Blog Mirror: Frustrated Natrona Commissioners Call $650K SkyWest Guarantee ‘Extortion”

Frustrated Natrona Commissioners Call $650K SkyWest Guarantee ‘Extortion”

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, February 10, 1944. Offloading Piper at Saidor, Wellingtons in action, Inaugurating flights to the Keys, and a disaster.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, February 10, 1944. Victory at Saidor: 

Thursday, February 10, 1944. Victory at Saidor

The landing at Saidor concluded on January 2, Operation Michaelmas, resulted in an Allied victory on this date.  The Australians and the Americans had linked up, and the Huon Peninsula was mostly occupied.

Offloading of Piper Cub used in Operation Michaelmas.

The Minekaze was sunk off of Formosa by the USS Pogy. 

The Red Army took Shepetovka, Ukraine.

The U-545 was scuttled after being crippled west of the Hebrides by a Vickers Wellington.  T he U-666 disappeared in the North Atlantic.

On the same day, American Airlines Flight 2 crashed into the Mississippi River. All twenty-four passengers and crew were killed.  The cause of the crash was never determined.

Interior of the Boeing 777.

 

Alaska Airlines seeks to acquire Hawaiian Airlines.

For the sum of $1,000,000,000.

It is uncertain if the Biden Administration shall approve the deal.

A "rash decision" on pilot retirement age.

The House Committee on Transportation, operating in a Boomer dominated era in which there's a persistent belief that nobody every gets old, voted to extend airline pilot retirement age from 65 to 67.

The Air Line Pilots Association, a commercial pilot's union, opposed the measure, stating:

The rash decision to move an amendment on changing the statutory pilot retirement age, without consulting agencies responsible for safety, or studying potential impacts of such a change as has been done elsewhere, is a politically driven choice that betrays a fundamental understanding of airline industry operations, the pilot profession, and safety.

The measure now goes to the full House. 

When you are keeping the original barnstormers flying.

I've posted about this elsewhere, when I was really miffed about it, but Wyoming's Cynthia Lummis has introduced a bill in the Senate to raise mandatory airline pilot retirement ages up to age 67.

Lummis is 68.

Let's note the trend here.  Lummis is 68.  Wyoming's John Barasso is 70.  Wyoming's Congressman Harriet Hageman, at age 60, could nearly be regarded as youthful.

Joe Biden is 80. Donald Trump is 77.  Chuck Schumer is 72.  Mitch McConnell is 81.

This is, quite frankly, absurd.

The United States is, without a doubt, a gerontocracy.

Okay, what's that have to do with airlines?

We repeatedly here there's a pilot shortage.  What is obviously necessary to, in regard to the shortage, is to recruit younger pilots into the field. That requires opportunity and a decent wage.

Vesting the good paying jobs in the elderly is not the way to achieve that.  Indeed, depressing the mandatory retirement age would be.

Lex Anteinternet: Airborne

Lex Anteinternet: Airborne: 

Airborne

I flew this week for the first time since COVID hit.

Before that, I used to travel a lot for work.  

I'm not a natural traveler, so it's never been something that I really enjoyed, even though I usually enjoy seeing any place that I go to.  That is, I don't enjoy the process of traveling much, and I don't enjoy thinking about traveling.  My father was the same way, and nearly all of the long distance traveling he'd done had been due to the Air Force.

Occupational traveling, so to speak.

Most of my traveling has been that way as well.

This is 2022, and to be accurate, the last time I flew somewhere was in 2019.  I can't really recall the last time I flew anywhere, or to where, but the mostly likely spot would be Denver, as I used to fly to Denver and back in a day routinely.  COVID ended that as when COVID hit, it dropped air travel down to nothing for obvious reasons, and when it came back, the number of flights in and out of here locally were cut significantly.  The red eye to Denver was a casualty of that. The one to Salt Lake also went away, although I think that was even prior to that.

I used to also fly a lot to Texas for depositions.  I'm not sure of when I last did that, but it was before COVID.   Zoom took over most of that, so it's rarely done now.

One major thing I worked on should have had trips to South Carolina, Arizona and Illinois, but did not.  All of those were done via Zoom.  It worked out okay, I guess, but I can't say that I'm a fan even now.  It's good enough, however, that you acclimate yourself to it and begin to believe that it's good enough

Anyhow, some travel is slowly coming back, and earlier this week I flew to Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma City.

I've been to OKC before, the first time in 1982 when an airliner discharged me there after having taken off from Cheyenne.  Their terminal was much more primitive, by my recollection, at the time, and we did the classic old-fashioned walk down airliner stairs, which is seemingly a rarity now, across the tarmac and into the terminal, and then on to a bus, which went to Ft. Sill.

More recently, and in different circumstances, I've flown to Denver and boarded a large Boeing airliner.  Based upon another one of our blogs, the last time I was there was in 2014.  On that trip I went with two other lawyers, one of whom I knew really well, and it was a fun trip. We flew from OKC to Houston after that, that time on a small commuter jet.  Since that time, he's passed away, having only been retired for a year or so when he became very ill and died.

As noted, we flew from Denver to OKC in a big airliner on that occasion.

Not this time.  

Locally I boarded a Bombardier CRJ200 and then, to my surprise, in Denver boarded a second CRJ200.

Boarding the CRJ200 in Denver.

I'm not a huge fan of the CRJ200, although it's better than boarding a twin-engined turboprop.  Looking it up, I see where production of the CRJ200 ceased in 2006 and that may partially explain it.  I've never been on one that was really new, and they show it.   Back in 06, locally, you probably boarded a turboprop.

On the ground, the stewardess assured us the plane had been thoroughly cleaned, but we were given wipes.  I didn't use mine.  I'm getting pretty fatalistic about COVID 19, although I'm zealous on the vaccines and boosters.  Some folks did use them, and I can't blame them. The plane smelled vaguely antiseptic.

The stewardess in Denver, upon taking off, warned us the flight was going to be turbulent.  The last times I flew, in 2019, they were doing that too, with the same result.  It wasn't at all.  I'm okay with that, but I wonder what brought about the hypersensitivity to warning of turbulence.  

She was also pretty blunt and somewhat familiar in her tone, which is a change from what had been the norm.

It was a smooth ride all the way to OKC.

Getting off the plane was hot.  That was the same as it was in 1982.

So the first change noted.

I never would have expected a flight from Denver to OKC on a CRJ200.  Are they trying to run smaller planes now as fewer people are flying?  I wasn't the only one surprised, the guy sitting next to me remarked, "I thought for Oklahoma City they would have used a bigger plane".

The trip back was more remarkable, but not in good ways.

First of all, I'd moved my flight up by two days, due to a big change in what I was doing there.  I didn't pay that much attention to the closeness of the connection in Denver.  I used to always do that.  It was extremely right.

Concluding my business in OKC I had to rush, by foot, back to the hotel and turned my right ankle something fierce.  As a high school student, I turned it severely, and it's never really been the same, although it rarely causes me problems.  I injured it very severely a second time, probably about fifteen years ago or so.  So it'll turn.

It's still really hurting.

Added to that, some weeks ago, I somehow injured my right elbow.  I haven't gone in for attention to it, but it really hurts.  

I've never flown injured before, but it's miserable.

When I got on the plane in OKC, an elderly woman was seated next to me.  I rarely pay any attention to the passengers seated next to me, but she was hard not to notice right from the onset.  For one thing, she was extremely nervous getting seated.  She even remarked to me, "you'd think I'd never flown before".

Once on the plane, she was absolutely convinced that there was some trouble with the airplane, as the pilots were not in the cabin.  As luck would have it, a pilot from another airline was seated in the set in front of her, and hence nearly me, flying back to his home in Denver.  That meant he was subject to continual questions, including "can you fly the plane if they don't come?"

She wasn't kidding, and actually assumed that he could.

The pilots weren't in the cabin as the airplane, we learned, had been on the ground in Denver all day and the interior was very hot.  They were outside as there's a way that the plants can be hooked up to external air conditioning, and they were working on that project.  The plane never did get cool, but it was tolerable.

The same type of plane on the way down was fine, I thought, but two colleagues who also traveled down, at different times, both indicated that their planes were hot.  One volunteered the opinion that CRJ200s were simply a hot aircraft.  I'm not sure.

At any rate, we got rolling on the tarmac and the stewardess announced we'd lost some time, but would try to make it up, particularly as there were afternoon thundershowers expected in Denver.  As it was, we left twenty minutes late, and then again announced that there were afternoon thundershowers expected, and it might be rough.

The lady next to me was really now worried about her plane being late in Denver.  In spite of the instructions of the crew to turn off cell phones, she didn't, and texted the entire flight and took placed a phone call using the hands-free option, making those of us near her unwilling eavesdroppers.  From time to time, she leaned up to the traveling pilot and asked if we'd make it to Denver on time.  He always assured her that we would.  In the row behind me, in the meantime, there were two gentlemen from a foreign land speaking in their native language so loudly that I'm sure it could have been heard back home, wherever that was.

I don't know if we landed on time or not, but we were delayed on the tarmac as they looked for stairs and then had a hard time hooking them up.  By the time they opened the cabin door, I had 20 minutes to make it to my next flight, on a different concourse.  When they opened up the doors, the stewardess, as they now do, asked if anyone had a "tight" connection, and the lady next to me said she did. The pilot immediately said "two hours, you do not".  

I did, and stated that I did. They let me go.

I sped walked through the terminal, concourse A to B with the train in between, on my injured ankle, making it just as they were boarding my plane.  Amazingly, they were loading my baggage as I got on.

That's pretty impressive, really.

The final plane was a CRJ700.  They made them up until 2020, and they're a little bigger. Better yet, the exit row actually has legroom.

Overall observations?  I don't like the smaller planes for longer trips, but who would?  I guess I can't blame them for switching to them.  I suspect fewer people are traveling for any reason.  

And it's easy to forget the manners and habits of traveling, even after just a short couple of years break.  I mean that for myself as much as anyone else.

2021 Reflections: The Transportation Edition

 

We don't tend to post original commentary on this blog, but on our others, but given the topics, it's appropriate here.

And this will be a dual post, appearing on both Railhead and The Aerodrome simultaneously.

Like some, as in all, of our reflection posts that have gone up on our companion blogs, this entry is impacted by COVID 19, as everything is. 

It's also heavily impacted by politics.

And of course, COVID 19 itself has become strangely political.

The onset of the terrible pandemic shut down nearly every economy in the world, save for those in areas with economies so underdeveloped that they couldn't shut down.  That impacted the world's transportation networks in a major way, and it still is.  COVID 19 also became a factor in the last election, with a large section of the American public becoming extremely unhappy with the Trump Administration's response to the pandemic.  Added to the mix, heightened concerns over global warming have finally started to accelerate an American response to the threat.

All of which gets us to transportation, the topic of these blogs in some ways.

For at least a decade, it's been obvious that electric automobile are going to replace fossil fuel powered ones. There are, of course, deniers, but the die is cast and that's where things will go.  

It's also become obvious that technology is going to take truck driver out of their seats, and put a few, albeit a very few, in automated offices elsewhere where they'll monitor remote fleets of trucks.  Or at least that's the thought.

The Biden Administration, moreover, included money for railroads in is large infrastructure bill.  This has developed in various ways, but the big emphasis has been on expanding Amtrak.

Amtrak Expansion. Cheyenne to Denver, and beyond!?

I have real problems, I'll admit, with the scope of the proposed infrastructure spending proposals that President Biden is looking at, but if they go forward, I really hope we do see rail service restored (and that's what it would be) between Cheyenne and Denver.

The plan proposes to invest $80B in Amtrak.  Yes, $80B.  Most of that will go to repairs, believe it or not, as the Amtrak has never been a favorite of the Republican Party, which in its heard of hearts feels that the quasi public rail line is simply a way of preserving an obsolete mode of transportation at the Government's expense.  But rail has been receiving a lot of attention recently for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that in a now carbon conscious era, it's the greenest mode of transportation taht we have, something the commercial rail lines have been emphasizing.

Indeed, if the American public wasn't afraid of a nuclear power the same way that four year olds are afraid of monsters that live under their beds, it could be greener yet, and there's some talk of now supporting nuclear power among serious informed environmentalists.  A campaign to push that, called the Solutionary Rail, is now active.  We'll deal with that some other time.

Here we're noting that we're hopeful that if this does go through, and as noted we have real reservations about this level of expenditure, that Amtrak does put in a passenger line from Cheyenne to Pueblo.  

A line connecting Ft. Collins to Denver has been a proposal in Colorado for quite a while and has some backing there.  The same line of thought has already included Cheyenne.  This has a lot to do with trying to ease the burgeoning traffic problem this area experiences due to the massive population growth in Colorado.  Wyomingites, I suppose, should therefore approach this with some caution as it would tie us into the Front Range communities in a way that we might not want to be.  Still, it's an interesting idea.

It's one that for some reason I think will fall through, and I also suspect it'll receive no support in Wyoming. Still, it's interesting.

During  the past year, locally, flights to Casper were put in jeopardy. This was a byproduct of COVID 19, as air travel dropped off to nearly nothing, nationwide, and that made short flights economically iffy.

Before the pandemic, Delta had cut back its flight schedule to Salt Lake, which is a major Delta hub. This caused its bookings to drop down anyway.  I used to fly to Salt Lake in the morning, pre COVID, do business, and then fly back that evening.  Once Delta cuts its flights back, however, that became impossible.

That meant that Delta, at that point, had aced itself out of the day trip business market, which it seemingly remains unaware of for some reason.  COVID hurt things further.  At that point it threatened to abandon its service unless it could receive some assistance.  The county and the local municipalities rose to the occasion.

Delta receives a subsidty to continue serving the Natrona County International Airport

 I'm really not too certain what my view on this is.  Overall, I suppose it's a good thing.

Delta is one of the two carriers, relying on regional contractors, serving the Natrona County International Airport, and hence all of Central Wyoming.  It flies to and from Salt Lake, while United flies to and from Denver.  

It used to have great connections.  A businessman in Casper could take the red eye to Salt Lake and then catch the late flight back. That's no longer possible  Frankly, depending upon what you're doing, it's nearly as easy to drive to Salt Lake now.

And perhaps that's cutting into their passenger list, along with COVID 19, although I'm told that flights have been full recently.

Anyhow, losing Delta would be a disaster. We'd be down to just United.  Not only would that mean that there was no competition, it'd place us in a shaky position, maybe, as the overall viability of air travel starts to reduce once a carrier pulls out.

A couple of legislatures ago there was an effort to subsidize intrastate air travel, and I think it passed.  While Wyomingites howl about "socialism", as we loosely and fairly inaccurately describe it, we're hugely okay with transportation being subsidized.  We likely need to be, or it'll cut us off from the rest of everything more than we already are, and that has a certain domino effect.

I don't know what the overall solution to this problem is, assuming there is one, but whatever it is, subsidies appear likely to be part of it for the immediate future . . . and maybe there are some avenues open there we aren't pursuing and should be.

At the same time, infrastructure money became available for the state's airports as well.

Wyoming's Airports to receive $15.1M in Infrastructure Money

The Federal funds can be used for terminals, runways and parking lots and the like.

Of Wyoming airports, Jackson's will get the most, receiving $3.38M.  Natrona County International Airport gets the second-largest amount at $1.34M.  Natrona  County's airport will use the funds for electrical work.

So flights were kept and improvements will be made.

Recently, pilot pay has been tripled, albeit only for one month.

United Airlines Triples Pilot Pay for January.

This due to an ongoing pilot shortage, which has been heightened by the Omicron variant of COVID 19.

I.e, United is trying to fill the pilot seats this month.

So, that's what happened.

Now, what might we hope will happen?

1.  Electric Avenue

Everything always seem really difficult until its done, and then not so much.

Which doesn't discount difficulty. 

The Transcontinental Railraod was created in the US through the American System, something that's been largely forgotten.  Private railroads didn't leap at the chance to put in thousands of miles of rail line across uninhabited territory.  No, the Federal Government caused the rail line to come about by providing thousands of acres of valuable land to two start up companies and then guarding the workers with the Army, at taxpayer expense.

We note that as, right now, railroad are already the "greenest" means of transportation in the US.  They could be made more so by electrifying them, just as the Trans Siberian Railway is.  At the same time, if a program to rapidly convert energy production in the US to nuclear was engaged in, the US transportation system could be made basically "green" in very little time.  Probably five years or less.

If we intend to "build back better", we ought to do that.

This would, I'd note, largely shift long transportation back to its pre 1960s state.  Mostly by rail.  Trucking came in because the US decided, particularly during the Eisenhower Administration, to subsidize massive coast to coast highways.  

For the most part, we no longer really need them.

Oh, we need highways, but with advances in technology of all sorts, we need them a lot less than we once did.  And frankly, we never really needed them way that the Federal Government maintained we did.  It's been a huge financial burden on the taxpayers, and its subsidized one industry over another.

Yes, this is radical, but we should do it.

Now, before a person either get too romantic, or too weepy, over this, a couple of things.

One is that we already have an 80,000 teamster shortage for trucking.  I.e., yes, this plan would put a lot of drivers out of work, but its a dying occupation anyway.  Indeed, in recent years its become on that is oddly increasingly filled with Eastern Europeans who seemingly take it up as its a job they can occupy with little training.  The age of the old burly American double shifting teamster is long over.  

And to the extent it isn't, automated trucks are about to make it that way for everyone.

The trains, we'd note, will be automated too.  It's inevitable. They'll be operated like giant train sets from a central location. Something that's frankly easier, and safer, to do, than it would be for semi tractors.

2.  Subsidized local air travel

It's going to take longer to electrify aircraft, particularly those that haul people, but electrification of light aircraft is already being worked on.  The Air Force has, moreover, been working on alternative jet fuels.

Anyhow, if we must subsidize something in long distance transportation, that should be local air travel.  Its safe, effective and vital for local economies.  I don't care if that is quasi socialist.  It should be done.

3. The abandoned runways.

Locally, I'd like to see some of that infrastructure money go to the extra runway or runways at the NatCo airport being repaired.  I know that they were little used, but they're there.

Delta receives a subsidty to continue serving the Natrona County International Airport

 I'm really not too certain what my view on this is.  Overall, I suppose it's a good thing.

Delta is one of the two carriers, relying on regional contractors, serving the Natrona County International Airport, and hence all of Central Wyoming.  It flies to and from Salt Lake, while United flies to and from Denver.  

It used to have great connections.  A businessman in Casper could take the red eye to Salt Lake and then catch the late flight back. That's no longer possible  Frankly, depending upon what you're doing, it's nearly as easy to drive to Salt Lake now.

And perhaps that's cutting into their passenger list, along with COVID 19, although I'm told that flights have been full recently.

Anyhow, losing Delta would be a disaster. We'd be down to just United.  Not only would that mean that there was no competition, it'd place us in a shaky position, maybe, as the overall viability of air travel starts to reduce once a carrier pulls out.

A couple of legislatures ago there was an effort to subsidize intrastate air travel, and I think it passed.  While Wyomingites howl about "socialism", as we loosely and fairly inaccurately describe it, we're hugely okay with transportation being subsidized.  We likely need to be, or it'll cut us off from the rest of everything more than we already are, and that has a certain domino effect.

I don't know what the overall solution to this problem is, assuming there is one, but whatever it is, subsidies appear likely to be part of it for the immediate future . . . and maybe there are some avenues open there we aren't pursuing and should be.

Lex Anteinternet: The Weary Business Travalers Comments on Air Travel

For some reason this old 2015 entry was in the top hits for May 16, 2021.  Given as its on air travel, albeit pre Pandemic air travel, I thought I'd link it in here.  It might actually be from back at the time as well.

Lex Anteinternet: The Weary Business Travalers Comments on Air Travel: .

The Weary Business Travelers Comments on Air Travel

Zone 2 boards a plane.

I suppose that this will come across as crabby, but I do a lot of flying, and hence, I see a lot of airports and the inside of airplanes.

We are told there was once an era when air travel was glamorous and romantic.  For some it still is, now doubt. But for the business traveler, those days are long gone. What air travel is, is convenient.

It's safe, relatively fast, and all that. But fun it isn't.  At least not after you have quite a bit of it down. And, quite frankly, while I like airplanes, I don't like riding in airplanes, so that impacts my view a fair amount, I'll admit.

But I'm sure I'm not alone. So, hence a few observations.

1.  Business travelers probably aren't having fun on the plane, aren't on vacation, and may be cutting their schedule pretty tight.

One of the things I generally note about people travelling in airplanes is they're very polite as a rule.  And there's good reason to be very patient, and people nearly always are.  Some people have a hard time getting on and off of planes, and that's perfectly understandable and most people, indeed maybe all people, understand that.

But conversely, it's not uncommon for a business traveler to have very little time leeway.  He needs to catch another flight, or a taxi downtown, or something, to make his schedule. 

I note that, as there's some casual travelers who are really oblivious to this. The other day, for example, I was on a plane in which a nicely dressed young woman and her very well behaved young children encountered another nicely dressed young woman and her very well behaved young children, and they recognized each other. With about a third of the plane still needing to disembark, they stopped and had a protracted reunion conversation.  Nobody yelled or screamed, but when she finally resumed her progress towards the door, I could hear the businessman seated across the isle saying, under his breath "don't stop, don't stop."  As this plane was late, and my connection not too distant, I shared that view.

2.  Zone 2 is the Thundering Herd.

Aircraft board by zone.  Generally, the first zone is made up of people who need help boarding and then a premium, or multiple premium, zones. Then zone 1.

Then zone 2.

For some reason, things generally go well until zone 2 boards.  I'm nearly always in zone 2.  Zone 1 forms an orderly line and progresses in that fashion. By the time they get to zone 2, every single person in the zone is convinced they're never going to get to board, and they star t pushing, cow herd style, towards the gate.

Everyone is getting in the same plane, and this makes no sense, but it's really common.  People cut in line, muscle their way in, etc.

Ironically, it's not uncommon for one of the herd to slow everything up, once he's on the plane. That's the guy who decided to bring his walrus for the overhead bin storage.  He can't get it in, and has to try and try while the rest of the herd is stuck behind him.

United Airlines, I'll note, does a really good job of preventing this by having extra places for zone 2 to line up early.  Once they're in a narrow line, they behave, again much like cattle.  It's having no line to form up in as zone 1 moves ahead that seems to create this problem.

3.  The window bogarters

I like to get a window seat, even if I don't like flying.  That's because I do like scenery. 

For some reason, however, there are people who take window seats, and them immediately close the shade.  Hey man, if you didn't want to look out the window, why take a window seat?

4. The stenchy messy food girl.

Recently I've been noticing a trend for messy eating young girls on planes. This is a new one.

When I came back from Toronto recently a young woman, nicely dressed, sat next to me. But she was an amazingly sloppy eater and had brought a sandwich on with her.  She made a mess of that, and to make it worse, left her drink bottle on the airplane floor when she deplaned.

Not cool.

On the way back from Atlanta the other day, a high school aged girl sat next to me. She was industrious, and was writing a report on All Quiet On The Western Front on the plane, but she also came on with an Italian food special she'd gotten in the terminal.  It was apparently the Spicy Noodle In Limburger Cheese Sauce special, and it was rank and stanky.  Uff.  Not good for an enclosed environment.

5.  The drink people.

Every airplane flight in North America offers a beverage service. I am sure that if there was a commercial flight from Casper to Douglas, it would offer a beverage.

I get that in part.  Flights are long, and people might need something to drink. And at least by common belief, some drinks settle the stomach, or so we're told.  I've always been told that ginger ale does that, and I see a lot of ginger ale being drunk in airplanes.

But there are a lot of people who take drinks, because they are free.  I"m always amazed when people take drinks routinely between Casper and Denver, for example. The flight is only 45 minutes long, having  a drink is hardly worth bothering with.

This is particularly the case because the last few minutes into Denver is often rough, and the area right around Casper often is, both due to the atmospheric conditions associated with mountains.  But, people trust their trays and place the drinks down even when the plane is bouncing around.  Maybe they should trust them too, as I've never seen a drink bounce off a tray, but I've worried about it.

6.  The talkative traveler.

I travel in aircraft a lot, and I always bring a book or work on the plane.  I don't like traveling on planes, and so this serves to distract me, I suppose, although looking out the window, which I also like to do, probably works against that.

Every now and then, however, you get seated next to somebody very nervous or very talkative, or both.  They want to talk, and they're going to.  I've had an oil field consultant quiz me on towns to live in, in depth, all over the Rocky Mountain west, as if I am well suited to tell somebody where they ought to live.  Some people want to tell you their life's story, or others, if you are reading a book, want to discuss it, rather than let you read it.

In other situations, I might find that interesting, but in an airplane, not so much.  Something to do with the plane, I'm sure.

7. The dimwitted joke people.

One thing I've noticed is that every time there's an air disaster, or even a natural disaster, somebody in line wants to make a joke based on it.  This is not amusing at all.

Recently for example I was in line when a passenger on a Delta flight tried to engage the Captain of the plane in some banter based on the recent suicidal crash caused by the Germanair co-pilot.  This isn't funny, and won't ever be funny.  I'd have tossed her off the plane, but he only gave her a nasty glare.  Clearly he's more of a gentleman than I.

Arrival and Departures.

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Lack of Training. The 737 Max story continues

I've published a couple of items on the 737 Max, the most recent one being here:

The Aerodrome: 737 Max Grounded and Technology as "Too Complicate...: Yesterday I wrote about the 737 Max and the efforts to ground them globally in this post here: Pushing Pause on the Boeing 737 Panic. ...

In my first post, I noted this:

Most nations, including nations that put in a lot of flight time, don't train anywhere near to the American standard.  American private pilots have knowledge that vastly exceeds the knowledge of many pilots that step into lesser commercial roles elsewhere, and American commercial pilots are not only second to none, there's no comparison everywhere.

This morning on the news, the news was noting the same thing, including in an interview by a Canadian commercial pilot.

The Lion Air pilot, age 29, who was at the helm of the recently crashed 737 Max in Ethiopia had 8,000 hours total experience. 

His co-pilot?  200 hours.

200.

There's no way that second chair would have been occupied by a pilot with so little experience in the US or Canada.  One experienced pilot stated that this was like putting a 13 year old in the co-pilots seat.

We don't know the cause of the crash yet.

But these pilots weren't experienced the way that American pilots were. The co-pilot shouldn't have been in the second chair at all.

Pushing Pause on the Boeing 737 Panic.

Boeing 737 undergoing testing at the Natrona County airport a couple of years ago.

Two Boeing 737 Max's have crashed in the last month or so, the most recent in Ethiopia where it resulted in tragic loss of life.

There's no denying that.

And that definitely needs to be looked into.

I'm not an air crash examiner by any means, and I don't really know enough to comment on this story. But then, neither do you, or any of those, outside learned air agencies perhaps.

So some things to keep in mind.

The 737 basic design goes back to 1967.  The 737 Max is simply the most updated, although certainly very updated, version of that old air frame.  People panicking over 737s should realize that just because its a 737, doesn't mean its a 737 Max.

And just because there's been two crash in close proximity in time doesn't mean there's anything actually wrong with the plane, actually.  Both airplanes that crashed were in foreign use and while the airlines that had them will no doubt maintain that their pilots are amongst the very best in the world, frankly if the pilot isn't an American pilot, they aren't.

Most nations, including nations that put in a lot of flight time, don't train anywhere near to the American standard.  American private pilots have knowledge that vastly exceeds the knowledge of many pilots that step into lesser commercial roles elsewhere, and American commercial pilots are not only second to none, there's no comparison everywhere.

Beyond that, the nature of reporting tends to dog pile on, but not evenly.  If the Russian airline Aeroflot was subject to the same standards nobody would ever get on a Russian airplane, but it isn't.  Aeroflot has had five times the number of deaths than any other airline in the world, with over 8,000 people losing their lives on their planes since they first started flying. And this in an airline that no doubt uses a lot of former military pilots who ought to know what they are doing.

Five times.

Finally, the number of manufacturers of aircraft have dwindled to an unstable few.  When commercial aviation got rolling the number of competing companies was vast.  Even at the start of the jet age that was still true.  Now, in the Western world we're down to Boeing and Airbus.

Airbus is a pan European aircraft manufacturer that competes neck and neck against Boeing, the sole American commercial aviation manufacturer.  Hurting Boeing, even accidentally, helps Airbus.  It's notable that European aviation agencies were very quick to ground Boeing.

Indeed, European bans were such that Boeing 737 Max's in the air had to re route and not land at European airports.  And that's just flat out dumb.   Safety would have required them to allow them to land at their destination, not re route.

Now, I'm not saying that European actions were calculated to hurt Boeing.  But I am cognizant that its always hard not to keep your home close to you in some fashion when problems break out.

Lawsuits and overreaction have driven the costs of private aircraft so high that only the wealthy can afford them and very few are made.  Overreaction could kill off American commercial manufacturing and certainly will hurt it.  A little prudential judgment may be in order.

The other side of big commercial air travel. United Cargo, Denver Colorado

View from the New Belgium Hub. . . a dreary day at DIA. United and Icelandair.

Air Subsidies Continue for Cody and Laramie. .. for now.

From Today's Casper Star Tribune, the following headline:

Air service subsidies expected to continue in Cody and Laramie. But larger questions loom.

But that apparently doesn't mean that such subsidies aren't on the firing line still, to some degree.

For those who might not be aware, air travel to Cody is subsidized by the Federal Government for the winter months, and for all passengers all year long for Laramie.  This provides for twice a day winter flights, for example, to and from Cody to Denver during the winter months.

It's pretty safe to assume that without these funds air travel to Cody would be impaired and for Laramie it would simply end.  The Tribune notes, regarding how this works;

United’s new contract to provide service to Cody guarantees the airline an annual payment of $850,000 to provide 14 nonstop trips each week from Cody to Denver between October and May.

That doesn't provide a reason to continue the subsidy, of course, and pure free marketers would argue that if the market doesn't support it, it should end.  On the other hand, it's been proven that a lack of convenient air transportation hinders Wyoming's economy fairly massively.  

For this reason, the state actually seriously took a look, and still somewhat is, on subsidizing air travel withing the state itself, although it didn't get to that. As the Tribune summarized it:

The Wyoming Department of Transportation presented an ambitious fix to the state’s reliance on commercial air carriers, who can currently decide whether and when to provide service — allowing the fortune’s of Cowboy State communities to rise and fall based on the whims of national corporations.

WYDOT proposed effectively creating its own airline, determining which communities would receive service as well as schedules, ensuring, for example, that it was possible for business people to catch an early morning flight into Casper or Rock Springs.

The state would contract with the same regional providers, like SkyWest or GoJet, that United and Delta Air Lines use on branded flights to connect relatively small communities, like those in Wyoming, with major hubs in Denver and Salt Lake City. These arrangements are known as capacity purchase agreements.

“This idea of capacity purchase agreements, for decades, has worked very well for airlines,” WYDOT director Bill Panos told lawmakers last summer.

At a bare minimum, a lack of air service certainly isolates Wyoming's economy.  So, at the end of the day, the argument somewhat comes the degree to which you favor practicality over economic purity, or whether you believe the government should have any role in subsidizing transportation.  The Governor's office noted, according to the Trib:

“Commercial air service is a significantly limiting factor,” Endow’s Jerimiah Reiman said earlier this year. “There’s a lack of air service particularly to global destinations.”

Of course, if we're going to go for economic purity, at some point we'd have to request that the Federal Government cease funding highway construction, which is a subsidy and a fairly direct one.  I can't see that request coming any time soon, but its interesting how in a state that tends to argue for a fairly laissez faire type of economics, we don't feel that way about highways.  No, not at all.  Of course, to be fair, funding the infrastructure, massively expensive though it is, is not the same as funding transportation itself.  I.e., there's no Federal bus subsidy, or Federal car subsidy.  

There isn't a Federal rail subsidy of any kind in most places, of course, although we do still have Amtrak, so I guess that's not fully true.  When railroads carried passengers everywhere cars were not as commonly used for over the road transportation and the Federal Government hadn't gotten in to highway funding yet.  Indeed, if the Federal Government quit funding highway construction it'd change the transportation infrastructure massively and we'd have to wonder if railroads and airlines would be big benefactors.  Anyhow, even at that time the railroads weren't necessarily super excited about passengers and the Federal Government somewhat forced the rail lines to carry them, but it didn't subsidize them.  The U.S. Mail was a big moneymaker for railroads back then, which it no longer is in any fashion, so the railroads had to listen to the Federal Government for that reason if none other.

You can't fly there from here.

 

 Over the Laramie Range.

Unfortunate news from the Casper Star Tribune:

CHEYENNE – A legislative committee chose not to move a draft bill forward this week that would have made fundamental changes to commercial air service in Wyoming.

I was really hoping that the bill would pass.

But I wasn't optimistic that it would.  Wyoming has never been very sympathetic to public funding of business unless its vicarious.  People support funding of highway construction, for example (although lately not so much in the way of school construction) and the legislature is keen on investing in "clean coal" development, even though the prospects for that appear to be rather remote.  But on a project like this, it would have surprised me if they'd supported it, even though I think it was an excellent idea.

I travel for work constantly and one of the questions I get from my out of state customers is "why don't you fly?"  And by that they mean, why don't you fly from one town to another, as in, why don't you fly from Casper to Jackson, or Cheyenne to Worland, or Gillette to Green River?

Well, you can't.

Oh, of course you can, but not easily.  For example, a person wanting to fly from Casper to Jackson would actually have to fly from Casper to Denver, or Salt Lake, and then from those cities to Jackson.  It'd be an all day ordeal.  It's easier, and much cheaper, to drive.

For us.

Because we're acclimated to it.

But that doesn't work that way for most people from other places.  So, when a company looks to relocate, let's say, from New Jersey to Wyoming, it looks at this stuff.  They figure that if they can fly anywhere on the East Coast, or the West Coast, or the No Coast, in a day hop, well surely they can do the same in the Rocky Mountain Region.

Well, outside of Colorado and Utah, not so much.

At one time, oddly enough, you could.  I can recall when I was young being on planes that went from Casper to Cheyenne or Casper to Billings, Montana. But all of that is long gone. And that fact hurts Wyoming businesses and the prospect s for business.

Well, the Tribune also reported:

But all sides agree the issue isn’t dead for lawmakers.

Hmmm, I bet it is.  And here's the reason why:

An appropriation between $29.5 million and $37.2 million out of the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account – commonly known as the “rainy-day fund” – to enact the 10-year plan would have been made under the bill.

As far as various governmental bodies around here are concerned, it never rains.

Lex Anteinternet: The CST goes into the Sunday before Labor Day with a barrel of economic news

Only the third item in this longer item is relevant to this site, but it is relevant.  So we're posing that section here.

Lex Anteinternet: The CST goes into the Sunday before Labor Day with  a barrel of economic news

 3.  Wyoming to subsidize air travel?

 "The air liner "Hannibal" on the Alexandria aerodome"

In a really surprising story the Wyoming Department of Transportation is advancing a plan to contract with air carriers in Wyoming the same way that airlines do with regional carriers., this story coming in the wake of Allegiant saying "Tally Ho!" to Casper. That is, basically, they'll buy any seats the regionals don't fill.  It's an ambitious and surprising plan.  It basically accepts the reality of the situation, that being that Wyoming is too small of market, in the modern world, to support much air travel. Casper has what little there is, and even its services are being reduced.  Part of this is fueled, as the paper notes, by a new regulatory requirement that pilots for commercial carriers have a much increased number of hours in order to take that job.  This has resulted in a pilot shortage, which was coming on anyhow, and it's also meant that its more expensive to operate in the small venues.  A law of unintended consequences thing, sort of.

This plan would have to get past the legislature, of course, and I'm somewhat skeptical that in the current political environment that will occur.  The paper interviewed Chuck Grey with the nearly predictable result of Grey, who is a far right conservative fellow traveler with the Wyoming Liberty Group, not being keen on the idea. The surprising part of that was that Grey wasn't as hostile to the idea as I would have expected, even though he doesn't support it. Grey told the Trib; "We need to continue to look at the current situation and purse competition".

That isn't going to work, actually.  Regional air travel is limited here as its not economic.  Chuck feels the solution is to attract Southwestern which. . .isn't going to happen.

I can see the opposition to this plan and what it will entail already.  "Socialism!"  But the fact of the matter is that the American transportation infrastructure is already government supported, with the except of the railroads.  The poor railroads have to make it on their own for some reason but this isn't true of other things.  American highways and streets are not, after all, privately owned.  When you drive into your subdivision you likely don't  pay a toll to the homeowners association, and there isn't a Wyoming State Turnpike Company that owns the highways.  Nope, all subsidized.  Indeed, we're so used to this that we don't even consider the inequities in the funding of highways. Looked at that way WYDOT's plan is really farsighted.  The lack of intrastate air travel has long been known to be something that hurts Wyoming's economy.  The airports are barely making as it is. Some, like Natrona County's, are real gems.   What WYDOT is proposing isn't really any more radical than what the state and the towns are already doing with wheeled transportation.

Holscher's Hub: Cheyenne Wyoming, from the air

Holscher's Hub: Cheyenne Wyoming, from the air