"Just try it, Peters," seems to be the message from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which announced today that it would disallow departures or arrivals that are "issued by auction or similar process," saying such slot sales "would be illegal without Congressional authorization."
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is lining up behind the authority, agreeing with the position that auctions will only cause fares to go up while doing nothing to alleviate the congestion that has choked New York area airports over the past few years.
So what does he propose instead? Schumer thinks upgrading air traffic control equipment and adding staff at control towers will rid the region of delays and cancellations. Maybe he could interest you in a six-figure hiring bonus?
While last year's summer of airline hell has yet to repeat itself, the US government is still working on a way to keep it from happening again. And Transportation Secretary Mary Peters thinks that slot auctions are the way to go, something she's been hyping since at least last December.
But the airlines don't want to pay more for landing rights they already have--especially when they're already bleeding cash. And while Secretary Peters makes some decent points in her latest defense of auctions, her case is more than a little thin.
L'Avion, the last independent transatlantic all business class carrier, just got bought up by British Airways. The backer of the new premium airline OpenSkies directly competed with L'Avion for Paris to New York passengers--until today.
The deal cost BA €68 million ($108 million), though L'Avion had €33 million in cash in the bank. More importantly than eliminating the competition and getting two 757s, OpenSkies will also get L'Avion's landing slots at ORY.
We have two big questions. First, where will the newly-expanded OpenSkies fly? L'Avion served Newark, while the BA offshoot lands at JFK. A company press release mentions "up to three daily flights between Paris Orly and the New York area." The second question: Will OpenSkies make a dime off this deal?
The Feds are still trying to sort out the mess plaguing New York area airports even though this summer (so far) has nothing on last year's nightmarish streak of delays and cancellations. At issue now are the slot auctions proposed by the Bush administration in May and whether they'll be able to save American aviation from itself.
Surprisingly, the airlines and New York's Port Authority--which controls the airports--are lining up behind Democrats, who say President Bush's market-based scheme won't work. Says Sen. Chuck Schumer:
Instead of focusing on real, tested solutions to solve this problem, like upgrading decades-old technology and hiring an adequate number of controllers to staff New York's towers, the [Department of Transportation] continues to miss the point.
Republicans--and the DOT--insist that auctioning off some takeoff and landing slots is the best way to spur competition while maintaining flight caps. Of course, no one's ever tried that before, so they have no idea if it's actually going to work.
By the time all the debate is over, though, the congestion problem may be a non-issue. With fuel prices going up and carriers lurching closer to bankruptcy, there may soon be plenty of room for the few airlines still in business!
At the end of last week, the Department of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters proposed that Newark International and JFK auction off landing slots to increase competition at both airports. As long as takeoffs and landings are capped, the feds are worried that ticket prices could go up while the quality of service at New York's airports goes down.
To keep that from happening, the DOT wants to take a small portion of landing slots from all the airlines and sell 'em. The idea is that the auction will open up the market to new competitors and keep things fair--except for the whole "We took your landing slots" part of the plan, of course.
But will this slot selling--which has never been attempted at a major airport--actually spark competition? Industry watcher Brett Snyder doesn't think so:
In the end we'll probably see airlines like Continental bid high for Newark slots so they can keep the ones they have now and possibly even gain some more. The low cost carriers? Well, there's a reason they're low cost. They probably won't be able to afford the price of entry.
Whenever we gots time to kill in an airport, we like to troll up and down the gates checking out the retail offerings. Part of this stems from a necessity like "We need to buy a pack of gum" or "We want a bottle of water before take-off" or "We really need a big bag of trashy tabloid magazines to keep us occupied on the flight."
More often than we like, this airport-trolling stems from sheer boredom. And because we're airport geeks and travel a lot, we're always keeping mental tabs on which airports have what and where.
One of the things that always perks us up is a mini-spa, a place that offers quickie massages or mani/pedis or even facials and haircuts. Yet hitting up the mini-spa is not always practical because who has the time?
But yesterday, we had three whole hours to kill in the American terminal at Newark Liberty International and guess what we did? We tested the Massage Bar near Gates 30-39.
Near misses between planes on the runway at Newark Liberty International Airport are nothing new. The airport has consistently ranked high on the FAA's list of dangerous US airports for runway accidents but is EWR even trying to remedy the situation?
Described as runway incursions, these scary incidents happens when "an aircraft, vehicle, person or object on the ground" endangers an aircraft on take off or landing.
Last Friday night, our friend was on a Jet Blue plane from Florida and according to her, all was swell on the flight. Even the landing seemed to be OK until suddenly, the plane slammed on the brakes just missing a Jamaican Air plane.
The Jet Blue plane came to a complete stop and passengers were all freaked out. The crew asked if everyone was OK but according to our spy in the sky, the pilot never apologized. And no, her "more legroom" seat did not make the experience any less frightening. Yikes.
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Usually in our stories on Airport WiFi we like to dish out which airports are letting travelers surf the web for free and without hassle. But this isn't one of those happy stories.
Yesterday, we were waiting in the Continental terminal at Newark Liberty International Airport when we realized we had to go online immediately and file a story. We selected "concourse" from our WiFi network options and were taken straight to a page from Boingo Wireless. We were given two options: One was to sign up for a yearly account and the second option was 24 hours for $7.95.
Since we were on a tight schedule--the plane was boarding, our deadline inching closer--we opted for the $7.95 and spent about 10 minutes total online. Grrr.
Boingo is overcharging people to use the Internet in other places, too:
With over 100,000 hot spots worldwide, Boingo is available everywhere your travels take you, including 400 airports, top hotels like Marriott and Hilton or even around town at places like Barnes & Noble or The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.
What's more annoying is that we actually have access to the Continental President's Club where the wireless is free. It's just that it was at the far end of the terminal, and we wouldn't have had time to haul bags over there, file the story and board on time. Double grrr.
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by pbb
