AirportBusiness Blogs

Wife Gail and I are living in the midst of total chaos. We decided to move from Huntsville, AL, to Asheville, NC, to be closer to her parents. We figured this would be a leisurely process of some months. The real estate lady said it typically takes about three months to sell a house in Huntsville; we put ours on the market in early November.

It sold in five days flat. The buyer gave us until the end of November to vacate the premises. Our leisurely move became a frenetic and total panic.

Our mover is an old customer with whom we have dealt for more than fifteen years. They have done a great job for us. The truck is packed and ready to go. No problem.

Well, almost no problem. Yesterday our “Moving Coordinator” called. She spoke clearly, distinctly, pleasantly, and in a very businesslike fashion. Then, when she got to the end, she asked me to please call her at %^&*@#!)^*. Her voice dropped, she sped up to an impossible pace, and I couldn’t get the number jotted down fast enough. I had to call back and listen to that message two more times before I got the number and extension right. Then I called he number. Nobody answered and no machine came on to take a message.

I hereby offer, free of charge, the following rule for minimum—repeat, minimum—business telephone usage. This should be taught to and required of every person in your company.

When you are leaving your number, always slow down, raise your voice, speak distinctly, and repeat the number. Always repeat the number.

Here’s another idea. Find someone who does not know your business at all. Ask them to call your phone and report how the phone was answered. Chances are you will be surprised. Often, the caller cannot even determine the name of your business by the initial response. Train your people to answer distinctly, then use mystery callers to keep employees on their toes.

There are many more rules, but they are simple, easy to train and monitor, and pay big dividends.

Yesterday — Monday — was a bad day in Huntsville, AL, where I live. You probably read about it. A school bus with about 45 teen students aboard plunged off of the interstate and fell 30 feet nose first. To date, there are three fatalities, multiple injuries, and a stunned community.

This bus — like most school buses — had no seatbelts. In fact, this accident may be the straw that finally ends that disgraceful practice. In the meantime, you should hear the silly reasons cited as to why school buses don’t have/need seat belts. I thought we settled most of the pros and cons of seatbelts back in the 1950s, but, when it comes to the school buses that carry our children, the arguments are alive and well 50 years later.

The most-cited argument is that school buses have such a good safety record that they obviously don’t need seat belts. Hogwash! You might say the same thing about the airlines, but we are still required to wear seatbelts on board, and rightly so. It has been proved over and again to my complete satisfaction that any means of transportation (with the possible exception of bikes) is safer with seatbelts.

Others say that the buses cannot be fitted with shoulder belts, and that seat belts alone wouldn’t do much good. Horse pucky. Again I hold the airlines up as an example. We PAX wear them. Should we quit?

Other arguments sound as silly as they did in the 1950s — the belt might trap you in the bus. A belt can hurt you. Actually, those arguments sound sillier now than they did in the 1950s, because back then we didn’t know but what they were true. Now we have known better for decades.

Sadly, enough, it seems that the real reason belts aren’t required on school buses is simple economics, that — as my mother would say — is downright sinful.

Seatbelts even on school buses? No, seatbelts especially on school buses.

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… at least, that’s the word from the Airport Consultants Council, held in Ft. Lauderdale this week. An opening session at the ACC’s annual conference highlighted the fact that many airport consulting firms are doggedly looking for new hires – engineers; architects; planners; designers, etc. One company says it can hire more than 200 today … if they were available. 

And therein lies the problem. They aren’t.  While ACC officials don’t see a need to sound a warning siren to industry just yet, it could come in the not too distant future. The talent pool has dried up. Paula Hochstetler, president of ACC, speculates that a significant part of the problem may lie in the fact that the IT age is to blame. The information technology industry draws from the same pool as does the ACC crowd. Techies and engineers are the same breed, it seems. She suggests that, ironically, it may those same techies who help fill the void in the long run, providing new technology solutions to what is done manually today. We’ll see. 

Bottom line: The potential exists that in a few years airports could find their infrastructure projects being stalled by a shortage of expertise. T.J. Schulz, ACC vice president, ponders whether the forthcoming battle for funding reauthorization should include Congressional action on this critical subject. At the very least, he says, just having language in the bill could go a long way in giving the issue visibility. Taking that a step further, maybe Congress could give some tax breaks to those who seek engineering or related degrees. 

Thanks for reading.  jfi    

Umpty-ump years ago, several men pooled resources and set out to revive the Helio Courier aircraft. No naive, starry-eyed business neophytes, these folks had vast experience in aircraft sales, finance, insurance, and other fields.

They got one airplane built, and even had it sold. They desperately needed certification so they could deliver said aircraft and collect the money. An FAA test pilot flew the airplane and said they had to make only one little fix before he could approve certification. They leaped to the airplane with tools in hand, but the test pilot headed for his car. He had to leave, said he, because it would be the end of his working day when he got home. No problem, though—they could set up another appointment to have him return at some future date.

I thought about that last week when the FAA certificated the LSA amphibian of LSA Aero. On that very same day they gave company president Don Langford a bit of bad news that would make the airplane virtually unsellable.

The feds, you see, years ago decided that there could indeed be an LSA amphibian. Then they decided that the landing gear on the amphib could not—it’s hard to believe this—be operated in flight. In other words, you cannot take off on land then land on water, or vice-versa. Uh, excuse me, but why would they allow an LSA amphib then rule that it couldn’t be used as an amphib?

Don—a FedEx captain with an engineering degree, tens of thousands of hours, and all of the experience and ratings imaginable—and others worked like hell to find a way to work around this unbelievable rule. At one time the feds said that operating the gear would be okay for private pilots or better, but not for basic LSA pilots. Then, a month ago, one (friendly and cooperative) fed office said they had talked with OK City and it would not be necessary to have a placard, because it was a pilot issue rather than an aircraft issue.

Last week, OK City calmly said they had changed their minds. In fact, they decided that no pilot—including Don, with his ATP and worldwide experience—could operate the gear in flight—period.

Oddly, and illogically, at least one LSA amphib already has an exemption that allows the gear to be operated in flight. As far as I know, none of those aircraft has been sold in the states. Don has an airplane ready to sell, but he can’t get the exemption. How in the world is he going to market his amphib?

Do the feds ever consider how their blithe decisions affect business people?

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An airline pilot pointed out an ad in a major aviation publication. It worries me.

A flight training school advertises a “First Officer Program” that includes “Over 250 hours of actual FAR Part 121 turboprop passenger airline First Officer experience.” Now, I could be wrong, but that sounds to me like flying the line with real, paying pax in the back.

That raises a few questions, at least in my mind. Doesn’t that mean that the student would be paying to fly for an airline? Will these pilots really be qualified to fly as first officers, or are they just learning? Is this a sign of things to come? If this is a trend, how far will it go?

As mentioned herein before, I have always believed that those years of first-officer experience were a major factor in the almost unbelievable safety record of the airlines. Now, it seems that first-officer training is shorter and first officers move up to the left seat much faster.

Where are we going with this? Should we worry about it?

Change of subject…

The Wall Street Journal announced today (November 7, 2006) that FedEx has canceled orders for 10 Airbus 380s and ordered 15 Boeing 777s instead (with an option for 15 more). Scuttlebutt (not the WSJ) has it that FedEx’s Fred Smith huffed out of a European meeting with Airbus officials and flew straight to Chicago to do business with Boeing. Although that scuttlebutt came from a good source, I can’t swear it’s true.

One thing does seem chiseled in granite: Lots of folks are unhappy with the Airbus 380, and it hasn’t even been delivered yet. In fact, most of the complaints revolve around late deliveries and—recently—weight gain.

The aviation industry often seems to move at a snail’s pace, but lately it has changed at a fast and furious pace.

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… grows an airport. Draw a line 35 miles west of downtown Houston, then directly south to the Gulf Coast. That southerly line represents a history of rice farming. West of Houston, the tentacles of the city are planting urban seeds, and it is here that pilot and entrepreneur Ron Henricksen purchased some 600 acres to build an airport, Houston Executive. 

To date, 5,050 feet of asphalt runway and parallel taxiway have been built, along with an FBO ramp and temporary facilities. Next up is an FBO, Henricksen Jet Center, and a planned extension of the runway to 7000 feet. Then comes some 200 acres of inside the fence development, and a couple of hundred more adjacent acres for business development. 

Of course, there’s more than rice here; underground lies pipelines and oil fields nearby continue to slowly pump crude out of the ground. Only minutes to the east is the “energy corridor” where companies in all aspects of oil and gas exploration and production reside. Nearby is a massive Igloo plant. They all use business aviation.  With impressive investments at the Sugar Land Airport southwest of Houston, the western corridor of a bulging city appears to be ahead of the aviation curve. (More on this in the November/December issue of AIRPORT BUSINESS magazine.) 

Thanks for reading.  jfi