1 billion passengers to crowd airports

[question everything]

Los Angeles Daily News

1 billion passengers to crowd airports


By Leslie Miller
Associated Press

Friday, March 18, 2005 - WASHINGTON -- More than 1 billion people a year will be boarding planes in the United States within a decade, nearly half again as many as those now using an aviation system showing signs of being overburdened.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which released the forecast Thursday, faces spending cuts for runways, air traffic control equipment and buildings. But the agency's administrator, Marion Blakey, said she was confident there would be enough money to accommodate the dramatic growth in air traffic.

(snip)

Already, flights have been limited at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport because too many planes were trying to take off and land, causing delays throughout the country. The FAA negotiated an agreement with airlines to cut 37 daily flights and limit the number of domestic arrivals to 88 an hour between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m.

(snip)

Sen. Christopher Bond, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees transportation spending, has expressed disappointment in the Bush administration's budget proposal for 2006. It would cut money for airport construction and runways by $500 million next year, to $3 billion. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the subcommittee, pointed out the administration has proposed $77 million in cuts for air traffic control modernization, in addition to $400 million cut this year. In 2004, the FAA was authorized to spend $2.9 billion.

(snip)


http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~2768939,00.html#

[mhr]

1. With Peak Oil, This Is A Pipe Dream - More Economic Fantasies

From the Republicans.

[Demeter]

2. I Highly Doubt It

and my reasons are many:

1) cost of fuel will drive many airlines out of business, the others will raise prices painfully high and shut out all but the most desperate travelers.

2) asinine security has already cut down on the numbers of people willing to put up with the perversity of the process. It will get worse before it gets better.

3) the economy sucks big time, and nobody is doing a damn thing to straighten it out. When the crooks in office are finally removed and imprisoned and their messes cleaned up, there might be some growth in travel for business or pleasure.

4) the drive to break the unions will result in spectacular crashes, which will result from management's expedience measures. It's happened before, and it will happen again, as the ghosts of Deregulation and the "Free Market" have yet to be laid.

Bon Voyage, Suckers!

[DELUSIONAL]

3. Really???

does this take into account raising fuel costs -- and the fact the people will be paying more of the income for fuel to run their cars and heat their homes plus the cost of fuel to haul goods in trucks?

If airline tickets become too costly -- people will either stop flying or cut back on money spent on flying.

[Norquist Nemesis]

5. It won't just be the "people" who cut back...the first to cut back

will be businesses. Specifically, corporate businesses. Once they start screaming from the rooftops for Congress to jump, Washington will respond with how high?

[DELUSIONAL]

6. I was thinking that the airlines would be catering only

to the business fliers and ultra rich -- and that only one airline would remain after Der Bushita's reign. This airline will be in reality a Government airline -- subsidized for the use of corporate business class but done in such a way that it would appear to be a "privately" held airline.

Flying for the peon class would be far too costly to even consider.

Of course the ultra rich would also be rapidly decreasing in number as so few of the peon class could afford anything their corporations could produce even at sub-slave salaries from their out-sourced, overseas factory complexes.

When the poor get richer, and the middle class get richer -- the rich also get richer. (As Randi Rhodes loves to preach.) But this is also a fundamental fact -- if the peon classes can't afford to buy anything except the basics -- food, water, shelter, transportation to work, & clothes -- and there is nothing to put into savings -- the whole world is in very deep dooo dooo.

[Fovea]

4. All god's children gonna fly.

But planes are going to have to have a lot of pedals, because they ain't gonna fly on kerosene or gas power.

[rocktivity]

7. If they refuse to subsidize Amtrak, they won't have much choice.

:(
rocknation

[meganmonkey]

8. Shouldn't we have our jet packs by then?

edit for smaller pic