A while back, we began soliciting reader questions for Captain Steve, a captain with a major U.S. airline. He made his debut here, with his rather spirited take on the state of the modern pilot, and now is back with his first round of answers to reader questions. Thanks to him, and to you -- and please leave new questions for Captain Steve in the comments section below.
Q Seriously, how does my keeping my iPod on affect flights taking off? It
They don't want you listening to your iPod because then you are not listening to the safety briefing or paying attention at the time when most accidents happen, take-off and landing.
ResponderEliminarI've also heard that stowing your "portable electronic devices" is an attempt to reduce the number of hard plastic items flying around the cabin in the event (god forbid) of an accident on take-off or landing.
ResponderEliminarI'm surprise that you're advocating for a "truly free market environment" in this post, given that in your last one, you closed on the thought that the "next shoe" is to allow "foreign investment" that is, more competition! Apparently you like some regulation!
You have contradicted yourself. Today, you argue that the free market should guide the airline business and would lead to profitability. In your previous article, however, you claimed that free markets have led to unsafe practices and will eventually cause foreign governments to take over our airlines.
ResponderEliminarI am not sure where you stand on this issue.
I read your introductory piece, where you offered strong opinions about the regional airline pilots, working conditions, and the cause for the situation. Despite your assertation that I'm flying a regional airline because I want a cheap flight, actually my family lives 3 hours from a major airport, but 25 minutes from a regional airport. In your opinion piece, you didn't offer a solution. Other than renting a car and driving the 3 hours, what solution do you have?
ResponderEliminarVery interesting, Capt. Steve, thought-provoking. But how does your last point square with your previous post on regional airlines, cheap fares and quasi-qualified pilots? Isn't the cheap fare the result of the market at work? People want $99 fares the regional airlines deliver. How will less governmental interference and a free market persuade people to spend $199 for that fare?
ResponderEliminarI don't travel too often on business, maybe once a year, but when I do, it's a long distance, usually to Europe or Asia from NYC.
ResponderEliminarI've been nervous flying since I was about 12 or so, though I think I manage to hide it pretty well, until there's turbulence and the seat belt sign goes on.
That Air France crash has scared the bejesus out of me and I'm really dreading my next trans-oceanic flight.
Can you put to rest (or at least comment on) 2 major concerns that have really been brought to the fore since that awful crash:
1) all this talk of Airbus versus Boeing and the material that Airbus planes are made up of nowadays (but some say Boeing's newer planes contain them too), plus the whole debate of the Airbus plane being locked in on autopilot, but Boeing still being able to steer using hydralics. How much of this is true?
2) turbulence
I'd always understood from pilots (especially those that run fear of flying courses) that turbulence, which uncomfortable for passengers, is not harmful to the plane at all. Now, after the AF crash, there were pilots in the media saying that they never like to fly through a storm and others commenting that turbulence may have caused the AF crash. How bad is it really, when the plane's well being is concerned?
thank you.
"Trust the market."
ResponderEliminarOkay, I'm confused. In his earlier rant he seemed pretty down on the market. The market is why prices are going down, regional carriers are going lowest-bid on pilots, and generally seems responsible for the state of affairs that comprises his pet peeve.
So...trust the market when it benefits the big carriers, not when it leads to $99 flights on regional carriers? I'm not sure this is at all consistent.
I think the captain answered why DEN->EUG->PDX is cheaper than DEN->PDX but not why DEN->PDX->EUG is cheaper. It
ResponderEliminarI think I have the answer to the whole free market issue: like most people who lament the lack of truly free markets, the captain does not take that thought experiment to its logical conclusion, which is a monopoly that can maximize profits by setting whatever prices it chooses and exploiting its employees, thus taking full advantage of the free market situation.
ResponderEliminarTom- one ways aren't more expensive than round trips, normally they are priced at 60% to discourage flying the return leg on another airline. If the one way is more expensive id guess they are different flights. The lowest available one-way is often just 60% of the lowest available round trip rate based on inventory availability.
ResponderEliminarWho is John Galt, I nominate Capt. Steve. Great piece on regional and cost cutting airlines.
ResponderEliminarCorey - wrong, wrong, wrong. Where did you ever get that as the logical conclusion? Come on, now.
ResponderEliminarWhich specific regulations does the Captain think the airline industry would be better without?
ResponderEliminarAre there areas where more regulation might be needed? Or perhaps different approaches/stiffer fines/etc. for violations of certain existing rules?
The first article outlined the difficult flight schedules and rigorous requirements of the job. Does he think it would it be appropriate for the FAA to change/refine those details in any way? Or should the labor standards be left to the airlines?
I have to agree that complaints about poor working conditions and $99 fares versus lack of free markets seem strongly contradictory, so addressing the details would probably be helpful. Is there a happy medium?
I think airlines is one of those businesses that in a free market would eventually whittle the competitors down to a few.
ResponderEliminarOnce just a handful of companies exist they can basically collude to keep prices high and screw the customers.
You see this in the cellphone industry in Canada. Just a few companies provide service to all of Canada and we get screwed compared to consumers in other countries.
Please see my comment at the original unionist rant.
ResponderEliminarAnd regarding the pricing, see your local Econ 101 instructor--aske hera bout "Supply and Demand" curves.
Shocking. He believes in the free market when that helps his business and in government regulation when that helps his business. Those who don't recognize this attitude as basic Americana have been asleep for the past 25 years. The auto industry finds government regulation repellent, but the dealers lobby managed to get the Illinois legislature to make it illegal for dealerships, unlike every other retail business, to be open on Sunday, to reduce overhead. There are no principles, only dollars.
ResponderEliminarHow is it possible that a roundtrip ticket for the route DEN->PDX->EUG is cheaper than the roundtrip ticket for DEN->PDX? Same flights, planes, airline, and schedule.
ResponderEliminar"Trust the market."
ResponderEliminarIf Airlines were allowed to operate without regulations, it would be an outright disaster. There are two kinds of people who believe in free market economics: those ignorant of history, and those too stupid to learn from it.
@charles
ResponderEliminarCorey is absolutely correct. It is in the nature of free markets to produce monopolies, because power naturally concentrates. This is a logical consequence of increasing returns. If you think that's crazy, you probably got an A in neoclassical economics, but missed the part about neoclassical economics being completely fictitious. Corey's conclusion is supported by numerous historical examples (see The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein for a comprehensive discussion).
How can one get a copy of David Einhorn's senior thesis?
ResponderEliminarThe reality is that regional airlines are not dropping out of the skies like rain. When they do, there will be some hue and cry, and then things will settle down (remember Jet Blue!). People will tolerate a few deaths every now and again, but once the name on the fuselage changes, all is well as long its cheap. After all, every year 25,000 people, more or less, die on the highways and nobody really cares. (If 1/10th of that number died in terrorist attacks, the world would be turned upside and down, and .... oh, wait, that's the world we're living in. Nevermind.) In other words, Capt. Steve, maybe people are somehow aware that what you say is true (how does Southwest keep those prices so low?) and just don't care. It is the meaning of the deaths, the ego thing, not their number, that gets us excited. Sorry.
ResponderEliminarOn safety of regional vs. mainline, it's already showing - look at the recent major US commercial fatal accidents along with NTSB causes since 9/11:
ResponderEliminar2/12/09 - Colgan/Buffalo - cause not yet issued, but likely inattentive flight crew
8/27/06 - Comair/Lexington - Inattentive flight crew
12/19/05 - Chalks/Miami - Inadequate maintenance
10/19/04 - Corporate/Kirksville - Descent below minimum by flight crew
1/8/03 - Midwest/Charlotte - Improper maintenance
11/12/01 - American/NY - Tail separation due to excessive rudder
That's 5 of 6 from the regionals, and their full causes and factors have a healthy dose of cheap and sloppy.
Hi Steve
ResponderEliminarMy question is:
Why are heights measured in feet? 30,000 feet is a pretty unwieldy number. Why not in yards? Or metres and centimetres?
There's more to the i-pod issue than just listening to the briefing and the lowest common denominator. They are a safety risk in that those personal electronics can and have been found to interfere with basic aircraft operations, especially during take-off and landing. What could one i-pod do? Probably nothing by itself according to where someone is sitting, but a whole planeful of electronic devices can be trouble when you consider that the latest technology aircraft are fly-by-wire and have currents running back and forth measured in milli- and micro-amps.
ResponderEliminarCargo operators are not the lowest experienced pilots. Pilots for the major cargo carriers are among the most experienced and flying the latest equipment.
And while I'm on my tree stump, the government has to be involved in the industry because the airlines need to be held to a higher level of safety; the only way to accomplish that is to have the government organizations overseeing the airlines. Now everybody in the industry may have their views on the FAA (this isn't an organization slamming venue, and I'm not inviting any negative feedback), but it is the FAA that is tasked by Congress to make sure the airlines tow the line and deliver a safe product. For what it's worth it is the FAA and the airlines working jointly that guarantees safe movement from point A to point B.
-SC
The price of an airline ticket is, for the most, part a bargain if you compare it to other forms of travel as compared to inflation. Airline tickets are not much more than they were 20-25 years ago for many routes and you can find cheap seats almost anywhere. I would argue that as the cost of a subway ride, bus ride or taxi ride seems to increase yearly, the cost of air travel remains flat even though expenses must be increasing. Air travel was once for the wealthy only. People did not think about zipping to Vegas for a long weekend but now you can go for $99 round trip, if you are lucky.
ResponderEliminarAs to one of the points raised by MG @6 and discussed by Justin Scott @10, a concern is that various of these new composites might not bind as well to traditional materials, such as aluminum, as do other traditional materials. I have heard that this might have led to seam fissures among certain bicycles featuring aluminum and carbon fiber (at least prior to the continued development of glues, epoxies and the conditions under which they are applied) when put under considerable stress.
ResponderEliminarI do not recall many of the details, but the rudder that broke off an Airbus flight in the Long Island/NYC area shortly after 9/11 may have been a composite piece attached to an aluminum hull. One report on the Air France disaster more recently noted that the rudder from the later crash seemed to resemble that from the earlier crash in terms of the amount and type of damage.
The rudder separation (allegedly resulting from the pilots' attempts to counteract severe turbulence) apparently brought down that earlier flight, but may have had nothing to do with the Air France tragedy.
Steve, my fist flight was in 1968 via coach on TWA to Rome and alluded some of the ambiance of the QE2. Now I find flights in many ways to be rather pedestrian -- more like bus travel.
ResponderEliminarHow do the older pilots and flight attendents feel? Agree?
Dave-
ResponderEliminarCherry picking much? That is in no way a comprehensive or representative sample of recent airline crashes.
First, to limit it to the US discounts international and foreign flights. Secondly, to limit it to fatal crashes is somewhat arbitrary. Oftentimes, the difference between a crash being fatal and non-fatal is a very thin line, more the result of chance than anything the pilots did.
Furthermore, we keep debating regional vs major. Do we know for sure that regional airlines hire lower-quality pilots? Pilot Steve said they did, but do we know this for a fact? Perhaps there are other ways they keep their costs down, or they are higher potentially younger but-no-less-talented pilots? I just don't know that we have enough information to confirm that regional airlines are less safe than the major airlines. And, if they were, how much less safe? If they are 1/10th of a percent less safe, but save me $200 a flight, many people probably still choose them. Think of all the other times we opt for a slightly (or majorly) less safe option just to save a few bucks or save a few minutes.
Pilot Steve's implication that these regional airlines are just going to get everyone killed and, as soon as people realize it, will never fly on them just seems like sour grapes to me. He wants a free-market model, but doesn't like that the freedom currently in the market has allowed for new business models that undercut the existing players in the market and potentially threaten his employ. Wamp-wamp...
Why does every transaction at the ticket counter seem to take forever? Why so much typing by the agent (e.g. even to check a bag onto a flight to which I've already received a boarding pass)? Seems like a swipe of a credit card and a few mouse clicks (or touchscreen pokes) would be all that is required. Is anyone profiting from the long, long line?
ResponderEliminarRichard -- I just booked a round trip to Rio out of Houston. I had looked at one-way to accommodate other travel plans. With the same outbound flight and class of service, the RT was $700 CHEAPER than the 1-way. While 60% may be common (or made up), in this case it was around 200%.
ResponderEliminarUmm, I followed the link and ended up confused. Low-bid hiring is the problem. Money and profits at all costs is the problem. The free-market is the solution. Free markets solve many things--but they aren't really the best way to get rid of bidding wars and profit seeking, are they?
ResponderEliminar@32
ResponderEliminarMark - you're comparing apples to oranges. The one-way you were looking at is probably a full-fare, fully-refundable ticket, while the R/T is a no-refund advance purchase ticket. If you want to be apples to apples, compare a one way HOU-RIO leaving tonight with a roundtrip leaving tonight and coming back tomorrow night.
Hmm, Bob. If you ask for the price of one lowest-price apple, and then for the price of two lowest-price apples, it would seem the airline is pulling something funny if they give you the price of a full-fare orange.
ResponderEliminarWhat I posted wasn't a theoretical study of airline prices. This was a real world example of a real strange result of two requests that were identical except for one including a return. And, after checking the 1-way price, the RT was rechecked and purchased. So it is not the case that the lower fare seat went away. And the request was done through the relevant airlines web site. I find it less interesting to speculate about the mechanism they used to generate the price difference (although "why" is of interest), as to note that the difference was a $700 penalty for accepting 1/2 as much service.
This column is a great read for the insight, as well as the inaccuracies. The airline "industry" is largely a mysterious place in which transparency is avoided at all costs. The pricing is irrational, the economics are faulty, and the subsidies are ignored in comparing with other modes of transportation.
ResponderEliminarThe clearest insight to me has been that the airlines are run for the benefit of their managers and owners, not their passengers. Not that owners always, or often, benefit hugely (although they seem to, no?) - but the passengers only coincidantally find their way through the system after repeated trial and (many) errors.
Any decision that can be made sufficiently complex is steered by the provider of the information. That's why airline fares, schedules, and transactions are complex - the incentive is to be obtuse to the user/decision-maker.
I've been traveling occasionally by plane for the past 25 years. Over that period, I've been the same height (6' 2") but the amount of leg room I've had has continued to shrink. Now I can barely squeeze my legs in behind the chair-back in front of me, assuming that it's in the upright position. As soon as the person in front of me reclines it backward, it's jammed up against my knees and I can't move below the waist at all.
ResponderEliminarSo my question is: with this movement toward reducing the leg room so as to squeeze more rows in, can we at least get rid of the seat's reclining ability? Or, failing that, make it possible for the person BEHIND the chair to block the reclining action (say, via a button on his/her arm rest)? I'm to the point where I rarely fly anymore because the experience is just too uncomfortable.
Regarding regional vs. mainline airlines: be very afraid. Read your itinerary. "Segments of this flight may be operated by American Eagle, Delta Connection, etc. etc.
ResponderEliminarIts not just here, the Komorans who got on an Air France code sharing flight couldn't know they would be on Yemen Airlines on their last fatal leg that crashed into the Indian Ocean.
How can anyone book a flight these days and know exactly who they are flying with on each segment ? With airlines taking capacity down further every week its hard to keep track.
Speaking as a customer of air services, Dave (39) is spot on. A cursory review of air incidents will reveal that in the USA, except for the unforeseen errors/engineering mistakes (TWA 800, Swissair 111, for example) the potentially avoidable incidents have been with the regionals. The general public has not cottoned on to this yet, perhaps because the attention span is so short or people don't pay attention to the final reports. What is most likely is that the public will assign blame to the individual carrier rather than the system. The majority of the comments here and in the previous thread are illustrative. Absent some radical change it is probable that there will be more regional incidents and they will occur with increasing frequency.
ResponderEliminarWhy do they charge high fees for luggage carts at arrival terminals in the US. Overseas they let you use them for free.
ResponderEliminarDo you think jetlag was an important factor in Prof. Gates' arrest?
ResponderEliminarWould like to add to SCO115's analysis of the iPod scenario:
ResponderEliminarAn airline pilot related to me how some years ago in a 767, during level cruise, the wings developed a 'waggle' which seemed to be random and unexplained by what the aircraft was doing and what state it was in. It wasn't affecting the flying, but was one of those things he didn't like because he couldn't explain it.
Eventually he got the second officer to go and see if anyone was using a Nintendo or similar (common during cruise.) Sure enough, a young kid was playing with one. The second officer asked if he could turn it off for a short period. The kid complied, and voila, the wing waggle stopped. The crew then asked if they could borrow it to check the aircraft's reaction in the cockpit.
Results: Nintendo on, wings waggled. Nintendo off, wings stopped waggling. Repeatable and consistent.
Now, during cruise at 35,000 feet this is not an issue. However, during landing and takeoff it most certainly is. When you're close to the ground, you don't want the aircraft reacting in any unpredictable fashion. Therefore, to be safe and sure, all devices like this are to be switched off. The authorities cannot test the vast plethora of new electronic devices for issues each year, it's simply not feasible. It's a blanket rule designed to catch all possible effects.
And the cheaper the device is, the more likely, not less likely, it can cause a problem, simply because shielding wires from stray electronic transmissions costs money.
Schmetterling,
ResponderEliminarHow difficult is it to turn your ipod off for a few minutes? You are incredibly self-centered that you consider this to be such an inconvenience. You are the epitome of why traveling is such an unpleasant experience these days
In case of emergency landing or crash, is the capt required to be the last to leave the aircraft, and to rnsure that all his crew and pax have left like the capt of a ship?
ResponderEliminardo airlines check for felony warrants when you are flying domestic only in the u.s?
ResponderEliminar