OK, you morons....

Nobody--and I mean nobody--reads this crappy product I call "my blog".

But if you've clicked through from that comment I left over at Ace's place, and want to look around the place a bit, here is a somewhat larger comment I wrote back when UsAirways 1549 was fresh news.

Oh, by the way....

I'm sitting here watching Fox News coverage of the memories on 9/11, and one thing just struck me: Once it was clear that airliners were our enemies' chosen asymmetrical WMDs, the decision to immediately land every airliner was just a stunning and completely unforeseen achievement.

Diverting an airliner is no small feat. Before I head off to some divert field, I have to know that I have enough fuel to get there (obviously). Less obviously, there are some airports which are not suitable for some airplanes. The length of the runway, the width of the taxiways, the weight-bearing capabilities of the same, and the available ramp space are all concerns here. Also, given that a divert field may be a suitable divert location for my plane, it is very possible to overwhelm that airport with too many planes.

Once they landed, the questions only then began to be brought. Were they there for an hour? A day? What? Can they get fuel? Are they at a location that has services by their airline? Can they get a flight plan and be dispatched? If they're staying for a while, how do they take care of their passengers? Do they buy them bus tickets? Rent them cars? Find them hotel rooms? Pizzas?

The inside story in the airline industry is that this was simply a stunning achievement, done completely off-the-cuff. The phone lines into our dispatch were melted down. Crews spent days in hotels trying to get a phone call into our scheduling people to see what they wanted the crews to do. Many simply just gave up and rented cars to make their way home. I was at home on 9/11/01 so I missed this confusion, but I did fly the following weekend when they opened up the airspace, and it was still chaotic.

You simply must....

Read both these accounts courtesy of Sean Linnane.

Twin Towers 9/11: A First Hand Account Part 1.

Twin Towers 9/11: A First Hand Account Part 2.

Sean promises more to come, and I'll update this when it appears.

Update: And here is the conclusion.

Twin Towers 9/11: A First Hand Account (Conclusion).

Go. Click. Read. Now.

Über Comment meant for FL 390....

My favorite story about DCA came on a flight I wasn't even flying.

At the time, I was based in DFW as a F/O on the Maddog. Our contract at the time required that to be paid for the trip, a F/O had to actually fly along on the trip when he was paired with a Line Check Airman who was giving an Initial Operating Experience to a new guy fresh out of school.

So, I got one of these trips, which included an overnight in DCA, and had to tag along for the entire trip. I brought along a big book, and planned on doing little more than the walk arounds for the two captains.

I was spending all the time except my walk arounds in a seat in the back. However, on the leg into DCA, the LCA asked me to come up to the cockpit to be a third set of eyes. No problem.

The airplane we picked up in DFW had some sort of issue with air conditioning smoke. [This usually comes off as much more dramatic than it really is. On the Maddog, there is a bottle which captures hydraulic fluid overflows. If not emptied regularly, this bottle will overflow into the intake for the A/C packs, and this causes smoke in the cabin. Don't mistake me--Smoke in the cabin is a big deal and you and I shouldn't assume that it's just a little whiff. But the maddog had a known problem with this issue (since solved).]

Right before pushback, we got the inevitable cabin smoke after the APU was started and the packs put on, and there was some guy up in 2C who was making a huge deal about it. I had picked him out a mile away....a big shot in a power suit, power tie, and a big briefcase headed to Washington. Right away he got really loud about how the smoke was keeping him from all this important legal work he was doing, and asking if was it cancerous, and what not. Putz. The smoke cleared, as it generally does, and the Flight Attendants did a really good job of calming this guy down. Off we went.

I forget the details now, but as I recall, runway 19 (which was then runway 18, IIRC) was NOTAMed to be closed at 10pm or so...right about our arrival time.

Anyway, as we got 150 miles or so out, we picked up the ATIS which had them landing on 18. Once we got over to approach control, they asked if we could land on 15. Our procedures don't allow 15 landings, so we said "no" (buildings in Rosslyn or some such thing). They then started vectoring us towards runway 1. And once on final for runway 1 and we were handed off to Tower, they cleared us to land on 33.

So, to sum up, in the span of about 12 minutes, we had had to think about landings on 4 of their 6 runways (the other two being completely out of the question).

And, as you've suggested, DCA isn't like anywhere else in the country. There's a restricted area just north of the airport, and they're serious about it. Violations are handed out there, and there is always the threat of those Secret Service missiles. They have very unique procedures there...I call it my "trick flying".

And, yeah, let's not forget, we had a brand new Captain in the left seat. Literally, this was his first post-school flight in the left seat.

That said, the LCA decided early on that he'd be the one flying into DCA. Good decision.

Anyhoo, once we finally did get onto the final for 33, the LCA landed with a perfect runway 33 landing...meaning he had the autobrakes set on Max, and he landed firmly....really firmly. [Runway 19 is too short for my taste, but runway 33 is even shorter.] The second the nosewheel got on the ground, he got right into the reverse thrust. It wasn't the most comfortable landing from the passengers point of view, but knowing what I knew, it was perfect.

Soooo, time marched on.

Four months later, I got a letter from the Chief Pilot asking me to come in and tell my story of what happened that night in DCA...a flight I was only on the jumpseat for.

It seemed as though one of our huge, big-time customers--the kind that know our system in and out because they fly millions of miles every year with us--was with this flight from start to finish. He had been on the flight coming in to DFW, where we picked up the plane.

And he didn't like anything that he'd seen.

I assumed right away that he was Mr. 2C Putz. Not so. It turns out he was some completely anonymous guy sitting in coach who didn't say boo to us one way or the other (not that he should).

Do everything right, under challenging conditions, and people will still complain.

Parenthetically, (and finally, in conclusion) I think one of the biggest mistakes we made after 9/11 was in not closing DCA. If you ask me, it is far too short for major airline operations, and is way, waaaay too close to Washington, DC.

9/11 was a good opportunity to turn DCA into what it really ought to be....

A train station.

On The Occasional Perks of a Bad Schedule

I don't often write about my work life. If done well--or at least as I define "well"--being an airline pilot is boring and lonely. I like the work, but am tired of the travel, if that makes any sense. If I ever find myself making a call to my wife to tell her about my exciting day at work, it will be the last thing either one of us wants. And because she is my best friend, not seeing her half the month brings a sense of aloneness.

The system by which we bid our schedules was changed recently. "Change" may be too harsh a verb..."tweak" might be better. I had had my bidding strategy pretty much on "automatic pilot" month-to-month, and have gotten used to a schedule which fits my needs. I haven't put the time to understand these new tweaks well enough to make use of their strengths...maybe next month. Anyway, this new change/tweak, in combination with the regular seasonal variations of an airline schedule (summers are always busier than winters) and the industry trying to react to a declining economy has left me with lesser quality schedules than I have been used to. I'm not complaining, mind you, just noting that things aren't as good as they once were.

Anyway, this month has been especially taxing. I have a flying schedule of 16 days...which is about normal. On top of that, however, I was away for 4 days for our annual recurrent training. I spent the two days immediately preceding that recurrent in a financial seminar. (And I finally came to understand the material well enough to think that I am done going to these seminars. Now to translate that knowledge into my trading accounts!) And rather than go home after recurrent, I spend the Father's Day weekend with my ailing father for what I believe may be his last Father's Day. Immediately following that, I launched off on another trip.

All told, I have been able to be home 6 days this month. Wifeof- and Sonof- and Dau#2ofAzlib have been wonderful for me. The chores I normally take care of--the yardwork, the pool care, the ironing--have been taken care of by my family. If you're a reader who works 5 days a week and has 8 or 9 days of "weekend" a month, then 6 days may not sound like much, but my life is structured on 14-16 days off each month. Six days of down time hasn't been enough.

And because I'm not bidding well, the trips I've flown this month aren't particularly great either. By that I mean I am flying all-night trips. Some guys totally hate this type of trip, but I'm not one of them (yet). We have a "Quiet Room" where I am based, and I've found that if I can spend an hour or two in a recliner in a dark room with my earplugs in, then I can function for an all-night flight. Its not easy: That nap is crucial, and I have to drink coffee, and plan to eat and stand up to get my blood flowing in order to stay awake, but it is "do-able". I've had three of these all-night trips this month which have had me leaving my west coast base some time between 10pm and midnight and arriving in New York between 5:30am and 8am.

Anyway, last night we found ourselves watching the sun rise in the last hour of our flight. I'm not much of an astronomer, but I have flown enough at night to recognize some of the bigger constellations, as well as Venus and Mars. But last night, right before sunrise, and as we were over western New York, we were able to see what we took was the International Space Station. You can track it here.

A busy month half-full of crappy trips does have it's opportunity for a perk.

Grammys and Oscars....

So yesterday, after landing my flight from JFK to LAX, the lead Flight Attendant told me that we had two nominees on board.

I had noticed the first at the gate in JFK. I'm pretty sure it was George Clinton and a woman I took to be his wife. (The Grammy nominee list is here, but it is not searchable, and I didn't take the time to look at every name. Maybe Clinton is there; maybe not.)



Although he did not have the wigs/hats/etc that he wears on stage, he is still hard not to notice.

As is my habit, I stood in the door to greet as many of our passengers as I could (especially our First Class passengers). I noticed that the Clintons were completely cold to my greeting....not acknowledging me in any way. At the gate in LAX, they were equally cool. They struck me as people who believed they were better than "The Hired Help".

I also noticed a happy, friendly woman who pleasantly acknowledged both the greeting I offered in JFK and my "goodbye" in LAX.

As it turns out, the same Flight Attendant said that she is an Oscar nominee...for cinematography.

Why is it that some people at the pinnacle of their careers can be so warm and happy about it, and others project coolness?

Thoughts on USAirways 1549.....

While it may be interesting to a number of people, I've never thought of my life as an airline pilot as particularly interesting (and certainly not heroic). I don't often write of my airline life because in many ways, it is just a job, and if I do it well, it is a very boring job. An exciting day at work usually means something bad has happened. More exciting=More bad.

Obviously, Captain Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III did everything perfectly. What is only now becoming obvious to most is that so did his crew.

The World assumes that I know how to fly my airplane within the envelope that it can be flown. My FAA and my company assume this; My passengers assume this; My crew assumes this; and most importantly--I assume this. Like everyone else in your own work, I have my good days and my bad days, but I always know that everyone assumes, at a minimum, that I can operate the machine.

However, the biggest job an airline captain has is not with operating the machine, but rather in leading his crew.

I work with some of the most capable First Officers I can imagine. "First Officers" is really a misnomer. A more apt title would be "Co-Captain". With very few exceptions, these guys are capable of making each decision that I am called on to make.

But I don't always agree with these guys. Some of them are liberals and want all the things that liberals want. Some of them are bitter about all the changes we have seen in our profession. There are those who walk around with "baggage" (no pun intended). I don't even like some of them.

However, I always have to find a way to work with these guys. It is up to me to form The Team.

A couple of anecdotes...

When I was in the military flying C-130s, I had one of my last trips as a copilot with an Aircraft Commander (the guy in charge) with a guy named "Steve". Steve was a nice enough guy...a little "different", but not overtly unpleasant. I went to college with Steve. However, Steve was fairly regimented. If there were five acceptable techniques to accomplish a given task, most guys will watch another perform that task and think: "OK. That's not the way I might have done it, but it worked none-the-less." Not Steve. If Steve had a technique, it meant that he wanted you to use it. It didn't matter to Steve if you wanted to do things another way. It was his way or the highway.

Anyhoo, I launched off on this six-day trip with Steve, and we weren't airborne 20 minutes and he had the entire crew alienated. Each of us spent the next 6 days doing our jobs and no more. There was little conversation, and there was no way I was going to cover for a mistake that Steve was about to make. Likewise the Nav (navigator) and the Flight Engineer and the Loadmaster. We were on the same airplane, but we were not a crew.

This was all Steve's fault.

Second anecdote....

I am not tooting my own horn here. Really.

On one of my last Tactical flights as a C-130 A/C, I picked up a load of Navy SEALs to bring them up to our dropzone for some parachute practice for them and us. We got to practice delivering paratroopers--they got to practice jumping out of a plane. For a number of reasons, the dropzone was located right next to the runway at Clark AB--as in less than a mile from the end of the runway. Our procedures had us calling the tower for entry into the airport area before the airdrop. The plan that day was fly a low level to get to the dropzone and then to make about 4 passes over the dropzone, each time dropping out 4-6 SEALs. After each drop, we'd make a left hand turn to fly a "race-track" pattern to set up for the subsequent group. The run in for the airdrop was on a heading converging with the runway centerline at about 30 degrees.

Anyhoo, seconds after the first group was clear of the left troop door, my #2 engine (inboard engine on the left wing) just quit. And quit hard. This was my first airborne engine failure, and I had always expected that an inboard engine failure would be felt as a loss of thrust, but not that much of a yaw. This failure came to me as both.

An engine which fails will often fling parts of itself all over the place. The engines are designed to spew those parts into the airflow which will take the exploding parts aft of the plane. One of my initial concerns (which, thankfully, turned out to be baseless) was that parts of this failing engine might have injured the SEALs who had just jumped out the door only feet from the engine that had just failed. There really wasn't much I could do about it, but it was a concern none-the-less.

My next concern was getting this airplane on the ground. As it turns out, we were less than 2 miles from the end of the runway.

And I'll tell you folks, it was simply amazing to watch my crew work.

The Loadmaster got the remaining jumpers back into their seats and ready for landing. Once we had "caged" the engine, he scanned it for any other issues. The Flight Engineer and Co-pilot were the busiest. They had emergency checklists and normal landing checklists to run in a very, very compressed time frame.

And they got it done. All of it. For me, it was a piece of cake. All I had to do was fly the plane. It was they who were doing all the work. They were the real heros.

Prediction: When we do finally hear what "Sully" has to say about his water landing, I predict he will say much the same thing. I know that his crew--the now named First Officer Jeff Skiles, and the Flight Attendants--did far more than the public is now aware of to make this episode into a "Miracle on the Hudson" the miracle that it was. "Sully" will get the credit, but if I'm right, it is the crew which deserves it.

Water landings....

Gawd, I hate that term. [And Double-Gawd, do I wish Blogger had a strike text feature.] The end of USAirways 1549 was not a "water landing". This is a "water landing".



What "Sully" did was "crash-an-unpowered-airplane-on-the-water-and-have-everyone-live". That doesn't fit well into a newspaper column, but it is far more the truth than "water landing".

Birds...

As the public is now becoming aware of, birds are a problem in aviation. They have been since Orville Wright first flew a plane.

As a professional pilot, bird strikes are part of my life. They don't happen every day, but neither are they unheard of. Most bird strikes are benign events which require little more than an inspection by a mechanic who will then send us on our way. The .gov does keep records on these things, so there is a birdstrike form which facilitates this.

I can't tell you how many bird strikes I've had. As I said, most are benign. My most eventful bird strike was on a C130 takeoff from Pohang during Team Spirit '85. I took a duck in the #2 engine on takeoff roll, and it took us out of the Pohang Air Races.

However, as US1549 illustrates, birdstrikes do occasionally create significant, and sometimes catastrophic damages.

A couple of videos....









Preparations for emergencies...

A long, long time ago, I wrote a Small Cautionary Note on the need to be ready to evacuate a plane. That Caution still stands.

Folks, if you've read this far, I don't care how experienced a traveler you are, the same basic recommendation applies: Pay attention to the safety video/demonstration. Pull out the safety card in the seat pocket and look at it. Look around for the nearest emergency exit. Count the number of rows to that door. Then do the same for the exit in the opposite direction. Take a moment to touch that flotation device under your seat. Is it in a box or a pouch?

Before you get dressed to go to the airport, ask yourself: "If I were in an emergency today, would these clothes/shoes help me or hurt me?"

For as rare as airline accidents are, you have to assume that it can happen on any day.

Be Prepared.

"Hi. I'm Ted."

So said the Governor of Ohio (Ted Strickland) as I met him and his armed escort on my flight the other day.

Other than the wiki on him, and the (D) behind his name, I don't know the first thing about him.

Edit: Another interesting item was that his Ohio State Police escort motioned to his gun being in an ankle holster. I've got a low-end ankle holster for a Walther PPK, and I hate it. For the few times that I've worn it, I'm always wondering if the damned thing is going to slip down my leg and onto the floor, and if I ever do have to get into the thing, pulling my pants leg up high enough to access the gun won't go smoothly, I guarantee it. They're more for movies and very discreet carry--so discreet that accessibility is almost impossible, if you ask me. To each, his own, though.

More Edit: This post is again exposing for me the vagaries of blogging. I can sometimes get tens and tens of readers a day, so tracking them isn't all that difficult. Today, I'm receiving a good number of my readers through this post. I wonder: Why is that, and how do you people find me?

Just sayin'. That's all.

Edgar Winter...

One of the coolest musicians from my childhood was Edgar Winter. He was (is?) kind of a blues-y rock guy, and with his completely unusal albino looks, drew quite a bit of attention.

Anyhooooo, he and his group were on my flight the other day. So, apropo of nothing, here is 10 minutes of Winter's Frankenstein...

Thoughts on Seat 44D...

I just got back from my annual trip to the simulator, and the flight was totally packed (of course). Lots of employees complain about full flights--they often miss flights, and when they do get on, they don't get to sit in First Class. Me, I've never done that. While a full flight means a travel benefit is more difficult to achieve, it also means the company is making money and my job is that much more secure.

However, there are some bad points to sitting in the back. I was glad to have an aisle seat, even if it was very much in the back. The really bad point came with the guy next to me.

Although he did announce that we were the lucky two who got to sit next to the guy with a 48 inch chest, he wasn't a totally unpleasant guy. He did ask about the Heller decision and otherwise had some small talk--mostly with the guy in the window seat.

He also had some obnoxious qualities. He got up four times--once during taxi out. What was really, really obnoxious, however, was his habit of raising his arms over his head. He didn't smell or anything, and he was wearing a shirt, but exposing your armpits for extended periods just isn't appealing.

Hey. I said much the same thing....

...here, but James Fallows points to something I hadn't thought of. (Do also follow his link to the Patrick Smith column, which says what I said, although much better put than I was able to cobble together.)

Via Glenn.

Things I Never Thought I'd See, Part Deux...

Chapter 2: Las Vegas

[OK. Maybe Things I Never Thought I'd See: Las Vegas deserves a whole book, rather than just a chapter. Maybe I'll get around to that one day.]

Most Las Vegas visitors would consider our layover hotel to be an absolutely miserable place. Imagine the cheesiest, cheapest stereotype of a bad Vegas hotel. Now imagine Cheez Whiz. You are now beginning to get an idea of the Las Vegas Greek Isles.

The Greek Isles is the former Debbie Reynolds Casino and Hotel. When she went bankrupt, she ended up selling it to the WWF. Here's a place that sells vintage casino chips.


Almost nobody except airline crews stay at the Greek Isles. They do have a Rat Pack show which I'm told is actually pretty good, but I dunno...that's kinda hard to believe. The place is pretty much a joke among the airline business, and I'd have to guess it would be thought of as the same joke among the Vegas hotel and casino folks.

However, I actually don't mind the place. Because the clientele is almost exclusively airline crews, there really aren't any noise problems. While the room furnishings are spartan and dated, the beds are fairly comfortable. I can get Fox News on their TVs. The curtains are fantastic. It takes almost no effort to get the room completely dark. Their workout room is not the best I've seen, but also not the worst either. They have a crew room (again, spartan) with microwave, large TV, pool table (I think) and a couple of computers (!). All-in-all, for my needs, not a bad place.

Buttttt,

They run a karaoke bar, which is often active when we check in.

After working in a service industry for many years now, I confess that it isn't often that I'm surprised by what I see the public do. People will do anything, and I mean: A. Ny. Thing.

However, not once in a million years would I imagine I would observe a 60-something woman...someone's grandmother...karaoke....



Jethro Tull's Aqualung.



Only in America, folks. Only in America.

Things I never thought I'd see...

As I was in line to board the flight to work this morning, I was two people behind a hispanic guy who was holding a little girl of maybe 1 1/2-2 years old. He was pushing a stroller and had some sort of diaper bag while sporting a biker-ish goatee and wearing a Harley-Davidson tank top.

However, that wasn't the thing I never thought I'd see.

He had absolutely pornographic tattoos on both shoulders of naked women engaging in rear-entry copulation.

What will his little girl think when she's old enough to appreciate what Daddy has had immortalized under his skin?

The Airline Business...

I just ran across this posting describing the frustration that comes with airline travel...this time with Delta. Of course, the news this week also includes this story of a woman kicked off a Southwest flight for her attire (along with the companion piece here).

So, just what is going on with the airline business?

Here is my insider's perspective.

Firstly, the two ladies. While they are attractive young women (although the blond doesn't do a thing for me), let me be clear: They are not dressed appropriately for airline travel. For a night at the clubs: Yes. For airline travel: No. The word circling around the internet on the Kyla Ebberts story (but not heard in the MSM) is that she wasn't wearing any undergarments. Regardless of that...take a closer look at her photo in the link above. Her "skirt" is maybe 6 inches top-to-bottom. The top of her skirt rests clearly right on her pubic area. From the back, this would make her butt-crack clearly evident. Her top is pulled down to make it appear to all flow together, but she is clearly not dressed conservatively. Put her seated for any length of time in an airline seat, and her dress is entirely too short for the public to be exposed to. Qassim came in with her "Me Too" story, but offers little else (except to come off as a dim bulb, if you watch her TV interview). Her dress is a bit Marilyn Monroe-esque, which doesn't make it as "bad" as Ebberts was (in my eyes), but still more of a party dress than something for public view.

I'll get back to the girls in a minute.

Collier expresses a common frustration with airline travel: Having to deal with changing policies and an uncaring employee group. I'll tie into this too a bit later.

But first a story...

At my airline, new Captains go to a two day event designed to allow them to interact with some of the decision-makers in the company. I went in 1999. One of the issues percolating back then was something called the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights [I'd like a Bill-of-Rights Bill of Rights which says there is only one Bill of Rights. It is formed from the first 10 Amendments to our Constitution. Everything else is just policy. But I digress.], which sprang up after Northwest had a gridlock event (during a storm) and was unable to get passengers off their planes. Northwest is not the only problem-child here. American did it in Austin in 2006 (again with a major storm delaying flights into DFW), and then JetBlue most recently on Valentines Day of 2007 (where, let's not forget, that airplanes and jet-tugs were literally frozen to the ground). [Source] Everybody recognizes that these are frustrating situations to find oneself in...the question is: What can be done about it.

This event I went to in '99 brings all the big-cheeses in the company to these new Captains to offer their perspective on their parts of the company, and to answer very frank questions about the direction of the company. [Another brief digression...It takes a lot to become an airline pilot, and as a result, pilots are generally driven, focused individuals. We often believe that we could be successful at anything we tried. This can lead to a bit of arrogance...and in the case of new Captain posing questions to a CEO, the questions often come with more than a bit of attitude.] A question was asked of our CEO at the time (who has since departed) who he was supporting in the 2000 Presidential race. Answer: Al Gore.

However after this, he digressed into the PBoR thingi and what he saw for the future. He said then that the industry was moving 700-800 million passengers per year, and that the forecast growth of airline travel had the industry hitting it's capacity in the next 8-10 years (essentially now). When we hit capacity, there would be all kinds of cries for the government to "do something" to correct these problems. He said that he didn't believe it would matter which party was in power at the time...the government would have to do something.

I don't care what industry you're in, you can't operate at capacity forever. General Petraeus knows that he can't keep The Surge working past next spring. General Motors knows that you can only make cars and trucks so fast for so long. If you encounter one little problem, it throws a giant monkey wrench into the operation. There is no flexibility to adapt to the inevitable problems which will crop up.

Collier, after becoming frustrated at Delta over their changing policies, says: "I'll never be back". Delta (and every other airline) can change their policies-- at will--because they know that for every passenger who says "I'll never be back", there is at least one other passenger who has said the same thing to one of Delta's competitors. Collier isn't the only blogger with problems with Delta...Glenn Reynolds has had them too. Collier and Reynolds also both touch on something else: Uncaring employees. Not to offer a defense of poor customer-service in a customer-service industry, but I will appeal for a bit of understanding. Airline employees have seen jobs lost, their wages slashed, and their retirements disappeared. Couple that with watching more-than-a-few senior executives flee with extravagant golden parachutes, and a public which often seems to want a Waldorf-Astoria experience at a Motel-6 price, and a less-than-caring airline employee might be understandable.

Southwest can remove these two young ladies dressed as trollips (Thank you, Paris Hilton), because they know that by doing so, they'll please more than a few other passengers.

I hope the reader will not infer that these problems are limited to Northwest, Delta, JetBlue or Southwest.

I submit that the airline industry is operating very near to it's capacity. What you're seeing here is evidence of a systemic problem.

The FAA has very recently said that the airlines need to reduce "over-scheduling". The airlines will respond: "If the flights are all very full (see the "11-year Summary"), then how will reducing flights make things better? We're only offering what the public wants." The analysts will offer that (scroll down to "Announcing: The Marie Antoinette Solution To Airline Delays" and read the whole thing):

"... Delays are caused by flight volumes that the FAA Administrator's ineptly-managed ATC system cannot handle. Airlines are not adding a flood of extra sections for the holidays, so the number of aircraft flying across the nation will be about the same as last week-end, and the week-end before that...." [emphasis mine]

The solution here is long and complex, and a fast-food public won't want to hear it.

If you want the air travel system you're seeking, we've got to build more runways. Lots and lots of them. This will take both time (locating sites for new airport facilities and fighting the inevitable NIMBYs) and money (tax dollars). Boyd is right: The FAA needs to update their Air Traffic Control system. This has been occurring, but at a dial-up pace in a world used to their high-speed connections (pun only somewhat intended). For those with the means, please do not fall for the folly of the Very Light Jet phenomenon. While on the surface it may appear that you'll be skipping the security lines and the wonder of your chances of making that Atlanta/Dallas/Chicago major airline connection, these VLJs will do more to clog up an already slow system than anything we've seen in decades. The airlines could do a better job of scheduling (read: build enough time into your trip to allow for the flexibility that the system doesn't have today), but this will cost the public too. An idle airplane is like an idle factory: It isn't making money. The airline industry is only now getting out of the predicament where nearly 40% of the industry was either in- or near- bankruptcy. They don't have the excess profit margins to offer this gratis to the public. You want good service? Great. How much are you willing to pay to deal with an employee who isn't surly? The good service you get at the Waldorf doesn't come just with the territory. Those employees are well paid.

I offer this all not to dispute that passengers don't have a right to be frustrated at air travel today (you do), but rather as another perspective on these frustrations and what it will take to get to the service level both passengers and this pilot would like to engage in.