival runway [...]
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged airports, middle east/africa on February 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A new paper from the Center for International Private Enterprise at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce examines the development of the aviation sector in the Middle East and North Africa. (Thanks to colleague Mitch Boersma for passing this along.) Jawad Rachami points out that the region’s “share of global passenger traffic is expected to hover [...]
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged airports, humor, misc., travel on December 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Here’s a air-travel problem for the mathematically inclined:
Suppose you are trying to get from one end A of a terminal to the other end B. (For simplicity, assume the terminal is a one-dimensional line segment.) Some portions of the terminal have moving walkways (in both directions); other portions do not. Your walking speed is a [...]
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged airports, congress, dot, politics on December 11, 2008 | 1 Comment »
It’s pretty common knowledge that the United States has for years underinvested in “infrastructure” — from the power grid to physical plants to transportation — and thus one of the first priorities of the next administration should be to devote massive resources to repairing infrastructure. And I’m sure the commuter inching forward on a Dallas [...]
Posted in Evan's Reviews, tagged airports, competition, Deregulation 2.0 on December 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
On American.com today, I review Aviation Infrastructure Performance: A Study in Comparative Political Economy, edited by Clifford Winston and Gines de Rus. The book, which I highly recommend, includes several reviews of how other countries’ aviation infrastructure sectors have performed under varying levels of privatization — and what lessons could be learned for the United [...]
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged airports, competition, europe, network airlines on December 1, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The Financial Times reports on government findings that one-third of London Heathrow Airport’s passengers are on connecting flights, which magnifies “[t]he importance of the role that connecting passengers play at the UK’s busiest airport [that] has long been a source of conflict among campaigners for and against a third runway.” The issue is a hot [...]
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged airports, competition, Deregulation 2.0, europe, usa on December 1, 2008 | 3 Comments »
The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating item today (via the WSJ’s great new Middle Seat Terminal blog) on the vigorous competition emerging between Moscow’s two main international airports. I’d long read of the older, state-owned Sheremetyevo Airport as a hellish transportation hub with limited services, long lines for immigration, and oft-solicited bribes. Then, according [...]
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged air traffic control, airports, BAA, canada, competition, delays, Deregulation 2.0, dot, europe, faa, regulation, southwest, travel on October 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
My story in The American magazine is now up on its website. Here’s the lede: “Thirty years ago this October, the era of affordable mass air travel was unleashed. Why was this revolution stalled, and what can be done to finish it?”
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged airports, competition, congress, Deregulation 2.0, faa on October 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
From the blog of the Reason Foundation, the think tank with one of the country’s leading aviation policy programs. Key quote:
The main downside is that once the three remaining slots in the Pilot Program are filled, nobody else can privatize their airport—unless and until Congress expands that legislation. And that has to be seen as [...]
US Airways on perimeter restrictions at DCA, LGA
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged airports, congress, delays, us airways on March 25, 2009 | 2 Comments »
TEMPE — On most policy issues at the national level, airlines work through their trade association, ATA. Yesterday, I asked C. A. Howlett, US Airways senior VP for public affairs, about what issues he works on that the ATA does not get very involved in. “The biggest issue that is US Airways-specific is the Reagan [...]
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