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• Ryanair looking at standing “seats,” pay toilets (thestar.com)
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• Airline Floats Plans for Standing-Room Fares (abcnews.go.com)
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• Ryanair to sell standing room only tickets for £4… funded by charging passengers to use the toilet (dailymail.co.uk)

(Source: The Pew Center on Global Climate Change)

Click the image to access a summery of the report

I came across this excellent report, Aviation and Marine Transportation: GHG Mitigation Potential and Challenges, via an article on Washington Post and felt compelled to share with you all.   This report published by The Pew Center on Global Climate Change examines growth projections for emissions from both aviation and marine transportation and options to reduce those emissions.  Aviation and marine transportation combined are responsible for approximately 5 percent of total GHG emissions in the United States and 3 percent globally and are among the fastest growing modes in the transportation sector. Under business-as-usual forecasts, CO2 emissions from global aviation are estimated to grow 3.1 percent per year over the next 40 years, resulting in a 300 percent increase in emissions by 2050.International marine transportation emissions are estimated to grow by 1 to 2 percent per year, increasing by at least 50 percent over 2007 levels by 2050. Controlling the growth in aviation and marine transportation GHG emissions will be an important part of reducing emissions from the transportation sector.

According to the press release, the report explores a  range of near-, medium- and long-term mitigation options that are available to slow the growth of energy consumption and GHG emissions from aviation and marine shipping. These options include improvements in operational efficiency, improvements in the energy efficiency of engines and the design of air and marine vessels, and transitioning to less carbon-intensive fuels and transportation modes. Implementation of these options could result in reductions of more than 50 percent below BAU levels by 2050 from global aviation and more than 60 percent for global marine shipping. For these reductions to be realized, however, international and domestic policy intervention is required. Developing an effective path forward that facilitates the adoption of meaningful policies remains both a challenge and an opportunity.

“Aviation and marine shipping are two of the fastest growing modes of transportation,” said Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.  “Their greenhouse gas emissions are growing rapidly as well. To protect the climate, we need to reduce emissions across the entire economy. Aviation and marine shipping are part of the climate problem, and this report shows that they can be part of the solution.”

Aviation and Marine Transportation: GHG Mitigation Potential and Challenges also examines policy options for achieving reductions in GHG emissions from these transportation modes. The paper, authored by David McCollum and Gregory Gould of the University of California at Davis and David Greene from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, explains the challenges, examines policy efforts to date, and explores both domestic and international policy options for addressing emissions from aviation and marine transportation.

Key sections of the paper include:

• An introduction to aviation and marine transportation and a discussion of the determinants of their GHG emissions;
• An overview of current emissions trends and growth projections;
• An explanation of the technological mitigation options and potential GHG emission reductions; and
• Policy options at both the domestic and international level to achieve deep and durable reductions in emissions.

Click here to access the Pew Center’s website or click here to download the entire PDF report.

(Source: PR News Wire)

Yesterday Southwest announced at its annual Media Day a “green plane,” an innovative idea that marries efficiency, environmentally responsible products, Customer comfort, and reduced waste and weight. This plane, a Boeing 737-700, will serve as a test environment for new environmentally responsible materials and Customer comfort products.  All of the initiatives being tested on this Green Plane, when combined, will equate to a weight savings of almost five pounds per seat, thus saving fuel and reducing emissions, along with adding recyclable elements to the cabin interior and reducing waste.

“Southwest is committed to continuing to lead the industry in emissions reductions through fuel efficiency. Efficiency in fuel consumption benefits our Company as well as the environment, and this has been part of our business model since the beginning,” said Gary Kelly, Southwest’s Chairman, President, and CEO. “As we look to the future, we know climate change remains of vital importance to our industry, our Company, and our Customers, so Southwest works hard every day in every area to be a responsible steward of the environment.”

Southwest has designated one aircraft to serve as a test for eco-friendly products, which include:

• InterfaceFlor Carpet – reduces labor and material costs because it is laid in carpet squares, thus eliminating the total replacement of areas such as aisles. The carpet is totally recyclable and the manufacturing process is dedicated to being completely carbon neutral.
• Seat covers – offers more than twice the durability than the current leather seats as well as a weight savings per seat of almost two pounds. They are recyclable and have an environmentally- friendly manufacturing process.
• Life Vest Pouch – more environmentally friendly because it offers a weight savings of one pound per passenger. The smaller pouch creates more room under the seat for carryon items.
• Foam Fill – A lighter weight fill from Garnier PURtec in the back of the seats that reduces weight while providing increased customer comfort.
• Wind Screen – bulkhead product that lasts longer than the current leather product, thus reducing labor costs and waste.
• Aisle Rub Strips – switching from plastic to aluminum will help with durability, which reduces waste, as well as being recyclable.

In addition to the green plane, Southwest also announced the Nov. 1 kickoff of its more robust onboard recycling program, which is a co-mingled system that will allow the airline to capture more recyclable material and divert it from the waste stream. This 18-month process involved team work from all areas of the Company to implement the program on the ground at its Provisioning Bases and re-working of waste collection procedures in the cabin. The following are what Southwest calls “Doing the Right Thing”, published on their website:

Recycling And Waste Recovery: Southwest is implementing a more robust, systemwide recycling program. This systemwide co-mingled recycling program will take our current recycling efforts to the next level. By identifying opportunities to reduce, eliminate, or recover energy from our waste streams, we improve our waste management efficiencies and divert a substantial amount of material from landfills.

Water Conservation: Water is one of our most valuable resources and reducing our consumption is important to Southwest Airlines. We implement water savings ideas, including low flow water saving plumbing, auto shutoff water faucets, meeting LEED™ standards for efficient water use at new facilities, landscaping with native and drought-tolerant plants, and recycling the water used in our engine wash program. Along with reducing our water use, it is important that we keep water sources pure and support pollution prevention by reducing the chance of contamination.

Energy Savings: We are committed to pursuing Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED™) standards in new construction. By taking steps to reduce the amount of energy we consume, and to purchase our energy from renewable resources. We are proud to be a member of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Leadership Club for our purchase of renewable energy credits.

Noise Reduction: Southwest strives to be a good neighbor in every community we serve. We have taken steps to mitigate noise by ensuring our entire fleet meets current aircraft noise standards. The addition of our winglets and engine modifications have yielded a quieter aircraft that creates less noise when taking off and landing, plus our Pilots typically use noise abatement procedures that enable us to minimize noise impact in communities near the airports we serve.

Click here to read more. Also, click here for an interesting Green Plane FAQ published on the airline’s website.

(Source:  XKCD via Gizmodo)

The very first comment on Gizmodo for this article says ” The TSA checkpoints are staffed primarily by those who were under-qualified to seat people at IHOP”.. Damnnn! TSA should take a note of this soon and get on some image/brand control. BTW, I love this site XKCD, which identifies itself correctly as the webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. They sure got some really awesome stuff that will make you chuckle!

(Source: NPR)

NPR’s three part special series titled ” Flight Mechanics: The Business of Airline Repairs” examines the industry practices to cut costs and how they  are battling to survive the economic downturn.  The short blurb of the special report says “Recent maintenance mistakes raise questions about a growing practice at U.S. airlines: Since an economic crisis began shaking the industry in 2002, most major airlines have stopped repairing and overhauling most of their own planes. Instead, they are sending the planes to be fixed for less money by private repair companies — often in developing countries.” Here is an (Text and Audio) excerpt from Part 2 of the three-part series.

———————————————————————————————–

“Shortly before sunrise on Jan. 23, 2009, passengers on US Airways Flight 518, who were flying from Omaha to Phoenix, were startled by a terrifying shriek.

The pressure seal around the main cabin door was failing, and that shriek was the sound of air leaking through. The plane diverted to Denver. Everybody was safe.

In the weeks before the door seal started to fail, US Airways had sent that Boeing 737 to be overhauled at Aeroman, a repair company in El Salvador. And mechanics installed a key part on the door — a “snubber” — backward.

Source: FAA Inspector General, Aeronautical Repair Station Association Credit: NPR

But that was before 2002 — when US Airways filed for bankruptcy, American Airlines slashed flights, and other airlines teetered at the brink. Since then, airlines have been trying to survive by cutting back on any expenses they can control — including the little bags of peanuts.

One of the biggest areas airlines can cut costs is maintenance. Consider this: If an airline fixes its own planes in the U.S., it spends up to $100 per hour for every union mechanic, including overhead and other expenses, according to industry analysts. The airline spends roughly half as much at an independent, nonunion shop in America. And it spends only a third as much in a developing country, such as El Salvador.

Since the airline crisis hit seven years ago, the statistics have flip-flopped: The industry is now sending most of its planes to be overhauled and fixed at private repair shops both in the U.S. and overseas. And roughly 20 percent of planes are going to facilities in developing countries, according to industry surveys.

Industry analysts say there are roughly 700 FAA-approved repair companies in other countries — including repair shops in Argentina, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Kenya, China and Indonesia. The Aeroman company in El Salvador is becoming one of the more popular, drawing business from US Airways, JetBlue, Frontier, Southwest and other U.S. carriers.

The way the system works, the airlines fly empty planes needing an overhaul to Aeroman’s hangars at the international airport near the capital, San Salvador. Salvadoran mechanics strip the inside of the plane down to the bare metal. They fix cracks and rust and bad wiring. Then they put everything back together, and the plane is flown back to the U.S.

When people hear that U.S. airlines are getting their planes fixed in developing countries, they often raise their eyebrows and ask, “Should I worry?”

—————————————————————————————————-

Part I – To Cut Costs, Airlines Send Repairs Abroad: Recent malfunctions affecting US Airways planes raise questions about a controversial and growing practice at most U.S. airlines: The industry is sending almost 1 out of every 5 planes needing overhaul or repair to developing countries, from Central America to Asia.

Part II – Crossed Wires: Flaws In Airline Repairs Abroad: Mechanics have made some mistakes fixing US Airways planes at an FAA-approved facility in El Salvador. Industry executives and the FAA say the maintenance work is just as safe as any work done in the U.S. But airlines and the FAA don’t make maintenance problems public.

Part III – Bucking Trend, Airline Keeps Repairs In-House: As many major U.S. airlines shift their repair and maintenance work to outside firms, American Airlines is taking a different approach. The airline has its own crew of 6,000 mechanics based in Tulsa, Okla., who service its fleet and even contract for outside business.

Click here to read/listen the entire series. Don’t forget to check the interactive map while you are reading the special report.

(Source: Esquire)

In a brilliant article, Esquire’s Brian Mockenhaupt goes deep into the world of UAVs (aka Drones) and those who operate them for the US military.   Here are some interesting excerpts from this lengthy, 5-page article, which is a MUST READ material if you are a tech junkie or an aviation nut..

Image Courtesy: Esquire - Dan Winters: The Predator's big brother, the Reaper, is a third bigger, flies three times as fast, and carries a much bigger payload

At this very moment, at any given moment, three dozen armed, unmanned American airplanes are flying lazy loops over Afghanistan and Iraq. They linger there, all day and all night. When one lands to refuel or rearm, another replaces it. They guard soldiers on patrol, spy on Al Qaeda leaders, and send missiles shrieking down on insurgents massing in the night. Add to those the hundreds of smaller, unarmed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles being flown over the two countries by the Army, the Marines, and coalition countries, and a handful of missile-laden planes owned by the Central Intelligence Agency circling above Pakistan. Efficient and effective, the planes have fast become indispensable assets, transforming today’s battlefields just as profoundly as the first airplanes transformed warfare during World War I.

Every so often in history, something profound happens that changes warfare forever. Next year, for the first time ever, the Pentagon will buy more unmanned aircraft than manned, line-item proof that we are in a new age of fighting machines, in which war will be ever more abstract, ever more distant, and ruthlessly efficient.

The Air Force now has 138 Predators and 36 Reapers. The military’s overall UAV inventory has swollen to seven thousand, from hand-launched Ravens to jet-powered Global Hawks, which can fly twelve miles high and monitor a swath the size of Kentucky in a day. And the revolution has just begun. Within the next twenty years, the Air Force envisions unmanned planes launching tiny missiles in hypertargeted strikes, swarms of bug-sized UAVs, and squadrons of networked unmanned fighters, bombers, and tankers, many of which will fly autonomously. And the enemy will have unmanned planes, too. More than forty countries currently fly them. In February, an American F-16 shot down an Iranian drone flying over Iraq. And Hezbollah has used them to spy on Israel and attack a ship during fighting in 2006. They can be built cheaply, with off-the-shelf software and hardware, a natural progression for insurgents who have been building increasingly sophisticated bombs.

Much of the U.S. Air Force Predator and Reaper fleet for Afghanistan is maintained out of a small cluster of buildings and tents next to the runway at Kandahar Airfield. It is here that I saw the planes up close for the first time. Where fighter jets are at once sleek and muscled, these planes look emaciated. Rap a knuckle on a rib cage and hear the hollow reply. It’s hard to see how this is the plane that’s revolutionizing warfare. Perched on twiggy landing gear, it looks less like a piece of deadly, cutting-edge military hardware than an oversized version of the windup balsa-wood planes boys build from kits. Twenty-seven feet long, with a forty-nine-foot wingspan, the Predator weighs just twelve hundred pounds without fuel or missiles. A four-cycle snowmobile engine mounted in the rear propels it with a high-pitched whine. The Reaper, a third bigger than the Predator, seems far sturdier, and with a larger engine it flies at three hundred miles per hour, three times faster. The next generation will be jet-powered with a three-thousand-pound payload. Yet even the wispy Predator has a menacing quality. Glass-bubbled cockpits remind us that man controls the killing machine.

The planes are also much cheaper to buy and fly. A Predator costs about $4 million and a Reaper $11 million, half as much as an F-16, one of the Air Force’s workhorses. In Iraq and Afghanistan, jets and UAVs are often called on for similar missions that support ground troops. The drones can’t do strafing runs or intimidate with a low, fast, ear-splitting flyover, but they use a fraction of the resources, a moped instead of a monster truck. F-16’s, which fly in pairs for safety, burn about a thousand gallons of fuel an hour. At that rate, they can stay over a target for about an hour before they must swap out with other planes or fill up at an aerial tanker. A Predator carries a hundred gallons of fuel with which it can stay aloft for twenty-four hours. As the Air Force likes to point out, a bomb from an F-16 killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but the final strike against the Iraqi insurgent leader came after Predators had gathered six hundred hours of surveillance footage in the hunt for him and his associates. Keeping two F-16’s in the air that long would require about 120 tanker trucks’ worth of fuel.

Although they have never set foot in Afghanistan, Nelson and Anderson make effective counterinsurgents. They have spent hours watching the same roads, the same villages, the same people. “You gradually gain a better understanding of who they are and how they live,” Nelson says. He felt the same during his Mormon mission to the Dominican Republic, after his sophomore year at the Air Force Academy. For two years he walked or rode his bike on unpaved roads through villages and talked to people twelve hours a day. There he saw homes made of coffee cans and palm fronds. Now he gazes at houses made of mud bricks. To balance out the lack of human interaction, he has taken Afghanistan-familiarization courses offered by the Air Force. “You can picture them more as a people and a civilization,” he says.

Indeed, they see many things meant to be secret, like men having sex with sheep and goats in the deep of night. I first heard this from infantry soldiers and took it as rumor, but at Bagram I met a civilian contractor who works in UAV operations. “All the time,” he said. “They just don’t think we can see them.” Which sums up a major allure of UAVs: Though they should know better by now, many insurgents still feel safe working in darkness or in the shelter of distant mountains and valleys, so they are exposed again and again. The unmanned planes have eroded their freedom of movement and simple early-warning systems, two of their few assets when outmatched in weapons, technology, and resources. Helicopters can be heard a mile or more away. Spotters watch vehicles leave bases and follow the slow advance of dismounted patrols. Surprise is a rarity for U. S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The insurgents almost always know they’re coming, with at least several minutes’ notice. So they toss weapons behind a rock and become, in an instant, civilians. But with a camera parked three miles overhead, last-minute subterfuge doesn’t work.

Enter the Betas, the future armchair fighter jocks. The Air Force is now training a first-ever test group brought straight into the Predator program. After six months of screening and basic flight instruction, the Betas started a nine-week initial qualification course at Creech, the same taken by pilots, which includes forty hours in a simulator and nine or more actual flights. The eight Beta students were still in the academics phase when I visited Creech, but the nonpilots, who came from jobs like military police, civil engineering, and acquisitions, had so far performed as well as trained pilots, Gersten says. For this type of work, how they grew up might be more important than whether they’ve logged a thousand hours flying supersonic. “This generation, where were they when 9/11 started? They were in junior high and high school,” Gersten says. “And they grew up with the very technology that we fly with here.” Those who dreamed of being fighter pilots might never get the chance as the skies unman, but America’s pool of gamers, texters, and TV watchers is certainly vast and deep. The Betas’ progress is being closely tracked by the Pentagon, which can build plenty of planes if it has the people to fly them.

Click here to read more.

(Source: CNN)

We have all heard numerous stories about the bad treatment meted out to passengers by the airline staff and airline managements around the country. Among many such stories, one recent incident got a lot of scrutiny and prompted Government action.   On August 8, Continent ExpressJet 21816 enroute to Minneapolis from Houston,  with 47 passengers onboard was left waiting for clearance overnight on a tarmac in Rochester, Minnesota.

As the hours — going on six of them — passed, he said the air in the ExpressJet for Continental Airlines cabin grew rank. The two babies on board cried. The toilet filled and stopped flushing. No food was served and the puddle-jumper seats made sleep, for him, impossible. All the while, the airport was visible from the plane.

The much-publicized story of Flight 2816, diverted to Rochester because of bad weather while en route to Minneapolis from Houston, Texas, has brought to the forefront a growing demand to institute passenger rights.

Advocacy groups are fielding calls, gathering momentum and preparing for a September 22 hearing in Washington. One organization recently bought cable television ad time hoping to reach President Obama on his vacation and earn his support, just as a bill to protect fliers from such incidents heads to the Senate floor.

Since the Rochester incident, there have been other tarmac strandings. Passengers on a Sun Country Airlines flight were trapped for about six hours on August 21 while at JFK International Airport in New York. That prompted the airline’s CEO to announce last week a four-hour maximum deadline for tarmac sittings, Minnesota’s Star Tribune reported. The first “massive tarmac stranding” to spark outcries and stir up calls for legislation came in January 1999, said Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition. That was when about 3,500 passengers were trapped during a snowstorm for up to 13 hours on Michigan’s Detroit Metro Airport tarmacs, he said.

The 2007 Valentine’s Day crisis involving JetBlue flights, which included strandings of up to 10 hours at JFK International, in Mitchell’s opinion eventually cost the then-CEO his job.  A couple of months before that mess, Kate Hanni was one of the passengers caught up in a December 2006 storm fallout in Texas that left her and her family on an Austin, Texas, tarmac for more than nine hours.

“People miss funerals, weddings, cruise ships, business meetings — it has an impact on their lives,” said Hanni, whose outrage about that air travel experience pushed her create FlyersRights.org.

“And it’s not just a customer service issue,” she continued, mentioning overflowing toilets and people with diabetes or other medical conditions. “It’s about safety, dignity and well-being.”

In late July, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee passed the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act, which includes the Airline Passengers Bill of Rights, first written in 2007 by Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-California, and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. The FAA reauthorization bill will next move to the Senate for consideration.

Calling attention to the frustrations of flying is what Hanni, 49, is all about. If someone phones while trapped on a tarmac, she’ll start ringing the airline and airport managers, demanding help. If the response she gets is insufficient, she threatens and is poised to call media. Since the Rochester incident earlier this month, she said she’s been interviewed more than 50 times.

In June, 278 airplanes sat on tarmacs for more than three hours, according to a consumer report released by the DOT. The department’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows that 42 of the June flights sat on tarmacs for four hours or more.

Click here to read the entire article.

TransportGooru Musings: If you are one of the poor souls who was stuck for hours inside a metal tube, sign the petition and join teh crusaders in the fight for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights (via flyersrights.org) .
http://www.petitiononline.com/airline/petition.html

(Sources contributing to this hybrid report: Washington Post; Business Week; Bloomberg)

Boeing Co. said Thursday its long-delayed 787 jetliner will be ready for its maiden test flight by year’s end and its first delivery in the fourth quarter next year.

The initial flight of the next-generation plane, built for fuel efficiency with lightweight carbon composite parts, was originally slated for the fall of 2007. But production problems delayed the passenger jet five times and first deliveries are more than two years behind their original schedule.

After so many false starts, airline customers have grown irritated and analysts skeptical of the company’s timetables for the 787. Billions of dollars in penalties and expenses are expected from the delays, and they’ve hurt the Chicago company’s credibility.

Boeing postponed the new composite-plastic plane for the fifth time June 23, saying no new schedule could be given until it decided how to reinforce sections where the wings join the body after tests revealed unexpected stresses. Boeing has lost about half its market value since the 787’s first delay in October 2007, hurt by parts shortages, defects, redesigns and incomplete work from vendors. Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney has said the company let down customers on its most successful sales campaign ever.

With the 787, Boeing has taken a new approach to building airplanes, relying on overseas suppliers to build huge sections of the plane that are later assembled at the company’s commercial aircraft plant near Seattle.

But ill-fitting parts and other problems have hampered production. The latest delay came in June, when the company said it needed to reinforce areas close to where the wings and fuselage join.

There are 850 of the jets on order even after airlines canceled 73 this year. Boeing is using lightweight composites, instead of aluminum, and more electrical power to increase fuel efficiency on the Dreamliner. The planes have an average price of $178 million.

Boeing also pushed back its production plans today, saying it will ramp up to building 10 Dreamliners a month in late 2013 rather than 2012. The 787-9 version will be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2013, executives said on the call. Chief Financial Officer James Bell said in July he was reviewing whether the setbacks had pushed costs above expected revenue in a certain block of sales, which would produce a reach-forward loss.

Engineers are completing the design for the reinforcements of sections along the top of the wing and will begin installing the parts within the next few weeks, Boeing said.

The company and some analysts say the 787 will eventually will prove a financial and technological success.   But Wall Street remains skeptical. The company’s stock price jumped the most since December in New York trading after saying it still expects the 787 Dreamliner program to be profitable following a $2.5 billion third-quarter charge for the delayed plane.  Boeing rose $3.30, or 6.9 percent, to $51.12 at 10:18 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares earlier climbed 9.3 percent, the biggest intraday jump since Dec. 8.

The 787 is Boeing’s first all-new jetliner since the 777, which airlines began flying in 1995.

(Source: USA Today)

A marked decrease in airline travel has made this summer the smoothest in years for fliers accustomed to lengthy delays and snarled traffic.  Overall, it has been a remarkably pleasant summer season for air travelers, who had gotten used to big delays this time of year.

The aviation system is suffering significantly fewer delays than the past two years, according to government data and aviation experts. The lengthiest delays — which cause people to miss connecting flights and trigger the most havoc — are down even more steeply. In May, June and July, delays longer than two hours dropped by more than 25% compared with 2008 and 2007, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The nation’s aviation system is still far from immune to thunderstorms, congestion and unexpected problems: Several jets in recent months were stranded on the ground for hours, prompting angry complaints by passengers. New York’s three airports, which remain more clogged than average, continue to drag down performance across the country, the data show.

Overall, traffic at large airports is down 9% this year compared with last, according to the FAA. Airline restructuring in recent years has been so drastic that airports such as Pittsburgh and St. Louis have seen traffic drop by as much as two-thirds, turning them into veritable airport ghost towns amid the economic downturn. Here are some interesting highlights from the USA Today article.

• There has also been a 9 percent decreaes in overall traffic at large airports, thanks to the high prices of fuel last year and the economic downturn. That trend is expected to continue through Labor Day, when approximately 3.5 percent fewer people are expected to fly compared to last year.
• Cincinnati, which had more than 500,000 arrivals and departures in 2003, is on pace for fewer than 200,000 this year.
• Of the nation’s busiest 31 airports, only two have not improved through June this year compared with a year earlier, according to the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International, one of the few airports that has not seen a significant decline in flights, and Newark Liberty International, plagued by that region’s congestion, saw slight increases in delays, according to the data.
• The biggest improvement in on-time performance occurred at O’Hare. Last year through June, only 61% of flights arrived on time at O’Hare. This year, 78% arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival times.

Click here to read the entire article.

Foreword: TransportGooru is thankful to Mr. Glenn Havinoviski, a great supporter and an occasional editorial contributor (See Glenn’s Career profile below) for this review.  Recently, Glenn traveled from Washington, DC to San Antonio for a business event.  Enroute , he was updating his LinkedIn.com status message which read “Glenn is attending the ITE meeting in San Antonio this week! And typing this while enjoying inflight wi-fi (free for now)…..”  In a few minutes of this update, I wrote to him asking if he would like to write a review of this in-flight service and he gladly agreed and offered to send his review upon return.  As promised, Glenn promptly sent his input and TransprtGooru is glad to share that with all of you.  Upon reading, please register your comments so that Glenn will get to know what you all thought of his review.

Review by: Glenn Havinoviski

Delta has been redeeming themselves lately with their competitive fares (compared to United) out of Washington Dulles Airport, an advantage slightly tarnished by the chronic delays and crowding at their hub in Atlanta. They are now entering the 21st Century thanks to their embracing of Internet access.

THE HISTORY

Wi-fi in the sky is not new. About 5 years ago, Lufthansa tried mid-air Internet access with the Connexion service by Boeing on 66 of its 80 long-range jets, on occasion even handing out one-hour-free cards at the gate in Frankfurt or on the plane. Of course, on an 8-hour flight, that only gets you so far. I recall it was about $18 per flight if you wanted it the whole time. The service, which worked well the times I used it, died about 3 years after it started, given Boeing could not make it profitable thanks to the cost of maintaining their magic satellites as well as the half-ton of equipment on each plane with the service. (It didn’t help that the US airlines were not in the wi-fi game at that point to help amortize those satellite costs.) Connexion was pretty fast for downloads (3 MBps) but uploads (at 128 kbps) were somewhat slow. Not having in-seat power on Lufty was a minus as well.

THE AIRLINES MOVE FORWARD

Fast forward to 2009. Airlines have discovered the concept of supply and demand (at the expense of the casual flyer), and now suddenly have resources even in today’s sickly economy.

Aircell offers the GoGo wireless service on American, Delta, Airtran and Virgin America using a network of ground stations instead of satellites (meaning other services are needed for overseas flights), and 1 TB servers on each plane with relatively low cost wiring and antennas throughout the craft. Gogo is a much more compact solution than Connexion. Aircell claims they can equip a plane overnight with all the GoGo equipment.

Airtran and Virgin America have it on all their planes, American is ramping up to include the service on most planes and Delta promises to put it on 300 domestic aircraft by the end of the year. Stingy United will offer GoGo only on its premium JFK-LAX and JFK-SFO services.

As for other services, Southwest, Alaska and JetBlue are trying out free wi-fi on a handful of planes. US Airways is a no-show in the Wi-Fi derby. In the meantime, Lufthansa is firing up its old Connexion infrastructure (including the satellites) with the help of T-Mobile.

MY EXPERIENCE

Delta’s service is $9.95 (flights < 3 hours) and $12.95 (flights > 3 hrs), but if you happen to be transferring in Atlanta, perky college-age guys and gals clad in black with GoGo Wireless duffel bags will hand you one or two cards inviting you to try it out for free for a day of travel (they expire 9/30). Three of the four Delta flights I was on had the wi-fi. All of those planes were MD-88’s. The one plane that didn’t was a 757 (which inexplicably had a video on board explaining how to use the non-existent wi-fi service on that plane).

On my trip to San Antonio, I changed in Atlanta and promptly received my freebie card from the perky co-ed. I used the service on the ATL-SAT leg and will report on it below. On the way back, they had the service but I didn’t have the freebie card and didn’t feel like paying $12.95, considering I had finished with the ITE meeting and pretty much took care of my emails with my iPhone while on the ground. At Atlanta a pair of freshly scrubbed college kids in Gogo black gave me two cards, which I’ve saved for future use (between now and 9/30 when they expire), given the lack of Wi-fi on the 757 which served the last leg of the trip, from ATL to IAD.

THE REVIEW

GOOD: I didn’t have to upload anything, so I couldn’t tell how slow that might be (as before, uploads are much slower than downloads). But I was able to handle emails, grab stuff off the web, and do a few electronic payments. Really just like my home network. Of course having it for free was whipped cream on my strawberry cheesecake.

BAD: MD-88’s do not carry power connections. As my battery on my Dell lasts for 5 hours, not a biggie. Unfortunately, as with every service you start from scratch with, you launch Internet Explorer and get taken to a welcome screen to GoGo, which in turn makes you go-go through 2-3 pages of info you have to fill out (name, email, the usual assorted data as well as credit card if you are paying to use the service, discount code if you have a card, and of course the disclaimer at the end you have to acknowledge). Also bad is that it’s not on every plane yet.

I did not tsubscribe to the wifi on my iPhone though, although it was a strong, accessible signal – it would have been another sign-up.

Overall though – kudos to the airlines for utilizing services which have lightened up on the on-board infrastructure for domestic travel. As long as they keep Skype and voice-based cellular service off planes, I’ll be a happy camper. Technology is good.

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About Glenn Havinoviski: Glenn is an Associate VP

, Transportation Systems at Iteris in Sterling, VA and is a registered PE.   Until recently, he was an Associate Vice President and ITS Group Director for HNTB Corporation in the Arlington, Virginia office. His 27 years of experience (25 in consulting, 2 in the public sector) include serving as both a practice builder and a practice leader, providing project management and technical leadership for ITS and traffic management projects in the US and abroad.Glenn N. Havinoviski, PE joined Iteris in Sterling, VA on July 6 as Associate VP, Transportation Systems, after serving as Associate Vice President and ITS Group Director for HNTB Corporation in the Arlington, Virginia office. His 27 years of experience (25 in consulting, 2 in the public sector) include serving as both a practice builder and a practice leader, providing project management and technical leadership for ITS and traffic management projects in the US and abroad.