WASHINGTON — A winter storm is disrupting air travel in the mid-Atlantic region.
FlightAware.com shows Reagan National Airport leading the country in cancellations Wednesday morning, with 37 percent of departures and 33 percent of arrivals canceled.
Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport is seeing about 32 percent of departures and 31 percent of arrivals canceled. Dulles International Airport is seeing about 26 percent of departures and 23 percent of arrivals canceled.
Christina Saull, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which operates Reagan and Dulles, says many airlines canceled flights ahead of the storm. Still, Saull says the runways are open and flights are taking off.
BWI spokesman Jonathan Dean says the snow team has been treating and clearing the airfield and despite delays and cancellations, flights are continuing.
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A prototype of the Garmin 155 can be viewed as part of the Time and Navigation exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum.
WASHINGTON – The GPS Innovation Alliance (GPSIA) issued the following statement, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) certification of the Garmin GPS 155, a device that for the first time enabled pilots to use Global Positioning System as their primary navigation source across all phases of flight — including approach to landing in poor weather conditions. Members of the public may view the prototype, as part of the Time and Navigation exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum.
“During the past century, GPS, along with other technologies, has revolutionized the aviation sector, making flying safer and more efficient. Saturday marked a major milestone in the transformation of the aviation sector—the 25th anniversary of the Garmin GPS 155 receiving FAA Technical Standard Order (TSO) authorization, the industry’s first GPS receiver approved by the FAA as a primary navigation source for all phases of flight, including non-precision instrument approaches. We look forward to the FAA’s continued modernization of America’s air transportation system through the NextGen program. With GPS as an integral component, this transformation aims to make flying even safer, more efficient, and greener.”
The GPS Innovation Alliance was founded by Deere Company, Garmin International, Inc. and Trimble Inc. The Alliance recognizes the ever increasing importance of GPS and other Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technologies to the global economy and infrastructure and is firmly committed to furthering GPS innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. The GPSIAseeks to protect, promote and enhance the use of GPS.
“No one wanted to work at the back, because as soon as the plane took off, everyone would start smoking,” says Linda Morrison as she recalls the hazy rows at the rear of a BOAC 747. “The no-smoking sign would go off and you’d have people sat in the non-smoking cabin pop back for a cigarette.”
Linda Morrison – nee Winterbourne – joined British Overseas Airways Corporation, BA’s post-Second World War forerunner, in 1970, at the age of 16. By 1974 she was a stewardess on one of the airline’s jumbo jets, covering much of the globe during an era often referred to as the golden age of flying. “In first class, the roast beef would be brought out on a trolley and carved in front of the passengers,” she…
Briefly tell me about where Jambojet is at today. Jambojet is a subsidiary of Kenya Airways. We started operating in 2014, with local operations in Kenya. Right now, we fly to several destinations within Kenya. We have routes such as Malindi, Mombasa, Eldoret and now to Entebbe which is our first international destination. We have 14 flights a week to Entebbe since February last year and so far it is a very promising route. We use a low cost model and in that, we try and segment the market. There are people who want to get to their destinations and are not necessarily concerned about the frills of flying, the add-ons. The important thing is to get to their destination safely and reliably and that is what we are offering. It is not just a low cost airline. It is also a regional airline. As soon as we successfully roll out this model in East Africa, we will think of going further, maybe starting with West Africa.
Jambojet is among the fast growing low-cost airlines. What has fuelled this growth? We are the first formal low cost airline in the region. Low cost flying means your operations are made low cost. One of the things is that you have one Aircraft type so that when it comes to maintenance, fuel and operations, it is seamless and there is a lot of synergy in the group. Secondly is the way you fly from one destination to another. Most models only allow you to do point to point as opposed to connections on route to destinations. Again, that makes it easier for you to operate cheaply. Thirdly, when it comes to negotiating with vendors, because we have one type, it is not just the supplier of the aircraft but even the people providing auxiliary services around the aircraft. It is easier for you to get discounts. We have chosen to go for a very efficient aircraft which is a Bombardier Q400. It allows us to offer safety to customers while operating at a low cost. In the region that we operate in, it is difficult to bring down the cost to the bare minimum unlike in Europe or Asia reason being that things like taxes and other services mean that the services become more expensive. Costs would be lower if our governments would support lowering cost of doing business. There are also many barriers of operating within Africa which increases cost of doing business. This means we cannot be as low cost as we would like to be. There is opportunity to become lower. When it comes to pricing, we have to log in all the costs and make a return to shareholders.
Can you give an estimate of how low the price could get? If you look at the percentage of taxes and fees being levied, if the percentage of that could go below 1 per cent like it is in other jurisdictions, it would be easier to bring down the cost. Governments are trying to raise revenue through raising fuel levies but if these could be lower, it would be easier for us.
Some competitors have reported low business and other closed. Is Jambojet concerned? Some airlines close because of high cost of doing business. Some reasons are strategic. Sometimes it is a wrong model and the other is barriers to entry. If you have plans to expand into various jurisdictions and you are not given rights to fly, it becomes difficult and of course customers are looking to you to give them frequencies to fly. We believe our model is going to be successful because we are focusing on how customers can fly reliably, comfortably and affordably. Once you focus on customers and make the right decisions in terms of which destinations people are looking to fly, how you grow sustainably, how you preserve cash to ensure you have money for investment, not expanding too fast, it works.
What is the plan on growing passenger numbers? We have flown over 2.5 million passengers to date within Kenya and Entebbe. We would like to go faster but the only limiting thing would be making sure we grow responsibly. What that implies is we are funding the expansion with means we can afford. The other would be the right to fly to other jurisdictions. If it is possible, we can fly to all the neighbouring countries and countries not necessarily our countries of origin. This year, we will be getting a new aircraft which means we are almost doubling our capacity to expand and increase frequencies mostly outside our Nairobi hub.
What is the biggest challenge about operating a low cost airline? Since we were the first with this model, the first challenge was and is educating customers on what it means. We are saying we are flying affordably and since we are offering you that, the other add-ons like meals or baggage, we would have to remove for us to offer you that fare. Many people fly and do not want to eat so we do not want to penalise them by loading it on their fares. That is not conventional and explaining it is not easy. The market is accepting it though. We are also agile because of our model. So sometimes we find that regulators do not move as fast as we would like to give us the right to fly into different jurisdictions.
How will further liberalisation of the skies benefit you? The biggest benefit is it easier to fly outside Nairobi. It would be easier to introduce this model so Ugandans can fly easily from Entebbe to other places within Uganda and beyond.
What does your balance sheet look like? The balance sheet is strong. We are only funded by our parent company so we do not have any debt outside the group. For the first year, we made a loss, profit in the second, a loss in the third because of elections and a profit last year. Going forward, we shall be profitable.
How do you deal with competition? We respect competition. The most important thing is we understand what our customers are looking for and we respond to it quickly. If you are doing that, you have no reason to worry about what others are doing. Also, we are in partnership with some competitors because in this industry, the most important thing is safety. We have responsibility to ensure the airspace we share is safe.
By the end of 2019, it is anticipated that all East African countries will have national airlines, how prepared are you? There is space for everybody, more people are flying within the region. We believe the national airlines have their customers.
But also, they will create more market because more people will want to fly. If Air Uganda wants to fly Kampala or Dar-Es-Salaam where there is shortage of capacity, that is creating a new market and that is good. The more people fly, the better for everybody so we welcome responsible airlines like those.
In fact it is then that we can differentiate products which is beneficial to passengers. So we continuously offer the best to customers and once we do that, we have little reason to worry.
What is the outlook like? It is good because if you think about Africa, air travel grew by 6 per cent. There is a lot of growth as Africa only accounts for 2 per cent of global air travel and we have a population of 12 per cent. We are short by 8 per cent of global travel but also economies are growing in East Africa at about 6 per cent. So air travel is growing faster than Gross Domestic Product which is slightly lower than 5 per cent.
Think of the resources being discovered in this region, with oil in Kenya and Uganda, there is a lot more collaboration within the countries. There is a lot more discussion for open trade and free movement of people. Once the open sky is actualised, we can go to many countries freely.
A plane isn’t the ideal place to unwind and relax, but there are certain things you can do while sitting to make your flight a little more tolerable.
Rachel Grice, a registered yoga teacher and a contributing editor at LiveStrong says, “The healthiest way to sit on a plane is actually to avoid sitting—or at least sitting still—for as much of the flight as you can. When you are sitting, though, you want to have good posture just like you would sitting anywhere else.”
“Just like sitting at a desk, you want to take breaks to get up and move and stretch,” she says. “Walk up and down the aisle or stretch in the aisle. You don’t have to have a full-on yoga session, but a quad stretch, arms stretch, and some side bends are good options.”
The Colorado Department of Transportation reminds motorists to check for updated weather information: Visit www.cotrip.org for real-time road conditions, highway closures, average speeds, photos, live cameras streaming traffic, trucking information and more.Call 511 to listen to recorded information about road conditions, projected trip travel times and trucker information.Receive free email/text alerts at www.codot.gov/travel; choose from a list of subscription options at the “get connected” tab.Follow @coloradodot on Twitter for traveler information and other news.Like CDOT at www.facebook.com/coloradodot to receive news and traveler information.Visit www.codot.gov/travel/winter-driving to get information about road conditions, what to keep in a vehicle during the winter, how to safely pass a snowplow, commercial-vehicle requirements, seasonal closures, snow removal and avalanche control.Herald Staff
But our airplanes will probably still fly at the same speeds they did half a century ago: between 550 and 600 mph.
Supersonic flight — which is to say speeds that exceed the speed of sound (768 mph) and can dramatically slash flight times — died out for civilians in 2003 with the retirement of the narrowly-shaped Concorde planes, which for 27 years cruised at 1,300 mph between the U.S. and Europe. “It failed,” Bob van der Linden, the Chairman of the Aeronautics Department of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, said in an interview. “It was a technological marvel, but it was too expensive to operate.”
Although a few ambitious supersonic startups like Boom Technology and Aerion Supersonic might successfully resurrect smaller business-style jets in the coming decades, commercial flying for the masses is unlikely to change much in the next quarter century, and beyond. Today’s traditional aviation paradigm works, it’s profitable, and it’s safe.
“Since the 1960s, the top speed of an airliner has not changed,” said van der Linden — and, he adds, he doesn’t see any reason that it will.
“In 20 to 25 years, air travel might not look a whole lot different from how it looks today,” Dan Bubb, a former pilot and now aviation historian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, agreed over email.
“I don’t think we expect to see any disruptive technologies,” added Fotis Kopsaftopoulos, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in an interview.
The final landing of an Air France Concorde in 2003
Image: Jacek Bilski/imageBROKER/REX/Shutterstock
These future aircraft will likely look the same as they do now, too.
“There’s not too much room to change the shape — we need wings and a round fuselage,” Ryo Amano, a professor of mechanical engineering specializing in aerodynamics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said in an interview.
But one thing will surely change.
“You’ll see airliners becoming more efficient,” said van der Linden. “Any breakthrough will be for efficiency’s sake.”
This means burning less fuel, resulting in higher airline profits. It’s already happening. Some new planes, like the Boeing 787 and the colossal Airbus 380, are built with lighter “composite materials” rather than heavier old-school metals, so they burn less fuel.
An Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger airliner
Image: Lex Rayton/imageBROKER/REX/Shutterstock
“They are lightweight and very strong,” said Kopsaftopoulos.
New, more efficient engines are burning less fuel, too.
“You don’t really see many of the changes, but inside the engine system there is a tremendous amount of improvement,” said Amano.
Supersonic dreams
Aviation experts are in wide agreement: Flying at supersonic speeds would slash flight times (imagine a 2.5-hour trip from New York to Los Angeles or London to NYC in under 3.5 hours), and as the Concorde proved, the blazing-fast engines and aerodynamic design technologies do exist. But there are a slew of formidable obstacles.
Traditional airliners might be slower, but they’re moneymakers. In contrast, flying faster burns significantly more fuel. That means pricier flights.
“A conventional airliner gets better mileage than an SST [supersonic plane],” said van der Linden. “It’s as simple as that.”
What’s more, there was little demand to fly on the 1,300 mph Concorde planes. A seat was just too expensive. “The cost for one seat probably cost five times more than [a seat on] a 747,” noted Amano.
A NASA conception of a supersonic plane
Image: nasa
“Let’s face it, the overwhelming majority of citizens are not millionaires,” added van der Linden. “There’s not enough traffic for high-priced stuff.”
But if a supersonic plane did ever take to the skies, it would likely be smaller plane intended for wealthier demographics.
“It would be wonderful to see the return of the Concorde, but if the aircraft returns, it will be a much slimmed-down, more fuel-efficient version,” said Babb.
A spokesperson for the supersonic startup Boom Technology said they’re designing aircraft that “can operate profitably while charging the same fares as today’s business class” over oceanic routes. For perspective, a round-trip business class ticket between JFK and London generally costs between $3,000 and $8,000.
Like the auto industry, it’s daunting for any startup, like Boom, to break into the aviation world. They don’t just need billions of dollars, they have to prove to the vigilant Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that their supersonic planes are profoundly safe.
“The overwhelming majority of citizens are not millionaires”
“I wish them luck,” said van der Linden.
Beyond financial hurdles, supersonics also have to contend with environmental woes. A recent report produced by the International Council on Clean Transportation — an organization that provides technical and scientific analysis to environmental regulators — estimated that a worldwide fleet of 2,000 supersonic planes by 2035 would emit prodigious amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
“The environmental impact of building that many planes would be severe,” said Dan Rutherford, the ICCT’s program director for marine and aviation.
Such supersonic fuel-guzzling creates uncertainty for airlines that might be considering them, as the United Nation’s aviation organization will almost certainly tighten emission rules to meet greater society’s climate and environmental targets. “Everyone is wondering what environmental regulations they will need to meet,” noted Rutherford.
And supersonic planes have one other mighty, unavoidable hurdle.
The booms.
Supersonic booms
Congress outlawed flying supersonic airliners over land in 1970, and for good reason. Sonic booms are thunder-like noises created when planes displace air and create powerful shockwaves, some of which slam into the ground. It’s much “like a boat creates a wake in the water,” explains NASA.
The booms jolt buildings, stir people awake, and can feel like a sharp earthquake. “If you’re not expecting them, they can be startling,” NASA aviation engineer David Richwine told Mashable last year.
This limits supersonic planes to oceanic routes, further reducing their ability to be mainstream airliners.
A supersonic plane displacing air in the sky
Image: nasa
For this reason, the startup Aerion Supersonic plans to fly over land just under the speed of sound (known as Mach 0.95) “without a sonic boom,” said a company spokesperson. But Aerion still has supersonic ambitions, and plans to develop planes that fly at around 920 mph (or 1.2 Mach), wherein the booms will dissipate before pummeling the ground.
Although overland travel is still illegal for the likes of Boom, Aerion, and others, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) may open the door for new supersonic planes to once again fly over land. This won’t happen anytime soon (the new supersonic planes don’t even exist), but the FAA is considering rules about noise certifications and other rules for supersonic planes — once the government settles on what boom levels are tolerable for us land dwellers.
“We have not published any rules as of yet — that’s still being worked out,” FAA spokesperson Henry Price said over the phone.
“The direction we’re going is in the fact sheet,” Price added, citing a webpage summarizing the proposed future rules for supersonic planes.
Likely to the delight of supersonic startups, in 2018 NASA started work on a prototypical supersonic plane, dubbed the X-Plane. The $247.5 million project isn’t slated to take off until 2021, but when it does, the 94-foot test craft will soar over American neighborhoods and urban areas. It’s an experiment: Are the booms from the innovative design mild enough for citizens to bear?
A conception of NASA’s quiet boom supersonic plane, flying over NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California
Image: nasa
It’s certainly possible that NASA will be successful. There’s a big group of aviation experts working on the project, and they have intriguing futuristic ideas, like plane exteriors that subtly morph in the air to tame sonic blasts. If all goes well, NASA’s experimental plane will turn sonic booms into muted thumps.
“The work that NASA’s doing might help that [sonic booms],” said van der Linden. “And a smaller plane might help that.”
“But you can’t eliminate it,” he added.
Even if NASA is successful (it often is), aviation companies seeking to break the sound barrier will have to build planes similar to that low-boom design, airlines will have to order them, and the plane must pass rigid FAA standards.
“Is it going to be worth pursuing by the airlines?” asked Kopsaftopoulos. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen.”
Beyond Speed
While most passengers in a quarter-century will still be slogging through the atmosphere at 575 mph, that doesn’t mean air travel won’t make other futuristic leaps.
Flying, battery-powered taxis — small aircraft intended to make shorter urban jaunts — could become a reality in the next decade.
“Central Park to Brooklyn or Jersey City using an air taxi — that is very exciting,” said Kopsaftopoulos.
There’s also considerable aviation industry interest in fully-electric commercial airplanes, noted Kopsaftopoulos.
“It is ideal — we’ll save huge amounts of fuel,” added Amano, who said perhaps the technology could be tested in smaller commercial planes in a decade or so. What’s more, there’s a number of electric plane startups forging ahead, modifying existing planes, and planning for tests.
A Boeing 737 Max: A new airliner largely built with an old, trustworthy design
Image: Elaine Thompson/AP/REX/Shutterstock
But in the end, whether an aircraft runs on a massive battery that sits in its belly or pricey fuels, it’s likely these planes will be flying at the speeds they’ve been flying since the mid-20th century.
Traveling at supersonic speeds is “astounding,” said van der Linden, who had the opportunity to experience the Concorde flying at 1,300 mph. “You are flying faster than the Earth is spinning,” he said, adding that it felt like traveling on a normal airliner.
But money wins the race. Our trusty, long-lived, old-school airliners are only replaced after decades and decades of service — by lighter, increasingly efficient planes with sleeker interiors, but never anything faster.
“Airliners do not break,” said van der Linden. “They do fade away, but they don’t die.”
AirHelp’s shocking figures predict more than 28million UK travellers will face flight disruption this year.
The two-week Easter holiday is expected to be worst affected, with speculation there will be almost 10,000 UK flight disruptions.
In summer, it is believed to rise to more than 32,000.
It suggests over 250,000 UK flight departures could be disrupted because of this.
Therefore, the firm states those eligible to claim compensation for delayed and cancelled flights is predicted to surpass 11 million globally – the highest figure ever reported.
The Manitoba government announced Thursday it’s formed an agreement with the Exchange Income Corporation to provide air travel for judges, sheriffs and accused.
The terms of this contract are for five years, for $4.2 million per year, a savings from the previous contract of $1.3 million annually.
Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler says this agreement will ensure public safety and more timely court hearings.
“Our government is committed to public safety above all and this agreement ensures that safer service is accomplished at a lower cost for Manitobans,” he said in a news release Thursday. “This agreement will also reduce the number of occasions where court is rescheduled or cancelled in northern parts of our province, so the criminal justice system is administered in a timely fashion.”
Under the previous system, Schuler says these services were fulfilled by private carriers 97 per cent of the time. The province was paying rates determined by carriers with no cost certainty on a given flight.
Flights were rescheduled or cancelled with little notice or explanation, delaying the justice system and courts, he added.
One court delay in the northern region of Manitoba costs approximately $10,000 and extended delays can lead to cases being thrown out of court, Schuler says.
Exchange Income Corporation has resources across the province including hangars and aircraft operating under carriers such as Bearskin Lake Air Service, Calm Air, Custom Helicopters, Keewatin Air, and Perimeter Aviation. It’s a Winnipeg-based company.
On Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, and Sen. Ed “Waxman-Markey” Markey, D-Massachusetts, released their Green New Deal framework, policies to combat climate change over the next 10 years. Among the details of the proposal that have been causing some indignation — along with the proposal that everyone be given a family-sustaining job (Everyone is a lot of people!) and farting cows be eliminated (That is like saying, “Death to all cows!”) — is the vision that high-speed trains be developed to the point that air travel is no longer necessary.
Well, let us address airplane travel. How are we to deny Americans this unparalleled experience? First there is the arrival at the airport, a metallic-and-white palace of pleasures that would make Kubla Khan swoon. There you may buy a T-shirt that bears the name of the place you are, a piece of information known only to the place’s visitors, and a picture of a local product (“Nobody Visits Ohio Just Once,” “Wisconsin Was Formerly Known to Have Cows Before the Green New Deal,” “I Bet I’ve Been to Illinois, Huh,” “Don’t Tell Ma What’s in Michigan,” “Keep Indianapolis at Least Superficially Normal”).
You wait in a line where you must show someone a picture of yourself, and also your phone, and then you experience some interactive theater as a fun lagniappe with your ticket price. You and your fellow travelers enter a world of collaborative make-believe where you pretend that removing your laptop from your bag and isolating your liquids in small containers is contributing to America’s safety. It’s like Sleep No More, kind of!
You then strike a fun pose while a machine takes what the airplane employees claim is a picture of you. On this picture, something that is obviously your wristwatch lights up as a little green dot, so you are treated to a firm arm massage from someone looking at you as though you are suspicious (probably some people are really into that) before you can retrieve your shoes and go about your business. This, of course, assumes you are playing on the “Easy” setting as a white lady.
After you get to the gate (like hell, airports are replete with gates), you board the plane.
Perhaps the best part is when you go up in the plane and the plane bounces a little bit, just to help you feel alive. No, I think it is when the flight attendant rushes up the aisle and you see all the flight attendants muttering together in low, urgent tones. No, it is when the in-flight announcement system seems to turn on, then turns off, and then you hear a series of ominous dings.
We can certainly agree that this is the best part of air travel, because you will hear there is “slight chop,” and then for the next hour to two hours, you get to think about your mortality, something we too seldom do in this society. You get to make all kinds of silent promises and vows. Maybe you can even think about greenhouse gases — the plane emits a lot of them — but then the plane bounces again and you are comforted by the thought that you will not have to deal with the ramifications of that because you are going to perish right here, your in-flight magazine open on your lap to a crossword someone else began to fill out incorrectly, in pen. You get to think about everything in your life you regret, and then someone brings you a pretzel.
And then you land, if you are lucky! Even if you aren’t lucky, I suppose, you land. Then you know the unspeakable joy of retrieving your baggage from a wild merry-go-round full of other bags meticulously designed to resemble yours as much as possible to sow confusion. This keeps you mentally sharp!
We cannot deny Americans this rare occasion to drink tomato juice while regretting everything they have done in the past, is the point.
To those of you who still shun planes, have fun whizzing splendidly across the nation in the hideous luxury of a train, fidgeting in a surpassingly comfortable chair as cows (pending approval), fields and all the glories of the continental United States slide by, forced to weep with emotion at the sheer beauty of its whistle and the majesty of its motion.
The time I spent on the Amtrak Residency for Writers (a real thing), zipping along the exquisite coast of California and winding through the plains of Montana as I consumed three round meals a day then retired to my Superliner Roomette was one of the greatest tribulations of my life. I do not envy you one bit. No one should.
