Four flights were diverted by a few traffic controllers to help train a newbie (new hire). Although no safety was compromised and in the whole scheme of things it wasn’t the biggest mess-up in the airline industry in a long while, but it did break quite a few rules and caused un-needed delays on four flights.
To make things even better for the pilots, they were diverted into thunderstorms, having to navigate around them causing even more delays.
Making sure the trainee was on his game, one of the controllers instructed one of the pilots to give a wrong altitude to see if the trainee caught the mistake (which the story doesn’t say if he did).
Obviously the trainee must have done ok since nothing worse happened, but next time, maybe try the simulator!
Source: MSNBC Image: volcanojw
In a time where gas makes major headlines daily (or at least the consequences of gas prices) who doesn’t want to save a little money on it?
An analysis by the Associated Press found that if the airline industry could switch from their current (and completely aged) air traffic control system to a new satellite system it could save the industry up to $5,000,000,000 (yes billion) per year in fuel costs. This is because under the current system airlines are having to inefficiently having to fly from beacon to beacon and most times that is not the most (fuel or time) efficient route.
Currently the government is saying it would be amazing to have this new system up and running by 2020 (by which time I would probably be out of date again). But of course with the current airline economy, they don’t have too much money to spare to get NextGen (creative new name) started.
Source: MSNBC Image: FrancoisRoche
Not quite a surprise that alcohol was involved in this, but 29-year-old Ezra Wallace decided the two girls sitting next to him, ages 9 and 16, need to get their hands bound with athletic tape.
Wallace stated that, “he had half a pint of vodka, including two shots, just before boarding the plane.” He continues stating that he vaguely remembers tying their hands and it was all in “good fun.”
One of the flight attendants noticed his odd behavior and moved the two girls (whom Wallace did not know) to another aisle. It took action from the girl’s mother to prompt an investigation.
Source: AP Image: Neil1960
To save some fuel and in turn save some money, Jazz Airlines is going to be removing life vests from all its planes. Have no fear though, you are still able to use your seat cushions as floatation devices.
At first look this seems to be bad for safety, but really only flights that are with-in 50 miles of land can only use their seat cushions and Jazz is only a transcontinental carrier.
So, really…if this saves me from having to pay another weird fee (life vest access fees anyone) I am ok with it.
Source: USAToday Image: deritastudio
The FAA sees this week’s software glitch that disrupted about 600 flights and 60,000 passengers to be a wake up call that things need to change for American’s outdated air traffic control system.
The two computers (amazing only two) that help disrupt flights to controllers are updated multiple times per day. One of the files in one of the updates was corrupted and caused it to crash.
Saying that in one 24-hour period the FAA controls over 300,000 flight plans, only having 600 affected isn’t too bad (unless you were one of those passengers).
Source: MSNBC Image: gTarded