Word: airport
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...windy day at Farnborough airport outside London, a line of private jets rolls to the runway, ready to carry Europe's élite through their rarefied world. Among these aircraft, watched by a group of pilots, is the airport's newest addition: a jet so tiny that sitting behind a medium-sized business jet it looks like a duckling trailing its mother. Yet as he waits to see the elfin aircraft take off, one pilot declares, "You're looking at the future...
Passengers wringing their hands over delayed flights and lost baggage aren't the only problem plaguing airlines. A near collision on the tarmac at Dallas-Fort Worth airport on April 6 punctuated a six-month period that included 15 other runway "incursions" - a spike from eight during the same period the year before. With air traffic controllers having operated for more than 600 days without a new contract from the FAA, morale among them is at an all-time low, and with just 11,100 fully trained professionals serving the entire country - the smallest number in 16 years - a combination...
...Tempelhof's past has long since faded. As an underused commuter airport, it lost about $15 million last year. Shutting it down is a key part of Social Democratic Mayor Klaus Wowereit's plan to consolidate Berlin's three city airports into one by 2012. Proposals for repurposing the 890 acres (360 ha) in the heart of the capital range from establishing a German version of Central Park to turning it into grazing land for buffalo (really). Opponents gathered enough signatures in a citywide petition to trigger the referendum on the closure. Backed by prominent German businessmen, they...
With slogans like "Tempelhof saved the Berliners, now Berliners can save Tempelhof," those who support the airport are expected to win the referendum. But its results are not binding, and Wowereit vows to press ahead with plans to shut the runways down no matter what the outcome of the vote...
...lively debate as a reassuring exercise in grass-roots democracy. It may have been built by a fascist regime, and seen its greatest moment when it was used to defy a communist one, but in the spring air, nearly 20 years after the Berlin Wall came down, the old airport is an apt reminder of the blessings of a democratic choice...