Air Traffic Control Reform: The Battle of the Fat Cats

Should air traffic control be privatized?

There is a battle royale brewing over the future of Air Traffic Control in the US which could affect much of the nation's air transportation system. While the usual ideologically pro and anti privatization partisans are playing their roles to perfection, there is an array of very well heeled interests on both sides of this legislative food fight. This has scrambled the rich and powerful vs. the little guy narrative which usually attends these sorts of melees.

Some Background

You may or may not have been following the story about efforts to corporatize and privatize the FAA's Air Traffic Control Services (ATCS), so here's the story so far:

Organized under the DOT, the FAA is divided into several divisions which have responsibility for the nation's air transportation system. The major divisions in the FAA are responsible separately for airports, aviation safety, space transportation, and air traffic control services. It is this last division, air traffic control services, that has become a political football in recent years.

The idea of privatizing ATCS dates back to 1985 when an airline industry trade group, the Air Transport Association (ATA), published a paper calling for a federal corporation to take control of air traffic control. Since then, the idea has percolated in think tanks and resulted in various legislative efforts, but has never had enough support to pass into law. Interestingly, there have been efforts on both sides of the political aisle for privatization including a 1994 proposal from Vice President Al Gore's reinventing government initiative.

Fast forward to today and the idea is once again back within striking distance of becoming a reality due to the Trump administration's desire to reduce costs for businesses while both branches of Congress also belong to Republicans. President Trump held a meeting for airline executives shortly after taking office where he stated support for the idea of ATCS privatization, which has been somewhat of a holy grail for the airlines.

The idea is to spin off the FAA's ATC services into a not-for-profit corporation which would be funded by user fees (with some carve outs). This corporation would be controlled by a board consisting of stakeholders from across the industry. Over 50 countries around the world including Canada have adopted a similar structure for their air traffic services to date.

The mechanism by which privatization of ATC would occur is the current FAA spending reauthorization bill. Now working its way through Congress, Senate Bill 1405 does not include provisions for privatization while the competing House Bill 2997, called the 21st Century Aviation Innovation, Reform & Reauthorization Act (or AIRR Act.), does include the privatization of ATC.

Funded through September 30, the FAA will need a short term authorization to continue to function without the passage and reconciliation of these two bills. Whether ATC privatization survives the legislative sausage making process is an open question.

As alluded to above, though, some interesting alliances have been formed for both the pro and anti privatization sides, and they aren't exactly lining up as how you might expect. For starters, there are some very well connected and deep pocketed players on both sides. Shall we have a look?

The Pro Side

The airlines are predictably the most pro-privatization players on the field as they have the most to gain through the legislation. Operating about 27,000 flights daily carrying about 2 million passengers, the airlines see delayed technology rollouts and inefficiencies in the current system as a direct threat to their business model. 

As Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher once put it, "In no other industry does a government bureaucracy have direct control over the production line of a multi billion dollar industry." With about $200 billion in revenue for 2016, US airlines have quite a bit on the line and also the means to advance their cause for a more streamlined ATC system.

An unlikely voice on the pro side is that of the air traffic controllers themselves. The controllers, through their union (NATCA), have come out decidedly in favor of privatization. It is rare that a public employee union would come out in favor of the privatization of their own jobs, but reviewing their materials reveals a rare exercise in realpolitik. 

The controllers complain that their livelihoods are a constant political football subject to the political whims of the day concerning FAA funding and disruptions such as sequestration. In their opinion, a not-for-profit air traffic corporation funded by user fees would provide needed stability and growth to their career field. 

The Anti Side

Some of the most ardent opponents of the privatization of ATC services are the owners of small privately owned aircraft. Known as "general aviation" (GA) and represented by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) this group is fiercely opposed to the scheme, and probably with good reason.

With the FAA and by extension air traffic control services currently funded by excise taxes on fuel, the fear is that a new user fee regime would end up sticking GA pilots with higher operating costs. This may or may not be true, but if you are happy with the current arrangement, you will be skeptical of any changes. It should be noted, though, that the legislation currently under consideration keeps the GA funding method through excise taxes on fuel the same as it currently exists.

One argument used against GA owners is the allegation that they consume ATC services in excess of what they pay into the system and therefore like this arrangement just as it is. The airlines, who pay excise taxes on the gargantuan amount of fuel they consume, would allegedly like a change to a user fee system which would shift away some of their cost burden. The challenge of any ATC reorganization will be to determine the amount of ATC services each group consumes and to then apportion the costs in relation to that consumption; no easy task when each side mistrusts the other.

The last group on the anti side are the owners of private business aircraft or business jets. These people are perhaps the fattest cats in the sky. They have thrown their lot in with general aviation believing that the airlines would have undue influence in a new air traffic control corporation and restrict their operations into major airports where a bizjet carrying two or three passengers can take up as much airspace as an airliner carrying hundreds.

In Conclusion

How this fight eventually ends is really anyone's guess. You might believe that because the Republicans control both the House and Senate that passage would be a slam dunk, but that is apparently not the case. The partisans on both sides of the debate have their champions in Congress and very deep pockets to keep them in the fight.

I'll admit to being personally agnostic on this issue. From my perspective as an operator and primary consumer of ATC services, there is little doubt that the system could use a boost in efficiency and a more rapid deployment of promised technology. That said, as currently structured, the system does handle an amazing number of aircraft and is staffed by dedicated and competent professionals.

And it should be noted, that even though the holy cause of safety may be invoked by either the pro or anti side, I don't believe any questions of safety are relevant in this debate. Our current aviation system is about as safe as it can be made short of parking airplanes and it is likely to stay that way in any reorganization.

Where are the Pilotless Airliners?

Peter Thiel, PayPal founder and tech evangelist, noted several years ago that "We wanted flying cars, but instead got 140 characters." He was, of course, talking about Twitter, but his larger point was that the technological advancements that seemed to be inevitable have—when they've even shown up— been underwhelming.

The pilotless airliner, like the driverless car, is one of those innovations that always seems to be close, but like a mirage in the desert, keeps receding into the distance. And it certainly isn't for lack of effort. DARPA has recently been testing a robot which occupies the space where a copilot sits on an airliner.

A recent headline proclaimed that this robot was able to fly (and land!) a 737. So that's that right? We can finally get on with the business of halving (or eliminating) our pilot force, solving the pilot shortage, and saving a ton of money to boot.

Well, I wouldn't be so quick to quit flight school and dust off that medical school application. We are still quite a ways away from single or no pilot airliners for a number of reasons. But first, I'd like to review where we've come from when it comes to cockpit automation and what we'll ultimately be asking our machines to do.

There was a time not too far removed when it took five or more crew members—in addition to flight attendants—to operate an airliner. Besides the two pilots up front, there were navigators to navigate, flight engineers to keep the engines running, and a radio operator to communicate. Over the years, these positions have been eliminated through the use of technology and automation.

The last airplane Boeing manufactured that had an engineer's panel in the cockpit was the 1960s era 727 which ceased production in 1984. Navigators and radio operators were eliminated decades earlier, replaced by inertial navigation systems and solid state radios.

Job Functions Were Consolidated, not Eliminated 

I think it important to note that none of the functions that those earlier crew members accomplished were actually eliminated, but rather consolidated into the job of pilot. Airplanes still needed to be navigated, engines needed to be started, monitored and kept running through fuel management, and radios still needed to be tuned and monitored. 

Automation has allowed pilots to assume all those duties while still flying the airplane. And as you've no doubt read somewhere on the internet, pilots only actually "fly" their airliners for just a few minutes per flight during takeoff and landing. For the most part this is true. I personally like to hand fly the jet more than most, but that is because I enjoy it. There is certainly no need to do so. For many, it is gear up, flaps up, autopilot on.

The dirty truth is the autopilot can fly better for longer than any human can. Sure, some pilots can fly a better final than "George" (the autopilot), but George doesn't get tired or rusty. This is a good thing, because it is that autopilot which frees up the two pilots to deal with things like a low oil pressure light during a diversion in bad weather.

Why Have Pilots at All?

Technology has eliminated all those other jobs on the airplane, and we have autopilots that routinely handle almost all the flying already, so what's the problem? Just make a machine that can handle the other three minutes of flying and we're done here.

This gets down to the fundamental reason pilots are really on the airplane, and that is decision making. The reason there are two pilots aboard? Collaboration and validation of the decision making process. Plus having two people up front has the added advantage that they help keep each other awake. (Laugh, but it will need to be addressed in a single pilot airliner.)

We will only need  to write some software that can handle the decisions that pilots are expected to make. This gets down to the question of things that machines do well versus the things that humans do well. They each have their strengths and weaknesses.

Pattern Recognition and Heuristics 

Computers are really good at tedious detail work such as, say, doing a spell check or a word find and replace on a blog post. What they're not so good at is deciding if you've buried the lede, or if your prose is somewhat leaden. That takes judgement, which is more difficult to code.

Have you ever wondered why all the fruits and vegetables in the supermarket have those little stickers on them used by the scanner? Why can't the scanner just look at a tomato and recognize it? The reason is that when you program the computer to recognize something that is "red" and "round" it will confuse tomatoes with apples (or red bell peppers). While humans will rarely mistake an apple for a tomato, getting a machine to routinely recognize the difference is more difficult, (and expensive) hence the stickers.

In short, humans are much better than machines at pattern recognition and heuristics, which is a fancy word for an educated guess or hunch. Humans are better decision makers in ambiguous situations. And many situations on an airliner can be ambiguous.

Canned Decision Making or AI

What is software other than prepackaged expertise and decisions? Automation is threatening whole sectors of the economy such as accounting because expertise and best practices can be distilled into code and sold to people who couldn't otherwise afford to hire a tireless expert. Accounting software, though, is unlikely to be presented a scenario which hasn't been preprogrammed. If it does come across such a situation, it would likely come to a halt state to await human intervention.

The software in a pilotless airplane would need to be either pre programmed with every possible scenario likely to ever be encountered, or to employ some sort of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a machine to be able to process information which it hasn't specifically been programmed to handle, i.e. to learn. In short, it is canned judgement.

Advances in AI are being made all the time but it does have a way to go. Imagine a piece of software which would have the judgement to tell the difference between a need to do a gate return for a woman who'd left her purse in the gate area versus one whose husband had been seriously injured (or one of several million other scenarios). I can't imagine that either. 

So it seems apparent to me that we're going to need humans available to make decisions on or about airliners for the foreseeable future. The question arises as to how many humans are required, and if they should they actually be on the airplane.

Pilot/Dispatcher/Controller

Our current commercial airline transportation system consists of at least four people watching over your flight at any one time. Two or more pilots are up front, a dispatcher has planned your flight and keeps watch over things like destination weather and other operational concerns, while air traffic controllers keep your airplane away from all the other airplanes flying around.

All of these jobs are supposedly ripe for replacement through automation. Back in my military days my crew would come in the day before a scheduled flight and spend the entire day flight planning. Dispatchers today plan and oversee many dozens of flights per shift using sophisticated software tools. They become extremely busy, though, when many airplanes under their control have to divert in the case of bad weather in one location.

Similar automation and technology advancements are impacting the job of the air traffic controller as well. The FAA has proposed using advanced data tools to have a flight fully cleared and deconflicted from all other airborne traffic before it has even taken off. Controllers would only be available to intervene in the case of rapidly changing weather or other unpredictable contingencies such as aircraft emergencies.

Virtual Copilots

In the most likely interim single pilot scenario, one pilot aboard an airliner would be coupled with a "copilot" assistant on the ground connected through datalink. A decision would need to be made as to how many airborne planes would be assigned to each assistant. If the ratio is one to one, there would be little cost savings as assistants would likely make about as much as copilots currently do. Perhaps two to one or four to one. An optimal number will need to be found though this would open a new cost versus safety frontier that does not now exist.

These assistants would be only available for voice or text consultation given the current state of deployed technology. Robust telecommunications networks allowing for remote control of airliners along with control systems aboard airliners to allow such control, while technically feasible, currently do not exist and would require a sizeable investment in hardware and infrastructure to implement. This is certainly doable, but there is little evidence of any movement towards this future other than pure research.

The trend is unmistakable though. Fewer humans will, over time, be involved in watching over your flight, and this may work out just fine. The advantages of automation are manifest: lower costs and higher productivity being two of the greatest. A third metric, however, safety, may be the fly in the ointment.

Is It Safe?

2016 was a record year in US commercial aviation as there were no fatalities on any US commercial airline anywhere in the world. It is also the seventh straight year that this feat has been attained. In 2015 that worked out to 7.6 billion miles flown with a (non-fatal) accident rate of 0.155 per 100,000 flight hours. There are about 24,000 commercial flights per day in the US. Flying is extremely safe and this is not by accident.

The current state of safety in the airline industry has been achieved over the years through dogged research into human factors, technical standards, preventative maintenance, training, and accident investigations. Aviation policies and procedures for operators, controllers, and maintainers have years of development and history behind them. 

One of the best reasons to cheer the introduction of driverless cars is the promise of a reduction in the 35,000 annual US auto accident deaths. The promise of the pilotless airliner is mostly economic. Our commercial aviation system is already nearly as safe as can reasonably be accomplished short of parking airplanes.

The burden of proof from a safety point of view will be upon those wishing to introduce large changes into this system for marginal economic gains. Measured in defects per operations accomplished, matching the current safety record will be a challenge. Not impossible, but the bar is pretty high.

I personally find myself having to intervene multiple times a day to correct "errors" made by our current state of the art automation. My experience is not unique. Automation is not nearly as automatic as advertised. This record of course must improve before the system can be fully autonomous.

The current pilot shortage, one of the justifications for increasing automation, is a mostly self inflicted injury by the US aviation industry compounded by Congress. It will eventually work itself out through rising wages and ab initio training programs for prospective pilots. It should also be noted that the shortage is currently only a problem facing regional airlines. Major airlines are poaching all the pilots they need from the regionals and military for the time being. 

In Conclusion

To deflect the inevitable charge that I am merely a dinosaur expressing indignation at my own extinction, I'll say that I have every confidence that the goal of pilotless airliners will eventually be achieved given enough time and money. I also believe that it will not be nearly as cheap nor as easy as some acolytes of pilotless airplanes believe. If you'll notice, I haven't even touched on the acceptance of this idea by the flying public. I leave that for you, dear reader, to discuss in the comments. In any event, I'll be retired long before then.

What Do Airlines Want from Trump (And Can He Deliver)?

Trump meets airline executives (AP photo)

As you've likely heard, the White House called a meeting last week with several airline CEOs to discuss policy initiatives. The meeting was attended by the CEOs of Delta, United, and Southwest, three of the four largest US airlines. Missing was American Airlines CEO Doug Parker who had a scheduling conflict. Also in attendance were the CEOs of Alaska and JetBlue airlines along with the president of Airlines for America, a trade group.

The airlines' requests to Trump were the usual requests for three things: a privatized air traffic control system, a lighter tax burden, and a lighter regulatory burden. It's a fairly unremarkable list with these three being perennials on the airline wish list. The question is what is the President in a position to offer and how likely is Congress to go along with these initiatives. Let's take a look at each one.

Air Traffic Control

The airlines have been after this policy initiative for quite some time. In their view, red tape and bureaucracy significantly slow the deployment of new technologies which would serve to raise the efficiency of the national airspace system (NAS). New technologies promised by programs such as NextGen have suffered cost overruns and deployment delays resulting in extra costs for airlines.

Airlines complain that they have purchased and deployed the technology needed for the upgrades to the NAS but foot dragging and cost overruns at the FAA mean the promise of these new technologies remains unfilled. Airlines estimate that inefficiencies, delays, and cancellations cost upwards of $30 billion annually.

As a user, I can vouch for this view. The airplanes that I fly have been equipped with Required Navigational Performance (RNP) approach capabilities for perhaps five years and yet RNP approaches, which promise more efficient airspace use are almost nonexistent. And for those airports which do have a RNP approaches installed, controllers are extremely reluctant to assign them, usually giving such clearances late at night or only assigning the final approach segment which confers no advantage over traditional approaches.

The same is true for a technology known as CPDLC, which is a data link directly to controllers. We use this equipment only for obtaining our preflight clearance, not for inflight use as designed. So the critique that the FAA is not holding up its side of the modernization bargain is indeed accurate.

Trump expressed sympathy with the CEOs about the snail's pace of modernization but the important question is whether Congress can deliver as air traffic control privatization can only be accomplished through legislation. Bud Shuster, the current chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is on board, stating in a recent opinion piece that the Aviation Innovation Reform and Reauthorization Act will be used as a vehicle for change.

The Senate, which passed an 18 month FAA funding reauthorization last April, is less enthusiastic about reform efforts. What remains to be seen now is whether the Senate will act on reform knowing that any bill which includes reform is likely to be signed by the President.

Taxes

Airlines have long complained and with some justification, that they are overtaxed. Airlines have become something of a cash cow for the federal government with the federal tax rate on airlines being higher than that of so-called sin taxes on tobacco and alcohol. Sin taxes, of course, are designed to reduce the demand for those products.

Industry trade group Airlines for America states that the total tax burden on airlines has increased over 400% in the last two decades from $3.7 billion in 1990 to over $16 billion in 2016. Some of these taxes were imposed in the wake of 9/11 to pay for the increased security costs of operating the TSA.

Here again, the President has limited ability to unilaterally provide relief as most of the taxes on airlines are determined by Congress. One possible policy prescription might be to raise the passenger facility charge which pays for individual airport improvements, while concurrently reducing broad based airline taxes such as the passenger ticket tax and the segment tax. The latter taxes go to fund the Airport and Airway trust fund which airlines complain is fully funded and yet not used by Congress to pay for airport improvements.

Regulation

Airlines complain that while the industry was officially deregulated decades ago, they are still highly regulated by unnecessary rules which negatively impact the ability of airlines to profitably grow and create jobs. The President does have some latitude in this realm to determine the pace and style of enforcement of regulation and did promise the airline chiefs that he was sympathetic to their cause and would work to provide regulatory relief.

Other issues which are on the minds of airline leadership but were not addressed in the meeting include the recently approved permission given to Norwegian Airlines to operate flights by their subsidiary known as NAI to the US from Europe. Industry and labor leaders have criticized the Obama administration for giving their approval to what they believe is an unfair application of the Open Skies Agreement. Their complaint stems from NAI's incorporation in Ireland which is they believe will be used to circumvent Norwegian labor laws.

In a recent White House briefing, however, Press Secretary Sean Spicer mentioned that foreign airlines like Norwegian will be providing US jobs by basing ground and flight crews in the US as well as through their purchase of Boeing aircraft. Thus, it seems unlikely at this point that Trump will reverse the Obama administration's approval of NAI's application to serve the US.

Also not discussed in the meeting was the complaint by some US airlines about the so-called Mid East Three (ME3) airlines and their alleged abuse of the Open Skies Agreement. The complaint against the ME3 concerns the alleged subsidies that these airlines receive from their respective governments which give the ME3 an unfair competitive advantage.

In Conclusion

While President Trump was sympathetic to the complaints brought to him by the airline chiefs, his range of options is limited without the help of legislation from Congress. ATC privatization is a highly polarizing topic and may be difficult to achieve without at least a few Democratic senators joining the effort which seems unlikely. Tax and regulatory reform may have better chances for passage with a sympathetic administration leading the charge.

Is It Time for Air Traffic Control to be Finally Fixed?

Air Traffic Control to be fixed? Fixed how, you might ask. The answer is to be separated from the FAA. Notice that I did not use the word "privatize" in the title. There's a reason for that. For one, the word privatize has become a pejorative and hackles immediately go up whenever the word is used in relation to a government entity. Secondly, the word doesn't accurately describe the changes that should be implemented to make our Air Traffic Control (ATC) system more efficient, less costly, and yes, safer.

The idea of separating the FAA's air traffic control system into a separate entity comes up every few years and seems to get batted about by the usual suspects making the usual arguments and then put away until the next putative reformer brings the subject up again. That may indeed be the case with our new administration and Congress, but somehow I feel that this time may be different.

And make no mistake, there are some very entrenched interests who like things just the way they are. Much of this sentiment is simply fear that when a large change is made, certain constituencies will lose out at the expense of others. These are valid concerns and should be addressed to allay fears and reassure all parties that the result will be beneficial, or at least neutral in cost to all players. But so far, 87 countries worldwide have already separated their air traffic control services from government to include Canada, New Zealand and Australia, none of them particularly bastions of unfettered capitalism. It's time we did as well.

The Advantages

There is no natural order in the universe that states US Air Traffic Control services must be organized under the FAA. The idea that ATC services are too safety sensitive to not be under direct government control falls flat. After all, the airplanes which are themselves being controlled are built, flown, and maintained largely by private individuals or privately owned corporations.

We allow private corporations to build and operate nuclear power stations, railroads, harbors, power grids, and now even space programs. All these operations are still closely regulated by their respective government regulatory agencies as would any separate ATC entity, but many organizational and financial advantages would accrue to a private or government owned ATC corporation.

Placing ATC operations into a corporation separate from a federal agency will allow for a much needed agility in the modernization of our air traffic infrastructure. The FAA has been trying for decades to modernize its ATC services and has succeeded only in spending billions of taxpayer dollars with little to show. Programs with names like the Advanced Automation System and NextGen instituted by laws such as AIR-21 and Vision 100 have proven efficient only in their ability to squander oceans of money.

Having ATC services in a separate organization funded by user fees would allow more predictability in budgeting rather than having managers expending resources on political concerns such as sequestration and appropriations. Separating an operational organization from a regulatory agency is also a better management model which helps prevent regulatory capture by operational concerns. Having access to private capital markets would assist in the finance of long term infrastructure as opposed to the current method of political salesmanship.

The Roadblocks

In virtually every attempt at modernization, political considerations inevitably make any progress difficult or impossible to achieve. Questions about who would end up funding the new ATC organization have made each of the players skeptical of a major overhaul. Each of the major users of our ATC system want to make sure that they don't pay more under any reorganization. And considering that each group feels that other groups aren't paying their fair share, reform has been difficult.

The FAA is funded mainly through excise taxes on things like passenger tickets and fuel and not through usage fees. The airlines, which purchase the lion's share of fuel and carry the most passengers therefore paying the most excise tax, feel that general aviation (GA) and business aviation users consume more ATC services than they pay for. They would like to see the funding mechanism converted into a user fee structure. GA users, who are more numerous and generally well heeled and politically active, resist these efforts through the activities of groups like the Airplane Owners and Pilot's Association (AOPA). Business aviation users fall somewhere in the middle of these two groups but are generally opposed to ATC separation from the FAA for fear that the airlines would dominate such an organization.

Labor Concerns

Any new ATC entity will have to address the concerns of all these groups but must also deal with the concerns of controllers themselves who will feel threatened by any move away from the government umbrella of federal wage rules and federal pensions. Their concerns are valid in that any new ATC entity would certainly employ efficiencies and invest in automation systems which could eventually reduce the numbers of controllers needed to operate the system. 

Controllers' unions must be reassured that their members will not suffer financial penalties in the short term. They must also realize, however, that like pilots, their jobs are ripe for the application of automation and that controller ranks will be reduced over time regardless of who is writing their paychecks. Other operational efficiencies can only help their cause by reducing overall costs.

In Conclusion

An ATC system which is separate from a stodgy and politically reactive agency such as the FAA will have a more stable and reliable source of funding allowing capital improvements to be made without the usual red tape. Badly needed modernization will result in a safer national airspace system due to the deployment of the latest technologies available in the most expeditious manner possible.

A separate agency free of political interference will also be more amenable to fostering a customer centric culture which can then concentrate on a primary goal of service and avoids conflicts of interest with the FAA's primary regulatory functions. Lastly, representation of all major users and labor in the governance of a new and separate ATC organization would ensure that all interested parties have a seat at the table while avoiding the political paralysis of the current system.

Airliner With Only Three Minutes of Fuel Told It Can't Land!

A breathlessly told story in the Daily Mail screamed the above headline to tell of an airliner nearly running out of fuel while being told tough beans by the controller. It's dramatic and scary and also has the added benefit of having very little in common with reality. (More on that later). The one thing it does do, and probably quite well, is to gather clicks. And that means eyeballs and ad revenue. So I naturally chose the same title for this post while also calling them out.

You might think that most people involved with aviation would have an interest in demystifying the subject to help calm the nerves of the flying public. That of course could not be further from the truth, with the above mentioned story as prima facie evidence. We pilots, I must admit, also like to be associated with a frisson of danger and a whiff of derring-do. It assuages our fragile egos and also doesn't hurt during contract negotiations, but we certainly don't go out of our way to scare folks.

Your 'umble narrator has even been accused of spreading discomfort towards flying though this blog. (Thanks, Mom!) (jk) My aim in writing about flying is to merely throw open the hood to explain some of the workings not seen by the public and to thereby hopefully soothe the savage flying beast. As with any human endeavour, there is perhaps some inevitable sausage making going on in aviation that reluctant flyers may not care to see. But rest assured dear reader, commercial aviation is an extremely safe and robust mode of travel. If my scribblings convey the opposite, I apologize.

Though the topic has been covered ad infinitum to ad nauseum, flying in a commercial airliner is probably second only to travelling in an elevator in terms of safety. And of course we all climb willingly into our automobiles which kill tens of thousands annually, but at least we're in control! Quoting safety statistics, though, seems to have little effect on the visceral fear felt by some. John Madden, the NFL broadcaster, famously refused to fly and instead rode his bus all over the country to call games.

For those without million dollar contracts and custom buses who still need to travel, there are plenty of programs aimed at helping scared flyers. (Programs, by the way, which probably provide a decent paycheck for the proprietors). And though most pilots are gracious and understanding when fearful customers stop by to say hello (as they're encouraged to do), I am personally perplexed as to how allegedly functioning adults can allow their feelings to gain such purchase so as to refute overwhelming statistical evidence to the contrary regarding airline safety. That one I leave to the shrinks.

Bingo Fuel

Ok, as promised, back to the story. An Allegiant MD-80 was delayed for about an hour before departing Vegas for Fargo, ND. The delay put the aircraft in conflict with a Blue Angels practice which had been previously scheduled. Being a clear day, the Allegiant plane probably had only it's required reserve fuel on board which contrary to the article was not 3 minutes but rather 45.

The term bingo is used to denote a decision point. In this context the pilot meant that he had three minutes of loiter time before diverting, not running out of fuel. Of course the tower would absolutely let the plane land for a declared fuel emergency. That's a legal definition. Declaring an emergency will always get an aircraft priority. The controller simply needed to hear that declaration before interrupting a scheduled event.

Who screwed up here? The pilot for being unaware of the field closure which would have been listed in the "notices to airmen" or "Notams" which every pilot is required to reference before departure.

The morons who write these stories as clickbait may (but probably don't) know better, but writing what really happened would spoil a great headline.

Runway Collision Barely Averted in Chicago

On June 16th, two airliners with very similar call signs both started their takeoff roll towards one another on intersecting runways. Delta flight 1328 and Southwest flight 3828 were both lined up awaiting takeoff when the tower controller cleared the Southwest flight to go. The Delta flight erroneously took the clearance meant for the other airplane and also started its takeoff run. An alert tower controller saw what had happened and directed both aircraft to abort their takeoffs which they did. There was no collision.

This is a classic case of mis-hearing an instruction on the radio meant for another aircraft. Listening for your call sign on the radio can be nearly impossible when the frequency is busy. Sometimes you'll only hear perhaps the last digit or two of your call sign. Clearly, that method fails in a case like this when there are such similar call signs. The pilots of both aircraft had been previously advised that another airplane with a similar call sign was on the frequency which they both acknowledged.

Errors such as confusing a heading assignment for an altitude assignment, mistaking an altitude assignment such as "two-four-zero" for "three-four-zero", or mishearing a frequency assignment are legion in aviation today. It's easy to do and all pilots have made such errors. Those that say otherwise are not being honest. The vast majority of such errors are caught by either another pilot or controller and have little ill effect. But the potential for mayhem is always there.

One of the greatest tragedies in commercial aviation, the runway collision in Tenerife between two 747s resulting in 583 deaths, was due in part to radio miscommunication. There have been many suggested remedies over the years but none were practical enough to use. That could be changing with the introduction of digital data link technology.

A new system called CPDLC (controller pilot data link communication) may eventually replace some if not all spoken radio chatter between pilots and controllers. Already in use on some oceanic routes, an onboard data link allows pilots and controllers to relay instructions through satellite communications. Bringing this system to domestic operations could do much to alleviate missed and erroneous clearances.

One ongoing concern about the movement towards datalink communications has been concern over the loss of the "party line" effect. When an instruction is given to one aircraft, all other planes on the frequency hear the instruction which helps pilots to build a mental model of where other airplanes are and what they will be doing. The concern is that with digital communications between just one pilot to the controller over the datalink, other pilots won't for instance know that an airplane has been cleared to land on the runway they might be sitting on awaiting takeoff.

There could certainly be work arounds and other methods for ensuring the benefits of shared information through a common frequency are not lost with the implementation of datalink communication. Most likely, high altitude airspace will be the first place for the deployment of datalinks followed by approach and tower controllers as bugs are worked out.

If the very common problem of misheard audio communications is solved by use of datalink, a large source of errors dating back to the earliest days of aviation may finally be stanched.

Thunderstorms in Action

Here's a cool little video showing Atlanta Intl arrival radar tracks with some thunderstorms passing through the area.

Notice how the aircraft at first deviate around the storms followed by going into holding for a while.

Sometimes Chicken, Sometimes Feathers

As I've mentioned before, I am what is known in airline parlance as a commuter. This doesn't mean that I drive to work, it means that I live in a different city than where I work. It also means that getting to and from work involves a plane ride. I guess it's a little like having to take public transportation because that's actually what it is. It's the waiting at a bus stop for a bus that doesn't come that can be a drag.

The Thousand Yard Stare

Being a commuter and subjecting yourself to the vicissitudes of commercial aviation on a weekly basis necessitates that a certain zen-like attitude be maintained. Any business person who travels on a frequent basis knows exactly what I mean. From parking at the airport to the TSA and surly gate agents who seem to relish keeping you off the plane, it's a miracle that anyone flies at all.

God bless those that do, though, because they're the source of my livelihood.

And I've probably got it a little easier in some respects than the paying customer even if I'm not assured a seat at all. Nearly a decade after 9/11, the TSA finally recognized that crew members aren't really the enemy and have instituted a trusted traveller program for airline crews. This makes security screening a little easier to take.

And in some cases I get to pre board the aircraft if I will be riding in the cockpit. Otherwise I have to board at the end of the line. Even then, knowing that most passengers always head to the back to find the by now non-existent aisle seat, I take the first middle seat I can find which is usually near the front.

But overall, the entire process is somewhat dehumanizing and tedious. The term "thousand yard stare", used by shell shocked soldiers applies when commuting. It's a defense mechanism used to shield your psyche from the inevitable realization that while you got off of work at 3pm, you may not get home until 9pm or perhaps not at all.

No, You Can't Go Home

This was my experience last week.

Finishing a three day trip with a scheduled arrival at my domicile of 1610, I knew making my commute flight home which was scheduled for 1600 was a long shot, but Chicago almost always comes through for me in delaying flights so I thought I had a fighting chance.

We were coming in from the west with a significant tail wind and I wasn't being stingy with the throttles either hoping to arrive ahead of schedule to increase my odds. My F/O was taking a later flight home and agreed to babysit the jet so I could punch out and run for my flight.

Even air traffic control seemed to be on board asking us to "maintain maximum forward" for traffic. Gladly, we said.

Then the plan changed. We were told to slow to 250 and to turn 20 degrees to the right. This is the equivalent of slowing to 55 and then to get off the freeway onto a surface street. Not helping. And this was done several hundred miles out.

Apparently we were to be sequenced behind a Citation. The Cessna Citation, affectionately known as the "Slow-tation" is the slowest business jet in the air. The joke goes that it has bird protection screens installed...on the exhaust to keep birds from flying into the back of the engine. The new Citations are much faster but too many of the old ones still clog up the skies.

This Flight Has Been Cancelled

Eventually arriving, I noticed several jets waiting for takeoff and correctly guessed that one of them was the one I was trying to catch. Oh well. I'll just hang out in the pilot lounge, maybe do some online training and get some dinner before catching the next one at 1850. 

As I listed for the flight, the computer screen said the flight was unavailable. It had been cancelled. OK, I guess I'll get the rest of my training done, get some dinner and catch the 2000 jet to be home by perhaps 2200. Getting home at 10pm after a 4am wakeup is not ideal, but at least I'll be home.

No such luck. As I was clicking through the online training screens on the lounge computer, my phone beeped again. A text message from the airline mentioned a cancelled flight. I thought it must be a repeat message but no, the last flight home was cancelled. Great. Another night in the crashpad.

Well, I was thinking that if I have to do the time, I might as well do the crime and go fly. And sure enough, due to all the cancellations there was some open flying for the next morning. One trip in particular had a late morning show and flew one leg to San Antonio and then deadheaded home. 

I'd fly that leg, get released from the deadhead and be on a plane home in a few hours after that. I'd get home only a few hours later the next day with a decent paycheck to show for the effort. Seniority has its privileges and I got the assignment.

The temperature dipped that night to negative five degrees which probably had something to do with all the cancellations but it made for a chilly hike to the crash pad. On the bright side, when the weather is really awful, I don't worry so much about meeting one of the more vibrant denizens of South Chicago looking for forced charity, so there's that.

More Sand in the Gears

The flight to Texas was uneventful and I was released from having to deadhead back to Chicago, which by then was in a snowstorm, so all was looking good. Then an announcement was made that the flight attendants working the flight were delayed a half hour. No prob. Time for a salad.

We boarded, taxied, and then sat. The anti-skid braking system had a problem which meant a gate return. It also meant that that airplane wouldn't be flying anytime soon. That system almost never breaks but when it does, it isn't a quick fix. My concern now was whether this flight would be cancelled.

Luckily it wasn't cancelled but we did have to wait two more hours for another flight to arrive from Phoenix. Only then would I be allowed to go home. Finally airborne, I arrived home at about 10pm, a day after getting off work.

While I don't necessarily believe in karma, considering that the day before Christmas eve I made my commute flight after an international arrival with 15 minutes on the ground I figured that I was due for a little trouble getting home. The universe is in balance once again.

Would You Get on a Plane With No Pilots?

Or how about one with only one pilot? Sooner or later, you may not have the choice. In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, (subscription required) it was revealed that NASA has commissioned a study to be conducted by Rockwell Collins to explore the feasibility of single pilot airliners:

Facing potential shortages of airline pilots and dramatic advances in automation, industry and government researchers have begun the most serious look yet at the idea of enabling jetliners to be flown by a single pilot. 

All large commercial jets for passenger and cargo service world-wide now fly with at least two pilots in the cockpit. A new study by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Rockwell Collins Inc. will focus on the provocative idea that co-pilots could remain on the ground, remotely assisting solo aviators on the flight deck during the busiest parts of flights, said John Borghese, Rockwell’s vice president of its Advanced Technology Center.

Actually, it wouldn't be quite fair to call the remaining human being on a single place airliner a pilot at all, for his required skill set would almost certainly not include the "stick and rudder" skills of today's pilots. The remaining person would be a systems manager, overseeing the computers which would do the actual flying.

There are actually very good reasons why you would not want a very bored and very rusty pilot just sitting up in the cockpit waiting for something to go wrong so he could grab the controls to save the day.

For starters, humans are uniquely unqualified and unsuited to sit around to watch and monitor machines. Most humans have an attention span of perhaps 20 minutes before the mind starts to wander. This type of arrangement is quite nearly the reverse of the ideal human-machine interface.

If you'd like to try this out for yourself, simply sit in the laundry room and watch your clothes washer closely to make sure it doesn't skip a cycle. It's not likely to happen, but if it does and you miss it, you and all your passengers die. No falling asleep! (Washers are probably slightly more reliable than current aircraft automation, but the analogy holds.)

Secondly, piloting, or "stick and rudder" skills take years to acquire and need to be maintained with routine practice. Neither of these conditions will be available in the cockpits of the future. Heck, they are hardly even available today! We are currently coasting on a slowly draining reservoir of pilot skills attained in the years before automation became pervasive.

Children of the Magenta Line

Pilots entering the profession today get rudimentary training before graduating to their first commuter airline job which will be in a glass cockpit with automation. These "children of the magenta line" (a reference to the electronic magenta line on the course display) will never develop the piloting skills their forbears recognized as their stock and trade.

This concept of in-flight computer system operators was demonstrated succinctly last year by the crash in San Francisco of an Asiana 777 on a clear and calm day. The "pilots" aboard that aircraft had many thousands of hours of flight time safely operating jumbo aircraft across the ocean with many hundreds of passengers. Unfortunately, they didn't know how to actually "fly" the plane when they needed to and they'd been doing it that way for years.

The big mistake made by the managers at Asiana was of getting ahead of the current state of the art. The automation deployed on the current generation of commercial aircraft is good, but it was never designed to be all encompassing. That is, on occasion a pilot may actually still be needed to fly the airplane the way the Wright brothers did.

Crossing the Bridge Safely

Now please don't misunderstand me. I am no Luddite arguing against the eventual denouement of my profession. The piloting profession as it been constituted since Kitty Hawk is in decline and no amount of feather-bedding will change that. And this is most likely a good thing.

Commercial air travel is now safer than it has ever been and has levels of safety which are probably rivalled only by the elevator. Automation has played a large part in this. But like the elevator, the nature of commercial aviation is going to change and drastically so.

The question is not where the profession is headed, but rather how to safely get there. As automation becomes more robust, the need for piloting skills will diminish on a gradual level. The challenge will be how to bridge this ebbing of piloting skills with the gradual increase in the capabilities of automation until such time that pilots are not needed nor desired. 

The proposed study by Rockwell Collins is much less ambitious in its objectives seeking only to explore the feasibility of single pilot operations while a second pilot would be at the ready on the ground to assist if needed:

Under the concept the researchers are studying, aviators on the ground could be assigned to assist solo cockpit pilots on multiple flights, virtually co-piloting during the busiest times through crowded airspace, approach-and-landing maneuvers, or if something goes wrong. “It’s a reasonably new area” to study how the notion may apply to large jets, according to Parimal Kopardekar, the program’s manager based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in northern California. When pilots need a midair rest or bathroom break, those on the ground even may “need to baby-sit the vehicle,” he said. 

Such a dramatic shift won’t happen any time soon, and there is virtual consensus that reduced crews for passenger planes won’t be considered until they are introduced first in the cargo arena. That is unlikely to gain traction much before the end of the next decade, according to experts and airline officials. 

Jets today are designed to have two pilots behind the controls, and retrofitting existing aircraft “may be too expensive and may be too difficult” to obtain regulatory approval, according to NASA’s Mr. Kopardekar. Industry officials say all-new aircraft would be needed with cockpits designed from the start with a single pilot in mind.

It is an open secret that Fred Smith, FedEx founder and CEO has at the top of his bucket list the firing of at least half, if not all his pilots. And there is little doubt that the first single piloted commercial aircraft will be a freighter. Other than that, it is highly unlikely that there will be any single piloted commercial aircraft for at least the next few decades.

Boeing's latest generation technology, the 787 Dreamliner and the forthcoming 737 Max aircraft have all been designed for two pilots as have the latest offerings from Airbus. Given the average technology cycle of about 20 years between major upgrades, only the aircraft introduced to replace these new generation aircraft are likely to be designed for single pilot operations. So while the change may take a few decades, most experts view it as inevitable.

Also necessary for this change will be a wholesale cultural shift in public opinion towards automation. This shift is already underway. A century ago, it might have been unthinkable for any man on the street to consider getting on a train that didn't have an engineer. Now we routinely board completely automated trains taking us to our airline gates.

Likewise, luxury cars are already coming equipped with automatic lane-keeping alert and sudden stop warning systems. Google's driverless cars are already combing the countryside, recording all they see for Google maps. When cars which can parallel park themselves become ubiquitous, a skill many drivers never master, highly automated aircraft overseen by a systems engineer will not seem so far fetched.

I See a Retirement Job as a Drone Pilot in my Future

Detailed in a Wall Street Journal article today, the FAA has finally released a framework for the regulation of commercial drones in domestic airspace:

Highly anticipated federal rules on commercial drones are expected to require operators to have a license and limit flights to daylight hours, below 400 feet and within sight of the person at the controls, according to people familiar with the rule-making process. 

The drone industry has awaited commercial rules for about six years, hoping the rules would pave the way for widespread drone use in industries such as farming, filmmaking and construction. Current FAA policy allows recreational drone flights in the U.S. but essentially bars drones from commercial use.

Drones have great commercial potential for many applications including real estate, construction, pipeline and transmission line inspection, farming and movie making. Potential future applications include things like package delivery, biology, animal migration tracking and law enforcement surveillance. So the industry has reacted with dismay at the level of restriction placed on future commercial drone use:

Airline pilots and aircraft owners have supported the cautious approach. But some drone-industry officials predict a loud backlash to the proposal. 

“I feel like there’s a colossal mess coming,” said Michael Drobac, executive director of the Small UAV Coalition, an advocacy group for drone makers and innovators, including Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. The rule is going to be “so divorced from the technology and the aspirations of this industry…that we’re going to see a loud rejection.”

In addition to line of sight operations, and a 400 ft maximum altitude, the proposed rule making will require drone pilots to have a licensed pilot at the controls:

Since then, much of the growth has shifted to smaller drones. The expected rules are “going to be very restrictive for small systems,” she added. 

Jesse Kallman, head of regulatory affairs for drone-software firm Airware, said requiring commercial drone pilots to have cockpit training “will end up excluding someone who has hundreds of hours of experience on an unmanned aircraft in favor of a pilot who understands how to operate a Cessna but not an unmanned aircraft.”

So now I'm thinking to myself, "Self, do you know anyone with a pilots license who might need a part time job sometime in the future?"

And my self answered right back, "Why come to think of it, yes! Yes I do know someone who could charge ridiculous fees to fly a drone around someone's backyard or construction site."

And of course this is all for the sake of safety, with the imprimatur of the world's preeminent aviation regulatory body, the FAA. (heh)

Now, seriously, I get that there needs to be some sort of regulatory framework for the commercial use of drones. Any collision between a drone and an aircraft will likely result in a catastrophe. So yes, the FAA is right to insert itself into the operation of drones.

But also in true circle-the-wagons regulatory fashion, the agency goes completely overboard and throws the baby out with the bathwater. Common sense dictates that there should be different rules for drones based on size and altitude. A collision with a child's two pound toy flying around the yard, while potentially serious, is quite unlikely whereas a collision with a 50 pound pipeline inspection drone would likely bring down any aircraft.

That common sense approach didn't happen:

The agency also plans to group all drones weighing less than 55 pounds under one set of rules. That would dash hopes for looser rules on the smallest drones, such as the 2.8-pound Phantom line of camera-equipped, four-rotor helicopters made by China’s SZ DJI Technology Co. Similar-sized devices are seen as the most commercially viable drones and have surged in popularity in the last two years. 

Small-drone supporters say such models are less risky to people and structures than heavier drones like Boeing Co. ’s ScanEagle, a gas-powered, 40-pound aircraft with a 10-foot wingspan that can stay aloft for more than 24 hours. ConocoPhillips Co. uses the ScanEagle to gather data on Arctic ice pack and whale migrations.

But with today's technology, collisions with man made flying objects are becoming ever less likely. For over a decade now, transponder and anti-collision technology has made every other aircraft within 40 miles visible on a display in the cockpit. This technology is affordable and can easily be installed on commercial drones. Even hang gliders are now required to have transponders under certain circumstances.

The FAA at least understands its incentives. Famously known as a "tombstone agency" meaning it typically reacts after an accident, any fatal accident will draw instant headlines and mean lots of SES scale bureaucrats in cushy sinecures with fat government pensions will soon be applying for the non-government jobs they previously regulated out of existence. In other words, they'll be fired. That much they get.

Applying complex risk assessment tools used to balance the needs of commercial aviation safety with the potential benefits of drones is not really their bag. If a drone manufacturer fails or new time or energy saving applications never come into being well that's too bad. Writing intelligent rules that provide maximum safety with maximum benefit is really hard work. Much easier to play it safe.

Were I writing the rules, requiring special equipment and certification when operating near airports seems sensible. Also requiring transponders seems to make sense but the line of sight operations restriction is silly as data links can provide a virtual birds eye view to the pilot as stated in the article. This is the approach that was taken in Canada.

In their typical glacial pace, the FAA will now open the proposed rulemaking to comments for several months after which the actual rules might not appear for one or two more years. But hey, after waiting six years already, what's a few more waiting to get your business started going to matter?

In the meantime, since the FAA quadrupled the hours required for new pilots to get their first airline job, there should be plenty of pilots hanging around to fly the pipeline inspection and crop dusting aircraft that drones are ready to replace.

And by requiring prospective drone pilots to have real airplane licenses, I know of a slightly overweight and greying airline pilot who will have a great retirement job waiting for him.

Aviation Wisdom

The field of aviation is known for lots of homespun wisdom and gallows humor. The true nature of the business is that you can die if you don't do it right (and sometimes if you do). Here are a few of the more popular ones:

Courtesy Aviation Airborne

How to fly: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate (and in that order)

Thou shalt maintain thy airspeed, lest the ground reach up and smite thee.

Superior pilots are those who use their superior judgment to avoid those situations requiring their superior skills.

The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

In a twin-engine aircraft, the purpose of the second engine is to supply the pilot with enough power to fly to the scene of the crash.

When a prang seems inevitable, endeavor to strike the softest, cheapest object in the vicinity, as slowly and gently as possible. - Advice given to RAF pilots during W.W.II.

When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No-one has ever collided with the sky.

Try to learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself.

If God had meant man to fly, he'd have given him lots more money.

You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3.

Airspeed, altitude or brains: Pick any two.

When a flight is proceeding incredibly well, something may be forgotten.

Just remember, if you crash because of weather, your funeral will be held on a sunny day. - Layton A. Bennett

Never fly the 'A' model of anything. - Ed Thompson

A pilot who doesn't have any fear probably isn't flying his plane to its maximum. - Jon McBride, astronaut

If you're faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible. - Bob Hoover

If an airplane is still in one piece, don't cheat on it; Ride the bastard down. - Ernest K. Gann, advice from the 'old pelican'

Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death I Shall Fear No Evil For I Am 80,000 Feet and Climbing. - Sign over the entrance to the SR-71 operating location on Kadena.

Never fly in the same cockpit with someone braver than you. - Richard Herman, Jr., 'Firebreak'

There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime. - Sign over squadron ops desk at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ, 1970.

The three best things in life are a good landing, a good orgasm, and a good bowel movement. The night carrier landing is one of the few opportunities in life to experience all three at the same time.

Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges of it. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there.

The three most common expressions in aviation are, "Why is it doing that?", "Where are we?" and "Oh Crap".

Weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers.

A smooth landing is mostly luck; two in a row is all luck; three in a row is prevarication.

Helicopters are for the rich... or the enlisted.

I remember when sex was safe and flying was dangerous.

We have a perfect record in aviation: we never left one up there!

Flashlights are tubular metal containers kept in a flight bag for the purpose of storing dead batteries.

Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a person on the ground incapable of understanding it.

What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots? If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies; If ATC screws up, the pilot dies.

If something hasn't broken on your helicopter, it's about to.

Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect. - Captain A. G. Lamplugh

In flying I have learned that carelessness and overconfidence are usually far more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks. - Wilbur Wright in a letter to his father, September 1900

The ultimate responsibility of the pilot is to fulfill the dreams of the countless millions of earthbound ancestors who could only stare skyward and wish.

If helicopters are so safe, how come there are no vintage / classic helicopter fly-ins?

A 'good' landing is one from which you can walk away. A 'great' landing is one after which they can use the aeroplane again.

Takeoff is optional. Landing is mandatory...

If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger. If you pull the stick back, they get smaller. That is, unless you keep pulling the stick all the way back, then they get bigger again.

Flying isn't dangerous. Crashing is what's dangerous.

One of the most important skills that a pilot must develop is the skill to ignore those things that were designed by non-pilots to get the pilot's attention.

It's always better to be down on the ground wishing you were up in the air than up in the air wishing you were down on the ground.

The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.

Stay out of clouds. Reliable sources report that mountains have been known to hide out in clouds.

You start with a full bag of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck.

In the ongoing battle between objects made of aluminum going hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour, the ground has yet to lose.

Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.

Keep looking around. There's always something you've missed.

Remember, gravity is not just a good idea, it's the law. And it's not subject to repeal.

There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. However, there are no old, bold pilots.

If you're ever faced with a forced landing at night, turn on the landing lights to see the landing area. If you don't like what you see, turn' em back off.

Always remember you fly an aeroplane with your head, not your hands.

You know you've landed with the wheels up when it takes full power to taxi to the ramp.

Things which do you no good in aviation: The sky above you. The runway behind you. The fuel still in the truck. Half a second ago. Approach plates in the car. The airspeed you don't have.

What's the difference between God and fighter pilots? God doesn't think he's a fighter pilot.

Trust your captain but keep your seat belt securely fastened.

An aircraft may disappoint a good pilot, but it won't surprise him.

There are only two things required to fly a modern airliner: a pilot and a dog. It's the pilot's job to feed the dog. It's the dog's job to bite the pilot if he touches anything in the cockpit.

Aviation is not so much a profession as it is a disease.

There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

Passengers prefer old captains and young flight attendants.

The only thing worse than a captain who never flew as copilot is a copilot who once was a captain.

If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it's probably a helicopter...

Any attempt to stretch fuel is guaranteed to increase head wind.

A thunderstorm is never as bad on the inside as it appears on the outside. It's worse.

I know there's a lot of money in aviation because I put it there.

It's easy to make a small fortune in aviation. You just start off with a large fortune.

I'd rather be lucky than good.

The propeller is just a big fan in the front of the plane to keep the pilot cool. When it stops, pilots start to sweat.

Regards engine power: Lots is good, more is better, and too much is just enough.

A checkride ought to be like a skirt, short enough to be interesting but still be long enough to cover everything.

Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.

It's better to be down here wishing you were up there, than to be up there wishing you were down here.

Experience is a hard teacher. First comes the test, then the lesson.

In thrust I trust.

It is far better to arrive late in this world than early in the next.

You can land anywhere once.

I want to die like my grandfather did, peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming in terror like his passengers.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it; if it ain't fixed, don't fly it.

Fuel in the tanks is limited. Gravity is forever.

Never trust a fuel gauge.

The worst day of flying still beats the best day of real work.

So Why Do They Close the $%!# Door So Early?

Well the obvious answer to that question is so that the airplane doesn't leave late. But who cares when the airplane actually leaves the gate? Or takes off?

As far as a passenger is concerned, the only time that matters is the time the jetway door closes. Why, in the interest of customer service doesn't the airline publish that time? And why do all the airlines seem to use a random number generator to decide how far in advance of the "departure" time that the jetway door closes. Sometimes it's five minutes, sometimes ten, sometimes earlier if you're not checked in at the airport. 

(And don't get me started on the agents who seem to relish slamming the door on you. It's like some kind of weird fetish.)

Well, there actually is someone who is watching for when the aircraft actually leaves the gate. The US Department of Transportation keeps and publishes statistics on individual flight departure times. Any flight which leaves (or arrives) more than 15 minutes past the scheduled time published in the computer reservation system is considered "delayed", but all late departures no matter how small are tallied and available for comparison.

Departure and arrival times are logged automatically by sensors on the aircraft. It's not specifically when the door closes, but rather when the pilot releases the parking brake with all the doors closed. And there are quite a few things that have to happen before the brakes can be released.

In the back of the aircraft, the flight attendants have to make sure that all passengers are in their seats. Even though every passenger travelling through major airports like Denver, Dulles, Vegas and Sacramento travel on fast moving trains while standing, the FAA considers it dangerous to have passengers standing on an airplane during pushback. Go figure. Southwest even fought (and lost) a lawsuit against this restriction years ago.

The boarding agent is not even permitted to close the aircraft door until everyone is seated and all luggage is properly stowed. Only when that happens can the front door be legally closed.

When the back end of the aircraft is all set, the lead flight attendant will notify the pilots and close the cockpit door. Since 9/11 it is illegal to start the engines unless the cockpit door is closed and locked.

Up front the pilots are rather busy at this time as well. All airlines have slightly different procedures but are doing roughly the same things. Last minute checklists and takeoff data need to be taken care of and contact needs to be made with the ground crew who operate the pushback tug. The ground crew is also busy making sure all the cargo doors and other hatches are closed which are also verified by lights in the cockpit.

When all of that is done, radio contact needs to be made with ground control for pushback clearance. If there's an aircraft taxiing behind your parking spot or some other delay, you may need to sit at the gate waiting for a while for clearance.

The way most airlines pay their pilots is by flight hours. And flight hours are defined as the time between brake release at the origination and shutdown at the destination gate. So the captain, to an extent, gets to start the payclock by releasing brakes as soon as possible. 

Now there are some other details such as minimum pay rigs (rules) which mean a few minutes of released brakes hardly make a difference in pay. But if the gate agent asks me if I'd mind pushing off knowing I'm ground delayed, but she needs the gate for an inbound flight, I'm properly incentivized to agree. And everyone hates waiting for a gate after landing so I like to help them out as well.

But remember that releasing the brake is a necessary but not sufficient element of an early departure. If I release the brake but the door is still open, the clock doesn't start. (The airplane won't roll because it's connected to the tug by now). Of course, once the door is closed, no one else is coming aboard so I don't have the ability to wait for anyone. All I get to do is delay brake release for a few minutes if the agent is being a horse's rear end thereby giving him a delay just to pimp him. (No, not really. That would be unethical).

Economics Again

No the real reason the airlines like to leave early is the hypercompetitive nature of the airline business as expressed through product differentiation. And blame the internet too.

Airlines, like cellular carriers are in a unique position of having to sell nearly the exact same product as their competitors. All airlines fly to the same government run airports, through government controlled airspace and all their customers go through the same government run grope masquerading as security theater.

All commercial airliners are now built by one of only two global aircraft manufacturers whose products are difficult to tell apart except by airplane geeks. The weather and air traffic delays are generally the same no matter which airline you fly.

So like laundry detergent or cell service, airlines need to emphasize the differences in their products, of which there are precious few. While pricing can be a major selling point, increasing fuel costs act a great leveler. As the price of fuel eats an ever larger piece of the cost pie, individual efficiencies which competent airline managements bring to the table are diminished in the overall cost picture.

While the high costs of the remaining big three legacy carriers, United, American, and Delta were shed through the cycle of bankruptcies in the post 9/11 years, the costs of the low cost airlines have increased to where there's not a great deal of cost advantage for anyone. Spirit Airlines, as an outlier, has managed to keep its costs low, but the service is so spartan that it's not clear whether their model will scale.

Airlines have even tried to be clever by charging separately for bag fees and also by breaking out the government taxes and fees but the DOT has required that those taxes and security fees be added into the total price shown on their reservation sites.

Back to the DOT

Other metrics used to differentiate airline service are the statistics kept by the DOT.  Those are customer complaints, lost bags, and ontime performance. Think of those as RBIs or error stats for a baseball player. They make or break you. 

Southwest distinguished itself last year, and not in a good way, by rearranging their schedule to make better use of their airplanes. It didn't work and their ontime performance plunged to dead last in the industry lineup. Highly embarrassing to their marketing strategy of a being a no-frills yet dependable airline. They have since made amends.

It is the wide dissemination of airline performance statistics through the internet which has gotten airline managements focused like a laser on early departures. In the pre-internet days, only true travel geeks would hunt down these stats. Now everyone sees them with a mouse click. Gate and boarding agents themselves have been threatened with sanctions or even termination for having too many late departures to their credit. 

And as Vinnie, the gangster from Risky Business famously said, you never f--k wit a man's livelihood!

So could there be a solution to all this? Maybe, but it would require a universally adopted new standard of when "departure" actually happens. I totally get that even if the DOT and airlines were disposed to change this system why they'd be reluctant. The devil is always in the details and should the system be changed, there is little doubt that some clever MBAs up in the executive suite would be figuring out clever ways to game the system to their advantage.

So in the meantime, get to the gate early. Or drive.