Will the Airlines Ever be a Luxury Again?

Due to the Airline Deregulation act of 1978 the prices of all airline tickets dropped significantly because of the increase of competition. I feel that the ability to go from point A to point B should be affordable to most of the public. In the past, before the Deregulation Act, flying was primarily for the rich. Everyone would get dressed up in their nice clothes and it was considered to be part of the experience of a trip somewhere, instead of a hassle that it is considered today.

Maybe this is how people fly in the future?

There are many reasons why someone can fly somewhere for the same price they can drive a car. The first example is that with all competition between airlines everyone is always trying to be the least expensive choice. According to costtodrive.com it costs $146.86 in gas to drive from Detroit to Orlando. However, on the website I noticed that there was an advertisement directly next to the calculation. It was an advertisement for how much it costs to fly there. They say a flight would only cost $158.00. With such a small difference why not fly?

If the airlines did raise their prices, making flying commercially less accessible to the public, I feel that the industry in general would be a lot smaller with fewer planes, less jobs for people. Overall, I feel that there would be less money for the airlines. I believe that in order for the airlines to make money on a regular basis they need to raise the ticket prices to a point where they know for a fact they will be making a profit, but not to the point where it becomes unaffordable to the middle class. A very good article by USA Today goes in depth explaining how much the ticket prices have already increased and the effects on the industry.

Airline Safety

On August 1^st, 2010 President Obama signed Public Law 111-216 titled The Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Act of 2010. This was a result of Colgan Air Flight 3407. The flight took place on February 12, 2009 departing from Newark, New Jersey and intending to land in Buffalo, New York. The plane crashed in Buffalo’s nearby City Clarence Center, New York killing all 45 passengers, four crew members, and one person on the ground a total of 50 deaths altogether. An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) stated that the reason for the crash was the pilot’s improper reaction from the stall warning devices onboard the aircraft. The blame for this was then put on the pilot’s inexperience this of course sparked the creation for Public Law 111-216.

Some things that the law changes are:

- First officers are now required to hold an Airline Transport Pilot Certificate in part 121 operations (ATP)

- An ATP requires 1500 flight hours

- It is proposed that pilots with an aviation degree or military pilot experience will only be required to get 1000 flight hours

- The FAA is also planning for the pilots to be required to get a type rating in the aircraft being operated

I feel that these law changes were made both reactively and they were necessary. Unfortunately in aviation this is usually how new laws come into place, because of an accident or incident of some kind. These changes were implied in order to create a safer environment for passengers and the flight crew alike. Click here in order to view the law in full.

This is an issue facing me and many pilots that do not have anywhere close the 1500 flight hours for an ATP. The typical plan that many pilots do is go from flight instructing to a job in the regional airlines this is done around 700 hours and up. With the new law they are going to have to a little more patient and wait for the new minimum hour requirement, this is exactly what I plan to do. This will effect EMU’s future in flight training by not allowing the current flight instructors to move on to the regionals fast enough therefore not allowing them to hire in new CFI’s and allow them to start gaining flight experience.

 

How to Level the Playing Field in Global Aviation

This week’s topic for discussion is how the United States can level the playing field against foreign competitor airlines. With some of the foreign airlines that are owned and operated by that countries government it obviously creates a monopoly within the country. It is extremely difficult for other airlines in the world to compete with this because of how much government funding the foreign airlines receive.

In an article from SmarterTravel.com Ed Perkins does a good job breaking down and using example on just how much of your total ticket cost is dedicated to government taxes. although the taxes here in the united states are really high in aviation in other countries if they do not charge you a tax for certain things on your ticket you hit you other different types of fees, such as departure fees that actually have to be paid in cash at the airport. It is very obvious looking at this topic from the general public’s point of view how they can be upset that a good percent of the price is not even going towards the actual flight. But what the general public does not realize is that these taxes are absolutely needed in order to maintain the current system the aviation industry has in place.

 

Now the question is what can be done in regards the United States tax policy in order to level the playing field with our foreign competition. The first thing that comes to mind is finding a way to reduce our taxes without it affecting the yearly maintenance and upkeep of our airports, navigation systems, etc. Another way to ensure the U.S. is more competitive is to increase the overall experience during flights in other words make sure the customers feel from quantity to quality. This in turn could increase the total business of the aviation industry and in turn create more jobs for everyone.

Intro

What do you want be when you grow up? When I was asked this question as a child it would always vary between a baseball player, a hockey player, policeman and plenty of other typical little kid answers. As I got older (high school) I obviously realized that the dream of being professional athlete was WAY out of the picture, I started putting thought into what obtainable career I wanted to pursue. I just asked myself what is something that you would wake up every morning and enjoy going to go do. After putting a little thought into it I thought what office in the world has better view than one of a pilot. With me only ever being on one commercial flight in my whole life I was not ready to commit completely to this until I absolutely knew for certain this is what I wanted to do.

When it came down to choosing where to go for my flight training I had already decided that I wanted to get a degree as well. It was an easy choice when finding out Eastern had a flight program mostly because of how close it was to my house.  I started at Eastern in the Fall of 2009 but unfortunately was not able to start flying until about half way through the Winter Semester (2010). It only took one flight for me to decide that this was for sure what I wanted to do.

After I finish school I would like to do the traditional route of CFI, Regional Airlines, and then one of main legacy carriers. Although this is what I would like to do I am pretty open to a lot of other routes as well including freight.  In the end the biggest thing to me is being able to Fly for one of the main airlines any job in between now and then as long as I am flying is fine with me.