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Friday, August 31, 2007

Airport Suggestions

My suggestions for helping fix airport congestion:
  1. Fly 24 x 7. I have no idea why this hasn't caught on. Airports and airplanes are simply too expensive to leave unused 1/3 of the time.
  2. To combat bunching of flights during congested times of day, we need peak-based pricing, but it needs to be much more transparent. Maybe a surcharge from the airport, passed on to the ticket price.
  3. Assess charges for small aircraft more appropriately (they account for 16% of the system's operating cost, while only paying 3%).

1 comment:

  1. I should pass these comments on to John, but from talking to him I know user fees are coming to general aviation (though I'm not sure that's what you had in mind in point 3). As for point 2, I've seen articles lately about implementing congestion pricing. As for point 1, I'm pretty sure that noise restrictions are a big part of the reason there aren't flights overnight in many airports - that and a lot of people don't want to get up or arrive somewhere in the middle of the night.

    Seems like they can and should (and probably do) have cargo carries like DHL and UPS and FEDEX flying in the middle of the night, though.

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