Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged airports, business, competition, Merger Mania 2008, mergers, network airlines, regulation, united, us airways on April 28, 2008 | No Comments »
Now that Continental has turned down suitor United, the latter is weighing a desperation move: merging with US Airways to create the world’s new largest airline (surpassing Delta-Northwest, assuming that goes through). The airlines may announce a tie-up within the next fortnight. Therefore, it’s time for another Merger Mania 2008 antitrust evaluation.
As you’ll remember from [...]
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As expected, the British Competition Commission released its interim report on competitive effects of BAA’s ownership of several UK airports (accounting for more than 60 percent of UK travelers), including most of the capacity in greater London and lowland Scotland. The conclusion?
The CC is inclined to the view that common ownership of the BAA airports [...]
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I’m traveling this weekend, so cross your fingers that US Airways doesn’t need to pull its 737s out of service. But I’m flying out of Baltimore-Washington International tomorrow at 6 am. From Washington, there are no early-morning transit options on weekends, so I’m going up to the airport tonight and crashing there. For that, I [...]
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Benet Wilson writes that Chicago Rockford International Airport, an airport on Chicago’s far western fringe with limited commercial service, is going to partner with a charter airline (actually, a brand — Southern Skyways) to offer scheduled services to Denver and Detroit, the former to replace service United is withdrawing this summer. Rockford will control routes, [...]
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I was thinking recently about names of airports. The standard formula in the United States is to name an airport after its locality, and if there are multiple airports, to name it after a local personality or feature. A small proportion of our airports are named after truly national figures, unlike in Latin America or [...]
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Yes, this sounds like a good idea: start a low-fare carrier in an era of $100+ oil. Compound that brilliance by making it point-to-point only, but based at an airport with less than 285,000 enplanements in 2006 and a metro area of 300,000 people. Throw in the fact that even scheduled charter services masquerading as [...]
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As of March 5, according to new International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) rules, English proficiency is now be the required of all pilots and air traffic controllers. In the past, controllers and pilots could communicate in a local language if both spoke it, even though English was the most common standard. More than anything else, [...]
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Posted in Evan's Fiskings, tagged airports, europe on February 13, 2008 | 2 Comments »
If you build it, they will come.
This sort of wishful thinking too often infects policymakers seeking to improve and expand air travel systems. Sometimes, unfortunately, they choose the most expensive option: building an entirely new airport. As I’ve written earlier, this does not happen very often (at least not in developed countries, but check out [...]
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In an otherwise unremarkable editorial today, the Washington Post lets slip some factual and logical errors about airports.
The Post assails the Federal Transit Administration’s decision to put the kibosh on the long-planned extension of DC’s Metrorail system to Dulles International Airport. The only transit connections to DC’s major international airport are a bus line from [...]
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From the comments on this post: there’s a vigorous debate going on about whether some form of congestion would really reduce delays, given that flight schedules (for business travelers at rush or for international flights connecting to overseas hub banks at planned times) are not easily adjusted. But there’s another point I want to bring [...]
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