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 enlarge | Authors: George L., Ph.d. Donohue
Publisher: Amer Inst of Aeronautics &
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $23.43
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New (10) from $23.43
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 281396
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 1563479494
Dewey Decimal Number: 387.70973
EAN: 9781563479496
ASIN: 1563479494
Publication Date: May 9, 2008
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 Truly mind-boggling. Incredibly shoddy and out-of-date research. June 26, 2008
10 out of 38 found this review helpful
I can only say that if the rest of the book is as rife with errors as are those portions whose true facts are known to me, it is inconcievable that the authors updated any of their research for at least the past five years in compiling this incredibly inaccurate missive.
First of all, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (union), as described in Chapter 6, cannot possibly be an impediment to new technologies because they have been excluded from ALL technology projects for years. Indeed, the FAA no longer even negotiates with NATCA the impact and implementation of such projects. NATCA is now completely out of the loop. Additionally, since removing controllers from technology projects, the Federal Aviation Administration has not fielded even one piece of substantially new technology either on time or within budget. And projects with which NATCA previously collaborated under the previous administrator have fallen into such disarray that many facilities badly in need of upgrades have had them cancelled. Case in point: Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System, which was finally being deployed in an acceptable form under the previous administrator, but which has been all but cancelled with just a mere fraction of the total installations previously called for since controller input was no longer solicited.
The authors then go on to refute NATCA's claim that the U.S. runs the safest ATC system by stating that Europe's hull-loss rate is .032 per million departures versus .049 in the U.S. While this is technically true, it is also highly misleading. First of all, Europe does not have a thriving General Aviation community, a category which makes up the vast majority of aviation accidents. Secondly they totally ignore other, much more telling data. For instance, there has not been a single midair collision in this country involving two radar identified aircraft in positive controlled airspace for decades. Let us compare this to Europe, where in early July of 2002 an understafed privatized Swiss control facility managed to put together at 36,000 feet over Germany a Tupolev TU-154 carrying 69 passengers and crew (including 45 schoolchildren) and a DHL B-757. So shoddy was the Swiss firm's practices that four of its managers were found guilty of manslaughter as a direct result of this accident.
If this is the kind of privatized air traffic control system the authors wish the U.S. to emulate, then one can only conclude that they either have not sufficiently studied the topic, or they travel exclusively by automobile.
 Waving the you-know-what flag June 26, 2008
19 out of 40 found this review helpful
What is the difference between Schiphol, Amsterdam's international airport, and Newark?
If you noticed that Schiphol has six runways and Newark only has two, congratulations. Apparently the authors didn't, and left that out of their factors for comparison. Funny, because a runway is needed every time an aircraft takes off or lands, that they didn't think of it as miraculous that Newark can move 66% of the passengers that Schiphol does with only 33% of the runways - and with LaGuardia (14.4 miles west) and JFK (18 miles west) traffic climbing and descending through essentially the same airspace. Schiphol has no such limitation, but had 4,000 fewer traffic movements, i.e., aircraft taking off and landing. By themselves, the major national airports of western Europe compare to individual metropolitan airports of the U.S., but no European metropolitan airport is half as busy as BWI/DCA/IAD, or EWR/JFK/LGA, or LAX/LGB/BUR.
While we're discussing the difference between ourselves and Europe, let's ask ourselves what it costs to move more than twice the airplanes Europe in its entirety does: according to a Lufthansa spokesman, an average of $380 for the same Airbus that Lufthansa pays European air traffic authorities (hyper-efficient, quasi-governmental corporations, natch) $667 to take off, fly and land as of mid-June, 2008.
What is the same? Runway capacity. Here as in Europe, the average speed of a passenger jet in the last ten miles of its approach will be somewhere around 150 miles an hour, or 2.5 miles per minute. Most major airports use this separation interval because they have done a runway occupancy study, validating that an average of 50 seconds or less was required for a landing aircraft to exit the runway. If something goes wrong for the preceding aircraft (e.g., blown tires or locked brakes), then that 10+ seconds becomes the margin of safety for the following aircraft to increase power and thus altitude. Take that away, and if the following aircraft commits to landing before the first aircraft leaves the runway. . .well, it might work out. Shame if it didn't. Be aware that the Federal Aviation Administration writes its air traffic rules in response to people actually dying, instead of the hypothetical possibility they will.
The one thing with which I agree is that there is not enough concrete to suit the demand. Based on the math above, a runway dedicated to arrivals can process a little more than 60 in an hour, to say nothing of the gate availability once an aircraft has landed. Subterranean airliner parking is probably cost-prohibitive, even when compared to eminent domain actions in New York City, Chicago or Los Angeles. So what do you do? Accept that there are physical limits to the number of airplanes that can land at a given airport at a given time, but build a traffic management system that keeps the flow as close to capacity as possible at all times. That's an information analysis challenge, not addressed by any of the major technology changes proposed currently by FAA.
There is no Moore's law for airport capacity, and there certainly isn't any information technology that expands gate or runway capacity more than 5% of current figures. The authors concede this, and their "30% solution" is that we (a) use only the biggest jets possible at the ten busiest major metropolitan airports, (b) auction off slots for takeoff and landing, which reverses the biggest gain made for consumers in deregulation; (c) allow the airlines an exception to price collusion laws, with the government's blessing to price hikes on the consumer. So shall we treat them like a public utility, too important to fail, at all times, or just when the fourteen layers of management can't get enough profit out of their businesses to assure a profit without government bailouts and discounted loans for reorganization?
If you're going to wave your hands and say, "Technology fixes all," at least tell me what you expect technology to fix before I believe you. What fixes the problems with landing two non-formation passenger jets on the same runway simultaneously? What makes a passenger jet immune to turbulence, lightning and hail damage, and therefore capable of flying through thunderstorms that airliners avoid today?
In sum, the book sees much of what is wrong with the industry, and marching us back towards regulation across the industry (instead of just EWR, JFK and ORD) may be the only sensible thing to do. But before we assume that the supply of airspace and concrete is more flexible than we think today, we should be able to answer some of these questions in terms of the physics which limit the supply.
Absolutely horrible book, full of factual errors. A waste of a tree June 26, 2008
14 out of 43 found this review helpful
There is just one glaring error after another.
I've been a controller for 23 years and for first 15 labor and management largely cooperated and great strides were made in providing what was the best system in the world.
However, 8 years ago there was a fundamental change. The dogma from the Bush administration has made it mandatory that the controllers have absolutely no input on any issue that affects the equipment that we use or the way that we work.
Now that the union has been completely shut out of any decision making suddenly books like these crop up blaming the union for the mess that the management has created? Incredible.
Please check your facts. Better yet, check with the inspector general's reports. They completely savage the upper management of the FAA.
As soon as Obama is in, the rats better flee the ship because prosecutions for lying in front of congress are soon to follow.
Distorted, right-wing bunk as usual in the Bush Era June 25, 2008
14 out of 45 found this review helpful
Once again, the nations Air Traffic Controllers are maligned. As someone who has actually worn a headset for over 25 years, I can safely say this book is absolute trash. The reason why our National Airspace System is broken has many causal factors, but the ONE reason there has not been more carnage and crashes is because of the superior work of the men and women that perform Air Control in this country. The FAA, not the Controllers, are the main source of blame. Supposedly designed to protect the flying public, it is no more than another political football, tossed around at the whim of the administration occupying the White House at the time. All at the costly expense of human life, which always seems to get lost in the mix. But the only reason most people are walking away from their flights ALIVE is because of people like me, who can work with equipment that is normally older than myself, work ridiculously long shifts, work overtime because of chronic understaffing with little rest, and finally manage some sort of order while everyone around me is trying to cut my pay, benefits, or sell the whole system to the lowest bidder ( which by the way, failed miserably in the UK, despite the Author's claims ). The system is near breaking point, and when that unthinkable crash happens again, remember this review.
 Seminal work on the problems of air traffic June 25, 2008
31 out of 47 found this review helpful
While Terminal Chaos should be shelved in the current events or business section of a bookstore, it could also be placed in the modern crime section. After reading it, one gets the impression is that the state of air traffic today could only come due to criminal neglect or mischief.
If one looks at pictures of airline flights from the 1960's, and you will see well-dressed passengers enjoying their flight. In 2008, barely a day goes by without an incident of air rage, from irate passengers in the terminal, to those in the air causing flights to be diverted. Today's airline traveler considers it a near miracle if their flight arrives on time with their baggage.
The reasons for the meltdown in the air traffic system are complex. The book names a number of reasons for today's chaos, which is a multiple of reasons. Some of these include airline deregulation, multiple governmental agencies with no central oversight or responsibility, multiple corporate entities with conflicting agendas, an air traffic controllers union resisting change, a technologically outdated air traffic control system, and more.
While the public perception in the US is that somewhere out there, government officials are looking out for passenger's rights, the reality is there is no one looking out for them. Unlike their European counterparts, air travelers in the US have very few rights. This lack of passenger advocacy along with the other reasons has a huge impact on the economy, in addition to the costs that flight delays and cancellations cost U.S. travelers, which are estimated annually at over $3 billion.
Terminal Chaos: Why U.S. Air Travel Is Broken and How to Fix It is a fascinating book. The authors show a number of ways to fix the current problems. While the book is part case-study, it is also part tragedy, given the tragedy is that Washington lacks anyone with the pragmatism, willpower and audacity to stand up to the unions and powers that be to fix the system. The book lays out in 7 concise chapters the problems, ringleaders, obstacles and challenges that brought us to the state that we are in today.
The authors sum it up best when they note that the distance from New York to Chicago is 635 nautical miles, and when flown by a piston-powered DC-6 with a cruise speed of 315 MPH over 50 years ago, the scheduled flight time was a little longer than two hours. Today, scheduled airlines fly Boeing 737 turbofans at 511 MPH, but book this as a 3-hour flight.
In chapter 4, the authors note that while some flight delays are the result of post-9/11 security issues, the main reason why flying has become so arduous is that the air transportation system, as it is now structured in the US, is untenable from a fundamental business point of view. The government regulated business model is unstable and irrational and planes are purposely overbooks, flights are cancelled for no publically explainable reason, and no one will offer the flyer a sound reason for why these events occur.
Both authors are professors at the Center for Air Transportation Systems research at George Mason University. The book quotes from research done there, which includes finings such as suggestions to use larger aircraft (something Continental is doing at Newark), along with other market mechanisms. Other research shows that slot exemption, weight-based landing fees and other issues combine to lead to inefficient use of airport capacity, especially as slot-controlled airports, such as O'Hare, Kennedy, Newark, LaGuardia and Atlanta.
In chapter 6, the authors take a no-holds barred approach to NATCA, which is the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. They view NATCA as a stumbling block to modernization, and an organization whose goal is to protect their members, over the public there are supposed to serve. They also question how NATCA gets away with constantly stating that the US air traffic control system is the safest in the world, when it in reality the US is actually behind Europe when it comes to safety metrics (Europe has .032 hull losses per 1 million departures vs. .049 in North America).
Ultimately, the book notes that the air traffic control problems exist in the fact that there is a perfect storm of airlines, airports, government agencies (FAA, DOT, OMB, DHS), White House and Congress, all of which seem to believe that they don't have the responsibility to fix the problem. Each seems to be waiting for someone else to take charge.
Chapter 7 lists a number of practical ways in which the air traffic control system can be modernized. Some of it requires significant financial outlays; others simply require all of the parties involved to play nicely together.
Overall, Terminal Chaos is a landmark book, in that it cuts through the complexity of the air traffic mess, and clearly lays out the problem, and possible solutions.
It is a very well-written and extremely well-researched book. It does have a few slight errors. Most noticeably on page 73 when it says that Continental has been in and out of bankruptcy court, while the table on the next page shows that Continental has been out of bankruptcy court for over 15 years. Also, one of the travel tips the authors give is to have a traveler consider using a private aircraft out of smaller, less congested airports. That is indeed a good suggestion, albeit extremely costly, and not financially feasible for most of the flying public.
Terminal Chaos is a book that should be required reading for anyone involved in air traffic and aviation, from passengers to every employee at the FAA. The authors have innovative ideas that should be listened to and implemented; from holding the government decision-makers responsible, to realistic ways to modernizing the air traffic control system. The book is a fascinating overview of what goes on in the skies above us, and in the air traffic control towers around us.
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