News notes from around the interweb:
- Washington National airport closes the far pier with gates 35-45 which also means closure of gate 35X.
- TSA dog program is completely ineffective according to the government’s own investigators, and worse than that anyone cleared by a dog was given lighter screening which means the dog program actually reduced security.
- New Air Force One is already over budget but we knew this would happen years ago, right?
Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2016
- Asiana considers flying empty Airbus A380s just to keep their pilots current they do not own their own simulator, cannot practically use Thai’s right now, and their request to use Korean’s was turned down.
- This isn’t wrong.
- Air Canada expects international travel worldwide by the end of the year.
Come on, Gary- at least make the headline “Canada Air says”… It’s like asking the head of Exxon whether drilling for oil was a problem with global warning. Of course he is going to say that it’s not- you still shouldn’t make the headline “Oil drilling not a factor in Global Warming”…
Oh because air canada said international travel is going to return by the end of the year then it must be true! Hardly a source that is neutral in the matter.
I’m assuming that in choosing the headline Gary was expressing agreement with it. I would say renewed cross border travel in general is just about certain and other international travel is highly likely, even if not to all destinations.
Of course there will be international travel by the end of the year (there is some today) and it will be at a higher level than now. So if you call that a “return” you are correct. I doubt anyone would dispute, unless there is a significant “phase 2” of the virus w no proven treatment yet available, that international air travel will be much more significant by the end of the year. With the exception of Italy and Spain practically every European country has plans to open their borders for air travel (some as soon as July).
In summary clickbait by Gary and something that even Captain Obvious that was a “duh” comment
@AC — I actually expect to see transatlantic travel return before the end of summer. Think about it. The “Lombardy virus” is on both sides of the Atlantic. We all have the same problem: just like Florida has the same virus as New York. We don’t need every case to be eliminated before we allow the mixing of populations. We just need the infection rates to be fairly comparable so that neither side thinks there’s a grave risk in reopening travel. Obviously, to assuage the public, we also need low infection rates. We are already witnessing a significant downturn in hospitalizations and deaths, with Europe about 2 weeks ahead of America since they got the virus first (and, outside of NYC, worse). By June, I’m pretty sure that discussions about resuming travel will begin, and maybe some limited flying will resume, but I think August is a better bet for more common travel. A lot can happen in 3 months!
@chopsticks
The apocalypse is here…for the first time I agree with every word