News and notes from around the interweb:
- Did the system intended to prevent runway ground collisions get adjusted to prevent false alerts that would get blamed on air traffic controllers and did that contribute to the Air Canada Jazz collision with a fire truck at New York LaGuardia?
I’ve had extensive discussions with a now-retired Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) systems engineer who was one of the designers of ASDE-X. Because the system is intended to alert controllers to impending collisions, preceded by incursions, during the design phase controller work groups weighed in on setting parameters in the system that trigger alerts. The basic collision warnings and alerts are adjustable by setting time and distance parameters of ASDE-X “safety cells.” Those cells are designed to consider as many as 300 possible situations. During ASDE-X development at FAA Tech. Ops. in Oklahoma City, the FAA agreed with controller work groups to adjust the parameters of time and distance to avoid false alarms that would be recorded as controller errors. Because every airport is different, these parameter adjustments took place at every airport where ASDE-X was deployed. In many cases, the adjustments would completely eliminate any chance of generating a false alarm.
My informant believes that in the LGA tower, the ASDE-X parameters had been turned down so low for many years that a collision warning either did not occur or occurred too late to enable action by the regional jet pilot or the driver of the fire truck.
- Hyatt Regency Kyoto will close May 9, 2027 and will be demolished.
- $20 airport ride tips in Cancun, LOL.
Airport transfer in Cancun. Tipped driver $1 USD. He declined and gave it back. The sign suggests $20 lol
by
u/Ognal_carbage8080 in
EndTipping - Miami airport studied how airports charge for lounge space.
- How A Credit Card Fintech Resurrected Itself By Targeting The Superrich they closed a $40 million fundraising round on a $420 million valuation, off just 2,000 cardmembers and a $20 million revenue run rate?
Surely they’re not going to make money until they’re generating about $2 billion in spend volume, and this card is likely to underperform on revolve. But with 3x on travel, 2x on dining, and no points transfers their rewards costs are low. They tout their concierge as a unique benefit but without being at scale and ‘invitation only’ who knows?
Today, his 2,000 customers text the Atlas concierge to reserve private jets, hotels in Turks and Caicos and meals at New York hotspots like The Corner Store and Torrisi. Billionaire tech entrepreneur Lucy Guo says she uses Atlas more than any other credit card and spends up to $2 million a month on it. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been a cardholder, too, and is an Atlas investor (a spokesperson for Schmidt declined to comment).
- There’s a new Chase Offer with La Colombe coffee: Sapphire Preferred cardmembers get 10% cash back up to $250 and Sapphire Reserve cardmembers get 20% cash back on up to $250 spend through July 15, 2026, valid both at La Colombe cafés and on their Lacolombe.com website. Activation of the offer is required. I only know La Colombe from Capital One lounges.
LaGuardia “tuned” like a piano?
Ah, yes, Gary, please don’t actually wait for the NTSB, let’s just go with speculation from the libertarian think-tank ‘The Reason Foundation’ and Mr. Poole for his ‘hot-take’… the same Poole who popularized ‘privatization’ in the 1970s, including for ATC, claims nearly everything governments do are ‘boondoggles,’ and wants more toll roads. Sounds like @Mike P’s fever dream. Who needs accountability, safety, or equitable access… let the ‘free market’ exclude those filthy ‘poors’… afer all, profits for shareholders are the only true meaning of life. /s
FAA didn’t discuss neither ran the test with PA which is the biggest issue. Many PA staff are not sure about the layout of FAA’s system. FAA and PA are not get along with each other.
@1990 – spinning off air traffic control would be better for safety (separate service provider from regulator, rather than the FAA regulating itself), technology upgrades (not dependent on Congress), and for workers (which is why the controllers union supported it when it was on the table during the first Trump administration)
@ 1990
Glad to see you are catching on
So the cab company is advertising that they pay crappy wages and want riders to tip lavishly to make up for that? No thanks.
If the “spin off” did not “privatize” the ATC, then I might be in favor. Airlines pay for the ATC via the taxes collected in the ticketing process. General Aviation pays via a heavy fuel tax. If the voters would force Congress to use these collected funds for improving the ATC system and NOT syphoning money for bridges to no where, things might improve Privatizing ATC and charging for every flight, every instrument approach, every cross country, every touch and go, etc. would hinder safety because the pilots/instructors would start cutting corners to “save money”. As a CFI-I/ASMEL with 17,000 hours of primarily Part 121 training, teaching and training to proficiency should not be limited by the Hobbs Meter. Congress is 100% at fault for letting things slide. After all, look at what the government entities did shortly after the KDCA UNAVOIDABLE tragedy last year. The FAA and United States Army was 100% at fault. When the NTSB’s initial information came out, the government IMMEDIATELY balked and the FAA backed down. INEXCUSABLE.
@Gary Leff — Respectfully disagree. ATC absolutely should remain a public service. Yes, it needs stable funding, including for improvements to equipment, staffing, infrastructure, all for safety and efficiency. It also needs oversight, which is what Congress, DOT, etc. all provide, not just the FAA. No, we do not want to privatize this public asset; that would lead to prioritizing larger entities within the industry (Big 3 with their hub-and-spoke would win), likely leading to the closure of regional carriers and smaller airports, as well as be harmful for many workers; same, even if as a non-profit like NAV CANADA, which is a much different airspace than the congested US airspace. As with TSA and National Parks and more, these are all in the public interest.
@1990 – NavCanada doesn’t just handle Canadian airspace, they handle the North Atlantic. And they’ve got far better tech than we do. Now, I’d be happy to see the Air Traffic Organization transferred even to a different government agency rather than having the FAA regulating itself. Regulation and service provision shouldn’t be done by the same agency (per ICAO and nearly the entire rest of the world). That’s a recipe for unaccountability.
But a spinoff solves the funding issue. We probably won’t see it because the airlines will likely oppose it at this point – they don’t want user pays, they want taxpayer handouts like they’re getting now.
@Gary Leff — And, when taxpayers are involved, there is usually oversight, which is the transparency and accountability we all should seek in matters of public interest. Otherwise, as with, say, the private equity, they don’t have disclosure requirements so we have no idea how bad something is until there’s a catastrophic fallout, or accident. At least Congress, today, is actually making some progress on the related Alert Act (to prevent another midair, hopefully.)
@1990 – nobody is suggesting turning air traffic control over to private equity (i’d suggest the UK’s NATS is even better than the FAA ATO these days though fwiw)
@Gary Leff — Phew! The underlying issues with ATC do need to be addressed though. I think it’s possible without privatization.