AOPA Rips Airlines a New One Over Delays

[flyf15]

Thought this was great...

http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2007/070828excuses.html

 

[banditdriver]

whoever the F^#k wrote that has obvisouly never flown a plane before.... and he works for AOPA! ha ha now thats funny

 

[Goose Egg]

"Blame the weather (i.e. too hot, cold, rainy, windy, sunny, etc.)."

Funny, but ouch! Someone is bitter. Talk about a conflict of interest!

-Goose

 

[PA44Jockey]

I wonder if AOPA realizes how many airline pilots are members of AOPA?

 

[Hawker dude]

I wonder if AOPA realizes how many airline pilots are members of AOPA?

Umm, I don't think he is out of line, airline Managers are a big bunch of Cry babys

look at the way airlines schedule flights. Slot times, peak times, etc...

that's what screws up the system. plus, replacing large narrow body aircraft with RJ's.

what AOPA is trying to say is quit trying to blame it on GA and business aircraft.

 

[DrewBlows]

Bwahahahahahahaha!! They are 100% right! It's funny (or sad) that the morons running airlines have no clue how to run an airline.

Remember when airline people ran airlines? Is there a CEO running an airline today who isn't a finance guy?

 

[TNPILOT]

Who gives a #$^& about GA.

 

[Goose Egg]

Who gives a #$^& about GA.

Well, I do, I guess. Kinda decided that I'd rather buy a sailboat than an airplane (waaaaaaayyy cheaper), but I guess I'd like the option to go out and fly gliders or whatever.

 

[dbchandler1]

Who gives a #$^& about GA.

Anyone who knows theres more to flying than being a systems operator!

 

[flyf15]

This isn't the airlines vs GA. This is airline management versus the public. They want two things:

1) A scapegoat for their problems that they mostly create for themselves (delays, airports streching to the brink, etc)

2) A way to make more money by sticking it to someone else


GA is simply getting the same treatment that we airline pilots get from airline management on a daily basis. AOPA is doing their best to stick it to them and I think they're doing a good job of calling airline management's bluff (the BS that oozes out of CEOs on a daily basis). We should all be behind AOPA... they're fighting for pilots, aviation, corporate responsibility, and the general public as a whole.

 

[willNOTfly4free]

Who gives a #$^& about GA.

I do, and so does AOPA's 412,999 other members.

 

[Geronimo4497]

Who gives a #$^& about GA.

You got to fly an RJ how? Must have fallen right into that seat. Ah hell, just flame anyway.

 

[BoilerUP]

Who gives a #$^& about GA.

You will when user fees cause a bunch of 91/135 operators to shutter, flooding the market with many highly qualified, experienced pilots...providing just the opposite effect to pilot supply as you might like.

 

[BcPilot99]

Maybe I am out of line, but do they not realize that alot of the wx delays from ground stops comes from our own F'ing government ......so why blame the airlines!

 

[BoilerUP]

Maybe I am out of line, but do they not realize that alot of the wx delays from ground stops comes from our own F'ing government ......so why blame the airlines!

What?

 

[PCL_128]

You guys keep talking about GA, but GA has nothing to do with this debate! It's just a red herring that AOPA uses to fight the user fees debate. All proposals on user fees only apply to corporate aviation, not GA. The doctor putting around the sky in his Mooney will not be affected by user fees. The billionaire flying around in his G-IV will be, just as he should be.

 

[BcPilot99]

What?

Maybe i was thinking wrong, but when talking of wx delays can they really blame the airlines? The head atc clowns in DC I thought were the one who controlled all of the ground stops and such?

 

[time builder]

What?

No, really, he's got a point. My biggest weather delays this summer have been from ATC, not my call. I had an hour and a half ground hold last month because ATC was backing everyone up for a "huge" thunderstorm that never actually came within 20 miles of my destination airport.

I can understand their need to "play it safe," but sometimes they need to try a little harder to "work us in."

 

[2EASYPilot]

You guys keep talking about GA, but GA has nothing to do with this debate! It's just a red herring that AOPA uses to fight the user fees debate. All proposals on user fees only apply to corporate aviation, not GA. The doctor putting around the sky in his Mooney will not be affected by user fees. The billionaire flying around in his G-IV will be, just as he should be.

Ah, you mean the business person that refuses to be delayed indefinately/scrotum rubbed by TSA and general treated like crap that is trying to run a business...that guy. The cost of administering a user fee system (remember it's the government) likely will exceed an gain. As the saying goes...once the camel get's it's head in the tent the rest is not far behind. Today it's that big bad business guy that the airlines lost long ago...tomorrow the rich doctor in his Mooney. By the way, the line about the camel was what friends used to warn me about live-in girlfriends...(-_-). Have a great holiday all.

 

[BoilerUP]

You guys keep talking about GA, but GA has nothing to do with this debate! It's just a red herring that AOPA uses to fight the user fees debate. All proposals on user fees only apply to corporate aviation, not GA. The doctor putting around the sky in his Mooney will not be affected by user fees. The billionaire flying around in his G-IV will be, just as he should be.

Come on now PCL, you of all people understand "slipperly slope", especially when it comes to our government and new revenue sources.

Besides, BizAv has jack to do with airline delays at hub airports, especially in the NYC area. Scheduling 35 airplanes to depart or land EWR, 20 of which are RJs, at the same time does have something to do with that, however...

 

[BoilerUP]

I can understand their need to "play it safe," but sometimes they need to try a little harder to "work us in."

Here's a good example:

Yesterday afternoon PHL had a stop on all PTW and MXE departures due to a storms beyond those fixes westbound. Sure the storms were small and you could easily take a short vector around them...but those vectors put you into the arrivals for NYC and Washington airports, creating a separation issue for ATC. Faced with that, its a pretty easy decision to hold traffic on the ground instead of trying to figure out how to work them AND the traffic already airport into constrained airspace.

Too many airplanes to land on too few runways, controlled by too few controllers with too old equipment.

There is no single entity at fault for this summer's delays. Its the fault of the airlines, the government, airport authorities, passengers that want cheap tickets and lots of frequency but no airport expansions because of airplane noise over their house, global warming, liberals, conservatives, and damn dirty hippies.

What is NOT at fault is business or general aviation.

 

[Goose Egg]

All proposals on user fees only apply to corporate aviation, not GA. The doctor putting around the sky in his Mooney will not be affected by user fees. The billionaire flying around in his G-IV will be, just as he should be.

I'm against it either way, and you know darn well that most of GA is not doctors flying around in Mooneys, and most of corporate aviation is not billionaires flying around in their G-IVs.

-Goose

 

[acaTerry]

You guys keep talking about GA, but GA has nothing to do with this debate! It's just a red herring that AOPA uses to fight the user fees debate. All proposals on user fees only apply to corporate aviation, not GA. The doctor putting around the sky in his Mooney will not be affected by user fees. The billionaire flying around in his G-IV will be, just as he should be.

Um...you're wrong. Remember the last big promise from the gov't....withholding tax would go away after WWII was settled? Yet it not only stayed, but grew an grew, and we have more ways of being taxed than ever now? I don't tust the fed, nor do I think it's fair for the gov't to help airline barons get away with blowing their business. What if Starbucks was asking the feds to make a competing coffee company pay more because the siewalks were crowded (and providing Starbuks wth severe competition)? Should the fes intervene?
The fuel tax is the fairest way to do this. You fly more, you pay more. Period.

 

[PCL_128]

Come on now PCL, you of all people understand "slipperly slope", especially when it comes to our government and new revenue sources.

Besides, BizAv has jack to do with airline delays at hub airports, especially in the NYC area. Scheduling 35 airplanes to depart or land EWR, 20 of which are RJs, at the same time does have something to do with that, however...

I'm not concerned with delays in reference to the user fee issue. It's a separate issue as far as I'm concerned. That's just the rhetoric that airline management is using to push this thing through. The rhetoric is a means to an end. This is really just about making corporate and fracs pay their fair share. A Citation takes up just as much airspace as a CRJ, but pays a fraction of what the CRJ does towards maintaining that airspace system. The corps and fracs shouldn't be getting a free ride.

 

[PCL_128]

The fuel tax is the fairest way to do this. You fly more, you pay more. Period.

Fuel burn has absolutely zero to do with use of the NAS. A Citation burning 1600 lbs/hour takes up just as much airspace and uses just as many resources as a DC-9 burning 6,000 lbs/hour. Fuel taxes are just one more way to force the airlines to foot the bill for the business jets and fracs.

 

[BoilerUP]

Fuel taxes are just one more way to force the airlines to foot the bill for the business jets and fracs.

You don't think fuel is a fair, universal way to provide revenue for infrastructure growth...simply because the airlines use more of it? OF COURSE THEY DO - they fly more!

What alternative would you propose?

 

[DrewBlows]

Fuel burn has absolutely zero to do with use of the NAS. A Citation burning 1600 lbs/hour takes up just as much airspace and uses just as many resources as a DC-9 burning 6,000 lbs/hour. Fuel taxes are just one more way to force the airlines to foot the bill for the business jets and fracs.

Airlines pay more taxes because they use more resources. Airlines use the busiest airspace and airports in this country, GA does not as a general rule. You don't see hub-and-spoke business jet operations because their customers/owners don't want to deal with the hassle.

When a business jet takes off from an uncontrolled field and lands at another uncontrolled field it is using basically no resources yet it still pays a fuel tax. That's not to say business jets don't use the system, they do, but at a rate a fraction of what airlines do. Business jets aren't launching from JFK during the international push (an operation that causes ground stops even in good weather). It's the airlines!

 

[PCL_128]

You don't think fuel is a fair, universal way to provide revenue for infrastructure growth...simply because the airlines use more of it? OF COURSE THEY DO - they fly more!

It doesn't matter how much they fly and how much fuel they use. A business jet takes up just as much airspace as a 737. A business jet needs the same runways that a CRJ does. One business jet takes up the same amount of time and resources for the center controller that a 747 does. Trying to distinguish by fuel used is just comparing apples to muffins. The airport and NAS resources have absolutely nothing to do with fuel burn.

What alternative would you propose?

Well, I thought I made that clear: user fees!!!

 

[TNPILOT]

By the way guys I was kidding about the whole not carring about GA thing...I have not forgotten where I came from.

 

[2EASYPilot]

By the way guys I was kidding about the whole not carring about GA thing...I have not forgotten where I came from.

With the exception of our military friends, all of us have came from the civilian/ga side. We have one of the best general aviation industries in the world and have been able to sustain it without user fees or privatizing the FAA. To do otherwise would be a huge mistake in the opinion of many intelligent folks (excluding me). The General Accounting Office has reported that we will be able to continue with the moderization of the ATC system without these proposed changes.The reality is this is about airline management trying to cover their inept asses. The compensation and pension cuts apparently are not enough to keep those multi-million dollar bonuses rolling in...they are are playing on the emotions of those caught up in the inefficiencies they have created now. Once again, please do not forget where most of us started because ultimately it will effect the little guy as well if the government gets involved.