Fast trains and airplanes in China
On 27/08/2009, in Viewpoint, by steve
When we say High Speed Train, we tend to think of France and Japan first and foremost. We also know that there is a kind of love-hate relationship between those fast train companies and the airlines. Love is in the air, or rather on the tracks, when some Thalys trains run with an Air France flight number between Brussels and Paris Charles De Gaulle airport or when several of Germany’s ICE trains carry a LH number… But when trains take passengers away from certain flights instead of feeding the airline network, love changes to hate…
Xinhua photo
The competition war between air and high speed rail travel is being fought in several areas, some of which make the playing field anything but level. City centre to city centre or airport to airport, the nightmares of airport security and the lack of it on the trains, public money in the infrastructure against full cost recovery for the airlines… No one has figured out yet how best to make these two great forms of transport live with each other.
In 2009, China is investing 50 billion US dollars in the construction of the world’s biggest high speed train network. What are the airlines in China thinking?
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Is the training of air traffic controllers better?
On 20/08/2009, in Viewpoint, by steve
One of the surprising and possibly unexpected early recommendations coming out of the investigation of the recent Air France Airbus 330 crash is that training in certain basic piloting skills and the handling of unusual situations must be strengthened and improved. Excuse me? Have we already reached the stage where the pilots of a sophisticated aircraft like the 330 are left wondering what to do when the screens go blank or numbers no longer add up?
One accident, however tragic, is probably not enough to draw far reaching conclusions on this thorny issue. But it does pose a question in a different context: is the training of air traffic controllers any better and is it keeping up with developments in the cockpit?
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Cost/benefit analysis in ATM – blessing or curse?
On 14/08/2009, in Viewpoint, by steve
Many years ago we were enjoying the sun and a sandwich on Schiphol’s observation deck during lunch hour when news came that one of the major airlines there had a new top executive who was neither pilot, nor engineer. He was a bean-counter! I remember the initial feeling of horror and consternation at what back then appeared nothing short of blasphemy. Of course, in the years since we grew used to the idea that for leading an airline or car manufacturer successfully you did not necessarily have to know the difference between a car and an airplane. You had to understand the costs involved in making or operating them.
With the aviation industry, including airlines, ruled more and more by the need to cut costs to survive, having commercial, rather than engineering talent at the top seemed indeed an increasingly good idea. If only they had taught them to understand cost/benefit analyses properly!
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Are we doing enough?
On 10/08/2009, in Viewpoint, by steve
Aviation Week and Space Technology, in their August 3 issue’s Market Focus commentary painted a very bleak picture of the US and European aerospace industry’s future. Referring to developments in China, they postulated that the 2010s may well be the last decade of US and European pre-eminence in the sector. This came on top of TIME magazines July 20 cover story “Generation Disappointment” by-lined: “Badly paid, unemployed and going nowhere. Why young Europe has so little to smile about.”
Only one of the stories is specifically about aviation but when a major magazine writes about “the broken hopes of a generation”, we should listen.
Air traffic management is not isolated from the troubles of the aerospace industry nor from the qualities, motivation and attitudes of the young people who will be entering the job market in coming years, some of whom might chose aviation and ATM in particular as the place to be.
Will they come because of the prospects and cutting edge nature of ATM or just because there is little else? Are we doing enough to make sure the reason is the former?
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The CFMU – Valuable asset or problem for the future?
On 30/07/2009, in Viewpoint, by steve
Few people remember the days of horrendous delays in Europe caused by the explosive growth of demand in the latter part of the 70s and early 80s. States tried to cope with the problem as best they could but the individual efforts made things worse as often as they helped in resolving the logjam. Clearly, a region-wide solution was needed. This solution was the Central Flow Management Unit (CFMU), designed and operated by EUROCONTROL on behalf of the ECAC States and with the full blessing of ICAO.
Now, several decades later, the future of the CFMU as a concept and as an operating unit may hang in the balance.
From protecting sectors to ensuring flight efficiency
The first attempt at keeping the ATC system from falling apart under the relentless traffic peaks went under the tab “flow control”. Indeed, this was not much more than a crude quenching of traffic flows which did eliminate sector overloads but left hundreds of aircraft stranded on the ground, delays skyrocketing.
The commissioning of the CFMU brought not only a regionally centralised awareness of the overall situation but also a change in how sector overloads were prevented. The departure slots disbursed by the CFMU are based on several considerations, including alternative routings and aircraft operator preferences, justifying the claim that traffic flows are now being managed rather than just being constrained as in the days of basic flow control.
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