ROCHESTER, Minn. – Mayo One is parked on the pavement Wednesday after the medical facility suspended its operations until Thursday.
A grounded air ambulance doesn’t mean healthcare is grounded. Gold Cross Ambulance is picking up the slack.
Patients still get the critical care team, it just will take them a little longer to get there.
First responders can literally transform their rig into Mayo One, just without the air.
“We’ll provide them the driver and the ambulance. They bring all of their equipment. They’re able to put it in the back of an ambulance, and we’re able to give them an experienced driver whose used to driving in these road conditions,” Kate Arms, with Gold Cross, said, “and they’re able to go get that patient in that outlying hospital and get them back here.”
Their goal in this type of weather is to get patients inside and warm as fast and safe as they can.
That means having the right supplies like hot packs and special blankets.
The extreme cold doesn’t necessarily mean more people to help.
“A lot of times we might see a decrease in call volume because people are cold and they just want to hunker down at home,” Arms said, “so sometimes people are a little bit more safe in that sense. But we see a lot more medicals too.”
Even though on the ground may be slower than in the air, patients are still getting the care they need.
Travelers love to hate on airlines. Airlines sometimes do bad things to their customers, dinging them with add-on fees, penalizing them when plans change, squeezing them into shrinking seats and bathrooms and occasionally leaving them stranded for a couple of days.
So if you could wave a magic wand and improve air travel, what would you do?
Watch Chris Jansing speak with Paul Rinaldi, the President of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association about the group’s urgent new warning over the shutdown and the risk thousands of flights are facing every day.Jan. 24, 2019
Jan. 28–Severe winter weather in the Midwest is forcing Southwest and United airlines to either cancel, delay or divert some flights between San Diego and Chicago. Southwest says the disruption could last through Feb. 1.
Southwest canceled some flights between the two cities on Monday, and United delayed flights between 1 hour and more than 3 hours.
(Click here to check your flight.)
Chicago was getting heavy snow on Monday morning. Conditions will deteriorate with the arrival of the polar vortex.
The National Weather Service says that the vortex could drop temperatures to minus-23 degrees on Tuesday night in Chicago, and to minus 21 degrees on Wednesday night. The temperature could plunge below minus-30 degrees in other parts of the Midwest. Forecasters say the wind chill could be minus 40 on Wednesday night in northern Illinois.
The cold weather will spread into the Northeast.
Southwest said that on Monday the weather also could affect major airports in Buffalo, Cleveland, Des Moines, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Rochester.
United Airlines has issued weather-related travel waivers for dozens of airports in the Midwest and Northeast due to the polar vortex. The airline said that such waivers enable travelers to change to alternate flights without paying a change fee. The changes can be made through Jan. 29.
The affected airports include, but aren’t limited to, Buffalo, New York-Kennedy, Cleveland, New York-Newark, Philadelphia, Ottawa and Quebec City. The fee will be in effect through Feb. 1 at Chicago-O’Hare.
___ (c)2019 The San Diego Union-Tribune Visit The San Diego Union-Tribune at www.sandiegouniontribune.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
SAN FRANCISCO — At least three companies are hoping to bring supersonic airplanes back into the skies, but environmental groups worry their return could mean a big increase in greenhouse gasses from aviation.
The issue is expected to come to the fore next week as international regulators meet in Canada beginning Monday to discuss environmental and noise standards for the newly-revived supersonic transport technology.
The International Council on Clean Transportation released a study on the climate impacts of a creating a new commercial supersonic network Wednesday in anticipation of the meeting.
Supersonic jets fly faster than the speed of sound and at higher altitudes. The jets could fly from Paris to New York in three and a half hours, less than half the eight hours a conventional commercial jet would take.
British Airways and Air France ran Concorde supersonic service from 1976 until 2003, when it was discontinued in part because of low sales caused by the high cost of tickets, as well as concern over a 2000 accident that killed 113 people.
Now at least three startups are working on bringing supersonic transportation back, including the commercially-focused Boom Supersonic and two others working on business jets, Spike Aerospace and Aerion Supersonic.
The Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection of the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations group, will meet in Montreal to discuss standards for supersonic aircraft, which haven’t flown commercially for 16 years.
A concern among environmental groups is that supersonic jets burn much more fuel per passenger than conventional jets. The International Council on Clean Transportation estimates the new supersonic jets will consume as much as five to seven times as much fuel per passenger as subsonic aircraft on the same routes. That’s partly because going faster requires more fuel and partly because the supersonic jets are expected to transport significantly fewer passengers per plane.
The aviation industry has set a goal of reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by half in 2050 compared to 2005 levels, a level that’s already expected to be difficult to meet, said Dan Rutherford, director of aviation programs at the International Council on Clean Transportation.
“Adding these planes, which could be five to seven times as carbon intensive as comparable subsonic jets, on top of that just to save a few hours flying over the Atlantic seems problematic to me,” he said.
Here are the facts: Despite winter storms, global warming is real
Boom Supersonic says it is working on making its supersonic flights sustainable and that its goal is making the fuel burn necessary for supersonic travel equivalent to business class on conventional aircraft.
“We are committed to pushing the envelope to discover new ways to make supersonic travel environmentally and socially sustainable for generations to come,” said Dan Mahoney, Boom’s chief marketing officer.
Business class is between two to three times as emission intensive as economy class because the amount of energy required to fly a plane is divided among the people being flown. The more people, the more energy efficient. Business class seats fewer people, so it’s less efficient.
Ever since Qantas launched its historic direct flight between Perth and London in March last year, the Australian airline has been doing more than probably any other airline to figure out the effects of ultra-long-haul travel – and how they can change consumer attitudes to ditch the layover in favour of non-stop flights no matter how long they might be. It’s not even like the 17-hour fight between Australia’s west coast and the UK capital is the longest in the world – although Qantas certainly has ambitions.
Codenamed Project Sunrise, Qantas is hoping to offer the world’s first non-stop flight from east coast Australian cities like Sydney, Melbourne and perhaps even one day, Brisbane to New York, London and Paris – all by the year 2022. The 17,016 km flight from Sydney to Europe would easily pip the current worlds longest flight record held (for the time being at least) by Singapore Airlines on its 19-hour non-stop service to New York JFK.
We’re expecting further announcements from the Project Sunrise team to be made later this year – including, and perhaps most importantly, which aircraft type will be used for what Qantas calls the “final frontier of global commercial air travel.” The airline’s new fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s may soon be joined by Airbus A350’s or Boeing’s next-generation 777X – Both are currently still in contention.
Ultra-long-haul air travel is the centrepiece of Qantas’ business strategy and its success will hinge on convincing enough people to endure 20-hours or longer sat in a metal tube hurtling through the sky.
So far, Qantas has had no problem convincing consumers to choose the direct route rather than waste hours transiting in some mid-way city like Dubai or Singapore. The airline claimed last summer that its Perth to London route was not only performing well but even “exceeding expectations”.
Independent research puts the load factor (a measure of how many seats are occupied on any given flight) at a low of 75.5% to a high of 83.7%. Figures which most definitely shouldn’t be sniffed at.
Working with Sydney University’s Charles Perkins Centre, the airline has been doing a lot of research to improve the load factor even more. One study concentrated on fitting sensors to a selection of passengers to see how they behaved on the Perth-London flight – resulting in the surprising revelation that one passenger didn’t leave his seat, not even to use the washroom, for the entirety of the 17-hour flight.
There’s also been focus group research to find out what services consumers would like to see on an ultra-long-haul flight – Stationary exercise bikes are apparently one of the requested features that passengers want.
“The engagement and enthusiasm we’re seeing from this research highlights how passionate our customers are to be a part of the evolution of ultra-long-haul travel,” explained Alison Webster, the chief executive of Qantas International.
“Our job now is to determine where the most demand is and create this cabin in a way that makes it both affordable for customers and commercially viable for the airline. Everything is on the table and we are excited about what innovations may come from this research.”
That probably means that while in-flight spinning classes make for a great headline, there’s little actual chance of seeing anything like that on a plane in the near future. Qantas and Airbus may well have touted in-flight gyms, bunk beds and more but the commercial reality makes these all but non-starters.
Instead, Qantas is likely to focus on more deliverable services – they’ve spoken of wireless noise cancelling headphones, virtual reality relaxation and entertainment, and spaces where passengers can stretch and do “gentle exercise”. On the more extreme end, there’s even the possibility of an in-flight cafe – serving wine, smoothies and canapes. A key area for attention will continue to be the airline’s so-called “wellness” cuisine programme.
“Customers are sharing some incredibly imaginative ideas, which is an exciting challenge and helps us to think outside of the box to redefine the ultra-long-haul experience,” says David Caon who is working on Project Sunrise.
“Bringing some of these concepts to life will involve an entire rethink around how to be clever about use of all cabin space and what is practically possible but it may well involve incorporating design elements never before seen on commercial aircraft.”
Jan. 28–Commercial airline travel between San Diego and Chicago could be affected by the potentially life-threatening ‘polar vortex’ weather that’s beginning to descend on the Midwest.
Southwest Airlines said Sunday that flights in and out of Chicago Midway Airport could be delayed, diverted or canceled through Friday, Feb. 1.
The airline operates daily flights between San Diego and Midway. The Chicago airport also is a key transfer point between San Diego and the Northeast, which also will receive unusually cold weather this week.
The National Weather Service says that the polar vortex — a mass of extraordinarily cold air dropping into the country from the Arctic — could drop temperatures to minus-23 degrees on Tuesday night in Chicago, and to minus 21 degrees on Wednesday night. The temperature could plunge below minus-30 degrees in other parts of the Midwest. Forecasters say the wind chill could be minus 40 on Wednesday night in northern Illinois.
The cold weather will spread into the Northeast.
Southwest said that on Monday the weather also could affect major airports in Buffalo, Cleveland, Des Moines, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Rochester.
United Airlines has issued weather-related travel waivers for dozens of airports in the Midwest and Northeast due to the polar vortex. The airline said that such waivers enable travelers to change to alternate flights without paying a change fee. The changes can be made through Jan. 29.
The affected airports include, but aren’t limited to, Buffalo, New York-Kennedy, Cleveland, New York-Newark, Philadelphia, Ottawa and Quebec City. The fee will be in effect through Feb. 1 at Chicago-O’Hare.
___ (c)2019 The San Diego Union-Tribune Visit The San Diego Union-Tribune at www.sandiegouniontribune.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Whenever the subject of electric aircraft comes up I see the room filled with skeptical looks. The looks are not unwarranted. Even electric cars remain in the low single digits for worldwide market share and electric flight is undoubtedly a greater hurdle. The enemy of flight is weight after all and batteries are rather heavy. The skepticism though, while justified, is misplaced.
The problem is that we tend to think of air transport as large intercontinental craft flying thousands of miles at a time. Those certainly exist and there’s even one that travels 9000 miles, flying 17 hours from Perth to London. The reality for most air travel, however, is somewhat different. Statistics from the US Bureau of Transportation show that the overwhelming majority of US passengers are on domestic flights and what’s more, nearly half of those are under 700 miles.
Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics, T-100 Market (All Carriers), Passengers, All Scheduled Domestic and International within/to/from USA 2017
Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics – T100 domestic, all carriers
The data graphed above shows that 20% of domestic passengers are flying under 350 miles in the USA, with nearly 50% under 700 miles. Forget about the 9,000 mile international flights, this is the market for electrified flight in the near-term. The aircraft to support it are nearly here.
I’ve written in the past about the various electric aircraft in development from companies like Zunum Aero, Wright Electric, Airbus/Siemens, NASA, Eviation, BYE, and others. It’s still very early but advancement is steady and the age of electric flight is coming. For a moment consider Zunum Aero’s aircraft, the ZA10. It’s a 12-seat hybrid for regional transport, slated to begin test flights next year and deliveries in the early 2020s. The aircraft is targeting a range of 700 miles and will have a shorter range all-electric version. There’s also a larger variant planned.
Zunum Aero’s ZA10
60 to 80% reduction in operating costs
80% lower emissions and noise
40% reduction in runway needs
Hybrid-electric range of 700 miles
Back to those skeptical looks. The financial driver for electrification is huge, with the potential to reduce operating costs 60 to 80%. More so with carbon pricing. If said hybrid aircraft also create less pollution, require shorter runways, reduce maintenance, and produce less noise, well then which carriers wouldn’t want to use them? Particularly in a regional market which, as noted previously, includes nearly 50% of all domestic flights in the US.
That all seems great, but even this understates the impact of electrification. What’s missing from the analysis is the potential for electric aircraft to fundamentally transform air travel as we know it, to vastly increase the number of flights under 700 miles.
The data we have today shows us the past, but this is the future:
Electric and hybrid aircraft have the potential to open up new regions to air travel, revitalize small neglected airports, create jobs in small communities, and make travel more enjoyable for everyone. This vision will become a necessity if we hope to have a cohesive society and growing economy,
“In the globalized economy, communities without good air service struggle to attract investment and create jobs” – Zunum Aero
There’s a wonderful write-up on IEEE Spectrum which highlights how electrification can be the catalyst that rejuvenates regional travel. The article’s authors are from Zunum Aero, including the founder and the chief technology officer.
The article includes some interesting statistics on the current state of air travel. For example, the authors note that only 1% of the airports in the USA are responsible for 96% of the air traffic and that since 1980 the average aircraft seat capacity has increased by a factor of 4. What if electric aircraft can increase travel to just some of those other airports?
The current state of air travel is largely the result of financial choices made over many decades. Larger aircraft are more economical to purchase and operate, while fewer routes keep aircraft load factors high and simplifies logistics.
“Regional Travel is Ripe for Reinvention” – JetBlue Technology Ventures
The problem with this is that large airplanes require large infrastructure to support them (think space, buildings, runways) and the noise they generate is not well liked by residents. There aren’t many airports able to accommodate these needs so people are funneled to major airports located outside of major cities, sometimes inconveniently out of the way of the passengers’ ultimate destinations. This means more time is spent traveling to the airport, at the airport, and flying on the airplane, for an experience that is all to often chaotic and impersonal. In fact, door to door travel times have actually gotten worse for regional air travel, not better. Add in a snowstorm or a single large aircraft is delay and it can become a logistical nightmare.
The benefits of electric aircraft are particularly well suited to regional air travel needs. The question is, will it be enough to usher in a renaissance for regional flight, where smaller aircraft travel more routes and to smaller airports? I certainly think so. Toronto has a great example of how this might occur. The Toronto Island airport can only operate small aircraft due to noise restrictions, but it’s use has grown steadily. It’s accessibility from downtown and the spectacular speed of service are key drivers. With electric aircraft I believe this type of scenario will become the norm.
Now, what if you could do it from your own front door?
Hyper-local air travel with electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (E-VTOL)
Imagine this. You wake up in the morning, dress, open your phone and request an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (VTOL) to take you to a city a few hours drive away. An electric autonomous car picks up you and drives you to a local VTOL access point, on top of a parkade near your home. Several small two and four seat aircraft are waiting there. Maybe someone is there to greet you but it’s only customary. Your phone recognizes your access and opens up the passenger compartment to your aircraft. You get in, there is no pilot, no cockpit – the vehicle is autonomous. Quickly the electric motors spin up, the craft rises into the air and carries you directly into the centre of a nearby city. Or maybe you go to a remote campsite or to an airport outside of the city where you can access an intercontinental flight. All of this for a cost less than traditional means of transport.
Long have we been promised a future of flying cars, but this time electric propulsion and increased autonomy can actually make it happen. Check out the video below of the first full scale test flight of the Lilium Jet in 2017. Such ideas were once confined to science fiction, but no more. Yes, this technology is in the early stages and it remains to be seen how far batteries can take us. Yet those batteries get better each year. For Lilium’s part they have manned test flights coming next year and they are targeting a range of 300km and speed of 300km/hr. That could open up a whole new type of air travel.
Electric VTOL – Lilium
Lilium started in 2013 with the vision of developing an all-electric “air-taxi” vehicle.
There are now dozens of companies working on electric VTOL aircraft, with over 100 projects underway. Norway’s aircraft operator Avinor even issued a report earlier this year that sees a path to small VTOL aircraft with 1 or 2 passengers in the early to mid 2020’s, with larger 4 or 5 person craft reaching market by the end of the 2020’s.
The fascinating world of VTOLs aside, fixed-wing hybrid and electric regional jets provide an obvious path for electrification. This will reduce operating costs, open up new opportunities for passengers, and reduced the environmental impact of flying. It’s where corporations and countries are already going. Norway for example has a target of 2030 for all regional flights to be fully electric, not hybrid, fully electric. While operators and manufacturers are pushing to see who can take the lead. One thing is certain, with the coming advancements in electric flight regional transport will never be the same.
Some major new flights lead this week’s air travel news.
This week tourism officials in St. Kitts and Nevis announced plans for American Airlines to launch nonstop Saturday flights from Dallas – Fort Worth, marking a first in the island’s history.
In a written statement Racquel Brown, CEO of the St. Kitts Tourism Authority, said that the new service would increase the available options for visitors and Diaspora to get to the island during the summer family travel season, both from Dallas and via one-stop connections from a number of cities in the Western United States.
Luxury Travel Advisor’s ULTRA Summit
American will operate the new Saturday nonstop flights the entire summer, from May 25 to August 17, 2019, on a 128-seat Airbus A-319 aircraft with 8 First Class seats, 24 Main Cabin Extra seats and 96 main cabin seats. Dallas – Fort Worth is American’s largest hub.
Complementing the new Dallas – Fort Worth flight, American also operates non-stop Saturday flights to St. Kitts from New York-JFK and Charlotte plus daily non-stop flights (with twice daily non-stop flights from Wednesdays through Sundays) from Miami.
In Europe, this week TAP Air Portugal announced plans to triple its service between Newark and Porto on new Airbus A321LR aircraft. The new service will kick off June 1, flying six weekly nonstop roundtrips. The new EWR-OPO flights will operate every day except Tuesday.
The airline is also adding new service from Porto to Brussels, Lyon and Munich, which means U.S. travelers can now enjoy a stopover of up to five days in Porto, en route to 14 European destinations from Newark.
Proponents of the use of drones say technology exists to keep drones away from airports and other facilities, like prisons and sports stadiums. But so far, it can be used only for detection, not deterrence, they say.
“The only thing we can do is detect the drone,” said James Barnes, founder of the Drone Academy, a training center in Ringoes, N.J. Mr. Barnes said federal regulators barred the use of the technology to block drones from flying over a particular area, to force a drone to the ground or to trace it back to its operator.
Adam Bry, chief executive and founder of the drone company Skydio, who previously worked on drones at Google, said that regulation alone could not properly control the danger that drones posed at airports. “Ultimately, the best solutions are going to be technology based,” he said. “No matter what rules you have, it is very, very difficult to deal with bad actors unless you have the ability to monitor the airspace and take action.”
Start-ups such as SkySafe and AirMap are exploring technologies that identify drones, jam their radio signals or ground them in other ways. SkySafe, founded by a former Air Force officer, has been working on drone tracking and signal jamming technology for about three years and is now supplying its technology to the Navy. It is in discussions with airports, stadium operators and other commercial companies.
But unless they are working with the government, these companies do not yet have the legal authority to interfere with drone flight, said Jonathan Rupprecht, a Florida-based lawyer who specializes in drones.
Following air-traffic disruptions caused by drones, many people wonder why the police do not simply shoot down offending drones. Adam Lisberg, a spokesman for DJI Technology, a drone maker, said such action is generally prohibited.
“It is right now illegal in most cases to interfere with a drone in flight,” Mr. Lisberg said. “Drones are considered aircraft.”
