Cities where planes don’t fly to anymore

by Jamie Rhein on

Bob Dylan song lyrics, “The times they are a changing” keep playing in my head. A few years ago, Greyhound buses stopped rolling into towns off its major routes. Now, in several small cities, airplanes won’t be appearing on their tarmacs.

According to this article in the New York Times, in Hagarstown, Maryland, it doesn’t matter that a new tarmac was made to bring more commercial planes there. They aren’t coming. The carriers that used to come quit. It would be hell to work at the Hagarstown Regional Airport right about now, I would think. What is there to do while waiting for a private plane to arrive? Drag racing?

The article lists several other airports without the commercial planes that used to whisk people in and out. New Haven, Connecticut, Wilmington, Delaware (where the plane in the photo was heading), Lake Havasu City, Arizona and Boulder City, Nevada are the ones named, but there are more.

So, now that you can’t whisk in and out of these places, and possibly you can’t take a bus to them either, I’m wondering what will happen when it comes to travel? When I criss-crossed the United States on a bus, there were some sites I wanted to go that were out of reach. We mostly went to large cities as a result of the hassle of going to smaller ones. The only small towns we went to were Hannibal, Missouri and Vinita, Oklahoma.

For people who have gotten used to going places quickly, lots of luck. With gas prices what they are, who’s going to want to drive to places that aren’t on the way to someplace else?

What strange things have been found on planes?


Click the image to read the bizarre story…

And the best large airport in the United States goes to…… Philadelphia?!

by Grant Martin on

JD Power and Associates just came out with their 2008 North American Airport Satisfaction Index Survey with some wild results.

Based on over 10,000 people surveyed, airline passengers rated Philadelphia the best among large (over 30 million passengers per year) airports around the country. Also in the top? Las Vegas and Orlando.

The worst three? Minneapolis, San Francisco and Seattle – Tacoma.

Airports were rated on six factors: airport accessibility, baggage claim, check-in/baggage check process, terminal facilities, security check, and food/retail services.

Take this data with a huge grain of salt though — I dare say a rock. Even if you do have 10,000 data points, people can be wildly influenced and biased. Of course you’re going to be happy in Las Vegas. You’re gambling! Sure, people like Orlando. IT’S IN FLORIDA. Can you think of a reason why people would be unhappy and cranky in Minneapolis?

As an engineer, I would perhaps be more convinced if we had calibrated judges working on a larger scale, say 1 – 50 or 100.

But hey, small yellow balls and easily readable numbers make great fodder for overblown headlines, ridiculous accusations and political whining — and that’s what we as Americans are good at. We have only ourselves to blame for the noise in the data.

What I find most amusing about the report is how the media have jumped all over it. The Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal and USA Today both claim that MSP was the worst rated airport, but none of the high-school-level data that JD Power & Associates published conclusively indicate that. Seattle – Tacoma, for example, also got “two little yellow balls out of five” in all of their categories. Furthermore, neither depot actually links to the real data, readily available on the JDPA website. Why not? Because they don’t want you to do the thinking.

Here’s what I propose to those of you that are actually interested: if you really want to see how JD ranked the airports, take a look at the site yourself, soak in the data and stop listening to idiots like me. Think about the source and quality of the data and then if you’re convinced of their opinions in the end, you have my blessing.

For what it’s worth, I think the study shows a lot of good trends and is a good basic tool to analyze the nation’s airports. But don’t base your entire life’s thesis on what you read — consider this data guidance on your enlightened path to your favorite — and least favorite — airport in the States.

Read the USA Today article here
or the MSP Business Journal article here.

Sorry for yelling.

Afghan hijacker found working at Heathrow

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Back in 2000, nine Afghan men hijacked a Boeing 727 flight containing 160 people, claiming that they were fleeing a Taliban death squad. The plane eventually landed at Stansted Airport in the UK, and the men, who hijacked the plane to try to seek asylum in the UK, were arrested after a four-day standoff. After serving several years in prison for hijacking and other crimes, the men (and several passengers) were granted asylum in the UK.

Now, it appears that one of the hijackers, Nazamuddin Mohammidy, has been found to be working as a custodian at London’s Heathrow Airport. Security officials originally mistook the man for an unlicensed cab driver and upon investigation, discovered that he was a former hijacker. The man’s British Airways security pass granted him access into secure areas, but did not– according to British Airways– give him access to the planes themselves.

Comforting!

More here.

Anti Jetlag Diet — another way to prevent jet lag?

by Grant Martin on

People are always trying to figure out ways to get around jet lag, the discomfort felt after traveling several hours on an aircraft. With symptoms as varied as loss of appetite, nausea, headaches, fatigue, irritability and depression, I suppose they have a reason to study the phenomenon.

Jet lag affects everyone, which is part of the reason that it’s so difficult to diagnose and treat. Everyone seems to have their own way to combat it and a variety of holistic, word-of-mouth and downright ridiculous methods are out there to get you through your ordeal.

Take the Anti Jetlag Diet. Invented by Charles Ehret, a scientist at Argonne National Laboratories, just outside of Chicago, the diet claims to relieve the stress of jet lag by preparing your body for the new time zone that you’re about to be in. Travelers are recommended to eat in a feast and famine style for several days before departure, gorging oneself one day, then eating trim the next — all on a adapted schedule that should hopefully integrate with your destination time zone (once you get there).

The thought is that by preparing the body for food cycles properly prior to departure you’ll have more ease adapting to the new system.

But will it work? I dunno. I’ve always felt that jet lag cures were like weight loss pills: it’s more in the body and mind than some trick or medication. Lots of sleep, physical activity and a gallon of coffee per day work just fine for me.

I guess what scratches me the wrong way about antijetlagdiet.com is how much they stress their ties with Argonne Labs, who are not generally commercial entities (think Sandia or Los Alamos). It makes me think of all of those weight loss pills that were “developed by doctors” but not approved by the FDA.

But hey, I’m just a kid who writes articles. Someone give the anti jet lag diet a try and let me know how it goes — especially if it works well.

Small aircraft lands on top of another in Texas

by Grant Martin on

[edit: Roanoake TEXAS, not Virginia. – GM]

I guess a couple of pilots got their messages mixed up in Roanoake, TX yesterday when they were figuring out who had runway privileges. Each thought that the runway was his domain and just as the inbound aircraft was about to touch down the outbound plane pulled under it. The move was timed so perfectly that the first aircraft landed right on top of the other, lodging its propeller into the lower fuselage and coming to a halt directly on the other roof.

Amazingly, nobody was injured, but I’m willing to bet there a couple of seriously embarrassed private pilots in Virginia tonight. Check out video of the accident below.