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1. The “Blame New York” Jonestown-esque mantra once again rears its head, though I do not believe that Rick is collaborating with FAA on this - I think Rick may have picked up their feed, though. I am asking for more careful scrutiny of FAA conclusions and statistics, since those numbers have proven to be manufactured and of whole cloth, in the past.

   “Blame New York” stats and conclusions are completely consonant with FAA’s playbook as expressed two days ago in fake newspaper USA Today a/k/a “News McNuggets” - the very death of American journalism. We’re laughing at USA Today, up here in the Northeast. The USA Today story was planted. That “newspaper” takes a ton of advertising revenue for the airlines. USA Today is not comprised of journalists. USA Today is comprised of aero-streetwalkers. Maybe some of them should go back to journalism school - assuming that they know what one looks like, that is.

   Let’s look at what the planted “New York congestion” stories are intended by the FAA to accomplish. The FAA’s NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign project is a fraud. It was originally engendered as part of an economic turf war between Boston and NY ATCs, and in its genesis had nothing at all to do with efficiencies, fuel, timing, or so-called “flight delays”. The “flight delays” of recent years, especially those in NY, were caused directly by the FAA itself by FAA’s purposeful over-scheduling of airports and over-saturation of skies. The Redesign will not even save FAA’s claimed “3 minutes per flight” and will actually INCREASE delays. All Redesign will do is increase airline company profits at all of our expense. The FAA is the same agency that threatened aviation inspectors to suppress the truth from you. Bobby Sturgell is the legacy-case son of J. Edgar Hoover’s secretary. Do not believe what this FAA tells you - the agency lies habitually.

   Redesign and aviation safety are not and should not be partisan issues. Northeast Democrat and Republican citizens alike are shutting down FAA’s Redesign. And as for the other familiar blame-the-victim tactic out of FAA’s now-tired playbook, Quiet Rockland’s members, for example, didn’t MOVE next to Newark Airport. It is 30 miles-plus away from us. The majority of Americans live near metro areas and within 30 miles of an airport. That’s right. The FAA is coming to YOUR town next, to put 600 flights a day over your houses and densely-populated communities. On FAA’s website, the agency just announced that it is targeting NYC, Philly, SF, LA, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Charlotte. If you live within 30 miles of any of those cities, assume FAA is about to wreck your quality of life and put you at risk, too - and they’ll call it a “Redesign”, and promise you “mitigation”, while like adders they lisp to you illusory sympathies about your “noise experience”. This FAA is a federal agency without a soul. The same would be the case if they were Dem appointees. The FAA’s aforethought, is malice aforethought. All the FAA does, is make money for aeromercantile interests at our expense while putting us in harm’s way. And at Quiet Rockland, we are shutting that down now - irrespective of the FAA-planted and airline-planted bloggers who try to carp back at us with bad facts.

   Our continued appreciation to Rick Seaney for providing us this forum.

   John J. Tormey III, Esq.
   Quiet Rockland
   http://ejectsturgell.blogspot.com

   Comment by John J. Tormey III — August 5, 2008 @ 10:56 am

2. Mmmm acerbic, I get it

   Is that really all that you got from a release of about a dozen detailed reports filed within three days of the close of last month?

   True, the DOT will report that aviation has never been worse when they release the June 2008 numbers later this month. You are correct that it would be better to report that than to let travelers know that things improved significantly in July. BTW, I have some information about 2007 that you may want to break, too!

   Is it newsworthy that FlightStats produces more information (endless detail instead of canned reports from the DOT), on more carriers (virtually every airline in the world rather than the subset of flights sold by 19 US carriers), and a month before the DOT when information could actually be useful to travelers looking for something more than a sound bite.

   As for the reliability of FlightStats data, we provide the data that you see on the screens to 3 of the nation’s largest airports and online arrivals and departure information in real time at another 4 of the largest US airports - why? Becuase our data (on close analysis, something Rick chose not to do) has been proven to be more complete, timely and accurate than any data available from the government, the carriers (as a single source), or the airport IT departments. We have also done audits with carriers and found that our multi-souce data matches airline data to within less than 1 minute in more 99% of the cases reviewed. But you know more, let’s wait for the DOT.

   Air travel is in a serious moment of challenge right now, with the schedule cuts due to start severely impacting travelers, particularly in cases of missed connections and cancellations when no recovery options will exist. Is mocking the most obvious reality of uniqeuly useful data really the best you can do to help travelers understand the moment and minimize their troubles?

   Rick, if you are interested in actually looking at our data to see how you can really provide useful intelligence for your readers, we are here and ready to help. I’ve read your blog for some time and this one was not up to your usual standard.

   Comment by Meara McLaughlin — August 5, 2008 @ 1:08 pm

3. Wow! did both you have to pay $2 for a bottle of water? Maybe a second checked bag or two?

   This post was simply to highlight the fact that habitually delayed New York is — well — continuing to be habitually delayed.

   Nothing more or less.

   You’ll note that I am quite skeptical about “official” BTS stats of any kind (see several other posts and the reason the the word is highlighted) and I specifically noted the difference between FlightStats and BTS for those that assume they are the same entity.

   Comment by Rick Seaney — August 5, 2008 @ 6:27 pm

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