New high capacity airplanes

Quote: Nareed

My feeling is that small planes offer more flexibility for routings and more slots for any given route. Since airlines can't, or won't, offer other conveniences any longer, such as a generous luggage allowance, in-flight meals, etc, they can still offer multiple departure times.

There are very few domestic routes in the USA serviced by widebody aircraft. Southwest more or less sets a standard for narrowbody aircraft as almost every plane they have is configured for 143 seats with handful at 175 and very few jets with 123 seats.

The problem comes from too many airlines servicing major airports with jets with considerably smaller number of seats than 143. I know that the average for San Diego was well under 100 seats. That creates a multi-billion dollar infrastructure problem with the runway usage.

These Airbus A318 & A319,Canadair and Embraer jets are nice jets, but as they saturate the largest airports they create a problem. The airports need to start changing landing fees per landing, and not per weight of the aircraft.

Jet Blue did not fly fewer than 150 seats per aircraft, but then they bought (or are buying) 81 Embraer190's with only 100 seats apiece.

Right now, the Mexican airlines are pretty much fixed on the 140 seat aircraft for most flights. But with interjet buying 20 of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 from Russia (only 95 passengers) the downsizing has begun.

Eventually, you will see severe strain at Mexico City airport.

Quote: Pacomartin

Right now, the Mexican airlines are pretty much fixed on the 140 seat aircraft for most flights. But with interjet buying 20 of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 from Russia (only 95 passengers) the downsizing has begun.

Oh, it began before then. Aeromexico flies Embraers and Canadairs, too. Then there's Aeromar, which flies "executive" routes with propjet planes (though they're supposed to be oeprating some kind of real jets, too). I flew to Houston in an Aeromexico Embraer once. It's like a modern, bastard version of the DC-9 crossed with an Airbus.

Quote:

Eventually, you will see severe strain at Mexico City airport.

Eventually my left foot. There's been talk of building a new airport for decades. It's all been mired in political pissing contests and turf wars since then. they wound up building a second terminal, which helped. The launch of low-cost airlines in toluca at first helped to reduce the congetsion, but that went up in smoke along with Mexicana's business.

Quote: Nareed

Eventually my left foot. There's been talk of building a new airport for decades.

There is a huge variation in the metric "passengers per aircraft movement" among world airports. A lot can be done without seriously impacting the cost of travel , introducing wide body aircraft, flying at night or any other options available to passengers.

Airport Psgrs/Mov. Movements Passengers
LGA 66.2| 362,137 23,983,082 =Queens, NYC
ORD 75.9| 878,108 66,633,503 =Chicago
LAS 77.3| 527,739 40,799,830 = Las Vegas
MEX 78.1| 377,743 29,491,553 = Mexico City
MDW 78.1| 249,913 19,516,127 = Chicago
SAN 84.8| 199,209 16,889,622 = San Diego
LAX 105.9| 601,416 63,688,121 = Los Angeles
LGW 133.2 | 256,987 34,235,982 = London Gatwich (busiest single runway airport)
LHR 147.4 | 475,176 70,037,417 = London Heathrow
NRT 167.9 | 187,238 31,432,754 = Tokyo (international flights only)


Unlike LAX which has small planes feeding it from everywhere, San Diego doesn't really need feeder regional jets. Nobody changes planes in San Diego, it is a destination in itself. So if you fly narrow body jets you can support a lot of people with one runway.

The official word was that San Diego could never support more than 23 m passengers with it's single runway. Note that London Gatwick is already at 34 million with a one runway airport.

The essential thing to remember is that Hub and Spoke is a great phrase for the airlines, great phrase for the hubs, great phrase for the spokes, great phrase for the industry but a terrible monstrosity for the flying public.

Just as a TV network wants to "capture" a viewer with some early news program and keep him all night long, an airline company wants to "capture" a traveler with a hub and spoke system, so he flies OUR feeder airline into OUR hub and Our airline out of OUR hub to OUR destination... creating traffic jams at all airports.

The taxpayers paid for runways but the airlines want the facilities used to the economic advantage of the airlines, Hub and Spoke system. Its the airlines that benefit from everyone flying in, doing a mad plane change and flying out at some concentrated time period. Load balancing and time distributed use of assets favors the public, not the airlines.

We have landing slots and gate slots and computer slots for take offs ... all to benefit the airlines hub and spoke system, not the traveling public.

If we replace hub and spoke with free flight and no longer require airlines to follow specific navigational routes with exaggerated deviations we can have a system where airlines fly passengers to their destinations rather than to hubs. Flights can be scheduled so that expensive airports get well utilized as passengers desire rather than intensely utilized as hub-dance locations.

Quote: Fleastiff

The taxpayers paid for runways but the airlines want the facilities used to the economic advantage of the airlines, Hub and Spoke system. Its the airlines that benefit from everyone flying in, doing a mad plane change and flying out at some concentrated time period. Load balancing and time distributed use of assets favors the public, not the airlines.

Airports are not free for the airlines to use. Gates are rented and landing fees collected.

Quote:

If we replace hub and spoke with free flight and no longer require airlines to follow specific navigational routes with exaggerated deviations we can have a system where airlines fly passengers to their destinations rather than to hubs. Flights can be scheduled so that expensive airports get well utilized as passengers desire rather than intensely utilized as hub-dance locations.

It is not "we" who would change the hub-n-spoke system, it would be the airlines. While LUV seems to do well with point to point flights, nobody else is doing so. Clearly the airlines are better able to load factor with the system they have chosen. If not enough people are flying daily from Cleveland to El Paso then connections are going to be required. As to the exaggerated deviations, that is going to remain as the skies are very crowded and there are lots of busy areas over cities you simply need to avoid.

Quote: AZDuffman

It is not "we" who would change the hub-n-spoke system, it would be the airlines. While LUV seems to do well with point to point flights, nobody else is doing so.

It sometimes seems to me that United runs a system of flights that is designed primarily to put people on Trans-Oceanic flights. The fact that it can be used for domestic flights is simply a happenstance that helps pay for the fuel.


Related Yahoo article on the demise of the 747.
A new version of the 777 that can carry 400 passengers may be the final nail in production of the passenger version of the 747.

The perennial question about the replacement for Air Force One always comes up. Airbus would clearly love for it to be an A380. In the early 1990's the total cost of the two Air Force One jets was $650 million. That is about the cost of two commercial A380's today, so you can imagine what that contract will be worth. In addition they will probably purchase at least a 3rd jet this time.

In 2008 when President Obama was elected the cost of the fleet of 28 new Marine One helicopters had jumped from $6.1 billion when the contract was signed in 2005 to $11.2 billion. So the cost of a single helicopter exceeded the cost of the 747's procured for Presidential use. The President killed the contract, but they are still planning to purchase 21 helicopters by the year 2020.

One advantage of having a monarch is that they don't have to worry about nuclear hardened helicopters with communications gear to conduct a war. They merely lease a corporate helicopters for 10 years, paint it purple, and fly the royals around. The other advantage of having a small country is that a helicopter is fine to go see 90% of the population.

Quote: Pacomartin

Airbus would clearly love for it to be an A380. In the early 1990's the total cost of the two Air Force One jets was $650 million. That is about the cost of two commercial A380's today, so you can imagine what that contract will be worth. In addition they will probably purchase at least a 3rd jet this time.

Will never be allowed to happen. The USAF tried to replace the KC-135 fleet with Airbus jets and the outcry was amazing. That contract is insane, they have been fighting over it for over 10 years now as our refueling fleet ages. Some of the planes in my brother's unit will soon be old enough to collect Social Security yet they still cannot get a contract and production.

Quote: AZDuffman

I still remember some British PM coming to see the POTUS, probably Clinton but maybe very early Bush43. As amazing as it sounds, he just hopped the Concorde.

David Cameron flew commercial in 2011 to see Barack Obama

Britain has decided that if war breaks out when their PM is in the air, that he will have to make do with commercial communications. They normally charter a jet to fly, but the only communications gear they have is what they can bring on board.

Not only must a presidential helicopter be battle hardened with a full communication suite, but the US president normally flies with 5 identical helicopters to confuse anyone with a shoulder fired missile. The Queen paints her helicopter purple and flies around alone.

Even chartering planes is fairly inexpensive compared to maintaining custom jets. I think you can charter a four seat plane in London and go anyplace in the UK and return the same day for about £5,000.

Now they are not going to jam the Queen into a tiny four seat aircraft without a head. But if you look at the expense account The Queen took a charter in 07-Jun 2012 from London to Aberdeen £15,621 (one way)

The royals took 143 rides on their helicopter over the course of year, but supplemented those trips with 51 helicopter charters at an average of £5K apiece.

Does the USAF still maintain a fleet of NEACP (National Emergency Airborne Command Post) and their support aricraft (mostly tankers)?

These are the planes which the President, VP and perhaps other officials are supposed to get into ASAP in the event of a major war, in aprticualr one where the US itself is under attack (assuming nuclear attack, of course). the idea is that even a large jet followed around by tankers and fighters is a hard target to hit with an ICBM.

Quote: Nareed

Does the USAF still maintain a fleet of NEACP (National Emergency Airborne Command Post) and their support aricraft (mostly tankers)?

Yes it does. One is on alert at all times. Despite being in operation for 40 years, it is relatively cheap to maintain. The cost of replacing this system will be high,. Donald Rumsfield announced it's replacement by 2009, but it has since been overruled.

Just looking at records it seems that the youngest of the forty 747's passenger jets operated by Delta and United is only 11.5 years old, while the oldest is less than 26 years old. So it could easily be over 20 years until they are retired. A lot depends on fuel prices, as older jets are all retired. It may be sooner if fuel prices spike.
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Just to finish my San Diego Airport argument
If you do (50 takeoffs/landings per hour)*(16 hour day)*(100 passengers per movement)*(365 days) =29,200,000 passengers per year

It doesn't seem impossible. They do more than 50 operations per hour all the time. They normally run a 17 hour day for takeoffs, but permit some late night landings. The standard Southwest Jet has 114 passengers on a 143 seat plane.

The analysts all concluded that the current San Diego load of 17 million passengers per year would run into severe restrictions at no more than 23 million passengers. Hence they had to build a new $10 billion airport or face massive consequences to the local economy. But they refused to consider closing down services for private jets and forcing them to outlying airports.

Also the Tijuana airport is close enough to the border that you could almost hit the parking garage with a rock from the US side. All the flights to China or Tokyo from Mexico city stop in Tijuana partly because they are hoping some people from USA will get on the planes. There are no flights to Asia from San Diego. Plans to build a parking lot and an entrance on the US side have been discussed for 30 years.

Airport Psgrs/Mov.
LGA 66.2
ORD 75.9
LAS 77.3
MEX 78.1
MDW 78.1
SAN 84.8
LAX 105.9
LGW 133.2
LHR 147.4
NRT 167.9