# Can Anyone Fix the Air-traffic System?



## MrFSS (May 13, 2008)

*Two Hundred Eighty One Million Hours.* According to George Donohue, a professor at George Mason University, that number —equivalent to 32,477 years! — represents the cumulative time passengers lost last year due to delays, canceled flights, diverted planes and denied-boarding situations.

Can the system be fixed?

Full story and info on a new book on the subject is *HERE*.


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## Green Maned Lion (May 13, 2008)

The question is, "should". Should a inherently inefficient, super-expensive, outrageously subsidized, enviromentally unfriendly form of transportation be kept around?


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## Joel N. Weber II (May 13, 2008)

I think air travel is always going to make sense for some routes, such as LAX to Honolulu.

I'm also not really convinced that Boston to Seattle in a sleeper on a hypothetical (but probably quite possible with the technology that's out there if taxpayers would pay for it) train that maxed out at 200 MPH and averaged 150 MPH uses substantially less energy per passenger than a first class seat on a plane averaging better than 300 MPH. A lot of what is inefficient about jet engine fuel economy is operating at low altitudes for takeoff and landing, and amortizing that over a large number of miles helps fuel economy, and when I take a Viewliner roomette, I'm probably taking up more than 5% of the revenue square footage of the car (which probably means that 5% of the weight of the Viewliner should be allocated to me), which is just not as efficient as coach where I'd be using something like 1.5% of a car.

However, if we move all the short haul passengers off planes and onto trains, it's quite possible that we'd suddenly have plenty of capacity for the planes that are actually worth operating in such an environment.


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## Green Maned Lion (May 14, 2008)

You ignore the enviromental unfriendliness of a plane that goes beyond its fuel economy!


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## saxman (Jun 20, 2008)

(Ok, this thread is a month old, but oh well.)

Flying is not THAT environmentally unfriendly. Maybe we should all stop driving too. Thats worse for the environment. Aviation and flying is going to be around for a long time, its not going anywhere. So why shouldn't we not improve the efficiency of it, just because some think it shouldn't be around? A lot needs to be done to improve the ATC system and operations in general. I see the inefficiencies all the time. But I also see the improvements. You can't ignore that airlines have done boatloads of things to save fuel. Engines have become quieter, and less of gas guzzlers over the years. And this year the first airliner is being tested on bio-diesel.


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## Green Maned Lion (Jun 21, 2008)

Its not that flying isn't needed. It is in some cases. Driving, based on the way we have set up our world in the past century or so, is required, as well. Its a matter of need versus want. For example, I know people who get into their cars and drive a mile to the local Wawa, purchase a gallon of milk, and drive home. There is no reason to do that. One can walk a mile to the local Wawa, purchase a gallon of milk, and walk home. Contrary wise, if one is driving a mile to the local FoodTown, purchasing a cart load of goods, and driving back, driving makes more sense. As the distance, number of people, and weight of load increase, so does the case for driving.

Flying has its place, certainly. For the majority of people, crossing the Atlantic ocean requires flying. Which is fine- its actually more efficient then taking a luxury cruise ship. Its not more efficient than taking a freighter- the marginal fuel use for your presence on the vessel would be so tiny that it would require a good calculator to display the decimal. My preference is the freighter.

If you are flying for business, the item in question, without exception, requires human face to face contact, the urgency of you being there is such that time is imperative, and the distance travelled means that the decrease in useful time from other methods is great (or even existent), then flying makes sense. For most flights people take, a video conference would suffice, to be honest with you. In fact, with the decreasing economy and flight availability, I think thats where a notable percentage of long-distance business flyers will go.

For business, if I need to get from New York to Los Angeles, with strong time sensitivity, and the need is non-contestable, there is no question of how one should travel. Flying, given our general current infrastructure (meaning, excluding the construction of massive high-speed rail lines), is frankly the only sane option. I wouldn’t, but I’m a kook.

However, lets say I need to get from New York to Chicago, ok? With government investment of half a billion dollars, Amtrak could easily field a train that makes that run in 15 hours- remember, the Pennsy and NYC did it in 14- overnight. Leaving work that evening, you board a restored _Broadway Limited_ at around 5:30. You eat dinner, perhaps work on some work via onboard wireless internet, and go to sleep, getting up at 6:30, showering, eating breakfast, and arriving in Chicago at 8:30, in enough time to get to your meeting. With this system, flying is unneeded. Think about it: the flight takes no less of your useful time. You sleep for 8-10 hours, it takes you about 2 hours to deal with meals. This train takes but 3-4 hours of your useful time.

I personally think we can take about half the business travellers out of the travel network entirely. They can use other methods of communication, other than face to face. I also think that with relatively higher-speed rail, we can take another 25% out of the system. By higher speed, I mean up to, say, 90% of what they ran 50 years ago. Vacationers can learn to, once again, enjoy the journey as much as the destination. We could wipe a good 50% of those out of the flight system, I think.

What will this do? First of all, using a train is more efficient, especially a really long train, than flying. This makes our travel more efficient. But secondly, it resolves the major problems with the airlines.

First of all, with a relatively cheaper to operate rail system offering fairs at, say, 20% more than currently operated, inexpensive travel needs are met. So the airlines can focus on offering decent service, reasonable schedules, and comfortable amenities at a price that actually reflects their costs plus a profit. Flying would become a luxury once again, at a price reflecting that.

Second, this will take a lot of flights out of the air, and reduce the need for the inefficient hub-and-spoke system. A flight schedule designed to cater to traffics realities can be offered. No longer will flights need to be scheduled at a frequent point-to-hub and frequent hub-to-point set up.

Lastly, the airports and jetways, with 60-70% of their traffic taken out of the air, will no longer be bursting at the seams. Airports can be better scheduled, flights better handled, take offs more orderly. Spare planes can be available in the event of mechanical failure. With the volume lower, most of the current problems in the industry simply go away.

Instead of ineptly concentrating our set up in planes and cars, we would have an overall system. Long distance Planes, luxury local express planes, High speed rail, slower overnight limited trains, local commuter and feeder trains, light-rail, subway, buses, and cars could, instead, become part of an overall system. The system’s purpose being to move as many people as needed as efficiently as possible.


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## George Harris (Jun 26, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> However, lets say I need to get from New York to Chicago, ok? With government investment of half a billion dollars, Amtrak could easily field a train that makes that run in 15 hours- remember, the Pennsy and NYC did it in 14- overnight. Leaving work that evening, you board a restored _Broadway Limited_ at around 5:30. You eat dinner, perhaps work on some work via onboard wireless internet, and go to sleep, getting up at 6:30, showering, eating breakfast, and arriving in Chicago at 8:30, in enough time to get to your meeting. With this system, flying is unneeded. Think about it: the flight takes no less of your useful time. You sleep for 8-10 hours, it takes you about 2 hours to deal with meals. This train takes but 3-4 hours of your useful time.


I think their best ever scheduled time was around 16 to 16.5 hours, which, however does not invalidate your concept.

The big fuel gulp of the airplane is getting up and getting down. That in itself will discourage short hauls at current fuel prices. If what is happening now had happened in say about 1960, there was still enough in the way of track and equipment to absorb a huge surge in passenger rail traffic with marginal additional costs. That is no longer the case.

We did not get into the mess we are in overnight and we will niot get out of it overnight. Those expecting a quick fix are doomed to dissapointment.

What I never did understand is why the Pennsylvania and New York Central neither one ever ran a fast day train, similar to the ICRR's city of New Orleans. Chicago to New Orleans in 16 hours, roughly 8:00 am to midnight southbound and 7:00 am to 11:00 pm northbound. At peak periods even into the early 60's it would get as long as 20 coaches north of Memphis, and never had less than at least about 10. Unfortunately, 19 hours is about all the route will support now.

It is interesting to watch how well the California supported train are doing in patronage, and that despite being able to get any fast run times anywhere except fairly decent down the valley. Supposedly both the FAA and several of the airline companies are looking fairly favorably toward the California High Speed because it will take away a lot of the short and medium haul people that are overwhelming the California airports, thereby opening up paths in and out for longer hauls.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Jun 27, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> However, lets say I need to get from New York to Chicago, ok? With government investment of half a billion dollars, Amtrak could easily field a train that makes that run in 15 hours- remember, the Pennsy and NYC did it in 14- overnight. Leaving work that evening, you board a restored _Broadway Limited_ at around 5:30. You eat dinner, perhaps work on some work via onboard wireless internet, and go to sleep, getting up at 6:30, showering, eating breakfast, and arriving in Chicago at 8:30, in enough time to get to your meeting. With this system, flying is unneeded. Think about it: the flight takes no less of your useful time. You sleep for 8-10 hours, it takes you about 2 hours to deal with meals. This train takes but 3-4 hours of your useful time.


Maybe we should start with the BOS to WAS problem. One of my coworkers refuses to take the 69MPH average train from BOS to WAS, and flies instead, though he's happy taking the train from BOS to NYP. You need to invest exactly $0 in track to put sleepers on the train formerly known as the Twilight Shoreliner.


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## Green Maned Lion (Jun 30, 2008)

Joel, just wondering, what do you do for a living?

There are costs besides money. Oppurtunity cost for one.


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## PRR 60 (Jul 1, 2008)

Joel N. Weber II said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > However, lets say I need to get from New York to Chicago, ok? With government investment of half a billion dollars, Amtrak could easily field a train that makes that run in 15 hours- remember, the Pennsy and NYC did it in 14- overnight. Leaving work that evening, you board a restored _Broadway Limited_ at around 5:30. You eat dinner, perhaps work on some work via onboard wireless internet, and go to sleep, getting up at 6:30, showering, eating breakfast, and arriving in Chicago at 8:30, in enough time to get to your meeting. With this system, flying is unneeded. Think about it: the flight takes no less of your useful time. You sleep for 8-10 hours, it takes you about 2 hours to deal with meals. This train takes but 3-4 hours of your useful time.
> ...


I don't think even that scenerio would work for most business travellers other than a railfan who wants to ride the train for the sake of it.

For BOS-WAS with a morning meeting, my preference would be to take an after dinner flight, sleep in a hotel room with a real bed, a real bathroom and a real shower, get in an early morning run or walk, have an actual breakfast, and then leisurely head to my distination. That is preferable to sleeping in a closet with a postage stamp bed that is moving, showering with a garden hose in a moving phone booth, having an Am-snack breakfast, and then sit and wait hoping the train gets there in time for me to make my meeting. From a business perspective, if Amtrak can't get you there in three to four hours, the train simply does not cut it.


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## Green Maned Lion (Jul 1, 2008)

PRR, with all due respect, you have mentioned you are a small guy. The economics of the situation change when you are nearly 6 feet tall, weigh close to 300 lbs, with a head most people would call huge, and shoulders so broad it manages to make it look small. Most people fall between us.

The larger you are, the less comfortable the flight.


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