FAA Archives - TravelSkills

SFO flips switch on shapely new control tower

October 12, 2016

SFO's new 221-foot air traffic control tower will open next summer (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

SFO’s new 221-foot air traffic control tower operational this week (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

After more than a year of preparation, air traffic controllers will be working in San Francisco International Airport’s gorgeous new control tower this weekend.

Rising up in a graceful flare, the new tower is 221 feet tall. The 650 square-foot controller work area gives air traffic controllers unobstructed 235-degree views of SFO’s runways and taxiways. It replaces the current tower on top of Terminal 2, which will be dismantled quickly beginning in January because it obstructs runway views from the new one.

To celebrate, let’s revisit the behind-the-scenes tour TravelSkills took in 2015 when the airport turned the tower over to the FAA, which spent the last year outfitting the voluptuous, flared cylinder with its systems, testing them and training controllers.

Ready to take a tour? Let’s start at the bottom and move to the top.

Inside the new corridor connecting SFO’s T1 and T2. View from T2 entry. (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

Part of the tower project was to create a bright new land side corridor (along the roadway) connecting Terminal 1 with Terminal 2. What’s amazing about the corridor is that it has a glass roof so you can stop and peer up at the new tower. Handrails are needed to keep folks from falling over as they crane their necks to view the beautiful new metallic cone. It’s gorgeous, almost hypnotic, and vertigo-inducing to look up at it as the clouds roll by.

The view looking up from the new glass-roofed corridor between SFO T1 and T2 (Chris McGinnis)

The view looking up from the new glass-roofed corridor between T1 and T2- note the waterfall of lights panels facing west (Chris McGinnis)

A new computer controlled display now lights up the tower in a variety of colors, which can be seen from miles away after dusk. Like the Empire State Building or San Francisco City Hall, the new “waterfall of lights” is used for special occasions– orange when the Giants win, or red and green for Christmas, etc.

Inch-thick, blast-proof glass across the front of the building under the tower (Chris McGinnis)

The FAA has offices in a three-story building at the base of the tower, where the exterior and glass walls have been thickened and hardened to prevent damage from truck bombs on the nearby roadway.

The structure is built on “bay mud” according to project manager Tony Kingsman who said that the tower is supported in bedrock 140 below ground, and is designed to withstand an 8.0 earthquake and still be operational.

This is SFO’s fourth control tower. The current one was built in 1981 atop the current Terminal 2, deemed seismically unstable, so construction began on the new tower three years ago.

It cost about $120 million to build the tower, FAA office building and corridor. The FAA kicked in about 70 million of that– enough for a basic, utilitarian structure, but SFO wanted it to be an iconic, torch-like symbol of the gateway to the Pacific, so it contributed an additional $50 million for aesthetics, as well as additional airport space like the new corridor.

HNTB provided the conceptual design of the new structure and it was designed and built by Hensel Phelps and Fentress Architects.

With the new tower open, the old tower will be dismantled quickly so as not to obstruct runway views from the new one. There is talk of the airport adding a outdoor viewing platform, open the the public, in the old tower’s footprint atop T2, but for now, that’s just talk.

Okay then. Let’s crawl up inside this spectacular structure! Watch this video and scroll through the images and video below.

(NOTE: This video was shot last year before the FAA moved its equipment into the tower.)

Aside from the stunning view, note that US Airways/American is now operating out of Delta’s Boarding Area C (Chris McGinnis)

First taking an elevator up about 10 floors and then walking up a spiral staircase, you enter a wonderland of planespotting— a full 270 degrees of unobstructed airport views through 24 giant panes of 1-1/2 inch-thick glass. On the western side of the 650-square-foot “cab” there are a few pillars that hold up the roof. I’ve never seen a view like this one.

Looking out from 221 feet over Terminal 2, home of Virgin America and American (Chris McGinnis)

The tower complex is covered in at least 100 lightening rods grounded by shiny metal cables. Look closely and you'll see them (Chris McGinnis)

The tower complex is covered in at least 100 lightning rods grounded by shiny woven metal cables. Look closely and you’ll see them (Chris McGinnis)

Looking out over T3 and the current control tower (Chris McGinnis)

Looking out at the United hangar and (oddly) looking down on the current control tower, which will soon disappear (Chris McGinnis)

Installation of air traffic controller stations- there is room for 13 up here, but usually only 6-8 on the job. (Chris McGinnis)

Installation of air traffic controller stations- there is room for 13 controllers up here, but usually only 6-8 on the job. (Chris McGinnis)

Looking out at one of two cranes used to clean and maintain the tower exterior (Chris McGinnis)

Looking over the parking lot and international terminal (Chris McGinnis)

Air traffic controllers’ break room is one level below the cab- talk about a room with a view! (Chris McGinnis)

Here’s the view from the air traffic controllers break room. Nice! (Chris McGinnis)

Your excited TravelSkills editor Chris McGinnis pondering a lightening rod on the top of SFO control tower (Doug Yakel)

Your excited TravelSkills editor Chris McGinnis pondering a lightning rod on the top of SFO control tower (Doug Yakel)

Here’s a video watching an Air China 747-8 take off from outside the cab.

Take a 360 degree tour from inside the newly outfitted tower here:

Post from RICOH THETA. – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA

-Chris McGinnis

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FAA lifts ban on Turkish Airlines flights to U.S.

July 18, 2016

Turkish Airlines inaugural flight with San Francisco mural arrives at SFO (Chris McGinnis)

Today the Federal Aviation Administration lifted the ban on Turkish Airlines flights to the U.S. that it imposed last week during the coup attempt.

Flights to/from U.S. cities are expected to resume on Tuesday. An airline spokesperson tells TravelSkills that the first U.S. flight will depart on Tuesday, July 19 at 6:45 a.m. for New York-Kennedy.

Turkish flies nonstop from Istanbul to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco and Washington DC.

You can watch flight traffic over Istanbul here which shows flights from IST to other countries has already resumed– US flights should appear by tomorrow.

Here’s an official tweet about this from Turkish Airlines:

Attention to U.S passengers, all flights to and from the United States of America will resume as usual starting from July 19th.
— Turkish Airlines (@TurkishAirlines) July 18, 2016

Turkish Airlines’ stunning CIP lounge at Istanbul (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

It’s going to take a while until Americans chose to fly to or through Istanbul. That’s too bad considering its lovely lounge there. But it is certainly understandable. It should be interesting to watch Turkish Airlines respond to all this.

What about you? Would you flight Turkish Airlines now? How long would you wait to fly them again? Please leave your comments below.

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United could face more competition at Newark

April 5, 2016

United jets on the ramp at Newark Terminal C (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

United jets on the ramp at Newark International Terminal C (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

With a stranglehold on most of the takeoff and landing slots at Newark Liberty International – the bulk of them obtained from its merger with Continental — United Airlines hasn’t had to worry too much about competition there. But that could change later this year, thanks to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA said it plans to open up more capacity at Newark beginning at the end of October; the airport has been operating under a maximum limit of 81 flight operations per hour since a “temporary” capacity restraint was put in place there in 2008.

Technically, the FAA lists Newark as a Level 3 slot-controlled airport, but on October 31 it will change that designation to a Level 2 schedule-facilitated airport.

FAA said the change will “increase access to the busiest airspace in the world” (i.e., the New York area), and will “allow more efficient use of the airport terminal and runway capacity.” The agency did not specify how many more flights it would allow at Newark, but it did say the changes will mean increased “market access and new entry for carriers and increased competition.”

FAA chief Michael Huerta said the change in Newark’s status is made possible by “significant improvements in on-time performance and delays at Newark.” The FAA said that the number of on-time gate arrivals at EWR from May through August 2015 was down 11 percent from the same months in 2007, just before the current slot controls were imposed. Average arrival and departure delay times were also down, and the number of flight operations has dropped by 8 percent, FAA said.

The FAA said its action also reflects a concern about capacity at nearby New York JFK Airport and how it might be affected by major runway reconstruction projects there in 2017 and 2018. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said it expects a three-month closure next year for JFK’s Runway 4Right-22Left, which handles almost half of the airport’s landings.

Last fall, the U.S. Justice Department filed a complaint in federal court in an effort to block United’s plans to swap 24 of its slots at JFK for 24 Delta slots at Newark. DOJ noted that United already controls 73 percent of the slots at Newark, and said that the proposed swap would make it even more difficult for other airlines to add operations there and thus would hinder competition.

What do you think about Newark Airport? Can it handle more flights? How does it compare to JFK? Please leave your thoughts below.

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‘Uber of the Skies’ shot down by regulators, court

December 28, 2015

An Uber-type flight-sharing service for private pilots has been grounded. (Image: Jim Glab)

There are hundreds of thousands of licensed private pilots in the U.S., so why not enlist them to create an on-call air travel ride-sharing service just like Uber does with cars?

Sounds like a great idea, and a Boston company called Flytenow decided to try it. And now it’s going out of business. The concept was blocked by the Federal Aviation Administration earlier this year, and that decision has now been upheld by a federal appeals court, effectively putting an end to the experiment.

The problem? The FAA said that because it solicits passengers from the public, such a company would be a common carrier, meaning that participating aviators would have to hold a commercial pilot’s license, just like airline pilots do.

Flytenow had argued that the individuals looking to book flights were “aviation enthusiasts,” and any transaction between them and the pilots would simply be a sharing of expenses, which is allowed for private pilots.

But the FAA and the court didn’t agree. “In the Opinion of the Court, Judge Pillard held that pilots sharing expenses on Flytenow were engaged in common carriage, making them the only common carriers (i.e., commercial airliners) in history to not seek a profit,” Flytenow said on a blog. The company’s website has been taken down.

The company said its lawyers are looking into possible avenues of appeal, but for now “we are left with no choice but to shut down Flytenow.”

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Airlines want better access to New York

November 6, 2015

Smaller airlines are concerned that they can’t gain access to New York’s airports. (Image: Jim Glab)

Although smaller, low-cost airlines in the U.S. have been growing much faster than their giant rivals, they have been mostly stymied in their desire to gain access to the nation’s biggest air travel market: New York. So they’re pushing for a change in the rules.

Five airlines — Virgin America, Spirit, Frontier, Alaska and Allegiant —sent a letter this week to the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Department asking government officials to come up with a solution to the carriers’ relative lack of access to LaGuardia, JFK and Newark airports. All three airports are slot-constrained — i.e., they are operating at full capacity, so the only way for an airline to get a new slot pair is to buy it from an incumbent, or trade for one somewhere else.

Current rules that govern the allocation of takeoff and landing slots at the three airports expire in about a year, and the FAA earlier this year started a rulemaking proceeding that is considering how to amend them.

The five carriers argue that with the consolidation of the major airlines in recent years, the only way to promote competition and to keep fares at a reasonable level in the New York market is to allow smaller and/or low-fare airlines to fly there from more cities.

The proposed rule changes that the FAA is looking at include a requirement that an airline would have to use every allocated slot 80 percent of the time “for the same flight or series of flights throughout the scheduling season” if it wants to keep the slot. (Current usage rules don’t require airlines to account for each slot individually.)

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The FAA has also proposed various alternatives for creating a secondary market for the purchase, sale or exchange of slots at the New York airports, and would require the Transportation department to review each proposed transaction for its impact on competition.

The slot allocation procedures at New York airports are separate from the ongoing discussions at the New York-New Jersey Port Authority about whether to lift or amend the perimeter rule at LaGuardia, which limits flights out of that airport to no more than 1,500 miles. That’s why you can’t currently fly non-stop between LaGuardia and the West Coast — although that could change, especially with the huge redevelopment of LGA that’s coming.

Readers: Should New York airports allow more smaller carriers in? Would you fly them?

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Two new nonstops to India

July 6, 2015

Air India plans to start 777-200 flights to San Francisco. (Image: Mohit Purswani/Flickr)

Now that the Federal Aviation Administration has given a green light to Indian carriers to expand service to the U.S., the Economic Times of India reports that Air India is planning to start flying to San Francisco later this year.

The newspaper said the state-operated airline plans to begin service from New Delhi to both San Francisco and Toronto when its winter schedule takes effect, although the airline had no details yet on starting dates.

It is reportedly planning to use 777-200LRs on both routes, after they are reconfigured to add more economy class seats, remove some business class seats and all first class seats. The reconfigured planes could pack in as many as 310 passengers according to the Economic Times story.

The SFO-Delhi nonstop would be a super-long one at about 16 hours. Regrettably, its no-lie-flat business class seats on the 777s don’t rate highly on SkyTrax. (Note: Air India’s new 787s do have flat bed seats.)

Related: Etihad vs “Jetihad”

Air India is a member of the Star Alliance.

Air India’s only current U.S. routes are to Chicago and New York.

In April of this year, the FAA said it had determined that India is now in compliance with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s safety standards for air travel, and thus it reinstated a Category 1 safety rating for the country.

That change means India‘s airlines are once again permitted to add new flights to the U.S., something they hadn’t been able to do after the country was downgraded to Category 2. That happened following a 2012 FAA audit that found some deficiencies in India’s aviation system.

Would you fly Air India? Have you? Please leave your comments and experiences below.

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First look: Inside SFO’s brand new control tower (photos)

May 20, 2015

SFO’s new 221-foot air traffic control tower will open next summer (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

This week San Francisco International Airport turns over its fabulous new control tower to the Federal Aviation Administration.

But before doing so, the airport gave TravelSkills an exclusive early tour.

The FAA will spend a year outfitting the voluptuous, flared cylinder with its systems, testing them and then training controllers. The new tower is expected to be operational by next summer.

Ready to take a tour? Let’s start at the bottom and move to the top.

Inside the new corridor connecting SFO’s T1 and T2. View from T2 entry. (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

In late June, a bright new land side corridor (along the roadway) connecting Terminal 1 with Terminal 2 will open to the public. What’s amazing about the corridor is that it has a glass roof so you can stop and peer up at the new tower. I think they’ll need to install handrails to keep folks from falling over as they crane their necks to view the beautiful new metallic cone. It’s gorgeous, almost hypnotic, and vertigo-inducing to look up at it as the clouds roll by.

The view looking up from the new glass-roofed corridor between T1 and T2- note the waterfall of lights panels facing west (Chris McGinnis)

Also in June, a new computer controlled display will light up the tower in a variety of colors, which will be seen from miles away after dusk. Like the Empire State Building or San Francisco City Hall, the new “waterfall of lights” will signify special occasions– orange when the Giants win, or red and green for Christmas, etc.

Inch-thick, blast-proof glass across the front of the building under the tower (Chris McGinnis)

The FAA will have offices in a three-story building at the base of the tower, where the exterior and glass walls have been thickened and hardened to prevent damage from truck bombs on the nearby roadway.

This is SFO’s fourth control tower. The current one was built in 1981 atop the current Terminal 2, deemed seismically unstable, so construction began on the new tower three years ago.

HNTB provided the conceptual design of the new structure and it was designed and built by Hensel Phelps and Fentress Architects.

The new tower should open in July 2016 at which time the old tower will be dismantled quickly so as not to obstruct runway views from the new one. There is talk of the airport adding a outdoor viewing platform, open the the public, in the old tower’s footprint atop T2, but for now, that’s just talk.

Okay then. Let’s crawl up inside this spectacular structure! Watch this video and scroll through the images and video below.

Aside from the stunning view, note that US Airways/American is now operating out of Delta’s Boarding Area C (Chris McGinnis)

Looking out from 221 feet over Terminal 2, home of Virgin America and American (Chris McGinnis)

The tower complex is covered in at least 100 lightning rods grounded by shiny woven metal cables. Look closely and you’ll see them (Chris McGinnis)

Looking out at the United hangar and (oddly) looking down on the current control tower (Chris McGinnis)

Installation of air traffic controller stations- there is room for 13 controllers up here, but usually only 6-8 on the job. (Chris McGinnis)

Looking out at one of two cranes used to clean and maintain the tower exterior (Chris McGinnis)

Looking over the parking lot and international terminal (Chris McGinnis)

Air traffic controllers’ break room is one level below the cab- talk about a room with a view! (Chris McGinnis)

Here’s the view from the air traffic controllers break room. Nice! (Chris McGinnis)

Your excited TravelSkills editor Chris McGinnis pondering a lightning rod on the top of SFO control tower (Doug Yakel)

Here’s a video watching an Air China 747-8 take off from outside the cab.

-Chris McGinnis

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Atlanta airport getting faster, bigger. SFO, too

April 25, 2015

NextGen technology is speeding things up at Atlanta’s busy Hartsfield Jackson

If flight operations in and out of Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson seem to be running more smoothly these days, that’s because air traffic control improvements resulting from the FAA’s new NextGen technology are allowing more flights to take off and land at the busy airport.

The new procedures let aircraft fly closer together on approach, and opened up an additional parallel flight path for departures.

This means shorter taxi times, and even shorter flights, which saves airlines big buck on fuel costs– for example, Delta is expecting to save $13-18 million due to the improvements. See video (It’s really good!)

The airport can now handle 112 to 134 departures per hour during periods of peak activity, up from 96 to 130 previously.

The same technology will soon be deployed to help delay-plagued San Francisco International Airport according to the FAA. See FAA video.

Have you noticed?

Flying upstairs in biz on the only A380 jumbo now calling on Atlanta- Korean Air (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

Meanwhile, ATL is taking bids on a a plan to modify Gate F3 in the new international terminal’s F Concourse so it can accommodate super-jumbos like the Airbus A380.

Currently, only two E Concourse gates can do so.

And right now, only one A380 calls on ATL, Korean Air’s daily nonstop from Seoul.

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FAA: Keep out of the seat back pocket

March 21, 2015

Keep your stuff out of that nasty seatback pocket (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

How do you use your seat back pocket? We received an interesting observation and query from TravelSkills reader J.U. this week that led to a discovery.

I love reading your daily column, and learn a lot. This is the first time I’ve had a question I thought you could check out. Yesterday I flew on Southwest, and was startled by an announcement at the beginning of the flight, saying that we were not to put any personal items in the seat back pockets! The flight attendant actually said, “The seat backs are for our magazine and safety information. You are not to put any personal items in them – no water bottles, no books, no computers, …” I noticed that the seat back pockets have in fact gotten very tight, with hardly any room for anything other than the magazine. (I had in fact put my water bottle in there, and it barely fit.) This seems very strange to me – what next!? Maybe we will have to pay for a seat back pocket with a little more room? Have you heard anything about this? The person sitting next to me was also a frequent traveler, and neither of us had heard of this before. I would love to know if you have any information on it.

I could not think of a time when I’d heard an announcement like this, so I grabbed a Southwest spokesperson who told TravelSkills that this wasn’t new and in fact an FAA regulation designed to prevent encroachment into space needed in case of the need for a quick exit.

Now’s the time to book summer flights to Europe

The verbiage from the DOT rule about seatback stowage.

I also kinda cringe when I think about seatbacks and avoid them like the plague (pun intended). Did you know that seatbacks are the dirtiest part of the plane and the place were nasty germs like MRSA live the longest? So I’d refrain from putting any personal items in there on account of that! Maybe the FAA rule is there to protect us from germs, too.

–Chris McGinnis

+++

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