Category AVIATION &ТНЕ ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

The FAA defines UAS as an unmanned aircraft (UA) and all of the associated support equipment, control stations, data links, telemetry, communi­cations, and navigation equipment, etc., neces­sary to operate the unmanned aircraft. The UA is the flying portion of the system, flown by a pilot

via a ground-control system, or autonomously through use of an on board computer with asso­ciated equipment necessary for the UA to oper­ate safely. UAS are also referred to variously as drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

We saw in Chapter 22 how UAS in the United States National Airspace System (NAS) has been certificated and controlled by the FAA during its short and recent history of author­ity over these aircraft. The first priority of the FAA being safety, the agency has moved slowly and cautiously in granting certificates for UAS operations within the NAS. While the FAA does not disclose the exact nature of UAS cer­tifications within the NAS (which policy has prompted lawsuits under the Freedom of Infor­mation Act), certain UAS authorizations are known.6 For example, the Department of Home­land Security uses UAS for surveillance of bor­ders and port facilities. NASA and NOAA are engaged in research and environmental moni­toring using UAVs. Local and state law enforce­ment agencies also have been certified to use drones. The FAA issued 313 certificates in 2011.

While UAS have been primarily used by the U. S. military overseas in war zones for both surveillance and offensive military strikes, there has been a steady growth of interest in their use here at home. Civil uses include aerial mapping, crop monitoring, forest fire detection, and res­cue operations. Development of UAS is ongoing worldwide, but in the United States alone some 50 different groups ranging from universities, private companies, and government organizations are developing and producing numerous and var­ied unmanned aircraft designs. This has created a powerful lobby for the proliferation of UAS uses in the NAS.

In February 2012, Congress mandated the FAA, in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2012, to develop regulations and procedures to permit, by 2015, widespread use of UAS in the National Airspace System by both government and

commercial operators. The purpose of this man­date is to expedite and streamline the certification process and to develop means whereby they may be safely integrated into the NAS. The present cer­tification of drones precludes their use in airspace occupied by civil aircraft due to the inability of UAVs to “sense and avoid” other aircraft.

The fact that UAS are of varying degrees of size and sophistication adds to the problem of integrating them into the NAS where they will be required to mix and assimilate with manned aircraft. Some UAVs have the wing span of a Boeing 737 and are powered by turbojets. At the other extreme, there are very small UAVs weighing less than one pound with wing spans (or rotors) of six inches or less and powered by a lithium-ion battery (micro aerial vehicle). Some are even designed in the form of hummingbirds with flapping wings.

Two years after the end of World War II, the situation in Europe was not much improved—in fact, whole segments of populations faced star­vation. An economic depression loomed for the entire continent. Serious concerns were voiced in the United States over the deteriorating economic condition of Europe, and ideas were debated in foreign policy circles as to the best way to meet these concerns. By early 1947, preparations were complete for the initiation of a European eco­nomic recovery, a program that would come to be known as the Marshall Plan.

George C. Marshall was the Secretary of State in the Truman Administration in 1947. Dur­ing the war he had been Army chief of staff and central to the military planning that had led to the defeat of the Axis Powers, particularly in Europe. He was considered indispensable in European affairs and he enjoyed considerable prestige with the United States Congress. In a speech to the graduating class at Harvard University on June 5, 1947, he proposed a solution for the European economic situation that was centered on the con­cept that the European countries would them­selves set up a program for reconstruction, with the assurance of American assistance. The prob­lem, he said, was:

The truth of the matter is that Europe’s requirements for the next three or four years for foreign food and other essential prod­ucts—principally from America—are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help or face economic, social, and political deterio­ration of a very grave character.

The remedy lies in breaking the vicious circle and restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole.1

European response to this U. S. proposal of assistance was immediate and positive. A confer­ence of 16 European countries arranged to meet in Paris in 1947. Twenty-two countries were invited to participate and all of those invited, except the Soviet Union and those countries under its control, attended. The Soviet Union, in fact, vigorously opposed the plan. The Paris conference led to the establishment of the Com­mittee for European Economic Cooperation, and it was the forerunner of successive organizations that ultimately led to the existence of the Euro­pean Union today.

In the United States, Congress passed the Economic Assistance Act of 1948, which became known as “The Marshall Plan.” Congress appro­priated in excess of $13.3 billion over the next four years and applied it to the European recovery plan. The plan has become known as the costliest, most successful, and arguably the most vision­ary international cooperative plan ever conceived in peacetime. It averted a postwar European depression and led to the economic recovery of the Western European countries, allowing an eco­nomic independence along with political stability that has endured. In addition to leading to the cre­ation of the European Union, in due course it led to the creation of the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation and to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The Plan was amended in 1949 to include West Germany, the western part of the former German National Socialist State that had been the former foe of the United States and the other countries in Europe, which was a marked change from the victors’ treatment of Germany after World War I. The inclusion of West Germany was not only a benevolent and humanitarian act, it was a far-sighted move that quickly contrasted the free West German economy with that of the communist Soviet-controlled East Germany, and led to the establishment of a lasting progres­sive, free, and dynamic German economy. The Plan did not include Spain, which in 1948 was a dictatorship under Franco, and Spain was not invited to participate. At the same time, Spain had not been a combatant against Germany, and its economy and commercial infrastructure were relatively intact. (See Figure 38-1.)

To say that the Marshall Plan was a success would understate the facts. Europe gradually rebuilt, and its countries set about consolidating their common interests and strengths. The eco­nomic cooperation that spawned the European Community has gradually evolved into a legal, political, commercial, and social phenomenon.

In 1971, President Richard M. Nixon pro­phetically said of the American relationship with Europe:

The program which Secretary Marshall announced in 1947 served as a catalyst in helping the peoples of Western Europe release their boundless energies and express their abundant creativity. The Marshall Plan also created an environment in which the

growth of strong ties within the Atlantic Community could be continually nourished.

The relationship between the United States and Europe is a dynamic one, sus­ceptible, as we have seen, to constant, con­structive change and thus touches on almost all aspects of our national well-being. This relationship is too critical to be taken for granted, too complex to be easily under­stood. We believe there is a great need for continuing study to enhance understanding of the relationship among all of our peoples.2

Ш The Evolution of the European Community

In 1948, the major free nations of Europe cre­ated the Organization for European Economic Cooperation for the purpose of coordinating and
administering the Marshall Plan for the economic recovery of Europe as a result of the devastat­ing effects of World War II. Two years later, in 1950, the first significant step toward economic unification occurred with the agreement to pool coal and steel resources, which was entered into by those countries thereafter known as the “Six,” and who were the original members of the Euro­pean Community.3 This was followed in 1951 with formalization in the Treaty of Paris, which established the European Coal and Steel Commu­nity. In 1953, the Six agreed to remove customs duties and quantitative restrictions on these raw materials, thus establishing for the first time a Common Market for coal and steel among those six countries.

In 1957, the Six signed the Treaty of Rome (amended in the Treaty of Lisbon, signed in 2007 and entered into force on December 1, 2009), establishing the European Economic

Community (EEC). This agreement was to become the cornerstone of the present European Union, and is sometimes referred to as its “con­stitution.” The Treaty of Rome is a comprehen­sive undertaking, articulating monetary policy, broad economic policy, and common commer­cial policy. It set goals for research and devel­opment, and for dealing with the environment, employment, discrimination, competition, and transportation. The Treaty also established the four governing bodies of the EEC: the Council, the Commission, the Parliament, and the Euro­pean Court of Justice.

In addition to Open Skies bilateral and multilateral agreements between countries, the United States advocates and approves strategic sharing alliances between U. S. carriers and foreign carriers under “antitrust immunity” agreements with those carri­ers. Under this arrangement, the alliance partners
are free to set prices and to otherwise combine their resources in order to maximize marketing strategies that inure to the benefit of the interna­tional traveling public and to themselves. These alliances have produced significant results.

According to an early report of the DOT,12 implementation of alliances under Open Skies agreements resulted in increases in passenger traf­fic numbers, decreases in prices, and the tapping of entirely new segments of populations that are now availing themselves of international air travel for the first time. Travelers from “behind European gateways” who had never before been serviced in the transatlantic market were of particular note.

The three largest airline alliances are Star Alliance, Sky Team, and One World.13 These Alli­ances combine to carry over 82 percent of transat­lantic traffic. Alliances have extended to the world of cargo airlines as well, including ANA/UPS Alliance, Sky Team Cargo, and WOW Alliance.

Similar to code-sharing arrangements, these alliances provide on the international level many of the benefits of standard code sharing but go a step beyond because of international complications:

1. Joint booking systems. Airlines are able to sell seats through to the passenger’s destina­tion with all the passenger advantages of a seamless journey with ticketing, baggage
handling, connection timing and gate loca­tion, and with the advantage to the airlines of increasing the chance of keeping passen­gers within their network.

2, International flow. The complexities of negotiating bilateral or multilateral agree­ments are avoided or reduced by these com­binations. Airlines are able to use existing national networks on an end-to-end basis.

3. Hub systems. Creation of interlocking hub systems is possible with local feeder routes being provided by existing regional airlines.

The United States Department of Transpor­tation has the statutory authority to approve and immunize from the U. S. antitrust laws agreements relating to international air transportation.14 The DOT has granted over 20 international alliance agreements since the early 1990s, which allows those airlines to collude on prices, schedules, and marketing. Exemptions are granted provided that “the exemption is required by the public interest.”15 Exemptions granted by the DOT, therefore, are based on considerations other than fare or price.

The DOT states the U. S. foreign policy goals are a key element of these public benefits. Rec­ognized as a primary policy goal of the country is the “Open Skies” initiative announced in the early 1990s to complement and extend the effects of the economic deregulation of domestic airlines. In approving immunizations of airlines within alliances, the DOT highlights the importance of strong competition between the alliances, which can better discipline the fares and services offered to consumers. The correlation between the “Open Skies” announcement and the immunization of airline alliances can be easily seen.

Yet, the DOT has found from recent evidence that alliances do, in fact, decrease competition over the North Atlantic, resulting in higher fares for consumers. As airline practices are modified and as new data reveal the results of regulatory practices, the regulators at the DOT will be called upon, in spite of Open Skies agreements, to determine how much competition will need to be preserved in international aviation. The DOT is telegraphing that additional calls by airlines to decrease compe­tition will be harder to sell in the future.

Endnotes

1. The Economic Benefits of Air Transport, 2000 edition, The Air Transport Action Group, 33 Route de I’Aeroport, P.0. Box 49, 1215 Geneva 15, Switzerland.

2. In 2007, foreign ownership of U. S. airline companies is permitted to be in excess of 50 percent of voting and non­voting stock, but only 25 percent of voting shares.

3. The first proposal for an Open Skies agreement with the European Union, which contained liberalization of for­eign ownership rules, was voted down in the Congress even though it was supported by the Administration.

4. The countries sued were Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Fin­land, Luxembourg, and Sweden. Bruce Barnard, Kinnock Perseveres in Fight for EU-Wide Air Talks with U. S., J. Com., June 20, 1995, at 2B.

5. Dempsey, Paul, Competition in the Air: European Union Regulation of Commercial Aviation, Journal of Air Law and Commerce, Summer 2001.

6. The original Bermuda Agreement was signed in 1946.

7. Slater, Rodney, Testimony before the Aviation Subcommit­tee, U. S. House of Representatives, February 15, 2000.

8. United’s transatlantic routes to Heathrow dated back to the days when Pan American was the only international U. S. carrier. These routes were sold by Pan American to United in 1989, just before Pan Am’s liquidation.

9. Ownership of U. S. airlines is limited to 25 percent of voting stock in the airline. Cabotage, the prohibition for foreign airlines to carry revenue traffic between two U. S. cities, was also preserved.

10. 49 U. S.C. section 40118.

11. The Economic Impact of Air Service Liberalization, see the IATA website.

12. U. S. Department of Transportation, International Avia­tion Developments—Global Deregulation Takes Off (First Report) December 1999; U. S. Department of Transpor­tation, International Aviation Developments, Second Report—Transatlantic Deregulation—The Alliance Network Effect, October 2000.

13. Members of these three Alliances are as follows: Star Alliance—Adria Airways, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airlines, Asiana, Austrian, Bluel, British Midland International, Croatia Airlines, LOT Polish, Lufthansa, SAS Scandinavian, Singapore, South African, Thai Airways, Swiss, ТА Portugal, Spanair, United, US Airways, Varig; OneWorld Alliance—Aer Lingus, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, LAN Airlines, Qantas; SkyTeam Alliance—Air France-KLM, Delta Airlines, Northwest, Conti­nental, Korean Air, Alitalia, Aeroflot, Aeromexico, CSA Czech.

14. 49 U. S.C. sections 41308-41309.

15. 49 U. S.C. section 41308 (b).

«The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever, w

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

hirty-eight years before the Wright brothers’ first flight, and two years before even the transcontinental railroad was completed, wild fantasies of space exploits, a genre later to be known as “science fiction,” hit the presses. In Jules Verne’s From Earth to the Moon, published in 1865, three members of an American gun club travel to the moon aboard a spaceship launched from a columbiad1 located in Florida. The story bears an uncanny parallel to the U. S. Apollo program that operated from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to the moon 100 years later.

Between Jules Verne and Apollo, however, there was much work to be done.

For many years after the launch of Explorer I in 1958, conventional wisdom and generally held per­ception was that space activities were, and should be, the exclusive domain of national govern­ments. Only NASA, the military services, and the National Reconnaissance Agency29 were permit­ted or able to engage in launch activity. Although some commercial payloads were placed in orbit as early as the 1960s, the launching of them was strictly a government business. This view prevailed in spite of the fact that the United States has long based its successful economic system on private enterprise, with the role of government being lim­ited and supportive of the private engines of com­merce. This government-private sector symbiosis was the dynamic partnership that we described at the beginning of this book, and it has been the norm in every industrial, technical, and a scientific advance seen in the United States. We will first look at the development of the law that is making this transition possible.

The Communications Satellite Act of 1962

When Sputnik was launched on October 4, 1957, telephone communications across the oceans were sent through large undersea copper cables. Televi­sion transmissions were sight limited and unavail­able for overseas transmissions (or other long distances) due to the curvature of the earth’s sur­face. In the United States, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) advanced the idea in the early 1960s of its funding a communications satellite that could be used to relay television sig­nals across great distances, including the Atlantic Ocean to Europe.

While the promise of this great technological advancement was intriguing, the anticompetitive aspects of such an arrangement were daunting and, under American law, possibly illegal. There was also the matter of private enterprise now being inserted into space operations that had always been reserved for government function worldwide (the United States and the U. S.S. R.).

The solution was to create a quasi-public corporation to own the satellite under government regulation. This was accomplished by passage of the Communications Satellite Act of 1962, and it created Comsat Corporation as the owning and operating entity. The Telstar satellite, built by AT&T and launched by NASA on July 10, 1962, became the first direct-relay communications sat­ellite. While AT&T owned 29 percent of the cor­poration, the majority of shares were distributed so as to insure independence. AT&T controlled six directors, the other shareholders an additional six, and three were appointed by the president of the United States.

One of the problems with Telstar was that it had been placed in low earth orbit, which required movable receptor dishes to track the satellite in order to pick up its signals as it tra­versed the sky. Hughes Aircraft was a competitor of AT&T and suggested placing one of its satel­lites in geostationary orbit (GSO), which would eliminate tracking requirements of the satellite by receivers. NASA approved and the first Syncom satellite reached high orbit in 1963.

The geostationary orbit is a unique, circular orbit plane directly above the earth’s equator. By “unique” is meant that there is only one GSO, which is the orbital plane at zero degrees inclina­tion. A satellite placed in this orbit will appear to hover directly over the same point on earth above the equator at all times.30 A GSO satellite orbits at an altitude of about 22,236 miles above earth.

Since GSO is unique, the number of satellites that can be placed in it is limited. A system of slots is being monitored by the United Nations to insure fairness in allocation of GSO participation among nations.

In August 1964, a second organization was formed for the propagation of international sat­ellite telecommunications. The International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, or Intelsat, was created by 11 separate nations with control in its board of directors weighted to reflect the member nation’s volume of communi­cations. Comsat controlled over half the board of directors. Its first satellite, known as Early Bird, was purchased from Hughes Aircraft and was launched into GSO orbit in 1965.

By 1969, global coverage had been achieved by Intelsat by the placing of three satellites over the Atlantic and three over the Pacific. A sev­enth, in GSO over the Indian Ocean, linked Lon­don and Tokyo and completed the system.

Before the Europeans developed their own satellite launching systems, NASA launched foreign telecommunications satellites known as Symphonie in 1974 and 1975, owned by France and West Germany. Intelsat was by now serving some hundred different countries, some of whom had never even had local television service or had ever laid any significant telephone lines within their own borders, such as Bangladesh and large portions of Africa.

omen had been involved in aviation, I I in one way or another, since Elisabeth Thible of Lyons, France, went aloft in a hot air balloon in 1784. By 1834, some twenty-two women had piloted their own balloons on the continent of Europe. In 1886, Mary H. Myers set an altitude record of over 20,000 feet (without oxygen) in a balloon above the fields of rural Pennsylvania, and in 1903, Cuban born Aida de Acosta became the first woman to pilot a pow­ered machine in flight in a dirigible over Paris, France.

The first woman to earn a pilot’s certifi­cate anywhere in the world was Raymonde de Laroche, a French adventuress who also raced early motorcars. Granted a license by the Fed­eration Aeronautique Internacionale (F. A.I.) on March 8, 1910, she was seriously injured four months later when she crashed during an air race competing against the likes of Louis Bleriot. Both legs were broken, as was one arm, and she sustained head and internal injuries. Two years later she was again back to racing the primitive airplanes of the day. She was killed in an airplane crash in 1919 in which she was riding as a pas­senger.

Helene Dutrieu was licensed shortly after. She flew nonstop over the 28 mile stretch from Ostend to Brugges, in Belgium, only five months after her first flight. She entered an air race in

Florence, Italy, in May 1911 and, as the only woman in the field, triumphed over her 15 male competitors to win the Italian King’s Cup. She was also known for her avant-garde ways: she flew airplanes without wearing a corset.

The first American woman to make a solo flight was Blanche Stuart Scott on September 6, 1910, although without official observers to confirm, she would not receive official acknowledgment. She had previously gained some measure of notoriety by driving an Over­land motorcar from San Francisco to New York in 1910 as a publicity stunt for the Willys – Overland Company, the automobile manufac­turer. Driving through the country was so sim­ple and uncomplicated, she showed, even a woman could do it. At the time, Glenn Curtiss had founded an exhibition-flying troupe that performed around the country. Miss Scott was taught to fly at Hammondsport, N. Y. by Glenn Curtiss himself, and she became a daring and successful member of the troupe, making up to $5,000 a week at a time when the average weekly salary for men was $300 and for women was $1444

Official recognition for the first woman to solo an airplane in the United States was given to Bessica Raiche, who had earned a doctor of medicine degree at Tufts Medi­cal School in 1903. Along with her husband,
a New York City attorney, they built their own biplane in the living room of their Mine – ola, N. Y. summer home. When it was ready, they removed the front wall of the house and rolled it out into the street. Mineola Field was a center for early aviation activity and it was there in 1907 that they first tested their machine. Their airplanes went through several iterations, but by 1910 they had completed a Curtiss-type pusher biplane that was propelled by a 40 horsepower engine. Lateral control was achieved by a sort of wing flap connected to a harness worn by the pilot, which operated the wing flaps when the pilot leaned one way or the other. First trials on September 15, 1910, resulted in a crash with Bessica at the controls, but by September 26, repairs had been made and she completed the first official solo of the air­craft by an American woman. The Aeronautical Society of New York presented her with a medal in commemoration of the event with the words “the nation’s first intentional solo by a woman.”

Although the husband and wife airplane con­struction team built additional aircraft, and sold them, they each in time returned to their profes­sions of medicine and law, apparently content with their adventure.

Harriett Quimby is easily the most acknowl­edged of the early women aviators. (See Figure App 5-1.) She was a newspaper and periodical reporter in the early 1900s, living first in San Francisco and then in New York City. She was the first American woman to earn her license (number 37) from the F. A.I. on August 2, 1911. She gained international recognition as the first woman to fly the English Channel when she crossed from Dover to Hardelot, France, 25 miles south of Calais, in a borrowed Bleriot monoplane on April 16, 1912. Her brief but illustrious flying career came to an end on July 1, 1912, when she fell from her new Bleriot monoplane over Boston Harbor before 5,000 spectators. Seatbelts were not worn in those days.

It is not generally appreciated that early women aviators taught men to fly. A German, Melli Beese, started a flying school in 1912 in Berlin, and the Englishwoman Hilda Hewlett taught World War I British pilots in fighter air­craft. In the United States, Marjorie Stinson instructed Canadian airmen slated for service in Britain, having taught over 100 before she had reached the age of 22. Marjorie Stinson was the youngest licensed female pilot in the United States at age 20, and her sister, Katherine, was the fourth woman in this country to be licensed by F. A.I. Katherine also became the first woman to fly the U. S. Mail (in Montana), and became known as one of the most daring aerobatic, or stunt pilots as they were then known, in the coun­try. She made a flying tour of Japan and China in 1916, performing aerobatic maneuvers previ­ously unseen in those countries, for crowds that numbered in excess of 25,000 people. In the process she became an icon for the women of those countries, whose prevailing customs were even more restrictive for women than those in the West.

Victor Carlstrom set the American non­stop distance record on November 2, 1916 by flying 452 miles on a course between Chicago and New York. Less than three weeks later, Ruth Law, who had earned her license in 1912, broke that record over the same course by flying 590 miles from Chicago to Hornell, New York. It should be remembered that this was the route over the Allegheny Mountains that would claim the lives of many airmail pilots in the years to come. Upon reaching New York City the next day, she was acclaimed in newspapers the country over, and was feted in a series of ban­quets attended by President Woodrow Wilson, Admiral Robert E. Peary, the first man to set foot at the North Pole (April 6, 1909), and Cap­tain Roald Amundsen, first to the South Pole (December 14, 1911).

During the 1920s, women continued to enter the field of aviation, and to continue to expand the limits of their participation. Adri­enne Bolland, a Frenchwoman who was licensed in 1920, set an aerobatic record by performing 212 consecutive loops that year. She then had her airplane shipped to Argentina and flew it from Mendoza to Chile, becoming the first woman to cross the Andes by airplane on April 1, 1921.

Facing both gender and race barriers to her aspirations, Bessie Coleman became the first black female pilot licensed by F. A.I. on June 15, 1921. She was taught to fly at Ecole d’Aviation des Freres in Le Crotoy, France, and was the only woman in her 62-person class. Bessie Coleman had arrived in France by way of Atlanta, Texas, her birthplace, and from Chi­cago, where she had lived after leaving Texas. Her two older brothers had been in the U. S. Army in France during World War I, and had returned with stories of life there, and especially about women aviators. Bessie was befriended by the publisher of The Chicago Defender, Robert Abbott, who assisted her in her aspira­tions to travel to France for flying lessons. On her return to the United States, he sponsored flying exhibitions, which featured her as “the world’s greatest woman flyer.” She attained countrywide recognition on her own merit, and became an advocate for equal rights for all people. She was killed when she fell from the open cockpit of her biplane on April 30, 1926 while preparing for an exhibition in Jackson­ville, Florida.

Sophie Mary Pierce (later Lady Mary Heath), was an Irishwoman who emigrated to England and became known for her athletic prowess as a member of the Great Britain Ath­letics Olympic Team in the early 1920s. She wrote Athletics for Women and Girls: How to Be an Athlete and Why in 1925, which followed her presentations to the International Olympic Committee that same year. She shared the world record for the women’s high jump and became British javelin champion. In 1926 she was granted a commercial airplane license by the International Commission for Air Naviga­tion after successfully contesting the Commis­sion’s ban on awarding commercial licenses to women. She held several altitude records for light planes. In 1927-28, less than a year after Lindbergh’s solo flight over the Atlantic, she made the first solo flight from Capetown, South Africa to Cairo in an Avro Avian monoplane, and then extended that with a flight on to Lon­don. She then began a tour of England and the United States, being received by President and Mrs. Coolidge in 1928. The Jacksonville Jour­nal recorded her visit to that Florida city on January 4, 1929:

She made the wings fast in flying posi­tion, climbing around the plane like a great cat. . . She was clad in a colorful cre­tonne smock and wore high, soft leather boots . . . She spun the propeller and started the engine herself while a score of men and boys stood open-mouthed in a semi-circle.

These were some of the women who pre­ceded Amelia Earhart.

Endnote

1. <Camps, Enriqueta, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, April 2001, http://www. clarku. edu/faculty/brown/papers/campl. pdf>.

From the time that the RLA was applied to the airline industry in 1936, there were no strikes until 1946, when the first Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) was established in a dispute between TWA and its pilots. Six more PEBs followed dur­ing the late 1940s, and then 19 occurred during

the 1950s—11 during 1957 alone. These 1957 strikes involved Eastern, National, Capital, North­east, Northwest, United, TWA, and American. Most of these involved the mechanics, although two were pilot initiated. Through 1978, domestic airlines had experienced a total of 191 strikes.

The number of strikes decreased signifi­cantly after deregulation. Only 19 strikes of domestic passenger airlines have been called since 1978, 12 of them before 1990. The duration of these strikes ranged from 2 years to 24 min­utes. See Table 29-2 for a summary of strike inci­dences, presidential interventions, and nonstrike work actions between 1978 and 2002.

Presidential interventions may include the convening of a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB), or they may be limited to pressuring or “jawboning” with the parties. The president has also intervened in labor-management disputes to recommend binding arbitration. PEBs are normally not instituted except in circumstances where significant interstate commerce disruption is expected to result. See Table 29-3.

Work actions, which is the term for union organized slowdowns, sickouts, or other nonstrike activity, have increased since deregulation. Many of these disruptions go unheralded, but there have been 10 instances of such activity that have been recognized by various courts as being in violation of the RLA. Some of these nonstrike work actions
are presented by labor in a context of safety con­cerns. One tactic used by Alaska flight atten­dants was a technique called “CE1AOS” (Creating Havoc Around Our System) that involved inter­mittent but unpredictable walkouts. These tactics do not shut down the airline but attempt to make their point by harassment. See Table 29-4.

The concept of the “regional aircraft” was bom after World War II to describe the kind of air­planes used by feeder airlines or local service airlines authorized by the CAB to supplement the mainstay air carrier fleet. These airplanes were thus described to differentiate them from the long-haul aircraft flown by trunk carriers. At first these aircraft were older aircraft previously flown by the trunk lines, like the DC-3; Convair 240, 340, and 440; and the first commercial tur­boprop, the Vickers Viscount.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, a new kind of turboprop was conceived to service the short-haul and feeder market. These were airplanes like the high-winged, 28-seat Fokker F27, delivered in 1958, and larger iterations of the same basic design. The F27 and its successor types would go on to become the most successful turboprop of all time. In 1963, the low-winged Avro 748 turboprop took to the skies, carrying over 20 passengers.

Turboprops worked well in this market, as their operating characteristics allowed them to service smaller airports, and their fuel economy was much better than turbojets. After deregula­tion, and during the 1980s, other manufacturers entered the 30- to 40-seat commuter market, like De Havilland with the Dash 8, also a high – wing turboprop. While these turboprops were well liked by passengers because of their relative roominess, they were slow compared to jets.

The regional jet (RJ) was introduced into the aviation community in 1992 by the Cana­dian aircraft manufacturer, Bombardier, with its 50-seat CRJ100 (Canadair Regional Jet), in part fashioned on its business jet, the Challenger 604. In 1998, the company announced a stretched version holding 64 to 70 seats, designated the CRJ700, Series 701, and the 75-seat CRJ700, Series 705. A 90-seat version, CRJ900, joined the fleet in 2001. Canadair had some 55 percent of the regional jet market in 2002.

The Brazilian aircraft manufacturer, Embraer (Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica, South Amer­ica) entered the field in 1996 with the ERJ145, with 50 seats. The 35-seat ERJ135 was intro­duced into service in June 1999 to begin replac­ing the Brasilia, Embraer’s turboprop workhorse. In 1999, Embraer launched a new family of twin-engine passenger aircraft consisting of the EMB170, 175, 190, and 195 jets with seating in the 70 to 110 range. The first of this new fam­ily, the 170, flew on February 19, 2002. Embraer claimed about 40 percent of the regional jet mar­ket in 2002.

The Embraer 190 received FA A certifica­tion in September 2005. JetBlue Airways took the first delivery of this 106-seat RJ and ordered 100 more. The EMB190 is a state-of-the-art airplane, which relies on digital modeling and virtual reality concepts in its design. This air­plane has an all-digital cockpit and is equipped with fly-by-wire flight controls except for aile­rons. Winglets at the wing tips are standard. The fuselage design features the “double bubble” idea, instead of the traditional circular cross sec­tion, which provides the look and feel of a larger cabin. There are no “middle” seats in its 2 by 2 seating configuration.

The Sukhoi Superjet 100 is a 75- to 95-seat RJ, developed by the Russian aerospace firm Sukhoi in collaboration with Ilyushin and Boeing and with subsidy from the Russian government. Its first flight occurred in May 2008 and on February 3, 2012 the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued a type certificate for the airplane. The first aircraft was delivered to Amavia, an Armenian airline, and eight others have been delivered to the Russian company Aeroflot. Although orders and options are pending with other airlines and leasing com­panies, no other deliveries have been made. On May 9, 2012, a Superjet 100 on a demonstration flight out of Jakarta, Indonesia crashed into the side of a mountain, killing all 45 passengers aboard.

The Chinese are in the developmental stage of an RJ called the ARJ 21, with 80 seats for the first phase production and 100 seats for its next phase. Deployment of this aircraft was originally announced for 2008, but delays of various kinds have now pushed delivery to at least 2013.

There have been few other entrants into the RJ production market. Fairchild Dornier, a sub­sidiary of the U. S.-German partnership, Fairchild Aerospace Corporation, marketed the 329Jet. Production stopped with Fairchild’s financial reverses in the 1990s. The only other manufac­turer of regional jets was Aero International, a consortium composed of Aerospatiale, Ale – nia, and British Aerospace. The BAE 146 series became the Avro RJ series (RJ 70/85/100) and 160 of these were produced before BAE Systems announced their discontinuation in the last quar­ter of 2001.

The history of the regional jet is not quite ready to be written in full, but there are signs that this concept has just about run its course. During the 1990s, RJs began to replace the tur­boprops used by commuter airlines. As airlines reconfigured and modified their hub and spoke concepts to utilize RJs, these small jets became commonplace and relatively popular in that ser­vice. The regional jets are faster, the engines are more reliable, and engine maintenance costs are lower. But compared to turboprops, the original small RJs were much more expensive to oper­ate on a per seat basis. They were also more cramped than the larger turboprops, had less carry-on storage space, had lavatory issues, and minimal flight attendant service.

As seen above, the trend in RJ size has con­sistently been toward larger and larger aircraft. As the new RJ designs have increased their seat­ing capacity, the line between a medium-sized jet and a so-called RJ has been blurred. The Airbus 319, for instance, is normally configured for 124 seats, not much larger than the latest RJs. In 2005, a JetBlue spokesman refused to categorize the EMB190 as an RJ, saying that the aircraft was designed to fill the gap left by the DC-9. Many of these airplanes are being used by JetBlue to overfly hubs on point-to-point service (Orlando-MCO to Buffalo-BUF, for example).

The original RJ concept that emerged during the 1990s of producing jets to replace similar­sized turboprops is being phased out. Bombar­dier, for example, stopped production of its 50-seater in January 2006 and there is only lim­ited production of the ERJ145 under license in China.

Because experience has shown that operat­ing costs of RJs can make sense only on longer routes (400 miles seems to be the minimum), and as per seat operating costs, particularly fuel, have caused so-called “regional jets” to become larger, a market is appearing for a new era of turboprop aircraft to fill that niche. Most short-haul routes are less than 350 miles. Rising fuel prices have only reinforced this idea. Turboprops use about 30 percent less fuel than RJs.

The United States jet fleet is composed of four classes of aircraft: large, twin-aisle, single­aisle, and regional jet. In 1990, RJs accounted for 13 percent of this total, and by 2010 the RJ per­centage had risen to only 15 percent. By refer­ence to the chart in Figure 30-5, you will see that Boeing’s prediction is that RJs in 2030 will have shrunk to only 5 percent of the jet fleet while the total number of jet aircraft will have doubled.

There were only two companies producing turboprops in the 40-seat-plus capacity range as of 2007: Bombardier and ATR. The economic factors discussed above have caused increased orders for these companies’ turboprop aircraft. ATR as of July 2012 planned to boost production by 60 percent, to a rate of more than seven air­craft per month by 2014.

The old De Havilland Dash 8 production unit, which delivered the first Dash 8 in 1984, was sold first to Boeing and then to Bombardier in 1992. Bombardier turboprops are the Q100, first delivered in 1984 (33-37 seats); the Q200, first delivered in 1989 (33-37 seats); the Q300, a stretched version of the 100 (48-50 seats); and the Q400, first delivered in 2000 (68-78 seats). These airplanes have been fitted with a computer controlled noise and vibration suppression sys­tem since 1996 (the “Q” denotes “Quiet”), and produce a cabin decibel level equivalent to the CRJ regional jet. The Q400 has an impressive maximum cruise speed of 360 knots.

The European consortium ATR is a joint venture between EADS and Alenia Aeronautica. It produces the ATR 42-500 (48-50 seats) with a maximum cruise speed of 300 knots, and the ATR 72-500 (68-74 seats) with a maximum cruise speed of 276 knots.

Opening up smaller airports in point-to – point service by the use of RJs could also bring access to airline travel closer to home for the average traveler. Ninety percent of the country’s population lives within 30 miles of an airport, yet only 64 airports (1 percent of all airports) serve 80 percent of passengers enplaned in the United States.7

hroughout the period of Civil Aeronautics Board regulation of air carrier routes and rates, airports competed with each other for the limited amount of traffic that was available. Traffic was limited not only because CAB policy restricted the number of available routes, but also because it mandated high airfares. During the 1950s, 1960s, and most of the 1970s, airports maintained mar­keting departments whose functions included lob­bying the airlines and the CAB for service.

After deregulation, the passenger counts flowing through the airports of the United States increased by a factor of three over those in 1978, with an all-time high of over 726 million in 2007.1 The problem was no longer one of how to secure more service; rather it was one of how to service the existing, and increasing, traffic.

Commercial-service airports were suddenly faced with the need for more gates and runways (airside expansion) and for more groundside support facilities (parking, restaurants, rental car counters, ticket counters, and shops). Meth­ods of funding for renovation and expansion had to be addressed anew. The developing oper­ational practice of the airlines known as hub and spoke, with its concentration of passenger arrivals and departures all at the same time, put severe pressure on airport operations. Control of
existing gates had to be reevaluated in view of the increasing number of airlines requiring access to the limited number of available gates. Envi­ronmental concerns, both from increased aircraft operations and from ground traffic to and from the airports, brought additional pressures on air­port management practices.

The commercial air service industry consists of three essential components:

1. Air carriers

2. Air traffic control (АТС)

3. Airports

While all three of these components must combine to function in an orderly and cohesive manner, the provisions of the Airline Deregula­tion Act directly controlled only the air carriers. In other words, only the air carrier portion of this combination had been deregulated. The federal government is solely responsible for the opera­tion of the АТС system, and it is significantly involved in the operation of airports. Airports operate under a matrix of federal regulations, and commercial-service airports are all owned by local, regional, or state governments or their political subdivisions. While deregulation had unleashed the power and innovative potential of

FAA Forecast

Total Operations Not Projected to Return to 2000 Levels in the Foreseeable Future

Ф>ф>ф>ф><їґф>ф>ф>’уф>фіф>ф,‘уфіфіфіф>ф>ф>ф>&ф>ф, ф>&ф>&ф>’р,<іґ,<1ґ’і? FIGURE 33-1 FAA forecasts suggest breathing room for airports.

Source: FAA Forecast Table 32 (http://www. faa. gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/apl/aviation_forecasts/aerospace_forecasts/ 2012-2032/))

private enterprise in air carrier operations, the inherent limitations of government control in the АТС and airport sectors still overlay, and con­strain, that potential. We will review how these factors have impacted modern airport operations.

In 1990, the first comprehensive airport noise regulation statute, the Airport Noise and Capac­ity Act (ANCA), became law.

ANCA recognized that a national aviation noise policy was vital to the fitness of the coun­try’s air transportation system. Former Secretary of Transportation Samuel Skinner is on record as asserting that ANCA is “the most significant piece of aviation legislation since the deregula­tion act.” ANCA effectively altered the land­scape in matters of aviation noise.

Federal noise regulations in 1990 classified aircraft as Stage 1, Stage 2, or Stage 3 aircraft, with Stage 1 being the loudest. All Stage 1 air­craft have been phased out of service. ANCA mandated that no Stage 2 aircraft could be added to the fleet or imported into the United States after November 5, 1990, and that all unmodi­fied Stage 2 aircraft be phased out of service by December 31, 1999. Stage 2 aircraft include the 727, DC-9, and early versions of the 737 and 747. These airplanes were developed in the 1960s and 1970s.

Stage 3 aircraft must meet separate stan­dards for takeoff, landing, and sideline measure­ments, depending on the aircraft’s weight and number of engines. Stage 3 aircraft are the newer and quieter 757, 767, and MD-80 series, later versions of the 737 and 747, and aircraft that have been retrofitted with quieter engines by the noise reducing “hush kits.”

Under the provisions of ANCA, which apply to aircraft of at least 75,000 pounds certificated weight, airport operators were specifically reg­ulated as to when and how they could restrict Stage 2 and Stage 3 aircraft operations at their local airports, reaffirming the supremacy of the federal government over aviation policy in the

United States. Airport operators were prohibited from issuing unilateral restrictions on Stage 3 aircraft, since such aircraft comprise the state-of – the-art in aircraft noise. To paraphrase, the federal government in effect said, “This is the best we can do in engine noise, these are the airplanes that are necessary to be used in air transportation, and they will be allowed to fly no matter what the locals say.” Any attempted local regulation of Stage 3 aircraft would thus amount to an unlawful usurpa­tion of the federal prerogatives regarding aviation. Subject to due process safeguards, such as notice and opportunity to be heard, airport proprietors were allowed to apply certain reasonable restric­tions on the operation of Stage 2 aircraft as long as such local authorities did not impair the national policy of “phase out” articulated in the statute.

The ICAO standards for aircraft noise are contained in “Chapters” to the above-referenced publication known as Annex 16, Environmen­tal Protection, Volume I, which deals with air­craft noise. The work done at ICAO on aircraft noise is also performed in the aforementioned Committee on Aviation Environmental Protec­tion (CAEP), which was established in 1983. Its Chapters 2 and 3 fairly track the standards found in the FAA’s designation of Stage 2 and Stage 3 aircraft.

In June 2001, ICAO adopted new, more stringent noise standards, as recommended by CAEP, which went into effect on January 1, 2006. These standards mandate a noise reduc­tion level of 10 dB below the standards previ­ously required (Chapter 3). These standards are referred to as Chapter 4 standards by ICAO.

These standards were adopted by the FAA by rule on July 5, 2005, designated as Stage 4 standards by the FAA, which also went into effect on January 1, 2006.4 These noise standards are intended to provide uniform noise certifica­tion standards for Stage 4 airplanes certificated in the United States. There is no weight limitation or exclusion for airplane type designs submitted after January 1, 2006; thus, all aircraft types will be subject to the Stage 4 noise standards.

Care should be taken to note the difference between the requirements of ANCA and the new FAA rule. ANCA, which requires compliance with Stage 3 standards, only applies to aircraft with certificated weight of 75,000 pounds and above. The new FAA rule, which requires new type designs to comply with Stage 4 standards, applies to all new airplane type design submis­sions, regardless of weight.

Although noise control of aircraft is exclu­sively a federal function, airport authorities and local governments do have the option to mitigate noise effects through land use controls, such as zoning and land acquisition, which the FAA agrees is the exclusive domain of state and local governments. Indeed, federal policy respecting Airport Improvement Program (AIP) funding favors the use of such funds for that purpose. Airport operators applying for funds for these purposes must design noise exposure maps and develop mitigation programs consistent with federal requirements to insure that noise levels are compatible with adjacent land uses. Noise compatibility projects include residential and public building sound insulation. They include land acquisition and relocating residents from noise-sensitive areas. Airports have also installed noise monitoring equipment and noise barriers to reduce ground run-up noise.

ANCA also provides for additional funding sources by permitting the use of passenger facil­ity charges (PFCs) for land use control. Airports have collected and used PFC funds for noise stud­ies and mitigation totaling $15 billion as of 2005.

Overall, ANCA provides a framework for the implementation of a national policy of aircraft noise control, and reaffirms that local govern­ments have the continuing obligation to adhere to that policy and to cooperate with federal authori­ties to secure the achievement of such national interests. The policy is working. According to sta­tistics supplied by FAA, exposure to airline noise has decreased significantly and consistently from 1975 to 2001. Airline noise levels are calculated using the number of persons exposed to 65 dbA, in millions. In 1975, some 7 million people were subject to noise levels in excess of that number, while in 2001, the number of persons exposed to 65 dbA had declined to just 0.4 million. (See Figure 34-5.)

Through FAA efforts, under the AIP set – aside programs, residential and school popu­lations in the hundreds of thousands are now exposed to reduced aircraft noise (at or below 65 dbA) as of 2010.

Continuous Lower Emission, Energy, and Noise Program (CLEEN)

The CLEEN program was initiated by the FAA in a partnership format with the aviation industry with the objective of reducing aircraft fuel bum by 33 percent and reducing oxides of nitrogen by 60 percent compared to ICAO emissions standards. This voluntary effort attempts to get out in front of the regulatory scheme favored by the EU (and acceded to by the FAA under ICAO guidelines).

The program also seeks to reduce aircraft noise by 32 decibels from the current ICAO standard. Technologies include lighter and more efficient gas turbine engine components, noise – reducing engine nozzles, adaptable wing trail­ing edges, optimized flight trajectories using NextGen flight management systems, and open rotor and geared turbofan engines. The CLEEN program will accelerate the development of these technologies for potential introduction into air­craft and engines beginning in 2015. [19] [20]

Shortly after American entered Chapter 11, US Airways launched a hostile bid to cause a merger of the two airlines while American is under bank­ruptcy protection. While management at Ameri­can initially resisted this move, the unions of both airlines, the creditors of American, and the stockholders of both airlines ultimately came out in favor of it. In February 2013, the companies

announced agreement to the plan of merger, sub­ject to the approval of the Bankruptcy Judge and the Justice Department.

The merger plan agreed to by the compa­nies’ boards of directors includes combining the airlines under the American Airlines brand, but with the US Airways management team in charge. The US Airways name would cease to exist. Creditors of American would receive the largest part of the stock of the new company, which is expected to reimburse them in full, with interest. US Airways stockholders would receive the balance of new company stock, except for a carve out of 3.5 percent for existing stockholders of American Airways.16

If approved, the new American Airlines company would be the largest airline in the world and would be a commanding presence in eight of the busiest airports in the United States. (See Fig. 35-22.) It would also remain a member of the Oneworld global airline alliance. The new arrangement would give American Airlines a 26 percent U. S. market share, with United at 19.3 percent, Delta at 19.2 percent, Southwest at

18.2 percent, and all other airlines combining for

17.3 percent.

Informed sources uniformly predicted gov­ernment acceptance of the proposed merger plan based on prior merger approvals of United – Continental, Delta-Northwest and Southwest-Air

Tran. But on August 13, 2013, the Department of Justice, joined by six states and the District of Columbia filed suit to block the merger. This action came as a particular surprise since the European Commission had approved the basic plan only a week earlier. The proposed merger partners announced their full intention to fight the lawsuit and they expect to prevail. The most recent conventional wisdom is to expect some sort of compromise with the DOJ to lessen any anti-competitive effects of the proposed merger.

During the period 2000 through 2012 the domestic airline industry went through signifi­cant consolidation, yet airline fares rose at a rate less than food (27 percent), beverage prices (38 percent), and housing costs (30 percent). The average increase in prices of all items monitored by the federal government increased 32 percent. The monitored airline fares, however, do not include the add-on fees that airlines have increas­ingly imposed on travelers in recent years.