Flying Political Support
Apr 15, 2007, 11:25 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 5
Flying Political Support: Tired of East Coast Delays?
:-: :-: :-:
The FAA is re-designing the NY/PHL air space, and we are trying to organize voters to support the changes that will increase the capacity at JFK, LGA, EWR, & PHL. These changes would reduce delays by 12 Million minutes each year.
I would like to invite any Flyers to join AeroBlue.Org to support increasing airport capacity. New Jersey has introduced legislation to oppose these changes. Visitors can use our website to send an email to the bill sponsors asking them to withdraw this bill and to support increased capacity and efficiency at our airports.
Thank you,
AeroBlue.Org
[email protected]
Travelers who are tired of delays can take action now to support the NY/NJ/PA airspace redesign.
Use this link:
to contact your congressman to urge support for modernizing the NYC airspace.
Delays at JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark can cause delays at airports across the US.
The link gives you the opportunity to email or phone your congressman to support improvements to our national airspace, critical to our national economy and your travel time.
Thank you considering this issue!!
Sim Hitzel
AeroBlue.Org
The FAA is re-designing the NY/PHL air space, and we are trying to organize voters to support the changes that will increase the capacity at JFK, LGA, EWR, & PHL. These changes would reduce delays by 12 Million minutes each year.
I would like to invite any Flyers to join AeroBlue.Org to support increasing airport capacity. New Jersey has introduced legislation to oppose these changes. Visitors can use our website to send an email to the bill sponsors asking them to withdraw this bill and to support increased capacity and efficiency at our airports.
Thank you,
AeroBlue.Org
[email protected]
Travelers who are tired of delays can take action now to support the NY/NJ/PA airspace redesign.
Use this link:
to contact your congressman to urge support for modernizing the NYC airspace.
Delays at JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark can cause delays at airports across the US.
The link gives you the opportunity to email or phone your congressman to support improvements to our national airspace, critical to our national economy and your travel time.
Thank you considering this issue!!
Sim Hitzel
AeroBlue.Org
Last edited by Canarsie; Sep 11, 2007 at 11:50 am Reason: Consolidation purposes.
Sep 11, 2007, 2:32 pm
#3
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: PSM
Posts: 69,232
This is definitely a topic worthy of discussion.
I'm not sure that this is the appropriatae place for the org to be focusing their lobbying efforts, and I have used the "report this post" button as appropriate to get clarification from the mods.
For me, I certainly understand that all the politicians are against this. They have an obligation (in theory) to do what is best for their constituents, and in most cases those folks are not frequent travelers, at least not in large enough numbers to actually get someone elected. So the elected listen to their electors and choose to fight the change that might cause more noise pollution and the associated decreases in property value. Granted, none of them actually know what the impact will be, but the status quo is always best when faced with change and an unsure outcome, right
I'd love to see the changes implemented, but I'm not holding my breath.
I'm not sure that this is the appropriatae place for the org to be focusing their lobbying efforts, and I have used the "report this post" button as appropriate to get clarification from the mods.
For me, I certainly understand that all the politicians are against this. They have an obligation (in theory) to do what is best for their constituents, and in most cases those folks are not frequent travelers, at least not in large enough numbers to actually get someone elected. So the elected listen to their electors and choose to fight the change that might cause more noise pollution and the associated decreases in property value. Granted, none of them actually know what the impact will be, but the status quo is always best when faced with change and an unsure outcome, right
I'd love to see the changes implemented, but I'm not holding my breath.
Sep 11, 2007, 3:56 pm
#4
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: NYC
Posts: 7,579
It's not a waste of time to Google Sim Hitzel and his group's activism related to Solberg in New Jersey.
It seems like his group is focused on the primacy of aircraft over community, which isn't really evident from the post here, or from the page linked to on his site. There's a bunch of stuff there asking for support to make local, municipal airports above the control of local governments.
Personally, I find it a little creepy, but I guess this is the group for you if you're a private pilot. YMMV.
It seems like his group is focused on the primacy of aircraft over community, which isn't really evident from the post here, or from the page linked to on his site. There's a bunch of stuff there asking for support to make local, municipal airports above the control of local governments.
Personally, I find it a little creepy, but I guess this is the group for you if you're a private pilot. YMMV.
Sep 12, 2007, 3:46 pm
#5
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 5
Support your Airport System
There is plenty of evidence that the current situation can be improved. Increases in travel demand are faced with increased congestion, costs, delays and risks.
AeroBlue.Org simply suggests that there are opportunities to improve the situation. In many areas, people have worked together to solve these problems in ways that improve their communities AND their travel experiences. Other areas seem unable to overcome these issues, and may benefit from these lessons.
Travelers have a reasonable justification for supporting safe and efficient airports. First, their life at stake. Second, they paid for them. Third, their livelihood and quality of life depend on them. The US Constitution gives congress the power to regulate Interstate Commerce. Local governments also have a responsibility to include airports in their planning and policies. AeroBlue.Org just suggests it might be beneficial if all of our government works together.
James Madison wrote that the success of our nation depends on an efficient economy. He understood that local politicians would either abuse their powers or ignore the national interests of efficient travel. This lesson was so powerful it forced the Founding Fathers to abandon the Articles of Confederation, and draft a new Constitution. Interstate Commerce was given a very high position in Article I, section 8.
However, Airports operate in a difficult environment and travelers often bear the grim frustration and cost of local political tempests.
And we have some ideas on how to fix this.
AeroBlue.Org simply suggests that there are opportunities to improve the situation. In many areas, people have worked together to solve these problems in ways that improve their communities AND their travel experiences. Other areas seem unable to overcome these issues, and may benefit from these lessons.
Travelers have a reasonable justification for supporting safe and efficient airports. First, their life at stake. Second, they paid for them. Third, their livelihood and quality of life depend on them. The US Constitution gives congress the power to regulate Interstate Commerce. Local governments also have a responsibility to include airports in their planning and policies. AeroBlue.Org just suggests it might be beneficial if all of our government works together.
James Madison wrote that the success of our nation depends on an efficient economy. He understood that local politicians would either abuse their powers or ignore the national interests of efficient travel. This lesson was so powerful it forced the Founding Fathers to abandon the Articles of Confederation, and draft a new Constitution. Interstate Commerce was given a very high position in Article I, section 8.
However, Airports operate in a difficult environment and travelers often bear the grim frustration and cost of local political tempests.
And we have some ideas on how to fix this.
Sep 12, 2007, 7:19 pm
#6
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2000
Programs: UA Million Miler (lite). NY Metro area.
Posts: 15,112
There are lots of people in Rockland, Westchester, and No NJ that do not support this 'change' in flight patterns.
I like the idea of discussion, but disapprove of the way it's been brought up.
I like the idea of discussion, but disapprove of the way it's been brought up.
Sep 13, 2007, 11:32 am
#7
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 5
Frequent Flyers vote too.
"There are lots of people in Rockland, Westchester, and No NJ that do not support this 'change' in flight patterns. "
There are also people in Rockland, Westchester and No NJ who support reasaonable efforts to reduce congestion and delays at Newark, the "most delayed" airport in the country.
I'd like to hear any suggestions you might have that might contribute to addressing the problems. Would you agree that todays aircraft are quieter than they were just a few short years ago? As more and more people need to travel, there is a need to make the best use of our airports and airspace. It was the folks at FlyerTalk that suggested raising the topic here.
AeroBlue
There are also people in Rockland, Westchester and No NJ who support reasaonable efforts to reduce congestion and delays at Newark, the "most delayed" airport in the country.
I'd like to hear any suggestions you might have that might contribute to addressing the problems. Would you agree that todays aircraft are quieter than they were just a few short years ago? As more and more people need to travel, there is a need to make the best use of our airports and airspace. It was the folks at FlyerTalk that suggested raising the topic here.
AeroBlue
Sep 13, 2007, 12:41 pm
#8
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Newport Beach, California, USA
Posts: 36,062
Sep 13, 2007, 4:59 pm
#10
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 5
RJ's, ATC, and tickets
There was a stampede to RJ's immediately after 9/11. First, the main line flights were half empty, and second, airlines moved to direct flights instead of hub/spoke system. Obviously, non-stop flights are less hassle.
Of course, the 'crush' we are seeing now is PAX volume returning to normal with tiny airplanes flying 100% full. Now when there is a cancellation, there are very, very few empty seats on later flights. So people can get stuck for days.
Of course to the airlines, it was a fight for survival in price wars. Now they can respond by offering better service for a higher price. I think this will work itself through the market as airlines are announcing a shift back to larger planes.
Moving to GPS flight planning is held back by the 1960's (40'?) era ATC system. This will give more flexibility to adapting to weather and routing. This needs to be carefully watched because the FAA has a lousy trackrecord of delivering big projects. (There's a whole thread just on this.)
The current airspace design has several bottlenecks. As an example, the a flight path to LaGuardia intersected a flight path to Newark. Eliminating this intersection reduced the time needed to sequence planes crossing a block of sky.
I don't think there would be much support for doubling or tripling ticket prices to reduce volume! I recently saw a picture of the old TWA terminal at JFK. Ah, the glory days!
Of course, the 'crush' we are seeing now is PAX volume returning to normal with tiny airplanes flying 100% full. Now when there is a cancellation, there are very, very few empty seats on later flights. So people can get stuck for days.
Of course to the airlines, it was a fight for survival in price wars. Now they can respond by offering better service for a higher price. I think this will work itself through the market as airlines are announcing a shift back to larger planes.
Moving to GPS flight planning is held back by the 1960's (40'?) era ATC system. This will give more flexibility to adapting to weather and routing. This needs to be carefully watched because the FAA has a lousy trackrecord of delivering big projects. (There's a whole thread just on this.)
The current airspace design has several bottlenecks. As an example, the a flight path to LaGuardia intersected a flight path to Newark. Eliminating this intersection reduced the time needed to sequence planes crossing a block of sky.
I don't think there would be much support for doubling or tripling ticket prices to reduce volume! I recently saw a picture of the old TWA terminal at JFK. Ah, the glory days!
Oct 26, 2007, 10:49 am
#11
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 2
Aeroblue
Forum readers should be aware that "Aeroblue.org" is an organization that was founded principally to address one issue - actions taken in suburban Readington, NJ to prevent the expansion of Solberg Airport into a jetport. For along time, Aeroblue claimed on its website that it was a political PAC and non-profit organization. However, investigation discovered that it was not registered with the IRS as either. That recently was corrected when Aeroblue finally registered with the IRS as a non-profit organization. It still has not registered as a PAC. It claims to be a "grassroots" organization, but it's founder, Sim Hitzel, is an employee of CIT, which is a substantial player in the aviation financing industry. That could be a coincidence, but is worthy of note. Please consider the posts from Aeroblue.org in light of this information.
Oct 26, 2007, 2:00 pm
#13
Join Date: Oct 2007
Programs: OnePass
Posts: 1
AEROBlue is a Front
Hi Sim!!!!
Kacey is right.
Several concerned residents of Readington have investigated Sim Hitzel, founder of Partners @Solberg and the Founder of AEROBlue. He has been very involved in providing misinformation to the general public regarding runway length, safety and noise issues, yet no one on staff (there are 3 of them Sim, his wife and his partner) have any certifications in aviation other than a pilots license. No airport operational experience, no NTSB experience, just finance.
For several years AeroBlue has touted itself as a 501 and provided misinformation to the community regarding aviation noise, runway length relating to safety with gems like "longer runways make airports quieter, they allow pilots to take off and land in the middle therefore further away from the houses!" We discovered that AeroBlue was not registered with the IRS. AeroBlue even represented themselves to the NJDOT as a mediator in the states failed attempt to purchase Solberg Airport. When outed by the residents this September, AeroBlue has since registered as a 501.
Earlier this year an outrageous wikipedia post on aircraft noise was made by AEROBlue trying to politicise the Solberg Airport issue within a wikipedia example of Aircraft noise, safety and school proximity to a runway. Wikipedia posts the IP address of article contributors that forget to log into their account; (if you log in your registered name appears if you forget to log in then your IP is posted) When the IP address was traced by one of our concerned residents, it was discovered to belong to the CIT Group in Livingston NJ. CIT has a transportation finance division specializing in.......financing Corporate Jet Leases and Fractional ownership.
If interested you can see the thread of discussion and the IP used by AeroBlue by going to Aircraft Noise wikipedia then click on the HISTORY tab and you will see that entry "19:36, 5 September 2007" is a re-posting of the earlier AEROBlue information. - The IP address used is displayed (I won't post it here for for compliance to forum rules) Click on the IP link and Viola - CIT Group! Or if you insert the IP into any IP trace tool for more specific address information you'll get the street address etc....
If the administrator of this Forum is concerned as to the facts or validity of what Kacey and I have posted, please email my account so we can discuss.
By they way..the only thing that will reduce airport delays is to limit the number of takeoffs per hour. Simple resource allocation. The airlines have taken advantage of deregulation and have scheduled multiple flights to compete for your business. Re-routing is ineffective, it doesn't matter what new system you put into place to manage the traffic once its airborne, the delay is caused on the ground by over-scheduling. For instance at EWR you have 80 flights scheduled to depart between 6am and 6:20am with 1 minute separation for wake turbulence it will be 7:20 AM before the scheduled 6:20 departure gets airborne. Another example of the problem; you can't have 3 airlines with flights to the same city all scheduled to take off at the same time - That's the problem! At 9:50 tomorrow there are 3 RJ's scheduled to depart from three different carriers for EWR to RDU! So three 50 passenger jets all scheduled to depart at 9:50 - how is that even possible? Let's say there is demand for 150 people to depart EWR at 9:50 for RDU - why not have the Airport Lottery off the time slot for one airline and they will use one 757 (the lowest operating cost per seat mile aircraft) and no one would depart late!. Airlines must be stopped from abusing the fixed resource and then the skies won't be so crowded there will be less delays everyone will still get to where the want t go and G/A won't be squeezed out of the skies and little airports can stay little!
Why this won't happen... the Airports don't want reduced flights, that's their income and the cash cow for most cities so unfortunately its all a farce, as with AeroBlue....follow the money.
Kacey is right.
Several concerned residents of Readington have investigated Sim Hitzel, founder of Partners @Solberg and the Founder of AEROBlue. He has been very involved in providing misinformation to the general public regarding runway length, safety and noise issues, yet no one on staff (there are 3 of them Sim, his wife and his partner) have any certifications in aviation other than a pilots license. No airport operational experience, no NTSB experience, just finance.
For several years AeroBlue has touted itself as a 501 and provided misinformation to the community regarding aviation noise, runway length relating to safety with gems like "longer runways make airports quieter, they allow pilots to take off and land in the middle therefore further away from the houses!" We discovered that AeroBlue was not registered with the IRS. AeroBlue even represented themselves to the NJDOT as a mediator in the states failed attempt to purchase Solberg Airport. When outed by the residents this September, AeroBlue has since registered as a 501.
Earlier this year an outrageous wikipedia post on aircraft noise was made by AEROBlue trying to politicise the Solberg Airport issue within a wikipedia example of Aircraft noise, safety and school proximity to a runway. Wikipedia posts the IP address of article contributors that forget to log into their account; (if you log in your registered name appears if you forget to log in then your IP is posted) When the IP address was traced by one of our concerned residents, it was discovered to belong to the CIT Group in Livingston NJ. CIT has a transportation finance division specializing in.......financing Corporate Jet Leases and Fractional ownership.
If interested you can see the thread of discussion and the IP used by AeroBlue by going to Aircraft Noise wikipedia then click on the HISTORY tab and you will see that entry "19:36, 5 September 2007" is a re-posting of the earlier AEROBlue information. - The IP address used is displayed (I won't post it here for for compliance to forum rules) Click on the IP link and Viola - CIT Group! Or if you insert the IP into any IP trace tool for more specific address information you'll get the street address etc....
If the administrator of this Forum is concerned as to the facts or validity of what Kacey and I have posted, please email my account so we can discuss.
By they way..the only thing that will reduce airport delays is to limit the number of takeoffs per hour. Simple resource allocation. The airlines have taken advantage of deregulation and have scheduled multiple flights to compete for your business. Re-routing is ineffective, it doesn't matter what new system you put into place to manage the traffic once its airborne, the delay is caused on the ground by over-scheduling. For instance at EWR you have 80 flights scheduled to depart between 6am and 6:20am with 1 minute separation for wake turbulence it will be 7:20 AM before the scheduled 6:20 departure gets airborne. Another example of the problem; you can't have 3 airlines with flights to the same city all scheduled to take off at the same time - That's the problem! At 9:50 tomorrow there are 3 RJ's scheduled to depart from three different carriers for EWR to RDU! So three 50 passenger jets all scheduled to depart at 9:50 - how is that even possible? Let's say there is demand for 150 people to depart EWR at 9:50 for RDU - why not have the Airport Lottery off the time slot for one airline and they will use one 757 (the lowest operating cost per seat mile aircraft) and no one would depart late!. Airlines must be stopped from abusing the fixed resource and then the skies won't be so crowded there will be less delays everyone will still get to where the want t go and G/A won't be squeezed out of the skies and little airports can stay little!
Why this won't happen... the Airports don't want reduced flights, that's their income and the cash cow for most cities so unfortunately its all a farce, as with AeroBlue....follow the money.
Oct 26, 2007, 3:38 pm
#14
Moderator: Luxury Hotels and FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Palo Alto, California,USA
Posts: 17,879
This is a very mystifying thread. Three new people join FT just to debate this particular issue. You are all welcome to FT and I hope you benefit a lot now that you know about the site -- but it does tend to make me wonder if what we are seeing here is single-issue politicking. Viewing this with the eyes of a frequent visitor to NYC who happens to reside on that OTHER coast, I am wondering what we are getting into!
Oct 26, 2007, 4:48 pm
#15
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 2
Aeroblue
I apologize for burdening you with a single, very local issue - but we feel we should expose Aeroblue for what it is wherever we find it. I look forward to reading posts with information of general interest from folks who are not lobbying organizations! Thanks for your patience.