View from the Wing [VFTW] discussions
#421
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: San Francisco
Programs: AS MVP Gold, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 700
Not to mention the amazing First Class award availability. It's simply the best of all the major programs out there - you can basically find multiple seats on multiple days for any week over the next year.
#422
Join Date: May 2004
Location: LAX
Posts: 1,849
#423
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: VPS
Programs: IHG Diamond, Delta PM, Hilton Gold, Accor Gold, Marriott Silver
Posts: 7,268
I do think the other day's BA accident at Las Vegas shows how silly to dangerous the proposal to get rid of ATC is. While the pilot has to spend 100% of his efforts on Aviate with the engine fire situation, ATC has his back at a very busy airport, handling the crucial Communicate in the situation, calling out emergency services, closing runways, and quickly telling two planes that had been cleared to land that they needed to go round NOW. Take away someone else having Communicate in this kind of scenario, and you can easily end up with Tenerife 2: Las Vegas Electric Boogaloo. It's darn dangerous to have a large jet stopped in the middle of a runway of a busy airport, and you need a strong system in place to create time and space around the stopped plane ASAP.
#424
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: ORF
Programs: Amex Plat, AA, BA Silver, Marriott Plat, Choice Gold, HHonors Gold, IHG Diamond
Posts: 3,749
I do think the other day's BA accident at Las Vegas shows how silly to dangerous the proposal to get rid of ATC is. While the pilot has to spend 100% of his efforts on Aviate with the engine fire situation, ATC has his back at a very busy airport, handling the crucial Communicate in the situation, calling out emergency services, closing runways, and quickly telling two planes that had been cleared to land that they needed to go round NOW. Take away someone else having Communicate in this kind of scenario, and you can easily end up with Tenerife 2: Las Vegas Electric Boogaloo. It's darn dangerous to have a large jet stopped in the middle of a runway of a busy airport, and you need a strong system in place to create time and space around the stopped plane ASAP.
GTL's failure to understand the complexity of life outside loyalty programs and credit cards is pretty appalling to me. His stand on ATC illustrates that for me.
I don't know that many pilots, especially commercial pilots, would back his stand. Although I'm not a pilot, I was the passenger on a small Cessna many years ago on a flight from New Orleans to Lafayette, and because the plane was small and the engine was loud, all of us wore headphones with mics in order to communicate in the cabin--literally, you could not talk to the person next to you, you'd only see their lips move even if they shouted.
A side benefit of that experience, however, was listening to the air traffic control handoffs during this relatively short flight. You're always in somebody's airspace and they want to know who you are and what path you're going. We were a small plane on a short trip, but when you multiply out the world's airspace and the number of planes in it, I think the complexity of the problem reveals itself.
And I'm reminded today of a little bit of knowledge I gained on that terrible morning when the planes hit in NYC, DC, and Pennsylvania: there were 5000 planes in the air that had to be brought down immediately. I'd never stopped and thought about how many planes were flying at any one time before then. It seems GTL still hasn't.
GTL is clearly not a dumb guy, but as I've said before, there's one less really smart guy when he's in a room than he thinks there is. Some of that is just due to his philosophical bias: if you just let individuals do what they want to do, everything would be better. That bias ignores the complexity of life, from air traffic control to the need for some sort of government regulation of business to protect consumers (I'll concede that the "sort" is fairly open to debate) to the interplay between the generosity of an airline's FFP to the overall operation of the airline.
As I've also said before, I'm happy when he sticks to pushing credit cards because I surely would not wish to live in the world constructed on his philosophical beliefs.
#425
Join Date: Dec 2004
Programs: UA-1K, MM, Hilton-Diamond, Marriott-Titanium
Posts: 4,432
I do think the other day's BA accident at Las Vegas shows how silly to dangerous the proposal to get rid of ATC is. While the pilot has to spend 100% of his efforts on Aviate with the engine fire situation, ATC has his back at a very busy airport, handling the crucial Communicate in the situation, calling out emergency services, closing runways, and quickly telling two planes that had been cleared to land that they needed to go round NOW. Take away someone else having Communicate in this kind of scenario, and you can easily end up with Tenerife 2: Las Vegas Electric Boogaloo. It's darn dangerous to have a large jet stopped in the middle of a runway of a busy airport, and you need a strong system in place to create time and space around the stopped plane ASAP.
Wait, what??? Who the heck wants to take away ATC? What? What? How did I miss that tidbit?
I know a bunch of people who survived the Tenerife flight. Not to sound too obvious but isnt ATC very very necessary.
#426
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: IAD/DCA
Posts: 31,797
EY has gotten rid of F availability?
"GTL" = gary? middle name T? re him being an idiot, ive never understood his job title being ignored in this forum.
did he say "get rid of ATC" or did he say privatize it?
"GTL" = gary? middle name T? re him being an idiot, ive never understood his job title being ignored in this forum.
did he say "get rid of ATC" or did he say privatize it?
#427
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: VPS
Programs: IHG Diamond, Delta PM, Hilton Gold, Accor Gold, Marriott Silver
Posts: 7,268
It was him asserting that ATC was no longer necessary/a waste of money because the anti-collision systems in modern aircraft were good enough on their own to prevent crashes in the sky. He rather missed the point that it was the takeoff/landing and taxiing/on the ground actions at a high volume airport that were the far bigger dangers and reasons for ATC to stay as it was.
#430
Join Date: May 2004
Location: LAX
Posts: 1,849
Try to book some and tell me how it went...
Unless you like Indian food and fly from NYC, only single random dates
are left, basically matching the levels of CX, ANA etc
Used to be wide open for a long time until those guys published
their reviews number 1000 about an "amazing Etihad experience"
Unless you like Indian food and fly from NYC, only single random dates
are left, basically matching the levels of CX, ANA etc
Used to be wide open for a long time until those guys published
their reviews number 1000 about an "amazing Etihad experience"
#431
Join Date: May 2001
Location: IAD
Posts: 6,148
I do think the other day's BA accident at Las Vegas shows how silly to dangerous the proposal to get rid of ATC is. While the pilot has to spend 100% of his efforts on Aviate with the engine fire situation, ATC has his back at a very busy airport, handling the crucial Communicate in the situation, calling out emergency services, closing runways, and quickly telling two planes that had been cleared to land that they needed to go round NOW. Take away someone else having Communicate in this kind of scenario, and you can easily end up with Tenerife 2: Las Vegas Electric Boogaloo. It's darn dangerous to have a large jet stopped in the middle of a runway of a busy airport, and you need a strong system in place to create time and space around the stopped plane ASAP.
http://crankyflier.com/2015/09/15/am...ane-to-hawaii/
For someone who travels as much as him the failure to understand the importance of following process and procedures in aviation is mindblowing.
#432
Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Watchlisted by the prejudiced, en route to purgatory
Programs: Just Say No to Fleecing and Blacklisting
Posts: 102,095
It was him asserting that ATC was no longer necessary/a waste of money because the anti-collision systems in modern aircraft were good enough on their own to prevent crashes in the sky. He rather missed the point that it was the takeoff/landing and taxiing/on the ground actions at a high volume airport that were the far bigger dangers and reasons for ATC to stay as it was.
#433
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: DFW
Programs: AA Lifetime Gold, Admirals Club, Global Entry
Posts: 1,141
Politics completely aside, I would just respectfully remind you that federal employees such as ATC workers were, and are, statutorily prohibited from striking. I don't recall any Federal claim -- from Reagan on down -- that traffic controllers were "overpaid." Am I missing something?
#434
Join Date: May 2006
Location: SAN
Programs: Lots of faux metal
Posts: 6,425
Politics completely aside, I would just respectfully remind you that federal employees such as ATC workers were, and are, statutorily prohibited from striking. I don't recall any Federal claim -- from Reagan on down -- that traffic controllers were "overpaid." Am I missing something?
Although there were 39 illegal work stoppages against the federal government between 1962 and 1981, no significant federal job actions followed Reagan’s firing of the Patco strikers.
#435
Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Watchlisted by the prejudiced, en route to purgatory
Programs: Just Say No to Fleecing and Blacklisting
Posts: 102,095
Politics completely aside, I would just respectfully remind you that federal employees such as ATC workers were, and are, statutorily prohibited from striking. I don't recall any Federal claim -- from Reagan on down -- that traffic controllers were "overpaid." Am I missing something?
By Joseph A. McCartin
Still missing it?
Sort of ironic given whom PATCO backed and whom PATCO opposed when it came to the fall of 1980.