The Busiest time to Travel?

Thanksgiving notoriously is known to backup the airports and disrupt the system nationwide when planes are packed to the gills with quite a few flying for the only time all year. The airport is packed, you need to budget an extra hour to handle the long lines. The pre boarding block of families with small children becomes the majority of those wishing to board. Backlog of pushed times to push mess up the schedule for the airlines all week. None of this seemed to happen from what I encountered flying the Tuesday before and the Sunday after Thanksgiving 2010.

I was on one of two Delta MD-88s heading from Indianapolis to Atlanta within one hour of eachother. Repositioning a total of about 300 travellers in time to make the last flight out of ATL to their feasting destination for the night. I remembered from my last time going at this time of the evening that lines get long with this mostly regional jet airport of Indianapolis having many more passengers leaving at one time. Even with the security "opt out" rumors to slow things down as a form of protest things moved along much more smoothly than I envisioned and personnel were very vocal with each and every one of us to be sure we were well informed. In Atlanta I did notice that every last Delta aircraft had its tail tell light turned off, making them quite a bit harder to see in the night environment. Perhaps not using the optional lights extends the life of onboard systems and slightly less fuel use.My next flight was on a 757 also 100% full and we were moved up to the northern runway to get an early right turn towards Boston to land at 11:58, just before the airport "shuts down" for the night in consideration for sleeping neighbors.

My flight back was on an evening nonstop that surprisingly was not full. Comair had surrendered the route to Shuttle America in October to offer slightly more seats on the sleek ERJ-175. The two hour flight felt more like 15 minutes and the service was stellar. I had picked out a window from what looked like where a couple had bailed on their reservation of two together when I was at the kiosk. The aisle seat next to me remained vacant. The young friendly crew represented the upper Delta brand very well on this roomy RJ. My professor here teaching us about airlines said the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year by passenger numbers, though about 6 or 7 empty seats came back with me.

As for academics, my Basic Aircraft Science course has moved on to helicopter flight concepts which can be difficult to grasp, though I memorized FAA helicopter manuals over the summer the prepare for a flight with an instructor so this is more of a refresher for me. Weight and balance is also being slipped in last minute as we look over the physics concepts and reglations that have been taught. Less than three weeks from now I will be all wrapped up with fall semester and boarding another flight to get to the festivities for the next holiday.

AirTransition for 2011

I am back from my Columbus Day weekend trip to south Florida flying nonstop IND-FLL and back on AirTran Airways soon to become Southwest and promised to evaluate the structure of the airline from a passenger's and employee's perspective to several enthused airline buffs. The $1.6 Billion acquisition comes in several phases and the people on top have some heavy decisions to make as the branding combines in a few months time. On my way out of Indianapolis on Saturday, TRS1120 and several other outbounds from the new terminal building were each being pushed to leave a good 10 to 15 minutes early, and airport-wide announcements were made to encourage customers to make it down to their gate to ultimately arrive at the other end ahead of schedule. It is important to note that IND is not used as a hub but instead solely as an originating point to eight nonstop cities. The weather was not a factor anywhere the planes were going to or coming from, so this must be their usual standard operating procedure for keeping up through the day.

I found a group of pilots discussing flight structuring in front of the departure moniters and one responded that he will be going to FLL when asked. He said he's exclusively been on the 737 and past experience was mostly in Desert Storm in B-52 bombers, I later determined this was the first officer and he would be given pilot in command for this leg. Pilots at almost any airline love to get airborn early, but "on time" passengers and other loading factors can often keep this from happening. In this case, once we were seated and pushed back the flight attendents actually did not start their safety briefing until a solid 3 minutes into the taxi phase getting close to the end of the runway. The cabin crew's hiccup here led us to sit at the end for another extra minute and a half with the engines running before the flight crew was given the okay to take the runway. Our departure ended up being 5 minutes early and arrival 15 minutes early at the very high cruise of 41,000 feet moving us along.

As a passenger, many would expect a "no frills" experience on any LCC today, but AirTran's advertising division held a great contest last year to get votes casted on the most desired in-flight service on their aircraft. The winning idea was the availability of wi-fi, which you may actually be using to read this and 100% of the mainline fleet is now equipped while Continental and Delta have only a limited rollout at this point. In addition to that, there is an audio out at every seat with complementary Sirius XM radio throughout the flight when the PA is not being used. Though there is no buy on board menu for indulgent meal options, some pretzels, soft drinks and a later offer for a refill are included free of charge and, to my liking; a little ways into the flight rather than immediately after the first 10,000 feet. On the way back the same system was taken, leading one to assume they'll always give you a second offering and that don't want any more of your money unless you want an adult beverage regardless of the flight length. Our cabin crew on the return even used some comedy in the end of flight briefing after landing in Indianapolis about 10 minutes early on Tuesday, Southwest has often been known to have comedic flight announcements.

The powerful executives at Southwest have some time to weigh their options as to what to adopt and what to send adrift. They have already pledged to keep bags flying free. As for the fleet, someone has written on wikipedia that the 717 fleet will be adopted by SWA, but that could be speculation as it's clear the 717 aircraft did not get as many operators as Boeing had hoped, and less than 10 airlines worldwide have it in service, meaning maintenance is not very streamlined and will cost more comparitavely than with the popular 737. No word yet on whether Southwest/AirTran will back out of its ordering of larger 737-800 aircraft which will be the highest capacity plane for either airline. Side note, in the route structure Southwest has been all-domestic, but AirTran right now is at five destinations in the Caribbean and Mexico and somehow does okay flying to Tunica, Mississippi: a town south of Memphis with about 1,100 people! It goes without saying most of the enplanements are only really there for the casino experience.

Introduction and Basics in Purdue AvTech

As stated before I am currently in two aviation technology courses this fall semester at Purdue. The first is Introduction to AvTech and only takes place on Mondays with our top dog in ATC lecturing almost 200 new freshman. The other is Basic Aircraft Science in which a grad student in AvTech teaches a small classroom full of Freshman (mostly management like myself) about the physics around flying and what alterations or characteristics can suit planes for variable missions.
The only assessment I have had thus far in Into to AvTech is an adobe voice-over powerpoint presentation heard out of class about the structure of Purdue's aviation program accompanied by an online quiz reviewing which of the three specific majors have what specific inner workings. Though the class meets once per week (in the vetrenary medicine building?) we have a heavy amount of complex material including the dreaded acronyms that get more complex as more technology emerges. However, after studying the hundreds of vocab items, there has been no real assessment in the first 6 weeks, but the final is sure to have a number of them. By the way the final is planned to be given online so we don't need to still be on campus the Saturday that kicks of winter break as mandated.
In Basic Aircraft Science we have had one exam and there will be our second tomorrow. The first had much more material than tomorrow's will have and that's a relief. The class by and large had a fairly low percentage correct but we were told we did better than most classes. I guess an exam such as good was intended to separate the good AT students from the great ones by getting a B+ or better. (B+ being 92% as below 70 is an F in AvTech) Today's currrent material revolves around aircraft stability and terms and designs associated with the sound barrier.

Getting Started in Purdue Aviation Technology

I have launched M.E.I.T.S. as my own blog reflecting on the happenings at Purdue University from my own perspective now getting started as an Aviation Management undergraduate in West Lafayette. I had a selection of great universities across the country but ultimately Purdue had my perfect degree program of study already well outlined for me and anyone else who desires to learn what it takes to immediately become an air traffic controller while still learning about working behind the scenes in the airline industry.

At Purdue, one of the first and only schools to have an aviation program the aviation technology sector is well established complete with LAF airport on campus and new state of the art facilities and trainer aircraft. The draw for me as an aviation management major is to learn about working in an airline and picking up the essential training for the atc world straight out of college. The other two majors within Purdue aviation tech are Professional Flight and Aeronautical Engineering Technology. Simultaneously this land grant university is preparing tomorrow's pilots, mechanics/designers, and managers/controllers all at once in this corner of campus much like well orchestrated final approaches at ATL on 26R, 27L, and 28 day in and day out.

So far I only have two aviation intensive classes in the mix with Math, Speech, Int'l Relations, Organizational/Leadership Skills taking up the rest of my studies. As with most collegiate programs, the hands-on intensive courses do not happen freshman year and many times not sophomore year either. The most recent figures I have on Aviation Technology (AT) majors is that there are about 650 students invloved breaking down to 23% engineering, 43% flight and 34% management; and overall about 87% are male, while the whole school has 31,000 undergrads being 58% male. I think the females in AT will be making a lot of new friends rapidly.

My classes outside AT are very good for the underlying framework for what I plan to be doing. Keeping aircraft separated will require some good mathematical thinking and speech delivery over the VHF transmissions is a crucial part of getting the job done right. Knowing federal and international policy will be a given; knowing the human behavior within an organization such as an airline or the FAA will help keep people focused and co-operating in a supportive manner. I have thoroughly enjoyed my first month here and will continue to stay enthusiastic about our Boilermaker football team so long as we don't have any real embarrassing losses, their record today stands at 2-2.