Jaunted - Tag: FAA

Damaged Haiti Airport Upgrades from Folding Table to Portable Control Tower

JetSetCD — 2010-01-22T10:35:04-05:00

It's been over a week now since the devastating 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti and finally, relief supplies and international help is pouring in like thick lava. We told you before about the state of the Port-Au-Prince Airport, which was basically a man with a radio somewhere on the ground, assisting what small planes and helicopters he could with their limited landings. But today, news arrives that the FAA are lending a much-needed helping hand.

WIth up to 200 aircraft now landing at the limping airport, the FAA has kindly dispatched one of their portable air traffic control towers, a 44ft high, 12ft wide and 8ft deep structure that runs on diesel fuel. Special technicians are heading down along with it, so that it can be up and ready to direct in more assistance within the next 48 hours. Before the tower goes up however, we will note that conditions have improved since earlier in the week, when there was just the one guy with a radio—it's now a few people at a folding table outside.

[Photo: Facebook]

FAA Spanks American Airlines, Grounding To Follow?

Omri — 2010-01-04T09:11:41-05:00

American Airlines had an abnormally bad December, and their January is about to get a lot worse because of it. The airline had three landing mishaps last month, with wingtips touching the ground twice and that nasty runway overrun in Jamaica. Now the FAA is stepping up to probe whether the accidents and near-accidents were just a run of bad luck, or whether there's something systemic going on.

There's a lot of confusion about what exactly "stepping up" means, with reports ranging from "looking to conduct a major review" to "new oversight rules." What's actually going on is somewhere in the middle: having three incidents in one month sends up all kinds of statistical red flags. The FAA obviously conducts investigations on each incident, but the combination also triggers heightened scrutiny of the airline's overall operations. If lax safety standards line up with whatever they think caused the accidents, then enforcement actions start kicking in. We're a long way from that.

FAA Glitch Delays Flights Across USA This Morning

JetSetCD — 2009-11-19T09:05:27-05:00

Flying this morning? If you're reading this from a US airport, then you may have already noticed some flights showing up red with delays on the departure screens. The reason is an "FAA glitch" where their computer systems are having issues with processing flight plans, causing the FAA to process flight plans manually and significantly slowing down the system, since we rely on computer so much for this sort of high-volume, fast-paced work.

Although the back-up during the outage is being quickly dealt with and air traffic control is not affected, delays to departing flights are to be expected throughout this morning, especially at Atlanta-Hartsfied Jackson Airport, where the issue was first noticed.

FAA Launches Campaign Of Penalties And Fines Against US Airlines

Omri — 2009-10-19T14:18:40-05:00

The Federal Aviation Administration has reached back to the beginning of 2008, contemplated the record, and decided to fine United and US Airways over $9 million dollars for safety lapses. The government agency is letting it be known that these penalties are just the beginning and that the entire industry is now on notice. Larger fines and penalties against American Airlines and Southwest Airlines are probably pending:

Toledo: The Battle Rages: JetAmerica Versus The FAA

JetSetCD — 2009-07-10T09:04:19-05:00

And the JetAmerica drama continues, as more details about their issues with the FAA emerge, and the struggle for landing slots continues. An article published yesterday in the Toledo Blade not only names the dates when JetAmerica's web began to unravel, but also quotes the Port Authority as being "not that optimistic" about the carrier.

So remember back when JetAmerica boasted of selling 20,000 tickets in their first 48 hours of having their website active? It turns that this publicity, and their May 27 press release even announcing their ticket sales, were the straws that broke the camel's back; they caused the FAA to contact JetAmerica and inquire about exactly what their plans were for landing slots, since they now needed them as an obviously regularly-scheduled carrier.

Aaron Koblin's Haunting Flight Paths Project

Omri — 2009-03-10T09:26:18-05:00

This is a screencap from an interactive Google Map created by artist Aaron Koblin, representing the 205,000 aircrafts the FAA tracked on August 12, 2008. In this case, we've filtered the air traffic by model, so each color represents a different one of the 573 aircrafts that flew that day. The flight paths are darker as the planes maintain their altitude and brighter the closer they are to the ground.

The work emerges as part of a collaboration between Koblin, Wired, and flight tracker FlightView. Koblin took images from his larger Flight Paths project and layered them, creating the interactive map.

You can go to the main project page and play around with the real version. You can choose your own filters, zooming in and out of your favorite city, and even look at the paths of specific aircraft.

Pilots Say Parsimonious Airline Fuel Allotments Getting Out of Hand

Victor Ozols — 2008-08-10T14:30:07-05:00

Oil prices may have eased somewhat in the past couple of weeks, but they're still pretty lofty, causing airlines to do everything they can to keep costs down. Some airline pilots, however, feel that their bosses are going too far, forcing them to fly with less fuel than they'd like to, and possibly compromising customer safety

As the AP points out in a recent news item, pilots are increasingly complaining to government authorities about management scrimping on fuel on certain flights, causing a few white knuckles in the cockpit as the needle drifts perilously near the red. In February, for example, a 747 captain reported burning extra fuel over the Atlantic on his way to JFK due to headwinds, but being rebuffed by his airline overlords when he discussed a refueling stop. The flight landed safely at JFK, but the captain said it was just too close for comfort.

The airlines say that flights always have sufficient fuel, and U.S. authorities are reluctant to get involved. But our own pilot friends have complained of this exact phenomena numerous times: "I didn't have enough fuel to wait in the pattern at JFK so I had to reroute to Philly," or "They're flying smaller jets on transatlantic routes now to save money, and they sometimes have to declare fuel emergencies on approach because they can't afford to wait in line to land."

We're content to leave this to the experts to work out, but would certainly hope our next flight has a few extra gallons to burn, just in case.

Related Stories:
· Whiney Pilots Complain that Stingy Airlines are Forcing Them to Fly Uncomfortably Low on Fuel [Consumerist]
· Pilots Forced to Fly Low on Fuel Worry About Safety [AP via Newsday]
· Airline News [Jaunted]

[Photo: Modern Mechanix]