Poll: Should scheduled airline flights get first priority for airspace?

By
Editorial Staff
-
Published:
7

Poll: Should scheduled airline flghts get first priority for airspace?

7 COMMENTS

  1. As a former AME, PvtPilot/Single Engine/Instrument, I have very happy memories of the time I spent in aviation. I flew single-engine a Cessna-177 & a single-engine Cessna182RG, and when age and infirmities forced me from the cockpit, I had accumulated over 2000 hours as a private pilot.
    One of my fondest and most important memories was flying my C-182 to JFK to drop a family member for a flight to Europe. Following the transmissions from JFK approach control & JFK tower, I was cleared to land 22R. Moments after I acknowledged the ‘cleared to land’ transmission, a BAE Concorde transmitted ‘ready for departure’, to which tower replied, ‘hold short; landing traffic’————cleared to land, the runway was MINE!
    First come, first served; safety and common sense deserve no less.

  2. IF there’s a problem then it makes sense to address it carefully and thoughtfully. This letter doesn’t comprise real data showing ongoing systemic delays due to GA. Show me the data, otherwise go pound sand.

  3. Restricting access to the IFR/Airspace system would be detrimental to safety. Some kind of reservation system that results in fewer holding patterns and a bit more predictable delays might make sense, especially with a mandate to adapt capacity based on past delays. We have the former in Europe (with far less GA traffic) but lack the latter. Keeping 172s out of busy airline hubs makes sense, however, at least if the light aircraft blocks more time due to lower approach speeds.

  4. A number of times I have been routed away from and around controlled airspace. Since I wasn’t landing there, it felt to me like they didn’t want me even in their airspace.

    So from now on I try to plan my flights away from them.

  5. So, let us not stop with the airspace. Let’s go to other forms of transportation:
    – Commercial road vehicles before private/personal on interstates, state and county highways and your community streets,
    – Commercial vessels before private/personal on rivers, lakes, and coastal waterways, and
    – Commercial pedestrians before private/personal on sidewalks, parks
    Since private/personal pay less user fees, registration, fuel, and taxes than commercial.
    BOTTOM LINE Commercial costs are paid by the consumer not the commercial operator (air carrier/ trucking/vessel) through price of goods or service.

    • Exactly! And mostly, I don’t mind when it makes sense. When I was based at a reliever airport used by SWA, it took a while for approach and tower to recognize me and my plane’s performance profile. Then I upgraded to a high performance plane and it happened all over again. I also learned to communicate in a way that helped them help me and shorten my trip.

      Still, you’d sometimes get someone who would route you low and outside on a hot choppy Sunday when there was absolutely no good reason for it.

      OTOH, there is good reason to force the airliners to take steeper decents, but the FAA will not do it.

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