News and notes from around the interweb:
- Why is replacement of antiquated FAA air traffic control technology utterly stuck in the mud? Read the whole thing…
Look at NavCanada. How many primary radar types do they have for terminal surveillance? One. How many does FAA have? Three, dating back to the 1980s. The manufacturers of two of them are out of business. FAA has four types of secondary/beacon radars. NavCanada does a wholesale replacement, launching a project at the end of life to replace them all at once. NavCanada has one primary switch for all systems: tower, approach, and en-route. One backup switch for all. They just did a replacement tender for them all…FAA is never a single buy. All are indefinite quantity contracts. So suppliers deliver 10 to 20 systems a year.
- Airport Hotels Became a $13 Billion Business by Being Boring “They have little charm or surprise—but sometimes that’s the point.” Other than the TWA Hotel – which is gorgeous but subpar in almost every other way besides proximity – how many airport hotels are more than serviceable?
The best thing is to take the on-site hotel. And the Grand Hyatts at DFW and San Francisco are nice enough! They tend towards one-night stays at all hours, suffer a lot of wear, and need to meet the needs of more varied travelers who choose it for convenience and perhaps price and little else.
- Come on, people, were you born in a barn?
Who let the dogs out?
byu/YoureInGoodHands inSouthwestAirlines - This is a crime against architecture.
My room door was between 2 elevators
byu/bigstoopid4242 inmarriott - Onslaught of pet hamsters ground airliner (HT: Paul H)
- The story of the Southwest Airlines drink menu guy:
- What did former Representative and Senator Martha McSally (R-AZ) every do to rein in TSA when she was in office? This is why – contra Ted Cruz – members of Congress need to eat their own airport security dog food:
TSA sucks.
Just went through:
•Ridiculous groping “pat down”
•Chemistry tests on my protein powders/creatine I travel with ALL the time
•EVERY item pulled from my bags
•Almost 30 min delay
No urgency, respect, or care about my flight.
Smug power trip vibes—except for…
— Martha McSally (@MarthaMcSally) November 19, 2024
There are two types of airport hotels. One is hotels actually inside the airport. That’s a small category. The other type is hotels near the airport. Back in the pre-covid days, the Crowne Plaza at Singapore’s airport was a fun almost destination kind of hotel. The architecture was pretty incredible. One of the more memorable airport hotels that I’ve stayed at.
Maybe you should write your congress since they control the purse strings. I don’t work for the FAA but I do handle government acquisitions and they are no cake walk through the park. There are a plethora of laws, regulations and agency policies that ictate how purchases are made
On top of that there is only so much money that can be spent per yearly allocations. Taking that into hand there are many competing programs other than FAA that congress considers year after year. The Canadians are much smaller than the United States and fewer airports and smaller AoRs of traffic.
Looks like a job for DOGE. And where was “Mayor Pete” for the past almost 4 years?
Too busy breast feeding and diaper changing?
Our airspace is a more than critical piece of this nation’s infrastructure and appears to have been studious ignored or worse!
It is ridiculous to think they are bringing in new Controllers to be trained on antiquated systems.
Right about airport hotels. Unfortunately a lot of them don’t take free night credits, and they can be more expensive than chain members in the city. Near captive audiences, you know.
Don’t worry Pothole Pete is worried about racist bridge heights in the bronx.
They have been working on this since at least the 1980’s. Maybe Elon Musk should be put in charge?
If government officials wanted to really “eat their own dogfood”, they’d be required to travel via Amtrak.