British Airways flies planes empty because it lacks flight attendants

"Marty Shapiro" wrote in message
...
"TMOliver" wrote in
:


"Darkwing" theducksmail"AT"yahoo.com wrote ...

"mrtravel" wrote....

Don't any of you people fly?

Commercial? Only if I have to. GA? Any time I possibly can.


Darkwing obviously flies infrequently and even then neither very far
or very inexpensively. I don't know in which GA birds you fly (or
where), but ORD and LGD are quite expensive destinations if I choose
to go "by GA". A Gulfstream charter to match the airlines' timeframe
remains out of sight of my corporate pocketbook, while that's a Hell
of a (several) day's work in a 172.... As for Edinburgh or Milan,
staying awake precludes the attempt, even should I fill the cockpit
with jerricans.

It's bad enough to be an asshole, but when you add the quality of
"silly" to your personal status, you've transcended any pretense at
either credibility or respect.

TMO



FYI - If you are going GA into the ORD area, PWK, 7.6 NM from ORD, has
no landing fee and even has US customs with 2 hours advance notice. Why
would a GA flight want to go to ORD? And before Daly pulled his midnight
raid, GA also had CGX, which was far more convenient to downtown Chicago
than either ORD or MDW.

LGD has no landing fee either. Why did use Le Grande, Oregon in your
example?

GA refers to the rules the aircraft operates under, not the type of
aircraft. Air freight companies operate GA, even though they fly some big
iron such as the MD-11 or 747-400F. Even the airlines have GA flight such
as when they ferry the aircraft for maintenance or do the return to
service
check out flight following major maintenance. Thare is some big iron
which
routinely operates GA (the Boeing BBJ, which is basically a 737, John
Travolta's 707, and several 747). In fact, there is one Arab prince who
will be operating an A380 as a GA flight as soon as his gets delivered.

Yes, most small aircraft like the Cessna 172 or Piper
Warrior/Archer/Arrow only operate under GA rules, but there are a few
which
operated under air taxi or air charter rules and are not GA flights when
they do so. The key is that in the US all civilian flights operate under
GA (Part 91) rules. Add paying passengers, and you then have air
taxi/charter (Part 135) or air transport (Part 121) rules in addition to
the GA rules. The rules apply to the flight, not the aircraft.

From a cost standpoint, if you go by yourself, the airlines will
almost always beat GA. If you have two people on the flight and are not
getting advance purchase airfares, GA can become cost competitive on
shorter flights (200-400 miles). Go to three people, and GA becomes cost
competitive up to about 800 miles.

From a time standpoint, taking into account the time to park at an air
carrier airport, the 2 hours advance arrival to clear security, the time
to
pick up checked luggage (if you need to transport anything now prohibited
by TSA in your carry on luggage), & the time to take the shuttle bus to
the
rental car, you can almost always get there faster with GA on flights of
300 miles or less, even in a small a plane as a Piper Archer or Cessna
172.
From San Jose to Los Angeles, if you avoid rush hour, it's about a wash
timewise between driving and flying via airline.

One of the factors slanting time to favor GA for the short haul
flights is that not everyone lives near an air carrier airport. If you
need to drive for an hour or more to reach the departure airport, and then
need 2 hours for check in procedures, you're about 350 to 400 miles behind
the GA aircraft (Piper Archer) which departed from the little airport only
10 minutes from home before you start to taxi for take off in the
airliner.

For long haul, GA cannot beat the airlines for time unless, as you
said, you are the the corporate jet class, and then the costs, unless you
are at the top echelon in the corporation, eat you alive. However, if you
have 4 or 5 or more executives whom normally travel 1st class going on the
same flight, then the corporate jet becomes very competitive with the
airlines, even to Milan.

All the ranting and raving the airlines have been doing recently
against GA is due to their abject fear of the new VLJs. With a VLJ
costing
under $2 million, on medium to short haul flights when you have as few as
2
executives going together, your costs are about the same as for 2 business
class tickets, but you now go on your schedule and out of the small
airport
convenient to both your departure and destination. Compare that with
having to drive to the nearest air carrier airport, possibly connect at at
least one air carrier hub airport, and then drive a longer distance from
the air carrier airport nearest to your destination, and the big profit
customer is going to leave the airlines. The airlines can't compete with
this, and they know it.

--
Marty Shapiro
Silicon Rallye Inc.

(remove SPAMNOT to email me)

I flew into PWK a couple years back with an instructor when I was working on
my Instrument (which I finally abandoned due to lack of time). There was a
landing fee unless I got fuel, since the FBO that I rent from reimbursed me
I got the fuel. I *think* we stopped at Ratheon but it has been to long. It
was the coolest flight I had ever been on. Flew from MQJ IFR to PWK. Went
right along the lake front inbound and then right over the top of O'Hare
coming back. Only took one hour to get back with GS of up to 200 in a 182!