Hot Flash Archives October - December 2010

Monday, December 27, 2010

From The Edges of The Loon Galaxy...
Wait Until LaHood Gets Wind Of This One

The extraordinary weather that shut down airports in the UK this past week will not be tolerated again in the future, according to the government...

LONDON (AFP) – British ministers said on Sunday they want to introduce new laws to allow regulators to fine airports for travel disruption, after a pre-Christmas cold snap all but shut down Heathrow Airport last week.

Philip Hammond, the transport minister, told the Sunday Times that regulators should have tougher powers to punish airports who fail passengers, after thousands were forced to sleep at Heathrow when heavy snow grounded flights.

Hammond said it is unacceptable that BAA, the Spanish-owned operator of Heathrow -- the world's busiest airport for international passenger traffic -- will face no punishment from the regulator under the current system.

Yessir, when airports start to cave into Mother Nature like a bunch of scared weenies, Mother Government needs to step in. If God disrupts travel with a freak 100-year snow storm, and airports refuse to change it, let's nail'em with fines.

And we thought US DOT Secretary Ray LaHood had a lock on ding-dong aviation policy-making. Darn. Another area where we now have global competition.
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The Immaculate Bureaucracy
TSA: We Don't Make Mistakes. Disagree & You'll Be Sorry

Just days after we posted the hypothetical Captain's cabin announcement (December 20), telling passengers the truth about just how shabby airport security really can be, came the famous You Tube video by an actual pilot showing how the back doors of airports can be wide open to professional terrorists.

This comes on the heels of revelations that screener testing scores have as  high as a 70% failure rate, and even Rep John Mica - who is now going to chair the congressional committee overseeing the TSA - has admitted that screening failures are "off the chart."  So, the Department of Homeland Security is now in full-metal-jacket counterattack media mode.

Intimidation: It Deters Free Speech In The Third World, Why Not Here, Too? First, the DHS resorted to its time-tested counterattack strategies: deny any wrongdoing, never acknowledge any failure, and then attack the messenger. This they did with prototypical Third World precision. In a show of force, they sent six - count them six - two county sheriffs and four federales - to the pilot's home to confiscate the pistol he had been authorized to carry in the cockpit. (Like you need a posse to repop a single .38 from a non-violent, law-abiding citizen?)

The reason was that this unpatriotic pilot had supposedly revealed confidential security information in his You Tube video, and, shades of Hugo Chavez - may have "undermined" public confidence in the TSA. Funny, but that's exactly one of the reasons the Venezuelan crackpot-in-chief gave last week for censoring the Internet, banning anything that might be critical of "institutions." Janet Napolitano has a role model, apparently.

"Undermining public confidence in the TSA?" How delusional are these people? After nine years of bungling and political arrogance, putting confidence in the management of the TSA is akin to investing your life savings with Bernie Madoff.

It's Lack of Loyalty To The Regime. And as for "revealing security information" - that's refuted by the TSA's own statements. Both the TSA and the airport (SFO) have loudly declared there were no security failures whatsoever in the pilot's video. So, therefore the pilot hasn't done anything wrong - since when is revealing "nothing" a security breach that requires this guy to be harassed and punished? There is only one answer: he criticized the government.

As further retribution for illuminating the TSA's management incompetence, the local sheriff reportedly was in the process of revoking the pilot's concealed-carry permit.

That ought to fix his little red wagon - and send the message to others not to try to embarrass the regime again. Be a good little follower, and you'll have no trouble. Otherwise you might get a visit from guys with badges pulling up in black sedans.

Get The Media Blitz Going. Having clearly taken action against this disloyal citizen, and having now established the de facto policy that nobody - and we mean nobody - in aviation is safe from the ire of the regime should they dare to speak critically of the DHS, the lovely and charming Ms. Napolitano got herself conveniently booked on the right news shows. You know, the ones hosted by correspondents who would never ask things like: "Who have you fired for that 70% failure rate?" Or, "You say we're safer than last year, but how come a kid could sneak himself onto the ramp and hide in a departing aircraft, only to fall to his death on approach to Boston?" Or, "Okay, just what are the training failure rates?" Or, "Specifically, tell us what was not factual in that pilot's You Tube video?"

No, such questions were not asked. Only polite, soft balls. As for the 70% failure rate, Napolitano did exactly as expected, and has declared it as "old news" to be "put aside" and not again brought up. The whole intent was hot air and damage control, not public information.

They Came For A Pilot This Time. Next Time It May Be You. Napolitano and company will not stop here. You can engage in as much intellectual evasion as you want. You can guffaw all you want that this isn't a big deal, but the track record is clear: The DHS et al are more focused on protecting themselves and their shoddy records than they are protecting our airports. It is not inconsequential that a free citizen is being threatened for telling the truth about a government agency.

Bank on it: Napolitano will move quickly to prevent a reoccurrence. She will assure there will be no more honest vigilantes taking shots at her empire. High potential: a strict prohibition - with heavy fines and jail time - against any unauthorized photography in any security-related area. High potential: a strict prohibition against any public posting of data, pictures, or other evidence of TSA failure. The official reason will be to make us safe from prying terrorist eyes. Sure, but isn't the TSA assuring us that bad guys can't get into secure areas? So any such prohibitions will be to protect the TSA from honest folks like the pilot in this incident.

But the real news is that a citizen found and reported security gaps that TSA has ignored - and instead of taking action to address them, the DHS goes after the citizen. The TSA has stated that the pilot should have come to them first. - which is like complaining about the Mafia to the Gambino Crime Family. It's the TSA that is the problem, and it's the law-abiding citizen who blew the whistle who's being harassed.

What does that tell you? If it says nothing, okay. Go back to sleep and hope you won't be awakened in the middle of the night by the police banging on your front door because you may have said something that harmed confidence in the government. Far fetched? It happened to this pilot, only this time it was in daylight.

It's becoming a trend in this administration. We have the Secretary of Transportation ordering airline executives and others not "to be against high speed rail" - read: don't express yourself freely. Now we have a pilot criticizing what are security problems, and he gets a visit from a couple carloads of law enforcement officials.

Take a look at the dishonest flotsam that's been left behind by every TSA Administrator since Bush appointed an incompetent buddy of his daddy's to be the first one. Lots of screw-ups. But now, it's unsafe to point them out.

Remember - when the TSA fails, they deny everything. When flaws are found, they consistently have tried to make excuses and cover them up. (Go back and check it out.) Their official position is that they are above reproach, and worse, it has reached the point where honest citizens are at risk in criticizing the management of the TSA. This pilot, contrary to the stuff put out by red-faced officials, did point out what are valid concerns. 

Instead of protecting the nation, the management of the TSA has transformed themselves into a rogue bureaucracy where your free speech ends where Janet Napolitano's incompetence begins.

Ignore this at your peril.

(c) 2010 Boyd Group International. All Rights Reserved.

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Monday,  December 20, 2010

The TSA Charade Continues
Replace It Before We Get Blown To Smithereens, Again.

"Ladies & Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. Sorry for the departure delay. I got caught in traffic coming back from my proficiency check ride in the simulator. Failed it miserably, but I'm here now, and we'll be on our way to L.A. in just a few minutes..."

Wonder what that'd do for the assembled masses shoe-horned into their seats in the coach cabin? Here's another one...

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. I'd like to ask that you be on your guard today. See, the alleged security screening you just went though isn't worth diddly in making you any safer from terror attack. The failure rate among screeners when tested is estimated at over 70%. In fact, the head of the TSA has admitted that testing at some airports has seen 100% failure rates. So, for all intents and purposes, you're sitting on an airliner full of improperly screened people. Oh, and I won't get into the security mess outside the window on the ramp... "

The difference is that the second announcement would be factual. It's now been confirmed by none other than John Pistole - the head honcho - that sometimes the TSA testing failure rate is 100%, and it is a fact that the overall rate is so bad that the TSA makes it a Wikileaks-proof secret.

And, so, where's the outrage? Where are the statements from the aviation Alphabet groups? Where are all those phony-baloney post-9/11 "citizen" and family groups who were so eager to (correctly) nail Bush, but don't say a word about the fact that the same slop that allowed 9/11 is alive and well in Washington? Where's congress? And our favorite - where are those aviation consultant groups who babble about high standards, but then give incompetent former TSA Administrators awards for "excellence?"

It's Not The Only Probable TSA Fiasco. But, not to worry, because if (when) professional terrorists want to attack, they don't have to risk having the indignity of their private parts getting pawed at in a screening line. There are plenty of other open portals for them to go through.

Think about it - there is now no question that the current passenger screening process, replete with billions of dollars' worth of whiz-bang body scanners, bomb-sniffing machines, baggage X-ray contraptions, thousands of "officers" patting down Grandma and small children, accessorized with enough bogus PR hot air to levitate a Zeppelin, is a failure. But this is just what we can easily see. Imagine what type of inept amateur-act security is being implemented at the rest of the airport.

Admit It. This Is A Klutz Show. Let's say what the rest of the aviation industry should be screaming at the top of their lungs.  In protecting us from real terrorism, the TSA is as useless as a popgun in a knife fight.  A 70% to 100% failure rate, and nobody is fired?  And it's not about the TSA folks in the blue shirts. They're victims, too - trapped inside an organization with no accountability or performance standards at the top.

 Since the very first TSA Administrator, this agency has been a stumbling mess. It's been over nine years and counting. We all know it. If the nation is to have any protection from another 9/11-scale attack, we need to start over. TSA is a clumsy bureaucracy, not a security agency. It must be replaced with a comprehensive, professional and proactive aviation security system based on anticipating threats, not reacting to them. One based on results, accountability and performance, which the TSA certainly is not.

After 9/11, the Bush administration ducked responsibility and let congress have its politically-motivated way with security. The resulting TSA is the equivalent of Rosemary's Baby gone bureaucrat.. That failure must be addressed - immediately. The fact is inescapable. With 70% training failure rates, hundreds of flights are going across the sky right at this moment with improperly screened passengers on board. And grabbing people's "junk" isn't the answer.

Now, there will be those who will indignantly counter by telling us that even as bad as it is at the TSA, well, "it's better than nothing."

Here's a flash: Security that has a 70%+ failure rate is nothing.

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2010 - 2011 US Air Passenger Traffic:
Molasses, Not Quicksilver

There have been lots of one-shot stories that indicate air passenger traffic in the United States is on the big-time rebound.

Don't break out the bubbly just yet. Happy days are not here again. For the US airline industry, stable days are here, but as for go-go growth as some analysts may be indicating, it's not happening.

First, based on year to date data, the US will clock in for year 2010 at approximately 528 to 531 million passengers, representing 715 to 719 million enplanements. That's not much more than statistical noise of a difference from 2009's 707 million. This tracks right on with the Boyd Group International Airports:USA forecast. From the time it was first accomplished in January, no fundamental changes have been needed.

Second, despite some snapshot stories of one airline or another carrying X% more passengers than last year, the fact is that there's nothing in the cards to show any major increases in capacity on the horizon. As currently filed, US airlines are planning to add just 1.7% more departures to their schedules for the full year 2011. Seats will go up about 2.3%, mostly due to shifting more 50-seat RJs to the desert, raising the average airliner size per departure.

But none of this is in stone. Oil prices just popped toward the $100 level, which is going to cause some re-thinking in airline planning departments. And in airline real estate departments, where there will be a scramble to assure desert parking space for more "regional" jets. From these data, Boyd Group International's Airports:USA forecast is still point to a flat or even down 2011.

Finally, don't buy into this monumental jive coming from inside the Beltway that things are getting better. . Unemployment is still nearly 10%. Underemployment somewhere around 15% or more, so they say. According to the Wall Street Journal, companies are holding on to cash - instead of spending and investing, industries want protection from a future run by a three-ring circus of congressional clowns- some of whom are telling us that higher taxes are good for the economy. Others are grudgingly deciding not to increase the tax burden, acting as if they are bestowing some magnanimous gift upon the unwashed proletariat.

Watch for the me-too stories over the next few weeks about the "big rebound" in air travel in 2011. Would that they could be accurate. Alas, they are not.

It's Not A Matter of Enplanements. It's A Matter of Access. Worse, it's small airports that are going to see the biggest hit. Today, a lot of that hit at many smaller airports - in the form of declining network airline access - is being smoke-screened by growth in travel-company enplanements, such as Allegiant and Direct Air. Such service is great - but it is not access to and from the rest of the world. It is a strong business model, but it is not focused on air transportation, per se. To the contrary, it is intended mostly to generate leisure traffic to specific vacation destinations. Mr. Chiang cannot use it to get to the community from Taipei to do a site search. The family wanting to visit relatives in Spokane aren't in the mix, either. In the first case, Mr. Chiang goes somewhere else to plan his new electronics factory. The family becomes leakage to another airport.

But the spike in price-generated leisure passengers misleads some communities into believing that they have great air service, a conclusion based only on passenger numbers. As far as economic impact and growth are concerned, loss of network carrier access cannot be replaced by planeloads of impulse-vacationers on three-day-per-week flights to St. Petersburg.

Final Point: The mix of passenger enplanements in the US - network enplanements - will shift dramatically away from smaller airports as SF-340s, and more 50-seat jets are culled out of fleets in the coming months.

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Finally, In Case You Missed It

Photos from the 2010 International Aviation Forecast Summit, held Oct 24-26 in New Orleans, are now posted on line. Lots of them. We had over 300 attendees, including leaders from areas of aviation.  Click here.

We'll be announcing the exciting 2011 venue shortly.

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Monday,  December 13, 2010

Why Are People Afraid To Just Say It?
High Speed Rail: These Guys Are Detached From Reality

Let's start with a definition, this one from Google...

Psychosis: A loss of contact with reality, usually including false ideas about what is taking place or who one is (delusions) and seeing or hearing things that aren't there (hallucinations). Symptoms include:

• Abnormal displays of emotion
• Confusion
• Disorganized thought and speech
• Extreme excitement (mania)
• False beliefs (delusions)
• Loss of touch with reality
• Mistaken perceptions (illusions)
• Seeing, hearing, feeling, or perceiving things that are not there (hallucinations)
• Unfounded fear/suspicion

What's scary is that this is a fits-like-a-glove definition of the Secretary of Transportation's plan to foist politically-correct but financially disastrous high speed rail on the nation. At a time when the FAA's funding is in limbo, when airports have to grovel into congressional offices begging for discretionary funds, when the air traffic control system is held together with baling wire, when roads and bridges are deteriorating, the amateurs running the DOT are telling us that the solution is at hand: $8 billion for high speed rail.

If you really want to see psychosis, log on to the DOT's website. Instead of providing hard, accurate information, it's now a shoddy trumpet for politically-correct schemes pushed by the hobby-lobby that's running the Department. It reads like the old Soviet Union's Pravda, or Cuba's Granma, or Beijing's People's Daily. Not facts, but pompous propaganda lauding the regime, and urging the people to be patriotic and loyal, and not ask a lot of questions.

 All That's Missing Is Bullwinkle. The DOT's website, far from being an information source, has all the flavor of a discourse between Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale, the unquestioning apparatchiks for Fearless Leader. Instead of "making trouble for squirrel and moose," they're fixin' to make a giant mess of things for the entire nation:

Boris: "Natasha darlink, glorious people will be thrilled to get high speed rail, even if they don't want it." Natasha: "Yes, my little nogoodnik. Fearless Leader has deemed that people will get on train - or else..."

The DOT leaders really do sound like cartoon buffoons. Talk about loss of contact with reality, false beliefs, mistaken illusions, and hallucinations. Some comments on the DOT site:

"A future that envisions riding from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco in two hours and forty minutes. Or Chicago to St. Louis in two hours. Or Tampa to Orlando in 55 minutes."

What was that about delusions?. First, there're no independent studies regarding how many people really are going to use this system to go "downtown to downtown."  And San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than three hours? So that means no stopping at Fresno, or Merced, or San Luis Obispo, or what ever other cities are on the route ultimately chosen? Get real - politics will have the train stopping at every speed trap town on the route. (See mistaken perceptions, above.)

And what about things like distribution network systems at either end of the line? In New York, they've got a legacy system of subways and busses to take riders on the LIRR (hardly high speed) to the rest of the city. Tampa doesn't. And won't. Neither does Toledo. And the system in NYC loses money by the A-train load, Remember, the costs and the need for that type of infrastructure haven't been estimated. It's just the assumption that most people want to go from downtown Albany to downtown Buffalo. Get real. Don't think so. (See False Beliefs, above.)

"Across the country, states are seeing the future and clamoring for high speed rail..."

More psychosis. To prove the point, the last five words are linked on the DOT website to another map of a fantasy national rail system, but nothing to support any "clamoring." The truth is that there's so much "clamor" that the governors of two states - Ohio and Wisconsin - have demanded to be left out of this Children's Crusade For Rail. They don't want to get saddled with the deficits of running the stupid boondoggle after it's built and Fearless Leader forgets about all the glowing benefits that never were. (See Loss of Touch With Reality, above.)

"...Train passengers will forego crowded airports often located more than an hour outside of a city's central business district..."

Okay, and how many people flying from LGA this morning to Chicago are going to, or coming from, the "central business district?" How many are coming from suburbs and going to outlying business areas? The whole crackpot foundation of this amateur rail scheme is that people just go between downtown areas. Don't bother to seek our hard truths or facts. Natasha: "...Fearless Leader doesn't let facts get in way of glorious projects for adoring people, darlink" (See Hallucinations, above.)

"...Do not be against high speed rail!...

That's the warning Boris Badenov (a.k.a. Ray LaHood) shot out at airline executives at an FAA gathering. See, his eminence grise, the environmental jihadist Natasha (a.k.a. Carol Browner) has told him that rail is the sacred solution, and anyone against it is disloyal to the regime and an enemy of the planet. So, guys, don't be negative about this government program, even if it is looney-tunes. Even if it is fundamentally based on bad data and ding-dong assumptions, you had better not criticize the regime.  Your free speech - and good judgment - takes a back seat to loyalty to Fearless Leader. (See Abnormal Displays of Emotion, above.)

When It's Not Honest, There's A Name For It. When a government dictates that high-speed rail is the answer for all areas of the nation (regardless of where), and that there is viable economic traffic (not likely - take a look at the rest of the world), and that they're going to spend billions on it, without allowing free intellectual discourse, there's a name for it: corruption. They're going to build it, and you're going to like it.  Boris: "Fearless Leader has great belief in democracy. As long as it doesn't disagree with his glorious vision..."

The disturbing point is that high speed rail is a not a well-planned, professional program. It's a long sought dream of crackpots-with-an-agenda who are in love with the concept, and are going to force it on the US, regardless of the facts. And they want it regardless of the truth that it would be a backward move for America - one that will saddle taxpayers with huge deficits. One that is based on emotion, not truth.

But there's money to be made, and there are thousands of companies, businesses, and yes, consultants (including some aviation consultants) who will lock-step themselves behind Fearless Leader, regardless of reality. It's all about the buck.

Behead The Infidels! Now, plan on angry vitriol from the railheads. Intellectual fatwas are issued by these people against any who blaspheme the sacred doctrine. LaHood's angry warning to airline execs was just the beginning.

Certainly the air transportation system isn't without issues. Neither is the Interstate highway system. And there certainly are applications for rail. But this cockamamie $8 billion ocean of snake oil  is the pinnacle of blind, politically-correct thinking. In some ways, it's just blind allegiance to what Fearless Leader wants.

Even from people who know better.

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Monday,  December 6, 2010

The Same Old Song
Fool You Once, You're Human
Fool You For 20 Years, You're The US Aviation Industry

There's been lots of media attention on the Boeing 787 and its latest delivery delay. It's now three years behind schedule, and it seems to be a cause célèbre in the aviation media. It's serious for Boeing and serious for its customers and suppliers. Airlines are demanding financial compensation for any number of claimed damages.

But the 787 delay is a piker compared to the programs designed to guide it and other aircraft across the sky. Boeing's around 36 months late. A new, efficient ATC system is nearing 20 years behind delivery date promises made by the FAA. Two decades. When it comes to chutzpa and real financial hurt to the airline industry, the 787 doesn't move the needle compared to the ATC system.

Funny, but most folks in the aviation media haven't picked that one up. Probably too busy reading and confidently repeating FAA press releases on the progress of NextGen - a collaboration of systems that are mostly late and mostly uncertain regarding whether they'll even work properly.

That's not our conclusion - it's the findings of the GAO in report after report over the past 20 years.  Last week another report was issued:

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Federal aviation officials have yet to resolve significant financial and technological obstacles standing in the way of a planned modernization of the U.S. air traffic control system, threatening to tie up the $15 billion project, according to a congressional study released Wednesday... the latest report repeats earlier criticism that the FAA has failed to set out adequate benchmarks to show that promised reductions in air-traffic delays, and improvements in airline efficiencies, will be achieved.

'Course, the FAA NextGen cadre are claiming the report is just about minor details. See, in the magic world of NextGen (which isn't a new system but just a Madison-Avenue moniker dreamed up to repackage a number of delayed ATC initiatives) all is well. Progress is being made. And, generally, the US aviation industry, at least as expressed within Washington Alphabet groups, is content. The official dogma is that the one and true ATC solution is NextGen, it is in process, and it's just a matter of time before it becomes reality.

In fact, ATA has made it clear that it's doing all it can to get airline executives into Congressional offices to urge lawmakers to fund NextGen. ACI has held a seminar to train airport marketing staff on how to shill for NextGen. There's no doubt that the industry's Washington advisors are on the NextGen team. That's regardless of the GAO-reported fact that nobody's sure how much it will improve airway efficiency.

Don't Bother To Check References. Funny, but most airline CEOs would thoroughly vet any proposal for their company to spend just a million bucks. ATA is urging them to tell congress to spend billions, yet  any cursory glance at the FAA's current and past history in the ATC arena would make those executives - not to mention the poor folks who got snookered into attending that ACI seminar - feel like "marks" at a cheap carnival attraction. As they say down on the ranch, they're gettin' played like a cheap fiddle in a roadhouse barroom.

What the industry and the media tend to ignore is history. What was reported last week has been repeated consistently for the last 20 years. Let's repair back to the early 1990s. The FAA promised a whole new ATC system - and it would be ready by 2001, too.

WASHINGTON - Only weeks away from a scheduled appearance before Congress to testify on the status of the troubled Advanced Automation System (AAS), the FAA revealed yet another flaw in the $4.7 billion effort... The entire AAS project was originally scheduled to be completed by 2001, but schedule slips make that deadline less possible... (But) the FAA reiterated the original timetable , saying the last delivery of AAS equipment is scheduled for 2001 or 2002...

That was from a report published in Commercial Aviation News on February 15, 1993.  AAS ATC delivery would be 2001. That came and went nine years ago.

Sound familiar? For those folks playing the home game, AAS back then was the absolute solution to the ATC mess. It was postured exactly as "NextGen" is today - the holy grail. The magic only Luddites would question. What the media parroted as the answer. Probably what the Alphabets were advising the airline industry to support without question.

Just like today with NextGen, eighteen years ago when that article was published, the FAA swore on a stack of Congressional Records, Bibles, and no telling how many paid consultant reports, that AAS was the solution, it was on time, and it was the perfect and only fix to the ATC mess. It would, they assured us, be unclogging the US skies of delays by 2001.

You betcha. Within not much more than a year, the AAS program was cancelled. And $5 billion of taxpayer money went down the Crane fixture.

FAA ATC Strategy: Just Keep Making Promises. Nobody Will Hold You To Them. Now, go ahead and do some research on all of the ATC "progress" between 1994 - after the AAS fiasco - and today, and you could fill the entire fiction section of Barnes & Noble with FAA reports and press releases on their great achievements.

One might think that after wasting more than a decade on a failed AAS program, and $5 billion getting wasted, a major come-to-Jesus meeting would have taken place at the FAA. Heads would roll. Systems would be revised. Results would be measured by increases in airway efficiency, instead of how many bits and pieces of new equipment were shoe-horned onto the carcass of the 1960-era ATC system.

Alas, no. Judging by the progress in the past 17 years since the plug got pulled on AAS, it's non-business and non-accountability as usual at the ATC section. A few comments from GAO reports in the years since then (emphasis added) would cause one to ask why any airline executive would play along with this mirage of ATC "progress" -

... Five years after the cancellation of AAS...

"Despite some successes in deploying new modernization systems during the past 20 years, FAA has often failed to deliver major systems on time and within budget." March 15, 1999

... Two years later...

"Improvements from FAA's modernization program have fallen short so far." May 21, 2001

Another two and one half years later...

 "Initially FAA estimated that its ATC modernization efforts would cost $12 billion and could be completed over 10 years. Now, two decades and $35 billion later, FAA expects to need another $16 billion through 2007 to complete key projects, for a total cost of $51 billion." October 30, 2003

Heck - go another seven years, and there's still no hard schedule...

"Recent versions of NextGen planning documents have partially addressed some of GAO's concerns about their usefulness, but industry stakeholders continue to express frustration that the documents lack any specific timelines or commitments." March 18, 2009

And just in the last six months...

 "Without specific goals and metrics for the performance of NextGen as a whole, together with a timeline and action plan for implementation, it is not clear whether NextGen technologies, systems, and capabilities will achieve desired outcomes and be completed within the planned time frames." July 27, 2010

Nobody who's awake and sober could give the Agency any modicum of credibility that this "NextGen" is what it's cracked up to be. Do note that in 1993, they claimed that the fix was seven years away and less then $5 billion. Today, NextGen is about - you guessed it - about seven years away, only it's now another $15 billion. It's like a giant used car lot - promises with no delivery. Only thing missing is people in cheap plaid jackets.

True, this is heresy. One must not question NextGen. All it needs is money. "Everybody knows" this is the solution. Unfortunately, "everybody" is just another definition for "herd of sheep." The truth is that like the 787, the delivery date of a truly new and efficient ATC system has been put back time and again, except in this case it's over a 20 year period. Unlike the 787, none of the customers seem too concerned. But the fact is that a delay getting a 787 for, say United or American, is chump change compared to what the delay in ATC programs inflicts on them in a single month. It's costing the US airline industry upwards of $10 billion a year, so figure $800 million each month..

NextGen Will Get "Non-Cancelled." Bank On It. The track record is clear, even if the Alphabets and the rest of the insider Washington cognoscenti want to ignore it. NextGen, as a comprehensive solution to providing an air traffic control system that meets the nation's needs, is an increasingly-obvious flop. True, some of it is an improvement, but it's clear that it's a shot in the dark as far as a complete system goes.

So, watch over the next 24 - 36 months, as NextGen begins to morph into yet another set of approaches, or just as likely, another set of public relations schemes to again bamboozle the public and the aviation industry into believing that the Holy Grail of ATC is just a few years and several billions away.

The final point is that the airline industry will increasingly focus on managing their "production line" themselves to the maximum extent possible. That means closer monitoring of flight plans after the plane leaves JFK. it means simply that regardless of all the fine people who work at the FAA, and all the good intentions they may have, the track record proves beyond doubt that as an organization that can deliver an ATC system, the agency is now irrelevant.

As for the lobbying efforts. ATA has focused on having airlines demand more funding for NextGen. Better advice would be to have airlines demand an ATC system that meets their needs.

There is a fundamental difference. Even if it is politically-incorrect.

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International Aviation Forecast Summit
Photo Album Now On-Line

The 2010 International Aviation Forecast Summit, held October 24-27 was the best attended and most successful in our 15 year history.

We've now posted pictures from all of the sessions and events. Click here.

We're reviewing proposals from a number of cities/airports for the site of the 2011 Summit, and we're expecting to make a decision in late January.

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Monday,  November 29, 2010

The First Rule: Manage The Debate
Another Victory For Incompetence

It's astounding how just a hint of a story can turn into a page-one-above-the-fold screaming headline for days on end. And how, in a vacuum of real scrutiny, the DHS can come across like heroes when in fact they're chasing their tails, leaving the nation's airports wide open to another innovative terrorist attack.

First we have the body-scanner-or-you're-gonna-get-goosed debate. Amid the din on TV talk shows indignantly babbling about "personal privacy" and arguing about whether these "higher security" measures are warranted, nobody focused on the fact that these schemes don't make diddly improvement in keeping aviation any safer. The misconception is that the only place a terrorist would think to get bad stuff through is at a screening point, and if we accurately grope people in the right places, we'll all be safer.

The fact is that a professional bad guy wouldn't need to bother. Lots of other doors are wide open. The Christmas bomber was an amateur. So, we're countering with anti-amateur security measures, not ones aimed at a latter-day Mohammed Atta.

More Rube Goldberg. Less Real Security. Barely a news story was found that put this latest security show in context. Nobody in the media, it seems, illuminated the long, sorry track record of past TSA schemes, directed by the pathetic parade of cartoon-characters at the top of that agency. Like slobbering millions on preferred vendors selling stuff that didn't work. Remember "puffer machines?" Or, shoe-sniffing machines?. So if the public is wary about the safety or efficiency of body-scanner machines, there is a very valid reason: TSA puts stuff at screening checkpoints that isn't fully tested. And, according to a new GAO report, with screeners not fully trained, either.

Keep The Dollars Flowing. Nobody Will Complain. But all this is not only accepted by many in the aviation world, it's actually encouraged. That's because since 9/11, airport security has been a pirates' chest of heavy gelt for some sectors in the aviation industry. We're talking all sorts of projects - from millions on body-scanners or puffer machines, to space planning and architectural work in restructuring airports, to any number of contracts let by the Department of Homeland Security. It's an unending river of money, and it's not good business practice to question why, after almost a decade and an estimated $20 billion spent, basic passenger screening is estimated to still encounter a 70% to 75% failure rate when tested. The private-sector response might be, "yeah, it's wasting money. But it's being wasted on us."

Make Sure The People At The Top Know You Support Them. Even If They're Idiots. Yup, it's strictly business. And keeping this flood of $$ coming means that many in the industry go out of their way to show their homage and filial piety to the powers-that-be. Even in light of near-criminal negligence, Washington Alphabet groups have clogged trophy cases of incompetents like Norman Mineta and Jane Garvey with awards for "excellence."  Maybe if they worried more about results, and less about pandering to their "connections," we might have some pressure on the DHS to perform like a security agency instead of a jobs program for connected politicians.

Some consultant group even gave former TSA chief Kip Hawley an award for his fine work. Yup. There's a display of standards. Here's a guy under whose direction the TSA was a sewer of failed security tests, and not one time ever told the public the agency was at fault. Matter of fact, when confronted with one major test failure, Hawley arrogantly responded that he was "proud" of his people. Bad screening. Bad security, and the guy at the top gets an award from bunch of aviation consultants.  (No wonder consultants are often held in low esteem. It's another reason we steer clear of these types of mutual admiration societies.)

The Napolitano Victory Tour Continues. It's within this veritable Petrie dish of ethical bacteria that dangerously-poor national security is not only nurtured, but brazenly postured to be a cure to keeping the nation safe. Napolitano and Pistole have skillfully managed the media, engineering the body-scanner debate into one between those who want better security and those that don't. This has carefully hijacked the debate away from any real investigation of the DHS/TSA itself. They are the guys in the white hats, instead of the gang who can't screen straight.

Based on past history, however, we'd suggest they clear some space on the living room mantle. You can bet at the next big Alphabet Group convention, one or both of these people will get their awards - and a standing ovation, probably - for the "fine" work they're doing.

Meanwhile, you can also bet that professional terrorists are watching this circus. They're like the Red Army. DHS is like a junior varsity pep club.

We've been warned.

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Snapshot: Shifting Traffic Volume Patterns

Over the past five years, the expansion of jetBlue, AirTran, Spirit, and Southwest in the East has reordered the top ten national passenger city pairs - dramatically. The dynamics have shifted to volume being in longer-haul markets.

Note, however that fare yields have actually stayed pretty much the same - it's just that the average trip length has gone up over 30%.

Note how the traditional Northeast shuttle markets - LGA- BOS/DCA have literally atrophied off the top 10 list. In the last five years, the LGA-BOS market dropped by 39%. LGA-DCA plunged 47%, But don't be too worried - the total revenues dropped only 13%. LGA-BOS yields went from 63.6 cents to 85.1 cents. As for LGA-DCA, yields went up 73%.

It is these changing dynamics that represent the very different economics of air service the US is facing. At Boyd Group International we monitor and forecast these shifts, and as a result can provide our clients with real world air service planning that addresses the future. Outdated approaches such as MIDT studies, internet surveys, and pipe-dream traffic studies are not what we do. We deal in hard facts and futurist reality. For more information click here.

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Monday,  November 22, 2010

They Spend $4,500 To Make Us Spend Billions. No, We Are Not Safer Than Before 9/11
The Terrorists Have Us on The Run

Terrorists bang on our cage. We just run in circles and jump in our water dish.

That was the observation just one year ago after that punk kid from Nigeria tried to blow up an airliner coming into Detroit. Instead of calmly and professionally addressing the situation, and crafting proactive planning to address all of the potentialities it represented, the Department of Homeland Security instead launched into a program to prevent people from going through security with explosives strapped to their thighs. Not see about the wider issue of such supplies getting on airplanes. Just on thighs.

Take Your Pick: Get Radiated Or Get Groped. Here's A Flash: Neither's Very Effective. No consideration was given to the fact that gaping holes in ramp security could have been how the stuff got on the plane - or at least was an alternative path that also needed attention. Nope. DHS just charged out and bought a lot of expensive equipment. For them, as usual, an "instant" solution.

We did a bit of research. With the help of Brian Sullivan, Steve Elson (former FAA Red Team investigators) and others, we found that these machines will do nothing to fix the main failures with that underwear bomber of one year ago. His father had warned the CIA at the US Embassy. The national intel folks knew about him but refused to pull his visa. Bought his ticket with cash. He didn't use his own passport. He was flying to Detroit in the middle of winter with no luggage and not even a coat. Gee, a billion or two on body screeners just ought to fix all that, right?

So this pandering garbage that some in the media spout that "he came from a foreign country with lousy security" is a dodge. He was going to a country - the US - with lousy security. Regardless of what happened or didn't happen in Nigeria or in Amsterdam, there was also a massive screw-up on the part of US security.

So, instead of dealing with the problem, or firing the boobs who failed, DHS is doing the usual - buying expensive equipment and convincing the public all is well. This time it's body-scanners. Fact is that unless they're going to be used to scan for brain matter in the front offices of the TSA, these things aren't going to do the job. 

Stay Calm. Only A Few Might Get Cancer. Now, we're finding credible reports that these contraptions can contribute to cancer. But not to worry. If people don't want to get microwaved like a cheap frozen entree, they can choose the alternative and get physically groped. And, as the flood of news stories have verified, it's become a total circus of stupidity - including things like strip-searching small children.

And now, as we note below, those are the only two choices. Decide not to do either - even decide not to travel - and you may be detained, arrested and punished. And you thought you had rights.

Cut The Screeners Some Slack. The poor TAS folks in the blue shirts are victims, too. You gotta believe they are embarrassed at the clowns directing this fiasco. They just have to be good soldiers under the direction of ding-dongs in Washington.

Knee-Jerk Is The Plan. It's all just reactive. And some of it is outright comical. Today, you'll notice that there are suddenly signs at checkpoints telling passengers they are limited to the size of printer cartridges they can carry on board flights. (?) That's because these items were the modality used  to pack explosives in a cargo shipment from Yemen a couple weeks ago.  Like, we all are now bummed out that we can't carry Xerox supplies with us on vacation.

Guaranteed, if the cargo shipment had been a Volkswagen carburetor, these knee-jerk monkey-see, monkey-do Homeland Security folks would be posting pictures of them at security check points, too.

For more fun, the terrorists sent out word that the recent cargo scare plot cost them about $4,500.  No telling how much it has and will cost our economy. Yes, they have us on the run. And they're doing it on the cheap.(Nice to see al Qaeda has a cost-accounting department. But spending over four large just for a FedEx? They might want to do an audit on the guy who filed the expense report.)

Tell The Bad Guys How To Circumvent The Stupidity. Then there is the ultimate bit of stupidity that the media has missed. The TSA has reported that if a consumer does not set off the metal detector, they won't be selected to go through the body scanner - which is supposed to find, yes, non-metal things strapped to one's anatomy. So, now TSA has told the bad guys how to beat the system. Just avoid anything metal. But that's a non sequitur, because trained terrorists have lots of easier ways to attack the rest of the airport.

Interview Everybody - Except Somebody With Intelligent Answers. If we could film all this stuff we've seen in the past week, it could be a whole new season of Survivor - Island of Idiots.  Everybody's suddenly an expert on airport screening. Hillary has chimed in. The New Jersey Legislature. Geraldo. O'Reilly. Former senators. Obama, too. Even Gloria Allred - some glitzy divorce lawyer to the stars - has been interviewed front and center on news shows. Now, these people might not be able to recognize a body scanner from an ATM machine, but that don't make no nevermind. They're all security experts. (Considering what we've seen in terms of senior TSA leadership since 2002, they might as well be.)

Most People Support It - Even If They Don't Know What It Is. Then nudnik polling companies survey the public, which by an 80% margin feels this "extra security" is positive. The only little problem is that it's not extra security. Read this - these body scanners and grope-the-groin searches don't increase security. Again - putting random people into x-ray machines and pawing at small children doesn't make airports safer.

First, remember 9/11 was not a direct result of failures in passenger screening. It was - and is - also a failure of total airport security. Today, a professional terrorist has plenty of other avenues of getting bad stuff on airliners. He doesn't need to endure the inconvenience of waiting in long TSA lines. He has lots of other places through which he can concoct and implement a well-planned attack: The maintenance shops. The catering. The fueling. The cabin and aircraft cleaners. The ramp maintenance workers.

And, please, to say they've been background-checked is stupid. Even if that is the case, there isn't any program in place that represents on-going professional scrutiny of these activities or the people performing them. Security awareness, let alone contingency and mitigation plans, are strictly down the priority list.

Second, randomly picking out passengers isn't screening. It's shooting in the dark. We need risk-based profiling, and behavioral identification approaches. The former is out because it's "profiling" and that we just don't want to do in any form, lest we look like we're doing it on racial or ethnic determinations. It's not politically correct, don't ya know. And behavioral screening, the TSA claims, is being pursued. Right. Like most TSA programs, it's in tatters. The GAO reported in May that what the TSA is doing is not working. Not that ever makes a difference to the honchos at the TSA - nor to much of the swooning media that follows them around.

Don't Believe The Pap. We Are Still As Vulnerable As On 9/11. There are those that will tell you that things are better than 9/11 at airport screening points. Argue it all your want, but the facts show that we are still falling down on the job. In Washington real aviation security isn't important - or, at least, it's not accountable. It's just another political plum that connected people are allowed to mismanage. Heck, the guy Obama wanted initially to run the TSA gave false testimony to congress. He was a liar, but he was qualified, in the administration's opinion, to direct national security. That should tell you volumes.

Here's a quote from this year from Rep. John Mica, whose House committee oversaw the TSA until 2007, and who will again take up that gavel in the 2011 congress:

“OF THE REPORTS I GET IS THAT PERFORMANCE ACTUALLY HAS BEEN GOING DOWN.  THE LARGER THE WORK FORCE, AND THE ACTUAL PERFORMANCE IN DETECTION, UHH WHICH IS MONITORED BY BOTH THE GENERAL ACCOUNTING, TSA ITSELF AND THEN THE IG OF HOMELAND SECURITY. BUT THOSE REPORTS ARE CLASSIFIED. YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO SEE THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE QUITE FRIGHTENING. UHHH AND, AND ACTUALLY OF LATE, THEY, UHHH, WITH MORE PERSONNEL AND MORE TECHNOLOGY, THEY HAVE EVEN PERFORMED POORER.”

Forget the sycophant stuff coming from some corners of the media. Mica has seen the real data. Performance is going down, not up. He also said it right on camera in Fred Gevalt's movie, Please Remove Your Shoes.

We can refer to a blizzard of other sources. For example, Mica was asked earlier this year about screening failures, and he admitted that they were "off the chart." In November of 2007, tests were done at screening points at major airports to detect IED components. All failed. Since that time, there is no evidence that the TSA has taken any remedial action to address this.

Welcome To Pistole's Third Reich. You Will Obey. Or You Will be Punished. Now, the TSA is reported to be saying that if a passenger gets to the screen point and does not want to be put through a radiation machine, and does not want to be physically groped, he or she no longer has the option of just not traveling. They may be arrested and fined $11K.

Isn't that just super! The spirit of Heinrich Himmler lives! If you refuse to undergo what the regime wants to impose on you, there will be consequences.

Doesn't anybody find that disturbing? Unfortunately most in the media just get the TSA briefing, and rush out to report it, with out a shred of consideration regarding the contents. Whatever the TSA tells them, they confidently appear before the cameras and earnestly repeat it. One respected commentator on FOX simply "confirmed" that there was no radiation threat from body scanners, because - get this deep source - Pistole had told him so over lunch.

Worse, some reporters have built their "beats" on being TSA correspondents. In the process they've become unquestioning de facto spokespeople for the TSA. They're experts on translating the TSA to the public, but they are no longer journalists. They're toadies, not reporters.

In Effect, DHS Is Not On Our Side. Here's the bottom line: the TSA that the Bush Administration allowed congress to create is now out of control. It has no accountability - as noted above, most of the media just give it a loyal walk. Most consumers are cowed into just accepting whatever TSA spits out. Congress blusters, but they don't have the you-know-whats to do anything.

The TSA is now a rogue bureaucracy.

And it's now an unwitting ally of al Qaeda. Yes, an ally. The terrorists want to shut us down and eliminate our freedom and our free speech. The amateur clumsy responses by unqualified people at the top of the DHS are actually helping to accomplish just that by making a dog's breakfast of national security

Think about it - they are posturing as "national security" the fascist outrage of holding people in custody who don't want to submit to radiation or a hand-grab by the government. It's what you would expect from Third-World thugs.

When a person travels, they do give up the expectation of privacy. That's reality. But they don't give up the expectation of having aviation security run by professionals. We don't have that. They don't give up the right to choose whether to travel or not once they enter a security line only to find that the procedures being used are not only inept, but downright demeaning and possibly dangerous. They are still citizens with rights.

Isn't that what this war on terror is all about - protecting freedom?

Apparently not.
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Monday,  November 15, 2010

Full Body Scanners & Other Fun
Airport Security: Party Like It's 1997

"To a trained terrorist, US airports have the security of a Laundromat."

That was the conclusion of Boyd Group International in 1997 - as printed in the Wall Street Journal. Four years before 9/11.It was proven accurate then. It's still a valid - and we maintain, accurate - statement.

Nature Abhors Vacuums. Congress Loves Them. Immediately after 9/11. the Bush Administration resigned any leadership role, and numbly allowed Congress - an organization that brings new dimensions to the term "klutzy" - to have full reign on designing a new airport security system. And boy, did they come through.

If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, Congressionally-designed US airport security could double as a re-make of Lawrence of Arabia. It's been the Original Amateur Hour with one embarrassingly stupid policy after another - none of which (and we mean none) addressed the real failures that allowed 19 scummy clowns to kill almost 3,000 people and send the USA into chasing its tail.

The near-criminal ignorance of security by FAA Administrator Jane Garvey was actually lauded by the Bush Administration. (Heck, she's so wonderful that United Airlines - which lost two planes on 9/11 - put her on their Board of Directors, amid comments that she represented the type of management the airline needed.) The total incompetents in high positions at FAA security before 9/11 got promotions. And billions were spent trying to intercept pointy objects at passenger screening points. The kicker is that it was a whole lot more than just passenger screening that failed on that September morning. With the fuzzy and unfocused leadership from the Bush Oval Office, the post-9/11 period became a political free-for-all, instead of a rational approach to meeting future threats. It still is.

If these guys had been in charge on December 8, 1941, we'd all be eating sushi and writing in kana.

Toss More Millions Into A Sink Hole. Now, it's full-body scanners. A year ago, some rich Nigerian kid got boom-stuff on board an airliner, and off we go buying millions of dollars of new equipment - contraptions that may not have deterred the December 2009 incident that came a hair away from splattering an A-330 all over the Ontario countryside. The assumption is that the kid got it through strapped to his leg. With the sieve-like security at airports across the world, he could have just as likely had his buddies get the stuff to him via rampside access. (If you think 9/11 was just people sneaking stuff through passenger screening, call your Realtor. There's a bridge in Brooklyn that's on the market.)

Body scanners are just another knee-jerk reaction, instead of pro-active security planning. According to TSA (and swallowed hook-line-and-sinker by the media) these things are going to save the day, even if the air cargo facility, and the fuel farm, and the catering kitchen, and the HVAC system, and the maintenance hangars, and the access to the taxiway reconstruction project, and (you fill in the blanks) are wide open.

Don't worry, says the DHS Secretary (who, when she was governor of Arizona was so inept that her borders were among the least secure in the nation), these machines are the answer. So don't criticize.

One little problem: to save us from terror, we may be radiating passengers into the cancer ward.

Indeed, David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University and a professor of radiation biophysics told CNN last week:

"If you think of the entire population of, shall we say a billion people per year going through these scanners, it's very likely that some number of those will develop cancer from the radiation from these scanners."

Do note that this is not some web-blog gadfly. It's a radiologist. Naturally, there will be those that'll say it's a small risk to keep us safe. Its just "some number" out of billions. Great, be a good little follower. The fact is that these radiation-cookers don't keep us safe. Just as with 9/11, trained terrorists can get things onto airplanes without the need to go through a passenger checkpoint.

Think about it. For crying out loud, San Francisco just outlawed McDonald's Happy Meals as a heath threat. But it's okay to force travelers at SFO through machines that have the possibility of causing cancer - machines that don't make us any safer. Just more radiated.

And if you don't want to let some hapless TSA screener in a back room view just how much you've let your body sink into a state of excess cellulite, the alternative is to be groped - literally - with a hand-search.

Several aviation organizations, such as the Allied Pilots Association, have come out four square against this idiotic situation. More should step forward.

The bottom line is that we're paying a very high price for near-total lack of aviation security vision and leadership. It started with the Bush Administration, and has seamlessly continued into the current one.

If anybody thinks we're safe, they aren't paying attention. We're still trying to stop the last threat, instead of anticipating the next one.

And for more comfort, here's a conclusion from Brian Sullivan, a former FAA Red Team Inspector who tried repeatedly warn superiors of security gaps before 9/11:

“The proof is in the pudding. You look at the two most recent incidents – the shoe-bomber and the Christmas Day bomber, the underwear-bomber – and it was absolutely passengers and crew that subdued the terrorists. Not the TSA.” 

Zapping random travelers with x-rays or groping them by hand only makes us look even more incapable of deterring future threats. So, we'll add to the comment we made in 1997:

The only reason there hasn't been another major attack on the aviation system since 9/11 is the same as why there wasn't one prior to that date: Nobody has wanted to try. Next time it won't be kicking in cockpit doors or flying planes into buildings. It will be a different approach. But make no mistake. Body scanners and the rest of the well-publicized Keystone Kops routines are eyewash, not proactive security.
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Small Commercial Airports: Life After Scheduled Service.
Days of Reckoning Are Coming

At the opening Forecast Trends session of the 2010 International Aviation Forecast Summit, several hard trends were discussed - candidly.

One in particular is the eventual need to perform financial triage on the number of commercially-served  airports in America. The hard fact is that many of today's scheduled service airports simply don't make economic sense. At some point, the end is going to come. Based on airline economics, it's a mathematical certainty. In many cases, the end has come - even if airliners are still coming and going. The amount of traffic can be found mostly under a microscope.

Better To Be Honest Up Front Than To Mislead The Community. A lot of air service development at small communities today is what we at Boyd Group International describe as "air service hospice." They'll pay some consultant to keep them comfortable doing studies and surveys until the end. But there's no glimmer of hope for an air service cure. In many cases, this diverts vision and energies and resources away from planning for the airport's future after the last (empty) scheduled flight leaves.

An example: ten years ago, we got a call from Pueblo Memorial Airport in Colorado, asking for assistance in building an air service development plan. Our response was that we could more likely convince NASA to do a moon launch at Pueblo than to recruit a network carrier to enter the market. In short, because of market size and proximity to other airports, there wasn't a snowball's chance in Chihuahua that any network airline would consider coming to town.

We knew this out of the box, because it was obvious. The recommendation was to ally with nearby COS as the gateway to the region. 

Not the answer they wanted to hear. The phone went dead. They probably called another of the usual consultant suspects to do a "study" for them. Probably spent a lot of money, too.

That was then. This is now. As for scheduled, network carrier service, excluding charter and semi-charter service, back then Pueblo had three 19-seat UAX departures to Denver. Today, a decade later, it still has three 19-seat Great Lakes departures to DEN.  And, with a stellar 31% load factor, too. We never pursued the moon launch thing. But we did tell them the truth, rather than waste their money doing a study for which any professional would know the results before they started.

Triage Is Coming- Like It Or Not. Which brings up the discussion at the Summit. Bill Swelbar of MIT commented that maybe somebody might have to play God and dictate where to stop spending money keeping airports towered and in Part 139 compliance so six reluctant consumers can clamber on board a subsidized flight to avoid the indignity of an hour's drive to another, larger airport. Or, even considering designating a single airport in a region as the FAA-funded commercial gateway.

Duck for cover. These were heresies on a scale of political incorrectness that in an earlier age or in a different place would have one heading for the stocks or a vacation in the Gulag.  On the sensitivity scale, and within the jive that a lot of small communities are being fed today by various "experts," these comments were right up there with telling small children that the Easter Bunny is just a big rodent.

Unfortunately, sometimes truth is something that cannot avoid barbecuing sacred cows. Mr. Swelbar only illuminated hard decisions the US transportation system needs to face, and can no longer ignore. (Nevertheless, be sure to send us a card from Siberia. Bill.)

Wake Up And Smell The Interstate. It is a very unpopular point, but airline economics and the airline system have changed in the last 30 years. The viability of the Nebraska River Run is long gone. The Thruway route between Albany and Buffalo is economically impossible. Ditto for intra-state service between smaller communities in California, Texas and Michigan. And, ten years later, Pueblo EAS service is a waste of money. Not because we say so, but the consumer says so. This isn't the case at all small communities, but there are enough out there who need to begin planning for life after EAS.

In reality, God needn't bother getting involved, Raw economics will do the job quite effectively, albeit with an extended period of denial and a slower arrival at reality. And in the meantime, there are plenty of consultants out there who will provide comfort in the form or more cockamamie studies or surveys or flim flam, right up to the end.

There is life after scheduled service for smaller airports. And regional cooperation and a regional perspective in air service access will be increasingly important alternatives. When (not if) those three B-1900s stop coming to Pueblo, the community will still have air service - but just not at the local airport. It will be down the road at COS.

It's better - and a lot cheaper in the long run - to plan with reality, instead of against it.
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Finally, On A Sad Note
Mort Beyer

Boyd Group International sends condolences to the family of Mort Beyer who passed away last month. Founder of Avmark, and a pioneer in aviation consulting, Mort was a refreshing voice - direct and blunt. Over the years we were fortunate enough to cross paths with him, sometimes socially, sometimes on the other side of the table. But always we walked away in good cheer. He will be missed.
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Monday,  November 8, 2010

The FAA Delay Fiasco Continues:
Blame It On The Victim

It's like Willie Sutton complaining about bank security.

The FAA has just come out with a study that declares - my, goodness, no! - that the agency's attempt at ridding the New York skies of delays by imposing slot caps isn't working.

What's incredible, however, is that the situation has been successfully engineered into one that makes the FAA look like the knight in shiny armor, riding in to rescue hapless consumer maidens from the airline delay dragon. The truth is that delays and congestion - not just in NYC, but across the nation - are mostly because for the past two decades the FAA itself has dundered around in circles, failing miserably to provide an air traffic control system that meets the nation's air transportation needs.

But the FAA has also successfully misled the public into believing that its mission is simply to eliminate flight delays. Wrong. Their job is to provide the infrastructure to meet the nation's air transportation demand. And at that, it's been a 20-year parade of promises, whiz-bang technology, and a near consistent situation where around 20% of all flights are more than 15 minutes off the already-padded (of necessity) schedules filed by airlines. They are failing in their job, and now try to cover it up by suggesting that airlines need to fly less, fly fewer consumers, and continue the need to add expensive minutes to their flight times, all to accommodate an outdated ATC system.

"Yeahbutt," the retort will be, "airlines are cramming too many airplanes into New York. That's the reason we have delays." Oh, pluheeze. Get a clue. Let's go back to Willie Sutton. When he was asked why he robbed banks, his answer was simple: "Because that's where the money is." Why are airlines flying into New York? It's because that's where the passengers are. It's what consumers want. Airlines don't just toss airplanes in the direction of the Big Apple for yucks and grins or to see how much fuel they'll waste circling over the Atlantic waiting for clearance into Newark.

Airlines are flying into New York because that's what the consumer wants.

NextGen - A Leaky Life Raft In A Very Bad Storm. One of the most egregious scams foisted on the American public is the FAA's NextGen. Heresy! is the reply from the all-knowing "experts." The aviation media has swallowed the FAA's line for the past 20 years like trained seals. Even a cursory look at the last several years of claims and promises would give at least a clue that something's really wrong with where the FAA's been going.

ATA marches airline executives into congressional offices like prize ponies, lobbying them to fund NextGen. Funny, but a more effective approach would be having the industry demand that the FAA pursue a program that will produce a solution, instead of whining about throwing money at a moribund set of initiatives that still will leave airlines with 20% of flights arriving 15+ schedule. Remember, NextGen is billed only as an improvement - one with a track record only a slick confidence man would have the chutzpah to peddle to the public. The nation needs a solution that approaches a full free flight concept, instead of trying to jury-rig the existing system - with the full knowledge that it won't solve the problem.

The Stockholm Syndrome Lives. But it's not in the cards. The glacially-slow and obscenely expensive NextGen is what, at least officially, the airline industry and its Washington lobbyists support. They are not pushing for a full solution. They are not pushing for results from the FAA. They are more specifically pushing for NextGen. ACI actually had a workshop last year intended to "educate" airports on the benefits  of NextGen, and how they could learn to "pitch NextGen like a pro!" Be good little followers, and don't question the official line. The sound of sucking up to the powers that be was deafening.

It's Not Just New York, Either. One positive point made in the FAA report was that there are no data to determine how flight delays affect the rest of the nation. That should dampen the media stories that "75% (or what other number) of all US delays are caused by the New York choke point." There is no foundation for this whatsoever. But it's been a factoid that has become industry lore.

Anyway, we can look forward to more FAA efforts to make the air transportation system adjust to its ATC system, instead of the other way around.
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Oberstar's Departure:
No, It's Not A Loss For Aviation

It seems that when a politician leaves office, there tends to be a flood of heartfelt good wishes, crocodile tears, and gushes of thanks and appreciation for his long years as a public servant. That's regardless of whether he did a great job or was a total doofus.

In the latter case, it would be better if we just told it like it is, admitting that change is long overdue, and tell the guy leaving not to let the door hit him on the way out.

We saw it with Norman Mineta when he left the post as DOT Secretary. Face it, his performance after 9/11 was disgraceful. He lauded the incompetents at the FAA whose poor oversight left us vulnerable. He protected the guilty. And in the hours, days, and weeks after the event, he was a picture of wallowing indecisiveness. Yet, they name airports for him and sing his praises. Makes no difference how long he was in public service. When the 9/11 chips were down, he showed no leadership or vision whatsoever. He should be ashamed of himself. Good riddance.

Now James Oberstar is out - defeated after 38 years by a former Northwest Airlines pilot. Lots of kudos for the departing Oberstar from the usual suspects inside the Washington lobby scene. But the fact is that Oberstar was only an advocate for certain interests - he was not an advocate for aviation, per se.

Finally, Oberstar had clearly lost touch with the real world. Go to YouTube and take a look at his behavior and demeanor at the debates with his opponent. Clearly, he had become regally above reproach in his own mind. He deserved to lose, and aviation will be the better for it.

We covered how Oberstar had gone way off the track a couple weeks ago. The voters, apparently, agreed.
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Monday,  November 1, 2010

It's Baack!
Let's Dig Up The Cadaver One More Time

It's a lead pipe chinch that 90% of anybody in America under the age of 35 wouldn't have a clue who these people were. Consumers attach no emotion, no recognition, nothing whatsoever to these names. They were once the biggest stars of their time. Today, it'll take a Google session for people to find out who they were. They are history. Nobody remembers. Nobody cares.

Here's another name most consumers think is long buried, if they remember it at all:

Pan American World Airlines.

Since this carrier passed from the airline scene nearly two decades ago, it's been dug up more times than an out-take from Night Of The Living Dead. 

There've been at least three efforts to resuscitate an airline with that name, ostensibly to return to the glory days of the China Clipper, Round-The-World Flight One, and cuisine from Maxim's of Paris. In each case, the starry-eyed assumption was that the cachet of the great legacy of PanAm would have consumers flocking to book seats. They might as well have named it the New York Central or maybe, more appropriately, the White Star Line. Nobody cared. Nobody remembered. Life had moved on.

Now, reports are that there's yet another attempt at capitalizing on the storied name. Yessir, it will bring back the glory days. Except instead of global flights and wings across the Pacific, it'll be initially a freight airline based at Brownsville, Texas, because it is supposedly the crossroads of the hemisphere. (We are not making this up.) And, Holy Coincidence, Batman! - it will use buildings that the original Pan Am had in the 1930s and 1940s! It's kismet!

And after the cargo business booms, the new Pan American will reportedly start passenger service to Latin American points, and from there, to Africa. Fifth- and sixth-freedom rights are a snap between Montevideo and Lagos, no doubt.

At least they're not planning on selling seats for $9, or hawking Rolex knock-offs in the cabin, as did Jet America (a vapor start-up) and Skybus.

But the ultimate result will not be much different.
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Follow-Up On Southwest/AirTran

At the 15th Annual International Aviation Forecast Summit, a number of questions were raised regarding the "Southwest effect" at Atlanta.

One major confusion is comparing WN entry at ATL with their expansion into Philadelphia or Denver. In the latter cases, they added net-new capacity immediately into the market. At ATL, they will initially be repainting backwalls and taking over flying where AirTran has already accomplished fare stimulation.

As our study - the only independent analytical review of the merger - outlines, AirTran has fare-stimmed 24 of the 25 largest ATL O&D metro markets. Southwest will certainly expand beyond this, but what the Wall Street cognoscenti and others are missing is that the biggest O&D markets already have "low fare" presence - and from a carrier that has lower costs than Southwest.

Another point missed by the me-too analysts is that local O&D markets at ATL are already over-served due to the benefit of the Delta and AirTran connecting hubs that aggregate passengers. So, there are no huge O&D opportunities for Southwest. In fact, AirTran traffic at ATL is two-thirds flow. Southwest will need that traffic - and trying to make it up by fare-stimming ATL-OMA or ATL-AUS or ATL-GEG would be real tough.

There's no question that Southwest will do gangbusters at ATL. There's no question that consumers will benefit big-time. But it's not the cakewalk the usual suspects-without-a-clue are predicting. And it's likely that WN knows this and is preparing for it.

It you haven't reviewed our review of the merger, click here. It's straight independent data and analysis - we don't have a dog in the fight.

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Top Ten New Air Service Realities
The Truth. Not Wishful Thinking

At risk of doing the equivalent of telling kids there's no Santa Claus, Boyd Group International is making available the Top Ten New Air Service Realities.

It's time that the fantasies get replaced with hard recognition of the new marketplace. There are fewer airlines. There are fewer airliners in the sky. The costs and the revenue bars are going up. A lot of the schemes being foisted on small communities are little more than what we call "air service hospice." They'll keep the community comfortable. But not reverse the process of local air service loss.

Point: a lot of the assumptions regarding retaining air service access are now not only out of date, but distract from the real challenges that entire regions of the nation are facing in regard to planning for the global economy.

To download, click here. And be prepared to see heresy that questions the "consensus." Remember, the "consensus" never has moved any industry forward. And neither will a lot of the current and traditional beliefs when it comes to air service access.
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Monday,  October 18, 2010

Big Changes In Airline Fleets...
And In Future Air Service Strategies

According to the Boyd Group International 2011-2020 Global Fleet Trend & Demand Forecast, airliner-order decisions in the coming years will be generated by a range of very different metrics than in the past. These new decision-processes will affect the types of aircraft ordered, and the operational strategies of each Global Alliance.

The New World Airline Order. Yes, Global Alliance. Not necessarily individual airline. United will be making decisions based on its role in the Star Alliance. American will consider the global (in both the geographical and the operational sense) factors involved in the oneworld arrangement when looking at fleet needs. Ditto Star. What this portends is that the needs and requirements of the alliance as a whole will be balanced against parochial national air service considerations of each member. Deal with it.

Demand Vulnerabilities & Uncertainties. First, manufacturers will deliver slightly over 15,100 new passenger airliners over the ten year period. While we have a basic idea of the demand, there are several disruptive trends that are becoming evident:

 - First, the most telling is that there are few true technological disruptions on the horizon in the single-aisle categories. On the top end of capacity, we have the 787, and the A-350WXB. But in the 100 - 180 range of capacity, only the Bombardier C-Series appears to promise any leap-frogging economic potential.

- Second, for the first time in airline history, carriers are starting to re-fleet with the same airframe designs that they are retiring. Air France has scrapped a number of A-320s, only to replace them with newer A-320s. Ryan Air has done the same with some 737-800s. Historically, when an airline has re-fleeted, it has had entirely new and next-generation designs to buy. Other than incremental improvements, today the single-aisle category hasn't moved materially in terms of technology.

- Seat capacity is no longer the replacement criteria. Sector costs are the starting point when it comes to new fleet consideration, regardless of the number of chairs in the cabin.

- As our forecasts first projected, the "regional jet" era is over. Today, "RJ" is a term nobody really has a handle on. Is it a jet operated by a "regional" airline - an entity that today actually no longer exists as such? Is it a "small jet?" The problem is that other than some trickle-orders for CRJ-700s, most jets in production and on the planning board are over 80 seats, give or take a scope-clause-mandated 76-seat cabin on some "90-seaters." Is it an aircraft that only serves "regional routes?" Sure, like Denver - Atlanta and Chicago - Houston. In our forecasts, we relegate the term "regional jet" to only CRJs and ERJs - those airframes that were initially designed for what the term originally meant: a growth airplane for "regional airlines" - a whole category of carriers that no longer exist as such.

In that regard, the forecast projects that there is demand - primarily in the US - for approximately 300 CRJ-900/1000s, mostly as replacements for 50-seaters within major airline brand systems.

Maybe The <100 Seat Category Is In The Economic Cross-Hairs. The most "soft" part of the forecast is the 75-seat through 125 seat categories. In the 75-100 seat area we have the Embraer E-Jets, and the potential for the Mitsubishi MRJ and the Sukhoi SRJ. How these platforms will play out is far from certain. The 101-125 seat category is vulnerable to a decision by Boeing or Airbus to re-engine or otherwise enhance the economics of the 737/A-320 platforms. It's also vulnerable to a highly-efficient C-Series. Again, the fleet-decision staring point is no longer just seat capacity. It's sector costs.

We'll be covering the entire Global Fleet Trend & Demand Forecast, plus hearing from Boeing, Airbus, and Bombardier in regard to their forecasts, at next week's International Aviation Forecast Summit in New Orleans. This year's event is the best-attended in out 15-year Summit/Conference history. The venue - the Ritz-Carlton - is now full, but there are other properties right nearby. For more information, click here.

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 Monday,  October 11, 2010

When All Else Fails...
Let's Create A Global Air Cargo Hub

The airline industry is shrinking. Not necessarily in traffic volume, but in the number of players.

That bit of incredible insight into the obvious out of the way, what is missed is that this is structurally and permanently changing the revenue streams at US airports. In some cases, large airports like Pittsburgh and St. Louis find themselves with enormous excess square footage. Whole concourses are shut down, looking like giant empty fingers reaching out from sparsely-occupied terminals. The airline hub is gone, and after years of rah-rah-we'll-get-another-hub-airline, the hard reality is starting to sink in: there ain't no other airline out there.

At the other end of the size spectrum, rural communities are tumbling to the hard fact that they just don't have the population horsepower to any longer support viable scheduled service from the rest of the air transportation system. Their local politicians, sitting in blissful Beltway ignorance, armed with cribsheets supplied by clueless staffers, make grand press announcements that they're going to fix this. "We'll get an airline into East Boondoggle! Our economy needs it! - We can't have our citizens driving 45 minutes to get a flight!" (That last part is almost a direct quote from one US Senator, by the way.) Then they hail a taxi on Connecticut Avenue, and it crawls for 60 minutes in rush-hour traffic to Dulles, so they can fly to New York, to then get another cab that will take another 45 minutes to get to Mid-Town for that meeting with the Fat Cat campaign contributor.

But all is well. See, if we can't get passenger traffic, we can, yes! become a global cargo hub! We'll do a "study." The study will come back with wondrous facts and figures. "XYZ Airport is within a 36-hour truck transfer of 56% of the US population! It's centrally located! And, lo! China's importing lots of stuff into the US! That's the ticket! We'll be an inter-continental air cargo hub!"

More likely, these projects will tend to balance off the empty passenger terminals with empty air cargo facilities. And, by the way, there are several cargo facilities sitting empty across the Midwest - all magically "XX hours from the population center of the US!" And, again, they are empty. For a reason.

But reality is a poor anecdote to blind boosterism and snake oil. St.Louis, for example, has likely single-handedly done wonders to US-China passenger traffic, sending lots of delegations and trade missions across the Pacific to shore up their plan to be a cargo gateway from China.

In fact, they've brought in the heavy guns to promote the project, including some the folks who were instrumental in selling the Denver International scheme to the fine folks of Colorado. The promises back then were glowing, sort of like the stuff claimed for the STL cargo extravaganza: "It will give us new nonstop service to Asia! Nonstops to South America!" And, as one consultant report proclaimed - it will meet the immediate and present "need" for over 50 weekly nonstops to points all over Europe the very day the airport opens for business! Just build it and they will come! (Never happened - airports don't create service, airlines do, and only when they have airliners that can do the route profitably.)

And of, course, Denver was promised to make delays "a thing of the past" - literally stating that it could land three streams of aircraft, no matter how bad the weather. Never happened, either, due to the pesky laws of physics.

Now, physics and realities notwithstanding, it's cargo from China that will save St. Louis. Just like Denver International by itself would magically create nonstop flights to Tokyo. We covered an overview of St. Louis and its future (which is strong, smokescreen air cargo schemes notwithstanding) and a couple weeks ago, we reviewed the Kabuki Theater created by Mid-America Airport (across the river in Illinois) with a staged flight from Shanghai. Scroll down to September 13 for that one. Click here for the STL review.

Point: Empty airports are the mother of invention. Not invention that works, necessarily.

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Monday,  October 4, 2010

Southwest/AirTran Merger Review

Boyd Group International has completed the first independent (read: non-Wall Street) review of the key operational factors involved in the Southwest acquisition of Air Tran.

The transaction is positive for Southwest. It's positive for Air Tran shareholders. It is positive for AirTran employees. The only possible entity that might see a "downside" is Milwaukee, where AirTran had planned to put a connecting hub. Southwest already has seven mid-continental airports where it handles east-west flow traffic. Yet another isn't likely in the cards. MKE loses nothing. It just probably won't see the traffic that AirTran was planning to bring into the airport.

Another point missed by a lot of the parrot media is that AirTran has already brought the "low-fare effect" to ATL. Southwest is just replacing AirTran, not marching into Georgia like General Sherman, as some would have us believe.

The Research Report can be viewed and downloaded by clicking here.
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