You Think Commercial Planes Are Crowded Now? Just Wait... | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-05.06.24

Airborne-NextGen-05.07.24

Airborne-Unlimited-05.08.24 Airborne-FlightTraining-05.09.24

Airborne-Unlimited-05.10.24

Thu, Mar 16, 2006

You Think Commercial Planes Are Crowded Now? Just Wait...

FAA Predicts More Cramped Airliners Soon

Despite ongoing financial woes for several domestic airlines, more people are flying in their planes today than in any time since 9/11... and it's only going to get better. Or, worse... depending on which side of the curtain you're on.

If you run a major airline, you can take some comfort in knowing the FAA predicts annual passenger loads with rise from nearly 739 million passengers carried aloft in 2005, to over 1.1 billion just over ten years from now. That's a 45 percent increase by 2017 -- and analysts predict higher ticket prices will not dampen passenger enthusiasm very much.

It stands to reason that more passengers -- paying higher fares -- should bode well for the airlines, so long as fuel prices don't experience a major spike as they did last year (admittedly, that's a big if.) But if you're like the rest of us and are relegated to flying commercially... you'll likely find yourself wishing more people would take their $%#* cars.

More passengers flying will mean longer lines through security, and less room available on planes that are already lacking in creature comforts -- especially if airlines begin to equip their planes with even more seats than are already stuffed into their cabins.

In any case, it's clear many domestic airlines could use all the help they can get right now, as major US carriers reported operating losses of $1.5 billion (with a B) in 2005 -- far exceeding the $500 million carriers lost in 2004, according to FAA figures.

Of course, you could always buy your own plane and avoid much of that hassle -- but even then, you'll be sharing the skies with more aviators than before. The FAA predicts the GA fleet will increase about 1.4 percent each year through 2017... from 214,591 aircraft in 2005, to 252,775 in 2017.

It's clear, however, that most of the people who fly in the future, will do so on commercial aircraft. Maybe we should all start to get serious about those diets now...

FMI: www.faa.gov

Advertisement

More News

Airborne-Flight Training 05.09.24: ERAU at AIAA, LIFT Diamond Buy, Epic A&P

Also: Vertical Flight Society, NBAA Maintenance Conference, GA Honored, AMT Scholarship For the first time, students from Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach, Florida, campus took t>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (05.07.24): Hazardous Weather Information

Hazardous Weather Information Summary of significant meteorological information (SIGMET/WS), convective significant meteorological information (convective SIGMET/WST), urgent pilot>[...]

Aero-News: Quote of the Day (05.07.24)

"The need for innovation at speed and scale is greater than ever. The X-62A VISTA is a crucial platform in our efforts to develop, test and integrate AI, as well as to establish AI>[...]

NTSB Final Report: Cessna 150

(FAA) Inspector Observed That Both Fuel Tanks Were Intact And That Only A Minimal Amount Of Fuel Remained In Each Analysis: According to the pilot, approximately 8 miles from the d>[...]

Aero-News: Quote of the Day (05.08.24)

“Pyka’s Pelican Cargo is unlike any other UAS solution on the market for contested logistics. We assessed a number of leading capabilities and concluded that the Pelica>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2024 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC