tom911

Sounds like you have a lot of lobbying to do.

RichardInSF

I think LANs are covered by the "Travel Technology" forum, just like WANs and discussions about the Manchester, England, airport. (...2...3...4...)

leandrorar

I support the creation of the LAN forum

lin821

Yep! It won't happen until tons of lobbying and a motion made on TB Board.

I doubt we are seeing a motion on this anytime soon though.

Eastbay1K

Certainly SOMEONE has IC free minibar access at a TB gathering that could be used to "lobby." Unfortunately, it isn't me.

kokonutz

The TalkBoard is formally considering the creation of a LAN forum in this thread.

Eastbay1K

It has been over a year. Time to kick this one back up and I hope there is more support. Sometimes LAN posts end up in OW, and sometimes LAN posts are just assumed to be LAN, and don't even initially specify it in the subject (in the "Other" forum, their current home). A substantial minority of the posts in that forum are LAN. It is really a res ipsa matter at this point, without rehashing everything from last year, only magnified.

Spiff

In the time that has passed since this last request, the TalkBoard has created some guidelines for requesting a new forum. Would you or any of the other proponents please address these criteria?

Thank you.

tcook052

One recent development I'll note that could have some affect is that LAN & TAM recently signed a non-binding MOU to merge making the combined airline large enough harder to ignore for forum creation. There's much more details about the combined size, passenger traffic, etc in this article and while the merger hasn't happened yet if it did I think the new & improved airline would warrant another look by TB.

Just MHO, of course.

jackal

What is the timeline of the merger? Perhaps we can delay the proposed creation of the forum until after the merger, thus sparing the confusion of dealing with the merger (moving posts, renaming forums, merging forums if applicable, etc.).

zpaul

I agree, as well! Especially with the upcoming merger of TAM and LAN...

tcook052

Nothing I can easily find from the companies themselves but speculation in the press:

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...-mid-2011.html

LAN and TAM expect to complete their historic merger by mid 2011, resulting in the creation of a new publicly traded holding company with LAN being the vehicle for the transaction.

marinersdave

I'm not sure if public "me too's" count, but I am another voice for a dedicated LAN forum. With respect to the quantitative aspects of the forum creation guidelines, given the pending merger in 2011 and the creation of a South American mega-airline we are currently at the point where FT can either be slightly ahead of the curve of the events or eventually behind. This is truly an opportunity to start small and let FT LAN userbase grow with the airline. Other than some time and HDD space, I do not see the downside to being slightly ahead of the curve.

Efrem

If LAN had had its current stature and upward trend when the forums were originally created, IMHO it would have gotten one without a second thought. If it had maintained an activity level based on the current rate of LAN-related posts, it would have kept it.

In some ways, we may have gotten a bit too uptight about a few things lately. I'm not suggesting we should play fast and loose with the forum structure by making wholesale changes every day, but this is not exactly (to use two U.S. examples) deficit reduction or national health care. Why not just do it?

marinersdave

I had a paragraph written in my email above expressing the same sentiments, but decided to rephrase it as "what is the downside"? The only negative ramification of creating a forum for LAN that I've read is that it might create a "dying" forum if it can't be sustained. If so, you hit the delete button and reclaim the HDD space. Having to go through a Lincoln-Douglass debate and provide a quantitative analysis for a the need for a forum for one of the top 10 largest airlines in the world (post-merger) speaks more to the fact that some people want their rings kissed than saving FT users from themselves. All this talk about strict policy adherence as a rebuttal for not giving a group of people what they want for a top-10 global airline is a cover for SysOps whose crowns have become bit snug.