U.S. Air Travel

[+ sync]

For someone like me, whose knuckles are white from the instant the plane ticket is purchased until I'm on the ground again from the return flight, the following is way TMI:

August 21, 2023

By German Lopez

 

La Guardia Airport.Desiree Rios/The New York Times

Close calls

The U.S. has not had a fatal plane crash involving a commercial airline in more than 14 years — an incredible safety achievement.

But the elaborate system that keeps planes from crashing is struggling. In recent years, air traffic controllers, who guide planes out of harm’s way, have suffered a staff shortage. Out of 313 air traffic control facilities nationwide, just three as of May met staff targets set by the Federal Aviation Administration and the union representing controllers.

Aviation officials worry the shortage is leading to close calls, in which planes nearly crash. There were at least 46 near misses involving commercial airlines last month, according to an investigation by my colleagues Sydney Ember and Emily Steel that published this morning. Those close calls are still a small fraction of the nearly 1.4 million flights in the U.S. each month, and it is not clear whether the rate is increasing.

But any close call is dangerous, potentially leading to a fatal crash that breaks America’s safety streak. As a spokesman for the F.A.A. said, “One close call is one too many.” The agency’s goal is to reduce the number of such near misses to zero. Staff shortages make that harder.

“The controllers we’ve talked to take real pride in their job, and they work really hard to make sure these planes are safe,” Emily told me. “But they’re worried that the circumstances around their jobs could make them slip up and that those mistakes could be very dangerous.”

What is behind the shortage? Part of the problem goes back decades: In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan fired thousands of air traffic controllers who were on strike. The F.A.A. then hired new controllers. Many retired when they became eligible to do so 20 years later. And now, another 20 years later, another wave of controllers is retiring.

Chronic disinvestment in government services is another cause. Over the past decade, the number of fully trained controllers has fallen 10 percent, while airport traffic has increased 5 percent. The F.A.A. has asked for more money to increase hiring. Even if the agency receives those funds, it will take time to hire new controllers and train them.

In the meantime, the U.S. risks more close calls. Some in aviation worry it’s only a matter of time before the overworked system fails to stop a deadly crash.

“Aviation officials will say that we have the safest system in the world,” Sydney said. “But underlying that success are risks and issues that deserve attention.”

 

 

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

Statistics are everything. 

You're more likely to die in a car accident on the way to or from the airport. 

Air travel is incredibly safe. 

If you want to have fear, at least be afraid of something that makes numerical sense. 

[+ sync]

25 minutes ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

Statistics are everything. 

You're more likely to die in a car accident on the way to or from the airport. 

Air travel is incredibly safe. 

If you want to have fear, at least be afraid of something that makes numerical sense. 

Air travel safety professionals have raised concerns about the safety of U.S. air travel. Numerical sense?  I prefer common sense.

[Guest]

Anyone worried about near-crashes in aviation should be a lot more concerned about actual crashes on the road. You should also add to that the countless near-crashes which happen on the road almost every second. One would be wise to put things into perspective. No commercial plane crashes in the US in over a decade. 

How Many People Die From Car Accidents Each Year?

WWW.FORBES.COM

---

Car accidents are annually responsible for approximately 1.3 million deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In the United States, the...

"...In the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) projects there were an estimated 42,915 traffic fatalities in 2021...". Of course, this doesn't mean one should accept the mistakes of crappy air traffic controllers. 

Edited August 22, 2023 by Unicorn

[+ DynamicUno]

1. US air travel is incredibly safe and is the safest mode of travel by the statistics

2. The US air travel infrastructure is under severe strain from aging systems and staffing and requires exceptional investment to avoid a major incident.

Both statements are true and not contradictory.  The people maintaining and keeping our skies safe aren't recognized by the public at large for the work they do every day.  

By the statistics, I am far more likely to die in a car crash on the way to the airport than in a incident on the aircraft.  But there remains a very small probability of it happening, and an even smaller probability of me being on that flight. I can accept the risk, and also support the necessary investments needed to keep that risk as low as possible.

 

Edited August 22, 2023 by DynamicUno

[+ sync]

2 minutes ago, Unicorn said:

Anyone worried about near-crashes in aviation should be a lot more concerned about actual crashes on the road. You should also add to that the countless near-crashes which happen on the road almost every second. One would be wise to put things into perspective. No plane crashes in the US in over a decade. 

How Many People Die From Car Accidents Each Year?

WWW.FORBES.COM

---

Car accidents are annually responsible for approximately 1.3 million deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In the United States, the...

"...In the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) projects there were an estimated 42,915 traffic fatalities in 2021...". Of course, this doesn't mean one should accept the mistakes of crappy air traffic controllers. 

It's not just "anyone" worried about near-crashes in aviation, it's the people most knowledgeable about them.

[+ Pensant]

It’s worrisome, especially down the road.

[MikeThomas]

Love the blame it on Reagan dig. So NYTs 

[Bokomaru]

10 minutes ago, MikeThomas said:

Love the blame it on Reagan dig. So NYTs 

Sorry but it’s mostly true. Congress could have fixed it by now, that’s true also! But definitely the problem is cyclical because of the Reagan era firings. I’m not arguing that he should or shouldn’t have done that. The strike was illegal and would have affected the country terribly. 
I attempted to become a controller in the early 90s. I even had a close friend who worked as a controller at a center (not airport) who was helping me. It was a no-go.  Nearly the entire lot of them were hired all at once after the mass firing. There was no more hiring for quite a few years (the odd replacements that were done were sourced from controllers who were ex-military with experience).

[EZEtoGRU]

I’m more concerned with the quality of the on-board service of US carriers than I am about the plane crashing. I’ve never seen such a sorry state of service on domestic U.S. flights in almost 40 years of heavy flying. I normally fly in the premium cabins.  Even transcons in the First or business cabin have turned into a real shitshow.   Anyway, that’s a topic for a different thread. 
 

 

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

12 hours ago, sync said:

I prefer common sense.

I prefer not crying that the sky is falling until it actually is.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

5 minutes ago, EZEtoGRU said:

I’m more concerned with the quality of the on-board service of US carriers than I am about the plane crashing. I’ve never seen such a sorry state of service on domestic U.S. flights in almost 40 years of heavy flying. I normally fly in the premium cabins.  Even transcons in the First or business cabin have turned into a real shitshow.   Anyway, that’s a topic for a different thread. 

I'm going to have to agree with this one. 

Service on US carriers is now shit, no matter where you're sitting on the plane.

Edited August 22, 2023 by BenjaminNicholas
Edit to add 'US carriers'

[+ sync]

2 minutes ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

I prefer not crying that the sky is falling until it actually is.

As did the climate-change deniers.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

2 minutes ago, sync said:

As did the climate-change deniers.

You just lost me with that strawman.  Stick to the topic we're talking about.

Focus.

[+ sync]

Just now, BenjaminNicholas said:

You just lost me with that strawman.  Stick to the topic we're talking about.

Focus.

Personal attacks = no argument.

[+ DynamicUno]

One of the big challenges for the commercial aviation industry is bringing in new workers as people are aging out of the workforce.  The airlines have gotten used to running frequent flights with smaller aircraft, meaning more flight crews are needed to keep certain routes going daily.  A lot of the mass cancellations events recently are due lack of enough staff, often after a disruption that puts people and assets in the wrong places.

So one thing that might be needed is for the airlines to use larger craft and reduce the number of flights per day between certain cities, but that means changing the fleet which takes time.

[Luv2play]

16 hours ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

Statistics are everything. 

You're more likely to die in a car accident on the way to or from the airport. 

Air travel is incredibly safe. 

If you want to have fear, at least be afraid of something that makes numerical sense. 

The problem is hundreds usually die in a major airplane crash, which is not true of a car accident even in a major pileup on a freeway. When two planes are involved the fatalities exceed 500. All at once. It's a major traumatising event.

Thankfully these types of disasters are rare today. For those of us old enough, they were quite commonplace in the 1960's  and 70's, which is when I started flying, a lot. That was the era of the start of mass flying in jet airliners.

A lot of new planes were introduced and a lot of bugs had to be worked out, at the expense of mass casualties. The headlines were daunting. Today's generation of flyers has no recollection of this time. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, sync said:

Personal attacks = no argument.

That was not a personal attack. @BenjaminNicholas was simply commenting on your deflection of the topic at hand. 

[+ sync]

2 hours ago, Unicorn said:

That was not a personal attack. @BenjaminNicholas was simply commenting on your deflection of the topic at hand. 

If you and @BenjaminNicholas would read/re-read the original posting you may notice that the "topic at hand" is the diminishing number of air traffic controllers, which is leading to close calls ("at least 46 in the last month").

It is you and @BenjaminNicholas who began siting off-topic airplane to automobile accident/fatality ratios, which is not mentioned one time in the original post.

Also, referring to someone as a "strawman" is hardly a simple comment.

Edited August 23, 2023 by sync

[+ jessmapex]

None of the stats and above arguments will help @sync with his irrational fear of flying. I can vouch for this first hand as a fearful flyer with a job that required me to travel until my mid-thirties. More than my job the flying part was a challenge. I read all kinds of books, learned stats, understood the technology behind how modern jets fly and navigate, how turbulence impacts a jet etc. Nothing helped.  Inside a plane my fear was so obvious that sometimes the flight attendants would offer me a glass if water. 

Then my doc prescribed xanax and it changed my life. It completely killed the fear. Now severe turbulence feels like a roller coaster ride and i look forward to my travels (except the deteriorated overall flying experience) .

 

[+ sync]

34 minutes ago, jessmapex said:

None of the stats and above arguments will help @sync with his irrational fear of flying. I can vouch for this first hand as a fearful flyer with a job that required me to travel until my mid-thirties. More than my job the flying part was a challenge. I read all kinds of books, learned stats, understood the technology behind how modern jets fly and navigate, how turbulence impacts a jet etc. Nothing helped.  Inside a plane my fear was so obvious that sometimes the flight attendants would offer me a glass if water. 

Then my doc prescribed xanax and it changed my life. It completely killed the fear. Now severe turbulence feels like a roller coaster ride and i look forward to my travels (except the deteriorated overall flying experience) .

 

You called it.  Nothing has helped me past the dred of boarding a plane.  I just "bite the bullet" as best I can.

When I look at those amazing aircrafts, I see flying caskets.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, sync said:

...

Also, referring to someone as a "strawman" is hardly a simple comment.

The term "strawman" refers to a logical fallacy, not to a person. When he wrote "You just lost me with that strawman," it was clear to me that he was referring to the strawman fallacy of equating air traffic control problems to climate change. Had he said "You just lost me, straw man," with the comma and separate words, I suppose he could be insulting you as one of the characters in The Wizard of Oz, but that was clearly not where he was going. 

Straw man - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

 

"A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man". The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a straw man") instead of the opponent's proposition."

Comparing air travel to auto travel is not a strawman comparison, because both are means of transportation whose statistics can be directly compared. This is obviously completely different from comparing air travel to climate change, which are entirely separate issues. 

Edited August 23, 2023 by Unicorn

[+ sync]

22 minutes ago, Unicorn said:

The term "strawman" refers to a logical fallacy, not to a person. When he wrote "You just lost me with that strawman," it was clear to me that he was referring to the strawman fallacy of equating air traffic control problems to climate change. Had he said "You just lost me, straw man," with the comma and separate words, I suppose he could be insulting you as one of the characters in The Wizard of Oz, but that was clearly not where he was going. 

Straw man - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

 

"A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man". The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a straw man") instead of the opponent's proposition."

Comparing air travel to auto travel is not a strawman comparison, because both are means of transportation whose statistics can be directly compared. This is obviously completely different from comparing air travel to climate change, which are entirely separate issues. 

If you re-read my post you may see I was not comparing air travel to climate change, I was noting the similarity of the "sky is falling" and "climate-change" denial attitude.

This has been "engaging," but I'm done with it.

"Talk amongst yourselves."    🙂

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

4 hours ago, sync said:

Also, referring to someone as a "strawman" is hardly a simple comment.

If you're going to quote me, at least do it properly with some comprehension.

Nowhere did I call you a straw man, which you clearly didn't understand the phrase to begin with.  

I said you lost me with that strawman, as in strawman argument.  And yes, I used the term correctly for the given situation.

You can duck out of this thread, but that certainly doesn't make you right. 

 

 

Edited August 23, 2023 by BenjaminNicholas

[+ sync]

10 hours ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

If you're going to quote me, at least do it properly with some comprehension.

Nowhere did I call you a straw man, which you clearly didn't understand the phrase to begin with.  

I said you lost me with that strawman, as in strawman argument.  And yes, I used the term correctly for the given situation.

You can duck out of this thread, but that certainly doesn't make you right. 

 

 

In retrospect, I believe you are entitled to an explanation for my misinterpretation of your statement.

Understand, I'm not playing the blame game or attempting to nullify my oversight, however, if your statement had shown more sentence structure rather than dependence upon punctuation, I believe my misunderstanding might have been avoided.

Your statement reads "You just lost me with that strawman.  Stick to the topic we're talking about."

Had your statement read "You just lost me with that strawman argument," or "You just lost me with that strawman point of view," or "You just lost me with that strawman crap," I might have seen "strawman" differently.    

In any event "ducking out" is not the way I would like to be remembered.