Word: hubs
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...pound vulture in the room is named Air France-KLM, which sat out this past year's round of bidding. Alitalia's initial cuts (modest as they are) to both personnel and fleet, its search for some hanging-on cash, and above all its shifting its hub southward all make it a more attractive regional partner for Air France following its merger with Dutch carrier KLM. It may turn out that playing hard to get will pay off for the French, as the Italians grow more desperate every...
...reminder of how every step Alitalia takes comes loaded with political implications, the plan is also expected to reinstate Rome's Fiumicino airport as the airline's primary transatlantic hub, pulling flights from Milan's Malpensa airport. A decade ago, the construction of the airport 30 miles (50 km) northwest of Milan was seen as a great victory for powerful northern politicians. Now both the Milanese mayor Letizia Moratti and the governor of the Lombardy region Roberto Formigoni - both rising stars of the center-right, which is the opposition in the capital - have vowed to fight the plan. Alitalia officials...
...opening of T5, as the new terminal is known, should also help tackle another of BA's weaknesses: its much-criticized hub. "BA has a fundamental challenge none of its European peers suffer from," says Chris Avery, an airline analyst at JPMorgan in London. "Heathrow is stretched to its limits." Conceived for 45 million passengers a year, it now sees almost 70 million annually endure its crowded terminals and snaking lines. Airlines wait longer for gates to clear, and creaking baggage-handling equipment is prone to breakdowns. Though it can't ease runway congestion - Heathrow's "Achilles heel," says Avery...
...satellite technology has already proven successful overseas and in the U.S. The European Union has upgraded to satellite technology in its air traffic control systems. Package delivery company UPS uses the technology in many of its planes and at its hub in Louisville, Ken. The FAA has also been testing it since the late 1990s in Alaska, which had a high accident rate because of the rough terrain in the state. Since the satellite technology was installed on small planes in Alaska, its accident rate there has declined 40%, says Blakey...
...University. "As long as we are constrained at the airports, we are still going to have problems in the entire system," he says. "We need more runways." Blakey agrees that runways are great in a lot of circumstances, and she points to how a new one at Atlanta's hub airport has eased congestion in the immediate area and nationwide. But NextGen does not include plans for more runways, and Blakey says that's because of space constraints and local politics...