A Natural Way to Clear a Runway

Wildlife activity close to runways often compromises airport safety. While airports have tried traps, poison and ultrasound to scare off pesky animals, the southern Italian port town of Bari is about to try something different. Its airport has been plagued by foxes hunting the swarms of mice and rabbits abounding in the airfield at dawn and dusk. It seems that foxes are terrified by large birds of prey, so a young golden eagle has been trained to scare them away from the runway areas. The eagle, called Cheyenne, will commence her patrols in a few weeks' time.

Wired's Best & Worst Airport to Rail Connections

Alexander Lew compiled lists of the best and worst cities for airport to rail connections. The five best:
5. Chicago O'Hare for its connection to the Blue Line
4. Tokyo's Narita airport connections to its Narita Express and Keisei Skyliner trains.
3. London's Heathrow airport's BAA Heathrow Express.
2. Paris Charles de Gaulle's connections to the TGV.
1. And the most convenient is Hong Kong's Airport Express.

Unfortunate travelers may find themselves having to rely on public transportation at the following airports:
4. New York's JFK
3. Shanghai Pudong PVG
2. San Francisco SFO
1. Los Angeles LAX

Travelling for the Holidays?

(Photo courtesy of Näystin on Flickr.)

Do you have to travel for the holidays? Will your plans include driving to the airport to fly across the country? If so, John Van Horn at Parking Today's blog has offered up some airport parking tips:

1. Take a cab or limo to the airport -- At the cost to park of $20 a day, if you are going more than four days, its probably cheaper to take a cab, both ways.


2. Have a friend drop them off or pick them up.


3. Reserve a space on line -- virtually all airports are represented at a number of sites -- Key in "Parking" on Google and see what pops up.


4. Simply drive to the airport and park in an available space. My spies tell me that at virtually all airports there is parking available. It may not be the most convenient, but its there. Off airport parking is available, too. But its probably important to plan ahead and be sure you can find those little lots around the corner and down the block.


5. Airport hotels are offering park/sleep/fly packages that let you come a day early, leave your car, stay overnight, and be well rested for your flight.

Of course most won't take this advice, and most main stream media won't print it. All those "one flight a decade" folks will jam the airport at the last minute, have far too much luggage, complain about just about everything, and actually be the cause of most late flights.

Cynic? Nope, just experienced.

The best solution - have Thanksgiving at your house and let the family come there.

Having Thanksgiving come to you can be convenient, though we here at the library understand that some people are going to travel in the next day or so to see relatives and eat lots of food.

There have been many developments in airport parking recently. Susan Shaheen of ITS Davis published a paper in 2005 entitled Smart Parking Management Field Test: A Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District Parking Demonstration that explored using smart parking at BART stations and airports to increase efficiency.

Van Horn's list neglects the possible role of transit in getting travelers to their destination. As a recent BTS special report, Making Connections: Intermodal Links in the Public Transportation System, highlights- more and more airports are being serviced by transit agencies. You can avoid the parking lot all together and ride the bus or the train, saving yourself a headache.

Whatever your plans are for this holiday, be safe and have fun!

TSA Trouble!

USA Today is today reporting on a recent report from the TSA describing the state of the United States' airport screening. There are good omens for advocates of privatization:

At Chicago O'Hare International Airport, screeners missed about 60% of hidden bomb materials that were packed in everyday carry-ons — including toiletry kits, briefcases and CD players. San Francisco International Airport screeners, who work for a private company instead of the TSA, missed about 20% of the bombs, the report shows. The TSA ran about 70 tests at Los Angeles, 75 at Chicago and 145 at San Francisco.

Maybe this will excite ol' Kip into the voyeuristic project hinted at a week earlier in the same newspaper.

Feds to Stop Baller Blocking ATC

NPR reports that the United States federal government has approved a US$1 billion spending package to "begin modernizing the nation's air traffic control system." If you have Ebsco you can view a more detailed explanation of what those in the know call ADS-B (short for Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast). Wikipedia has a pretty extensive article on the matter as well.

I myself will remain skeptical of the claims that by modernization and consequent increases in capacity there will also be an improvement in on-time performance.

New Biometric System Introduced at SFO

The new SFO fast-pass technology Clear was launched yesterday to much fanfare.

Clear is part of a new wave of biometrically-based technologies being deployed at airports across the United States. These technologies provide airport customers with expedited security lines in exchange for voluntarily submitting their fingerprint, iris, and retinal data, which are linked to the customer’s other personal information (see Airports International, vol 40 no 3 pp 28-39 for further information).

While the federal government monitors these programs under the Registered Traveler's program (RT), the creation of biometric databases is, apart for privacy issues, a cause for concern for some. One such critic is Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben who notes that, when biometrics was first implemented, it was used solely for the control and regulation of recidivist criminals.

FAA Grant to Study Bay Area Airport Gridlock

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission will use a $585,000 grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to study ways to avoid gridlock at Bay Area airports. The SF Chronicle reports that among options to be considered are persuading airlines to resume flying larger aircraft, developing high-speed rail, expanding capacity at major airports, and better use of the area’s general aviation airports.

MTC’s most recent Regional Airport System Plan was updated in 2000 and also considers alternatives.

And to the south, passengers using Los Angeles International experienced flight delays in four of every five flights. But as the Los Angeles Times reports, that’s better than the national average of one in three. Overall system performance is so bad that fully one-third of all flights during January – June 2007 were late.