Letter to the Editor Response

Judah wrote in message
Where would I find out the total number of airplanes owned by all of the
airlines worldwide?

The FAA estimated that in 2002 there were 5,156 passenger jet
aircraft, 976 regional jets, 1,034 cargo jet aircraft, and 2,521
commuter (prop and jet) aircraft in the U.S. That's a total of 9,687
aircraft.

Source: FAA Aerospace Forecasts, FY 2003-2014, Tables 20, 21, and 27.

It depends on how granular you want to get. Yes, ATC is still handling an
Archer on a 4-hour flight under IFR for 4 hours but the personnel needed to
handle that flight as opposed to an airliner would be smaller. For example,
how many Centers would the airliner need to service them as opposed to the
Archer?

It goes back to Judah's point, if you're going to measure it, measure apples
to apples. However, I think this is one of those situations where you can
make the metrics say whatever you want it to say.

Marco



"David Martin" wrote in message
...
But again, the four hour Archer flight doesn't cover as many miles and all
the
cost is passed on to the airpline passengers (100+, instead of 4 (max) in
the
Archer).


(Andrew Sarangan) wrote:

Great article. However I do have one comment. A 4-hour flight in an
Archer serves four people and uses 4-hours of ATC services (assuming
IFR). A 4-hour flight in a 757 serves hundreds of people and uses the
same amount of ATC services. Unless I am mistaken, ATC treats an
airliner the same way as a GA aircraft under IFR. Not that I am
arguing with your point, but this comparison may actually point to the
opposite conclusion.





Judah wrote in message
. ..
So I was flying on a biz trip across the country yesterday, and
happened
to pick up an old USA Today, and I read the Editorial page, and what do
I
see?

Apparently, the editors of USA Today are showing support for Richard
Anderson, CEO of Northwest Airlines.

Since it was a cross-country flight, I had a few hours to write a
response, which I sent today to the editors of USA Today, as well as to
the News department of AOPA.

Not that I really expect my voice to make a difference, but I attached
it
here....

"Regarding your editorial columns on the Cost of Air Travel from
Thursday, April 15, 2004 (USA Today page 12A, columns 1&2).

As a Business Owner, and a Frequent Flyer, I can understand why Richard
Anderson, CEO of Northwest Airlines, would complain about monies that
he
has to collect from his passengers and pass on to the government. After
all, air travel is down, costs are up, and airfare wars are brewing,
all
making it very difficult to successfully compete in the airline
business.
Who else to blame but the General Aviation pilot who "pays less".

However, to make the comparison equitable, one has to look at it in an
"apples-to-apples" manner. Mr. Anderson, because of his desire to cut
costs and increase profits clearly has not done this.

As a private pilot, I fly a grand total of about 150 hours per year, in
a
plane that cruises approximately 135 miles per hour, covering a grand
total of about 20,000 miles per year.

I write this letter, sitting in the coach cabin of a 757 flight from
New
York to Seattle, flying 180 people 2500 miles at 500 miles per hour in
about 5 hours. And shortly after I get off, the plane will turn around
and go back - doubling its air time. It does this twice per day, every
day, for a grand total of about 2 MILLION miles per year. And that is
one
plane in the airlines fleet of hundreds of thousands that do the same
thing for Richard Anderson and other Airline executives and
shareholders.

I think most people believe that you must be wealthy to fly private
planes. They watch Donald Trump's gold-laced private Jet full of
Champaign-drinking executives and figure that's how it must be for
everyone. And certainly, for a small sector of General Aviation -
executives and stars like Donald Trump - it is that way. But for a
majority of General Aviation pilots, this is not the case. The plane I
fly (which I don't own, but share as part of a flight club) is smaller
than my car, weighs less than my car, and costs more to operate and
maintain than my car. The plane, a Piper Archer, has 4 seats in it, but
cannot actually hold 4 average-sized people without sacrificing fuel to
accommodate weight capacities. It flies at a maximum speed of about 135
miles per hour, and requires 100 octane, low-lead gas that costs more
than the fuel you buy for your car, and in fact costs more than Jet
Fuel.

I use my plane in much the same way I use my car. I fly for both
business
and pleasure - flying to customer sites, business meetings, vacation
destinations, and the occasional tour of the Hudson River. While I do
earn more than the median income level in some years, I am by no means
wealthy. I use some of the FAA resources for weather briefing and Air
Traffic Control services. But I use far fewer of those resources than
Richard Anderson, whose fleet consumes more of these services in a
single
hour than I will in a lifetime.

I do believe it is appropriate for General Aviation pilots to share
fairly in the expenses associated with regulating, controlling, and
protecting airspace. However, it needs to be fair and equitable across
all of the services provided. And while Air Traffic Control services
and
Weather services are used by all of us, many other FAA services are
not.
For example, it is highly unlikely that during our four hour flight
from
New York to western Pennsylvania the plane will be hijacked by my wife
sitting in the seat next to me. As such my usage of the TSA security
system is substantially less than that of air-buses that fly hundreds
of
strangers thousands of miles every day, and apparently require careful
screening, monitoring, and X-Raying by the TSA.

I'm not certain what the best method for fairly and equitably splitting
the cost of these services is, since I am not totally familiar with all
of the services that the FAA provides, nor how much they cost for
different planes and passengers. However, it seems to me that the only
sensible way to share costs equitably and fairly is based on
consumption,
usage, and wear. Tolls are different for Cars, Motorcycles, Buses, and
Trucks, for exactly this reason. And already this type of approach is
used in calculating landing fees based on airplane weight.

In the case of Air Traffic and Weather services, consumption and usage
is
mostly measured in time - time spent talking to Weather Briefing
personnel and Air Traffic Controllers. The best (and perhaps only
legitimate) way to measure time in an airplane is by fuel consumption.
However since other things, like security screening, are consumed on a
per-passenger basis, it is only reasonable to charge a fee per
passenger
as well.

I suspect Mr. Anderson already realizes this. I suspect that Mr.
Anderson's motivation for his diatribe is based mostly on cost-cutting
initiatives and greed, and on his recognition that the average airline
passenger has minimal knowledge of General Aviation and the FAA system,
beyond what they see on TV. By taking advantage of public ignorance, he
can muster up support for a big cost cutting measure without cutting so
much as a paper clip from his own expense report. Imagine how proud his
shareholders will be!

After all, if the government reduces the fees attached to your round
trip
airfare, who, exactly, do you think will pocket the difference?"

David Martin
Mountain Home, Ar.
(to respond, get rid of the NOT)




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"Ace Pilot" wrote in message
om...
Judah wrote in message
Where would I find out the total number of airplanes owned by all of the
airlines worldwide?

The FAA estimated that in 2002 there were 5,156 passenger jet
aircraft, 976 regional jets, 1,034 cargo jet aircraft, and 2,521
commuter (prop and jet) aircraft in the U.S. That's a total of 9,687
aircraft.

what part of the word "worldwide" is difficult?

"Judah" wrote in message
...
I appreciate the feedback.

I actually submitted it to the Op-Ed feedback people, who claim that the
typical article is 650-750 words. Mine was about 900, IIRC, so I was
hoping
it might still make it...

Of course, if I actually thought it would have gotten published, I would
have waited until then to post it here.

350 words max it save masses of time as they dont have to edit it and ruin
the points you are making.

It is better to be brutal with your own work and any point you think is
weak, take out. Carry on doing this till you have a very pithy and easy to
read piece. Too many stats will have most readers turning to the next
article by the third statistic.

"Marco Leon" mleon(at)optonline.net wrote:

It depends on how granular you want to get. Yes, ATC is still handling an
Archer on a 4-hour flight under IFR for 4 hours but the personnel needed
to handle that flight as opposed to an airliner would be smaller. For
example,
how many Centers would the airliner need to service them as opposed to
the Archer?

Does that matter? I'd think that "cost" would be measured in
controller-hours. Whether it is one controller for four hours or twently
controllers for twelve minutes each, the cost would be the same.

No?

- Andrew

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
Does that matter? I'd think that "cost" would be measured in
controller-hours. Whether it is one controller for four hours or twently
controllers for twelve minutes each, the cost would be the same.

That might be true if it took an entire controller to handle a single
flight, and that entire controller spent 100% of his on-clock hours handling
the flight.

But that's not how it works.

As Marco says, you can probably fudge the numbers to say whatever you want,
since it involves hard-to-pin-down things like overhead of handoffs (airline
flights have many more handoffs than slow GA flights) and fractional time
spent handling the flight (I'd guess slower flights require less attention,
since it takes them longer for their general situation to change, but
someone arguing the other side would probably try to claim the opposite).

The bottom line is that most GA flights don't use ATC at all, and most of
the ones that do are generally just "kept out of the way" of the commercial
traffic. In addition, while airlines do pay a passenger tax, GA flights pay
much higher fuel taxes than do airlines. And they pay them whether they use
ATC services or not.

As a total proportion of operating expenses, I'd guess GA flights are
actually paying more, though I haven't bothered to calculate the difference.
Of course, in both cases, the costs are normally passed along to any
passengers; in the airlines' case, they get to pass the costs along 100%
while most GA flights do not (the pilot has to pay his share).

Of all the things worth space in an in-flight magazine, or in USA Today,
this ain't one of them. The aviation fee structure looks a lot like the
highway fee structure, and both seem to be working reasonably well, if you
ask me (and yes, I know you didn't ).

Pete

Peter Duniho opined

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
gonline.com...
Does that matter? I'd think that "cost" would be measured in
controller-hours. Whether it is one controller for four hours or twently
controllers for twelve minutes each, the cost would be the same.

That might be true if it took an entire controller to handle a single
flight, and that entire controller spent 100% of his on-clock hours handling
the flight.

But that's not how it works.

As Marco says, you can probably fudge the numbers to say whatever you want,
since it involves hard-to-pin-down things like overhead of handoffs (airline
flights have many more handoffs than slow GA flights) and fractional time
spent handling the flight (I'd guess slower flights require less attention,
since it takes them longer for their general situation to change, but
someone arguing the other side would probably try to claim the opposite).

The bottom line is that most GA flights don't use ATC at all, and most of
the ones that do are generally just "kept out of the way" of the commercial
traffic. In addition, while airlines do pay a passenger tax, GA flights pay
much higher fuel taxes than do airlines. And they pay them whether they use
ATC services or not.

As a total proportion of operating expenses, I'd guess GA flights are
actually paying more, though I haven't bothered to calculate the difference.
Of course, in both cases, the costs are normally passed along to any
passengers; in the airlines' case, they get to pass the costs along 100%
while most GA flights do not (the pilot has to pay his share).

Of all the things worth space in an in-flight magazine, or in USA Today,
this ain't one of them. The aviation fee structure looks a lot like the
highway fee structure, and both seem to be working reasonably well, if you
ask me (and yes, I know you didn't ).

There are 2 costs here. Average costs, and marginal costs.

For average costs there is some metric, say ATC-hours/plane-year or ATC-
contacts/passenger-mile some other measurement. I suspect that GA does not
cover its average costs.

But how much money would be saved if GA never contacted ATC? I guess that some
towers could be closed but Centers and Approach would stay. So, do GA fees
cover the marginal costs or not?




-ash
Cthulhu for President!
Why vote for a lesser evil?

You're right: it's a good letter, but it will almost certainly never get
published.

Every newspaper has a word limit on LTTEs. Some are as low as 150 words. I
think the average is about 200. Writing a letter that meets the paper's
restrictions while still getting a point across is a literary exercise unto
itself.

Dave Reinhart


StellaStar wrote:

As a private pilot, I fly a grand total of about 150 hours per year, in a
plane that cruises approximately 135 miles per hour, covering a grand
total of about 20,000 miles per year.

I write this letter, sitting in the coach cabin of a 757 flight from New
York to Seattle, flying 180 people 2500 miles at 500 miles per hour in
about 5 hours.

Absolutely excellent letter! Packed with clear facts, logical comparisons,
reasonable arguments. Send it to a local paper or two (at each end of your
flight) and help educate some folks directly, too.

"S Green" wrote in message ...
"Ace Pilot" wrote in message
om...
Judah wrote in message
Where would I find out the total number of airplanes owned by all of the
airlines worldwide?

The FAA estimated that in 2002 there were 5,156 passenger jet
aircraft, 976 regional jets, 1,034 cargo jet aircraft, and 2,521
commuter (prop and jet) aircraft in the U.S. That's a total of 9,687
aircraft.

what part of the word "worldwide" is difficult?

What part of "helpful information" is difficult for you? The
discussion centered on U.S. ATC costs and how they are allocated.
Since the vast majority of those services are used by U.S. air
carriers and U.S. general aviation, the number of aircraft in the U.S.
air carrier fleet is very relevant. Please let me know if additional
explanation is needed, or if you just like to be excessively rude.

Thanks for the feedback.

I may try to edit it down to Letter to the Editor length and try and get
it published in a couple of local papers.


David Reinhart wrote in
:

You're right: it's a good letter, but it will almost certainly never
get published.

Every newspaper has a word limit on LTTEs. Some are as low as 150
words. I think the average is about 200. Writing a letter that meets
the paper's restrictions while still getting a point across is a
literary exercise unto itself.

Dave Reinhart


StellaStar wrote:

As a private pilot, I fly a grand total of about 150 hours per year,
in a plane that cruises approximately 135 miles per hour, covering a
grand total of about 20,000 miles per year.

I write this letter, sitting in the coach cabin of a 757 flight from
New York to Seattle, flying 180 people 2500 miles at 500 miles per
hour in about 5 hours.

Absolutely excellent letter! Packed with clear facts, logical
comparisons, reasonable arguments. Send it to a local paper or two (at
each end of your flight) and help educate some folks directly, too.