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The
Small Aircraft Revolution
Fasten
your seatbelts, folks, the commercial aviation system
built around big planes and big airports is in for a
bumpy ride. In the aviation of the future, small is
beautiful.
Shahid
"Sid" Siddiqi, an advocate for NASA’s small aircraft
transportation system, doesn’t just talk the talk, he
walks the walk.... or flies the fly…. whatever it is
that pilots do. Working out of the NASA/Langley facility
in Hampton, he declares it a "no brainer" to
hop up to Washington, D.C., in his '80s-era Mooney
rather than take a three-hour car trip. If he can
arrange a meeting with state aviation officials, he'll even fly to
one of the small airports outside Richmond -- a 15-minute flight. Says he: "My motto
is, I don't drive more than 100 miles."
The
United States stands on the verge of a revolution in
small aircraft transportation -- a revolution that will
transform the logic of where people choose to live and
where companies do business. Siddiqi, in charge of
outreach for the National Consortium for Aviation
Mobility, is doing his
utmost to hurry it along. With aircraft manufacturers
developing new generations of smaller, more economical
jet aircraft, and entrepreneurs devising alternatives to
big-jet, commercial aviation, Siddiqi is undertaking the
missionary work for NASA technologies that will make it
safer and more cost effective to fly in and out of
hundreds of small-town and suburban airports.
The
small aircraft revolution is disrupting the air
transportation system that has prevailed since
deregulation of the airline industry in 1978. That
system provides excellent air service to 30 or so of the
largest cities in the U.S., but has left smaller 'burgs
and 'villes off the beaten flight path. Now, declares
Siddiqi, a slightly built, white-haired man who radiates
passion for his subject, new technology is transforming
the economics that once favored the big cities so
lopsidedly.
Virginians are among the greatest potential
beneficiaries of the small aircraft revolution. First,
access will improve to Danville, Lynchburg, Staunton/Harrisonburg,
Charlottesville and other
communities lacking meaningful commercial
service. Second, small aircraft could provide an
alternative for middle-tier cities like Richmond
and Roanoke that have a tough time competing with
airport-hub cities like Atlanta, Charlotte and Washington
for cheaper flights and more direct connections.
The
travails of the commercial airlines are well known. US
Air, the dominant carrier in Virginia, has filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time; other major
carriers are expected to follow suit. Conventional
analysis attributes the woes of the large carriers to
competition from nimble regional airlines, like
Dulles-based Independence Air, flying smaller jets and
operating free from burdensome union contracts. For all
the disruptive impact of companies like Independence
Air, however, the small aircraft revolution has
barely begun.
Americans
take approximately 600 million airplane trips per year,
says Siddiqi. The average flight is 700 to 800 miles; of
the 10 most heavily traveled airline routes, only two
could be considered remotely long distance. The short
and intermediate distance flights are vulnerable to
competition from smaller planes that can fly point to
point, often landing in underutilized general aviation
airports. While smaller aircraft
may have higher costs per passenger-mile, they save
their passengers time and convenience. No
check-in hassles. No switching flights. No missed
connections. No waiting for baggage.
Siddiqi
says that very light jets are scheduled to hit the
marketplace by 2006, bringing down the cost per
passenger mile to about twice that of the commercial
airlines. Meanwhile, a slew of entrepreneurs are
developing new business models to take advantage of
these craft. The future isn't more regularly scheduled
passenger flights, it's more flexible access to
airplanes that allow passengers fly where they want,
when they want. Expect to see more chartered
aircraft, more shared ownership -- even air taxis.
Pogo,
launched earlier this year by the former founder of
People Express and the former CEO of American Airlines, will use
next-generation aircraft to fly passengers between some
5,000 small- to medium-sized airports around the
country. Here's how the Pogo corporate website puts it:
Imagine
being able to use the airports closest to where you
are and where you want to go, rather than the airports
that are convenient for the airlines. Most of these
small- to medium-sized airports are used by a
relatively small number of private aircraft owners,
training schools, corporate jets, and independent
charter operations. ... All lack huge terminals,
ticketing and waiting areas, and time-consuming and
intrusive security screening arrangements. Since
flying with POGO is a personalized, on-your-schedule
experience, you will spend very little time — only
minutes — at the airport.
By
sharing rides, suggests Siddiqi, passengers often will
be able to keep fares low. Say three people
want to fly from Westchester, N.Y. to Dekalb Peachtree
Airport in Atlanta. They commission a plane, but there
are two empty seats. The flight gets posted on an Internet
board. Anyone can sign up until the last minute, and
when they do, the price gets cut for all.
Increased flexibility is especially important to
professionals and business executives who place a
premium on the value of their time, Siddiqi notes.
Shaving four hours off a round trip may provide ample justification for
taking a point-to-point flight. In some cases, an air
taxi might even save the traveler the necessity of spending
a
night out of town, with attendant savings in meals and
lodging.
NASA
wants to facilitate the transition to small aircraft by addressing constraints on
small airport capacity. The
purpose of the NASA Small Aircraft Transportation System
(SATS), developed primarily at NASA/Langley in Hampton,
is to upgrade the infrastructure of the small
airports to inexpensively accommodate flights 24/7, in good weather and bad. There are four main components to
the initiative:
-
Systems
that improve single-pilot performance, eliminating
the need, in many instances, for small planes to
have co-pilots.
NASA/Langley
selected the Danville Airport as the first test site for
the overlapping technologies. The aerospace agency plans
a public demonstration of SATS in
mid-June next year.
The small aircraft transportation system could make a
huge difference to a small city like Danville. Right now, commercial
airline service is minimal. Many business travelers
drive to Raleigh or Greensboro, more than an hour away.
By enabling 24/7 service, SATS would make Danville more attractive to business
jets, charter flights and air taxi services. In one bold
stroke, Danville could address
one of the main drawbacks to living and doing
business there. Superior air service, combined
with the Southside regional initiative to improve
broadband Internet connectivity, could reduce the city's isolation from major business
centers.
What works for Danville could work for a host of
other smaller business and industrial centers Virginia:
Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Staunton/Harrisonburg,
Blacksburg, Bristol, Winchester, Martinsville... SATS
could even change the transportation dynamics for a city
like Richmond which has among the fewest direct flights
and more expensive air fares of any city its size. For
years, city fathers have been beating their heads
against the tarmac trying to lure a low-fare airline to
Richmond International Airport. If they can't induce a
major competitor to Richmond International, maybe they
should try luring Pogo's air taxi service.
As
the price of shared aircraft services continues to
decline, Siddiqi sees a mass market opening up. Imagine
a family of five living in Alexandria planning a long weekend
trip to Hot Springs. How much would it be worth to be
able to book reservations for an air taxi to pick up
everyone at 6:15 p.m., right after Sissy's soccer game,
and check into the Homestead an hour later, just in time
to enjoy a gourmet dinner? How much would it be worth to a
family in Richmond to be able to leapfrog the Outer
Banks traffic congestion and fly to Ocracoke Island, reducing travel time
from six hours to two?
As
Siddiqi has learned from personal experience, the freedom to fly means a lot. A couple of
months ago, his sister in Illinois came to visit cousins in New Jersey, just west of
New York City. "Saturday morning, I hit the
[Newport News] airport at 8 a.m." he says. "I flew to New Jersey.
There was an airport five miles away [from my cousins]. It only took me
two hours to get to their house. ... I had dinner with
them, then came home that evening."
Not
everyone can pilot their own plane, but in our hurried
world where time=money, Siddiqi sees the small aircraft
revolution transforming business and personal decisions
in ways that we can only begin to imagine.
--
October
18, 2004
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