Blog Archives
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Where’s The ‘LUV’?
By Steve Smith - Tuesday January 31, 2012Southwest Airlines didn’t show too much LUV to SRQ a couple of weeks back. “LUV” is Southwest’s stock ticker symbol and “SRQ” is the designation for the Sunshine State’s Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport. Frederick J. Piccolo, SRQ president, picked up the phone on a Friday morning to hear a midlevel manager from Southwest Airlines telling him that AirTran service would fly away for good this August from his airport. That left a big hole in the airport’s flight plan – AirTran flew about a third of its passengers last year and was its second-largest carrier after seven years of service. By the way, Piccolo’s no slouch in charge of some “small” airport. He’s currently the vice chairman of the Airport... -
London Calling
By Steve Smith - Tuesday January 24, 2012The 2012 Summer Olympic Games come to London this July and August. Over the weekend, I read a British newspaper account of the Olympian challenge ahead for the baggage handlers at London Heathrow Airport. “Baggage Chaos” was just one part of the headline. Even with a special temporary Olympic Terminal, ground crews will have to contend with approximately 80,000 Olympic athletes, plus more than 59,000 members of the “Games family” and another 21,000 attending the Paralympic Games. Airport officials have already stated there is “insufficient capacity” to handle the work and passengers face long delays to retrieve their bags, if planned mitigation measures fail to work. The extra work begins on July 26, the day before the games... -
You're Still Getting Very Sleepy
By Steve Smith - Tuesday January 17, 2012In my Jan. 3 blog, I repeated a point my AMT colleague Ronald Donner stated in one of his blogs on FAA's new regulations designed to reduce pilot fatigue. Taking into account recent scientific research, FAA announced the new rules last Dec. 21. Airlines must now consider several factors when scheduling, including pilots’ duty periods, the number of time zones crossed and the time at which pilots start their first flights. Pilots must now have a 10-hour rest period before reporting for duty, a two-hour increase over previous regulations. FAA also increased the number of consecutive free hours pilots must have per week to 30 hours. And, added acting FAA administrator Michael Huerta: “If a pilot reports that he or she is fatigued, then... -
Ramp Rat, D.D.S.
By Steve Smith - Tuesday January 10, 2012With gas way past three dollars a gallon, my long-time Chicago dentist just didn't seem worth the 180-mile trip to my hometown to get my teeth scraped and polished every six months. So last month, I walked into the nearby office of Brian A. Hamann, D.D.S., to make an appointment. He asked me what I did for a living and when he found out he proudly identified himself as a former "ramp rat" for United Airlines. Last Friday, armed with a tape recorder, I interviewed him from the chair. Considering my state, I couldn't ask him too many questions, but I did manage to mumble and spit out a few. In his own words, here's how he related his experience at ORD: "This was in the late-1980s until the early-1990s. I worked out on the ramp for... -
You're Getting Very Sleepy
By Steve Smith - Tuesday January 3, 2012Before the end of last year, my AMT colleague Ronald Donner posted a blog about FAA's new regulations designed to prevent airline pilots flying while fatigued. The new rules increase pilots' rest periods and set limits on flying time. Ronald asked a great question in his original post: "What about aircraft mechanic duty time? We get fatigued just as pilots do." Ronald also emphasized that FAA admits that mechanic fatigue is a well-known contributing factor to human errors in aircraft maintenance. The same objection Ronald raised applies just as much to ground support crews. I've spent some time on the ramp and my first impression was just how close the quarters are among parked aircraft and the various GSE zooming around the ramp... -
Three Anniversaries
By Steve Smith - Tuesday December 27, 2011
Yesterday was the 52nd anniversary of my birth so it made me wonder what aviation-related events I might share with history. I found two. One celebrating an unusual baggage system and both from the Soviet era. 1980 – Aeroflot introduces the Ilyushin II-86. This was the USSR's first wide-body plane, but what draws my attention is the Soviet's "luggage at hand system." The Soviets needed the extra passenger capacity afforded the bigger plane, but the country's rulers also had to find a way around terminals meant for planes with smaller passenger loads. Build bigger airports? Too capitalistic! The Soviets put the burden on the passengers. The first idea was to store the luggage train-style inside the cabin. That was nixed since it... -
Cargo Opportunities At RFD
By Steve Smith - Tuesday December 20, 2011
We spent a cold night last Friday at the Chicago Rockford International Airport watching a 10-man ground crew from Integrated Airline Services spend 90 minutes unloading cargo from a Nippon Cargo Airlines’ 747-400F and transferring it to about eight semis parked right on the ramp and, then, moving what I was told was enough cargo for about another five trucks that waited at the plane’s final destination at JFK. We enjoyed the show so much we went back again for the 10 p.m. Sunday night performance. Cargo shipments have lagged in recent months at the airport, but RFD’s efforts to position itself as a quicker, cheaper cargo destination to ORD appear to be gaining some traction. Executives from Atlas Air, for example, paid a... -
‘Yes, But Other Than That … ’
By Steve Smith - Tuesday December 13, 2011If we're all in a gloomy mood as we close out one year and anxiously wait for another, there is certainly plenty to make us all pretty gloomy indeed at the moment. Read the latest IATA report? Maybe the biggest surprise over American Airlines' bankruptcy was that it took so long. The FAA chief resigns over a DUI. And the weekend before I wrote this, federal agents in New York actually broke up a drug-smuggling ring orchestrated by baggage handlers at JFK. But I've never been one to put too much faith in automatic progress and, rather, taken a hard-headed approach to the slings and arrows of the world. The most fundamental problems in life have to be managed and contained and can never be entirely eliminated. It also doesn't mean that... -
Competition At 540 MPH
By Steve Smith - Tuesday December 6, 2011Associated Press reporter Joshua Freed asks a simple question in a news report today: "Why's it so hard to make money running an airline? His answers make you wonder why anyone would even try: Planes are expensive: A Boeing 737 costs $80 million and leasing one comes to about $3.6 million a year. Oil prices are volatile : In its restructuring documents, American Airlines indicated its annual consumption of around 2.5 billion gallons of jet fuel will cost $17.25 million more this year. Specialized labor: Pilots, mechanics and other employees have very specialized jobs demanding higher salaries. Government regulations and union contracts limit the length of workers' shifts, often creating logistical challenges... -
American Airlines Joins A Long List
By Steve Smith - Tuesday November 29, 2011We all woke up to this morning's news announcing American Airlines' parent company was headed to federal court to restructure its operations under Chapter 11 protection. The reasons sound similar to why Delta; United; Continental; and US Airways all once sought bankruptcy protection – high labor costs associated with being a legacy airline. Parent AMR Corp. recently said labor-contract rules forced it to spend $600 million more annually than other airlines. Of course, high fuel costs and a long-sour economy didn't help matters either. AMR Eagle Holding Corp. also filed for bankruptcy today. The move will delay the spin-off of American Eagle, which looked all but certain to be completed by early next year. American was the only major...
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