As I’ve written before, the failure of the FAA in the Southwest Airlines case and elsewhere seems to stem from a personnel problem. The safety inspection chain of command at the agency ignored and abetted an inspector who was consistently neglecting policies and procedures. This is not an indictment of the FAA’s collaborative approach to [...]
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Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged air traffic control, competition, congress, consumer advocacy, delays, faa, mergers, regulation, safety on February 7, 2008 | No Comments »
FAA administrator-designate (and current acting administrator) Robert “Bobby” Sturgell faced the Senate Commerce Committee for his confirmation hearing today, fielding harangues and questions from skeptical senators but offering little in the way of changes he would make at the FAA.
Sturgell is a former naval aviator (and Top Gun instructor), commercial airline pilot, aviation lawyer, and [...]
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Today I went to the confirmation hearing for Robert Sturgell, the acting administrator and administrator-designate of the Federal Aviation Administration. He received a tense reception by the committee, members of which berated him (rightly or wrongly) over air traffic controller morale and retirements, a passenger’s bill of rights, NextGen and air traffic control modernization, redesign [...]
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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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Very exciting news yesterday: the FAA has proposed amendments to a rule that will allow the most congested airports to adopt a modified form of congestion pricing. (You can–and should–read the full filing at regulations.gov and my take on congestion pricing at American.com.) I spent the evening reading over the rule, and I think it’s [...]
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Mike Boyd of the Boyd Group has released his 2008 airline industry predictions. Key among them: $100 oil will drive regional jets (RJs) to the desert graveyards sooner than expected; desperate “low-cost carriers” will need to cut capacity somehow; and “comprehensive network carriers” will need to improve their management of every minute. Boyd’s weekly commentaries, [...]
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The federal government has reached an agreement to cap flights at JFK. Here is the press release announcing the agreement. Let’s take a look at what the government is doing:
U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters today announced new measures to reduce airline delays over the holiday season and new actions designed to reduce [...]
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Posted in Evan's Fiskings, tagged aerospace, air traffic control, airports, competition, delays, network airlines, regulation, security, travel, usa, world on October 30, 2007 | No Comments »
Irwin Stelzer, a very intelligent commentator on economic issues, indulges too much air rage in his latest column. After running through a laundry list of typical air travel complaints, he reveals that his understanding of air traffic control funding, for example, is shaky:
Now consider the world’s airlines’ roles in all of this. They have by [...]
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The title above has nothing to do with inflight meals, unfortunately, and everything to do the airlines wanting to have their cake and eat it too in the congested airspace brouhaha (see yesterday’s post). There are several options the FAA is currently weighing to resolve the delay problem:
Charging more for slots at congested times of [...]
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Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged air traffic control, airports, competition, delays, faa, network airlines, regulation, tax, travel, usa on October 23, 2007 | No Comments »
Well, it’s been an exciting few days in the aviation policy world. I’ve been swamped with work at my day job, but I’ve been looking forward to this post for some time. Last Thursday, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters came much closer to endorsing a congestion-pricing plan for crowded airports than ever before. The next day, [...]
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