Plane Conversations

What is General Aviation?  Mainstream media tells you that it is toys for the super-wealthy, chariots for the elite, excess for pampered executives.  Our purpose with Plane Conversations is to tell you that mainstream media is (we’ll be generous here) mistaken.  

We’ve shown you how corporate flight departments along with personal and chartered aircraft can save on the actual hard costs of travel.  We’ve demonstrated the savings you can find on a balance sheet.  We’ve talked how, yes, these are sometimes the toys of the very wealthy who have worked for the privilege of aircraft ownership.  But, we’ve also talked about the small business owner who uses his personal aircraft as an essential business tool.  We’ve demonstrated how general aviation contributes to mankind, specifically, how private aircraft were used to move tons of aid and NGO aid workers into Haiti.  Now, we’d like to tell you a little about how general aviation contributes on the ground here in Middle Tennessee.  

In the May 2010 floods in the Nashville area, Smyrna Air Center collected and distributed clothes, food, cleaning supplies, even televisions to hundreds of affected families.   McKenna Saunders, Director of Marketing, oversaw the collection and distribution of all items.  She said, “The most emotional moment for me was when I met a distraught mother who came into Smyrna Air Center to pick up donation items for her family. I helped her pick out boxes and boxes of goods as she tried to hold back tears, and when we came across a box of baby food, diapers, and wet wipes, her face lit up, and she started screaming with excitement! That’s when it really hit me that people are in desperate need of even the simplest of daily necessities.”  

The Smyrna/Rutherford County Airportis very active in community support projects like Meals on Wheels and clothing drives.  Each Fall, the airport collects new and gently used winter clothing for children attending the John Coleman Elementary School in Smyrna.  The school was originally constructed to serve the children of  personnel stationed at Sewart Air Force Base, which became the Smyrna/Rutherford County Airport.  Airport Manager Lois Vallance said, “When the Airport Authority was looking for avenues of community service, it only made sense to adopt John Coleman School.”  For the Meals on Wheels program, Vallance added, “Some Airport Authority employees and other volunteers are on a rotating weekly schedule to provide assistance to the Meals on Wheels program.  Whether its packaging the meals, delivering to a prescribed route–and sometimes staying to chat a few minutes–the volunteers are always as touched as those who receive the hot food.”  

CFM employee Shad Holloman (L) with a group working in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Employees at Corporate Flight Management are active in Habitat for Humanity builds and recently were able to volunteer helping out at Feed America First, which provides food to other relief organizations to distribute to rural populations that need a little help.  According to Executive Director Tom Henry, this Middle Tennessee facility will distribute some five million pounds of food this year to the hungry just in this area.  It was an eye-opening experience to see that we don’t have to look far from home to find people who need a hand.  Employee spouses and children also pitched in to repackage beans and rice.  Iowa native and recent Tennessee transplant Amber Sulzner said, “I thought this was a really good experience for us all to have a chance to give back to people who are less fortunate in our communities.  I wasn’t aware of how many families this organization helped and the amount of food that went in and out of the warehouse on a weekly basis.  Overall I felt this was a very good experience and I am now a pro at filling ziplock bags with rice. I also look forward to us hopefully helping this organization again and have even more volunteers.”  

So, what is General Aviation?  Are we an industry existing in the rarified air of the ivory towers?  Not even close.  We exist in local and global communities that experience disasters and need.  And we do our part to help in those communities whenever we can. 

(L-R) Amber Sulzner, Doug Cate, Jon Anne Doty, Jaegar Doty, Jeremy Gillard, Ken Dalton, Bill Allen, Tim Merenda, Melanie Howell, Annette Morton, Debbie Cate, David Augustin, Rachel Charlize, Jerome Vele Reece.

This past week I had the privilege of taking a tour of the Hawker Beechcraft factory and corporate headquarters in Wichita Kansas.

The tour started at our home base in Tennessee with a flight to Wichita on a new Hawker 4000. The aircraft is impressive and I will post soon with video and more information on this new generation, state of the art, mid size business jet.

Our company has operated Beechcraft King Airs for over 25 years, and much of my flying time is logged in various Barons and Bonanzas, so I have been a fan of Beechcraft for a long time.

The King Air series aircraft are without argument the most successful turboprop ever built with a production run spanning 5 decades.

The King Air C90GTX / B200GT / 350I series aircraft are still in production for civilian and military applications. All are evolved from the original King Air that first rolled of the line in 1965.   

Hawker Beech’s jet aircraft in production include the Hawker 4000, Hawker 900XP,  Hawker 750, Hawker 400XP and the Premier 1A/II. The Hawker 750 and 900 series aircraft are evolutions of the original Hawker jets manufactured in the UK and are the best selling series of business jets in the world.   

Hawker Beech also manufacturers variations of the military T-6 trainer, which is the primary trainer for both the navy and air force pilot programs.

The Beech Baron G58 twin engine and Bonanza G36 single engine piston aircraft round out the line of aircraft in production.     

Arriving to the factory at Hawker Beech’s airport in Wichita, our first stop was the delivery hangar, where new aircraft were in the final stage of delivery to the new owners.  There is a large American flag on one wall, prominently displayed as reminder that these aircraft going all over the world are made in America.

Wichita is the number one city for growing exports and Hawker Beech plays a big part. The percentage of aircraft exported now exceeds the percentage staying in the US and this will continue to increase as the demand for business aircraft worldwide grows faster than in the US.

One of the things that interests me most is innovation in our business and Hawker Beechcraft has done that with their new Hawker 4000. The Hawker 4000 has a   composite fuselage and uses composites in combination with traditional metal structures in other areas of the airframe. Composites are lighter but stronger than metal structure allowing savings in weight and increases in fuel efficiency and performance, as well as reduced maintenance costs.

Use of composites in aircraft sturctures is here to stay as evidenced by the Boeing 787 having a composite fuselage.

What impressed me most from the whole tour is the sense of pride emanating from the employees, from the senior management to the people on the floor. These people are proud of what they make and should rightly be proud of the 75 plus year legacy of excellence in aircraft manufacturing.

A lot has been said about the competitiveness of the US aircraft manufacturing industry in the global market.

A current issue that Hawker Beech has to deal with is to what degree they move production out of the US to save costs. The unions in Wichita are fighting for the jobs to remain US and the decisions will be difficult. Hawker Beech must remain price competitive and at the same time they cannot afford to lose the skill and aggregated knowledge of the workforce in Wichita. 

There is a positive and determined corporate culture that I admire with the leadership and employees at Hawker Beech. That will keep them in the competitive game of aircraft manufacturing well into the future.

There is an MU-2 outside my window right now and those Garrett engines are so loud that, in the words of my first grade teacher Sister Paula, I can’t hear myself think. 

Airplanes are noisy.  No kidding, right?  That’s hardly news and it’s certainly no surprise.  Since airplanes are noisy, it follows then, that places they frequent – airports – are noisy, as well.  Again, no surprise there.  What continues to be a surprise to me are noise complaints made by people who live near airports.

What would you say if I told you that I bought a terrific little house next to a railroad track and that I got it at a steal?  You’d probably question my sanity since there are sure to be really noisy trains barreling along the tracks at all hours, right?  Now what would you say if I told you that I was planning on petitioning or even suing the railroad company to make their trains quieter and to run them only during daylight hours?  Does that even make sense?  I bought a house next to a pre-existing railroad track, the existence of which I unquestionably knew, and now I demand that the railroad operate according to my preferences?  I would be laughed out of the courtroom.  Or would I?

This situation happens every day with airports all over the United States and Europe.

Developers buy undesirable land near noisy airports, build houses all over the land, and sell the houses at attractive prices.  The new homeowners, forgetting the reason they got such a good deal on the house, then demand that the airport conform to their preferences – and the city councils and courts support the homeowners.

Airports don’t exist in a vacuum - I know that - and we all need to “go along to get along.”  However, there must be some consideration for the airports which were in existence prior to development and the economic contributions of those airports.  For instance, Atlanta’s DeKalb-Peachtree airport started it’s life in 1941, operated as a Naval Air Station as well as a general aviation airport and is currently the second busiest airport in the state of Georgia with 246,002 operations recorded in 2009.  Housing development in the area saw massive increases in the 1950s, after the airport was established.  At this time, the airport has a “voluntary” curfew between the hours of 11:00 PM and 6:00 AM.  I emphasize voluntary because it is clear from the airport’s own literature that the county would make the curfew mandatory if only the FAA would let them.  Exemptions are made for medical flights but, any other flight operating at the airport during curfew hours will receive a letter inviting the operator “without compromising safety.. [to] review its operating practices and perhaps modify its procedures to keep this from happening again.”  Basically, they invite the operator not to come back during curfew, reserving the right to invite the the operator not to come back at all.

Perhaps the most aggressive noise abatement policies are in Santa Monica, California, and in Naples, Florida, which were among the first (if not the first) to prohibit certain types of aircraft from operating into their fields at any time of day.  Naples, which is a public airport operated by the City of Naples Airport Authority, has its hands full these days dealing with an anti-airport group.  The situation has become emotionally charged and really contentious there.  The airport receives federal funding, yet the neighbors want to dictate how and when the facilities may be used.   Try doing that with an interstate or railroad. 

The Mu-2 is gone, but my ears are still buzzing; so, I sympathize with people who live with the noise.  However, because I know that airplanes are  noisy, I didn’t buy a house right next to an airport.  And I don’t have sympathy for the people who did, then proceeded to complain about a situation they entered into voluntarily.

Delta is in the Social Media Game

You can now book a flight on Facebook on Delta Airlines Facebook  page and tell your friends about it without ever leaving Facebook.

When you are on Delta Airlines Facebook page you click the “Book a Flight” Button, then click the get started button. Immediately Delta asks for permission to access your information on your Facebook page including your Friends, user ID, networks, gender, and profile picture. If you don’t allow it the process stops as far as I can tell.

I guess the assumption is that you must give up your data if you want to play the booking game through Facebook. So to figure this out, I let them have my information.

From there it is a fairly easy process and not much different than booking on their main site. You have the option to share the flight with your friends. I have not booked a flight on Facebook to see what happens next. If anyone reading this has used this application I would like to hear your thoughts.

I can see this being used for personal travel but not so much for business. I am not totally sure what the real value proposition to booking through Facebook is at this point, with the exception of the ‘Sharing” of my flight information, and maybe for the Faceobook junkies who cant leave the site it does something?

I wonder what Delta does with my information they now have access to? Will they use it to help me solve travel problems or use it to target me for advertising messages?  

Delta at the time of this posting has about 38,500 Fans on their page. Lots of comments:  some positive and and a lot of negative about service issues.

It is hard to tell if Delta uses Facebook to actually communicate to the market.

Delta has also gotten more active in the use of Twitter and now has a staff to respond to Tweets. When I go to their Twitter acccount  they have 78.000 followers, they follow 730 people and it looks like they don’t respond daily as there are lapses in their tweets on their corporate account.  They do have a Twitter account “deltaassist‘  that focuses on resolving customer issues. This account has 2300 followers.

The airlines are waking up to the use Social Media tools. What will be interesting to watch is how they use the technology. Will they enhance the customer experience, listen and react to the market of travelers needs, or will it just be another way to get more money from the traveler with no value added?  

Could Business Aviation and the Air Charter Industry use these same tools to reach the market in a postive and social way?

An Article  titled Six Ways the Travel Industry can use Social Media is a good read if you have the time.

In college, I took a class called International Strategies and Security.  I believe that I may have been the only non-military student in the class which, for a civilian, turned out to be like a Tom Clancy novel – only it lasted for a whole semester.  We discussed technology that just blew my mind.  I had no idea the things that were possible and I’m sure that what blew my mind then is Stone Age compared to what is possible now.

So yesterday, we talked a little bit about test flights Alaska Airlines is conducting to be greener both environmentally and economically.  I think that there is a lot to celebrate with that.  My one concern with their reliance (and more, with NextGen’s reliance) on satellite technology is the increase in solar storms projected over the next few years.  I am curious to see how the technologists will handle it.

Since the systems do rely on satellite communication, they will be vulnerable to solar flares and storms, the kind we discussed back in March, which brings me back to the same concerns I expressed then.  With so many new pilots being trained using only glass cockpits and satellite approaches, what happens when those systems are compromised?  Worse, what happens when those systems are compromised and the pilots don’t know it?  NextGen, RNP, OPD and RVSM (Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum) are all designed to increase efficiency by tightening up the airspace.  This precision puts more aircraft into smaller spaces.  Well, if a pilot was flying along a flight path ten years ago, he might have encountered another aircraft along the same path; but, since neither of them was flying with today’s degree of precision, there was still likely to be a safe distance between the aircraft.  However, with todays’ greater precision, the space is greatly reduced.  If all systems are operating as advertised, that’s no problem.  In fact, it’s positive situation.  However, if solar flares contaminate the positioning information, an aircraft may be hundreds of feet off position and not know it.  If two aircraft are in the same situation, but are separated by only a few hundreds of feet to begin with, well, you do the math.

The Federal Aviation Administration recently awarded $125 million to Boeing and other companies to develop greener aircraft, fuels and technology.   As aircraft become more advanced and the Gee-Whiz factor in them increases, by definition, they get further away from the simple, stick-controlled Stearman.  I love the advances, don’t get me wrong.  I just know that a great many young pilots are learning on advanced equipment and may not be learning some of the manual basics of their predecessors.  For now, the young group still has access to pilots trained without all of the gizmos.  Those pilots are available to act as mentors and assist the younger generation of aviators in gaining some wisdom, an invaluable asset, as Billy Minkoff pointed out last week.  His example of the new, accessible very light jet and microjet is perfectly appropriate here.  As precision flying gets more precise and pilot training gets further removed from non-precision equipment, without mentoring, how do we avoid the dangers of corrupted satellite data?

What technology and training do we develop to slow or halt the current trend as expressed by CFM Director of Operations Dwayne McMurry, “It used to be that the last words on a cockpit voice recorder were ‘Oh, (explicative)!’  What you hear these days is, ‘What’s it doing now?’ “

Starting in 2004, UPS began systematically saving money on fuel and reducing emissions, in part, by planning their routes and reducing the number of left turns in them.  About 15 minutes after the policy was first reported, the first skeptical “Bah!” issued forth.  The report was taken to mean that drivers were instructed to make only right turns, which is inaccurate.   Routes are planned to reduce the number of left turns (in countries that drive on the right-hand side of the road), thereby reducing the amount of time spent idling in the turning lane.  Other interesting measures were put in place, as well; so, the exact dollar amount of savings attributed just to right turns is hard to quantify.  Still, the increased efficiency and lower fuel costs are easy to see.  And, none of the measures were rocket science, really, just simple, common sense practices used to save money.

NextGen ATC has the potential to act like the route planning software that UPS uses, allowing aircraft to fly more direct routes, thus saving time and fuel while reducing emissions.  However, as we’ve previously discussed, that program is stalled while most of the parties who will benefit from it bicker over who will pay for it.  In the interim, Alaska Airlines is testing some other programs in their Greener Skies project at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, one reason the Wall Street Journal  named the carrier the most fuel efficient in the country.

Using satellite-based guidance technology (Required Navigation Performance or RNP) that they pioneered , the carrier has tested its use in landings.  Using the technology with a continuous descent or optimized profile descent (OPD), the aircraft can descend from cruise altitude to runway using a shorter flight path and lower power.  What they found by using these principles is that they reduced their landing fuel-burn by about 35%, which translates to about 400 pounds or 60 gallons per event.  The carrier estimates that they could save 2.1 million gallons each year by using this system.  On 13 August 2010, Jet-A prices ranged from $4.72 per gallon in Smyrna, Tennessee, to $6.98 in Boston.  While carriers don’t buy their fuel at those prices, you can still imagine the huge amounts of money that could be saved. 

The more direct flight path and lower power do more than result in just lower fuel-burns.  Those lower burns translate into lower carbon emissions and lower noise levels.  According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Alaska Airlines estimates an emissions reduction of “22,000 metric tons each year, the equivalent of taking 4,100 cars off the road.”  And, of course, a more direct route sends aircraft over fewer homes and lower power means less noise for those homes still in the approach path.  That’s great news for busy airports’ neighboring communities that are concerned with noise and air pollution levels.

A great many of the aircraft currently flying already have the technology to use these same procedures.  ATC has to catch up and redesign the approaches to make the best use of the technology, equipment and procedures.  The potential good the aviation industry can realize by the more efficient process is enormous.  With decreased costs, the industry can produce a healthier bottom line.  And with decreased air and noise pollution, we can all breathe a little deeper and sleep a little more peacefully.

Johnny Paycheck has lost his position as Poster Child for the disgruntled worker.  The country singer has been replaced by former JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater whose antics would have been really funny – in a movie.

As my boss, Allen Howell said, “I personally find it pitiful that a flight attendant who can’t take it anymore thinks it is OK to pull the emergency exit slide to leave the aircraft and his job all at the same time. It is even more frustrating that he is made out to be some kind of hero for doing what he did.  Everyday flight attendants get rude and sometimes extreme hostile treatment from frustrated passengers but two wrongs don’t make it right. What does it say for the state of the airline industry when it gets to this?  The stunt will cost the airline, JetBlue, thousands of dollars in damage and more importantly it was a reckless and unprofessional act that does not need to be glamorized. This could have easily turned bad and someone could have gotten hurt.”

Anyone who has worked in customer service for more than 20 minutes has had a fantasy of creating just such a scene as the one Slater did – publicly humiliating an adult for poor behavior, grabbing a cold beer and disappearing into the mist, fog or just plain slamming the door.  As a responsible, professional adult you leave it in the realm of fantasy.  Slater caused thousands of dollars in expenses when he deployed that slide.  Mechanics at JetBlue will have to repack the slide, which is a great deal more complicated than folding up a map and stowing in your glove compartment.  There are explosives and inspections involved.  That aircraft is now out of service until it can be made airworthy again. 

It’s not that I don’t understand his frustration and his anger at these passengers who, by some accounts, acted like spoiled children.  I experienced it first-hand when passengers threw credit cards, briefcases, garment bags and even a bag of brick samples at me; however, there are methods to handle this situation – specifically airport police.  For instance, when the passenger hit Slater with her luggage, she interfered with the ability of a crew member to perform his job function.  This is a federal offense, folks.  Rather than throwing a hissy fit, he could have had her arrested upon arrival in New York, or he could have had her removed from the aircraft in Pittsburgh, where the incident occurred.  He chose not to do that.  He chose to wait until the aircraft arrived at JFK and create a public scene and a potentially deadly situation.  His behavior could very well have injured someone on the ground. 

Even if he looked out of the window and didn’t see anyone before he deployed the slide, he couldn’t possibly have had a clear view of the whole area involved.  Stand at a third storey window and look down.  Can you see the foundation of the building?  No, you can’t.  And he couldn’t see anyone standing in the area where he was about to launch an emergency slide.  His behavior was impulsive and reckless, not professional.

Yet, as I write this, Slater’s childish temper tantrum has earned him over 150,000 fans on Facebook.  The number will likely be mind-boggling by the time you read this. 

As Allen said, “If  Mr. Slater wanted to quit he should have walked off the flight and turned in his notice and gone home.  Something is wrong with this society when we glorify this type behaviour with media fanfare  and a social media frenzy.  Whatever happened to professionalism even in the face of adverse conditions?”

Airlines are trying to make a profit; something that has not happened in aggregate in their entire history of serving the traveling public. In an effort to make a profit in the past few years they have unbundled their pricing and added fees back in for everything imaginable.

I can’t blame them for trying to make profit. Profit is not a bad word. 

But somehow this whole idea of  add-on fees is having an anti-social effect on the traveling public. Mainstream media has spent a great deal of space on this issue.  The latest comes from the New York Times in an article titled “Airline Fees Test Travelers’ Limits”. 

You can almost feel sorry for the airlines because it seems at every turn they are getting kicked by either the government or the media. And the more kicking they do, the more the public demands a change. It is almost to a point where we feel that we have a fundamental right to travel cheaply by air and without problems. I don’t remember seeing this in the Constitution, but you never know. An amendment dealing with airline travel may be forthcoming.     

Congress thinks they can solve it by putting more rules (laws) in place to regulate everything from how you advertise your rates to how long you can keep a person stranded on an aircraft sitting on the tarmac. How can you regulate customer service?   

 I wonder if there is a point where the airlines figure this out?  The solutions are neither simple nor obvious because the airlines must make a profit.  At this point, though, they don’t seem to have a vision of how they can create both profits and happy customers.

 We run a business that offers an alternative form of travel. It is not cheap, but travelers do like to travel in our aircraft. 

Most days we have happy customers. Occasionally we make a mistake or weather and the laws of mechanical physics conspire against us and we end up with an unhappy customer. The air conditioner breaks on the hottest of days or weather prevents us from departing or making an on time arrival or …..

 When that happens, it is up to us to make it right. We should do what it takes to fix it. If we don’t make it right, then shame on us. Those customers who see you do the right thing when things go wrong become the best customers. When you don’t do the right thing, then the customers go somewhere else for the solution.  

Our customers are smart and successful people. They run businesses themselves and know what it takes to deliver their product or service at a profit while meeting the expectations of their customers. They also know that things can sometimes go wrong; so, mostly, I have seen a degree of patience from our customers to allow us to “make it right.”

I don’t see that with the airlines. Patience has run out. As the NYT article title suggests “travelers’ limits are tested”.

One side of me smiles and says I hope that the airlines keep doing more of what they are doing. It pushes people to consider using our form of air travel even though the dollar cost is more.

The other side of me says that the airlines need to figure out how to make their customers happy if at all possible.  The economy of this country will win if they do that.

The bottom line is that travel is about productivity. Efficient travel contributes to economic productivity and inefficient travel kills productivity. Stress in travel has to reduce productivity, too.  Let’s figure out how to eliminate the stress.

As I’ve mentioned before, my father is a forester and he has always said that there are no better conservationists than his colleagues.  If they don’t take care to preserve the natural resources, foresters work themselves right out of a job.  If you harvest a tree, you plant one in its place, keeping the supply renewed and the resource in balance.  Compared with this “if you use it, you replace it” philosophy, buying carbon credits has the feel of hiring a penitent.  In theory, environmental or moral transgressions are atoned.  And, while I suppose hiring someone to offset one’s carbon footprint is better than doing nothing, that emperor still appears naked to me. 

The transportation industry, in general, and the aviation industry, in particular, has an enormous carbon footprint.  For years, the industry has sought to reduce costs by increasing fuel efficiency, enjoying reduced emissions more as a happy by-product than an actual goal.  Recently, however, there has been something of an ideology shift.  I don’t know that anyone is willing to increase costs to decrease emissions, but certainly, more players in the industry are willing to see cleaner burning, sustainable fuel as a goal in itself.  The shift from “wouldn’t it be nice if” to “how can we do this” can be seen in the developing partnerships.  These aren’t mad scientists cooking up fuels in their garages.  These are Boeing, British Airways, Rolls-Royce developing fuels or partnering with visionary companies like Solena, Solazyme and Honeywell’s UOP.  Big money and big aviation experience are teaming up with big innovation to do something good for both our industry and our planet.  We use  fuel resources and air; and, we are nearing a time when we can renew the one resource while lowering pollutants in the other.  It’s no wonder excitement is growing. 

Flightglobal reports that at the recent air show in Farnborough, England, Richard Altman, executive director of the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative went so far as to say that current technologies “can contribute on a significant level to achieving carbon neutral growth – it’s happening and it’s happening now.”  And it’s happening from different sources.  On March 25, 2010, a United States Air Force A-10 flew its first flight using a blend of conventional JP-8 jet fuel and biomass fuel derived from the camelina plant, like those fuels produced by Alt-Air and Sustainable Oils.  As we discussed on 26 May, Brazil has a dynamic bio-fuels industry currently based on ethanol production from sugar cane. Darpa and others are closing in on an economical process to produce jet fuel from algae.  And Honeywell’s Green Jet Fuel (a blend of fuels from algae and used cooking oil) was used in the first biofuel-powered helicopter flight by the Royal Netherlands Air Force in June. 

The majority of news reports in the United States for the past three months have been stories on the catastrophic oil rig explosion and subsequent spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  China saw a Yellow Sea oil spill of nearly 28 million gallons around the same time.  As I watched those reports, I kept thinking of the progress in bio-fuel production.  Imagine how algal fuel production would eliminate the possibility of such a disaster – how months of clean-up and decontamination could be replaced by a flock of ducks.  Now, you’re really talking carbon neutral and that emperor’s new clothes look good.

Loveland Colorado’s Public Works Director  has announced a new program they hope to put into place at the Ft. Collins – Loveland Airport soon and it is called “Wingless Flight”.

I heard of this concept a few years ago and then the idea went away. I am not sure why it did not take off a few years ago but I would venture a guess that TSA could not get their heads around it.  

Basically you would drive to the Ft. Collins Airport, park, check your bags and clear security there, but instead of boarding a plane you will board a bus that will take you to Denver International (DIA). Once you arrive at DIA you will be deposited in the terminal with all security screening having been handled in Ft. Collins.

So what is the advantage of this?

If properly run it could save both time and money. Parking at Ft. Collins is easy and cheap,  and clearing security and going through the lines will take a minute or two versus the sometimes hour long wait at DIA.

I think success would depend on a high frequency of bus trips with a reliable time schedule so that users of this service can count on not spending a lot of time at DIA before they actually board their flight.  

If I lived in the Loveland area and got off a flight at DIA coming home and had to wait any time at all at DIA for the bus  back to Loveland I would lose patience. Once I am home, as in back to the terminal at home base, I can’t wait to get out of the terminal building to really get home.

Operating under the premise that we all fly to save time, anything that can reduce the door to door travel experience should be a winner. If it doesn’t really save time then saving a few bucks on parking won’t push people to do it?

The comments in the 9News.com  article about this are for the most part skeptical. One commenter states that this has already been tried in Boulder a few years ago.   

I have seen an almost similar scenario in Vienna, Austria, where we checked our bags at the rail station downtown that runs non-stop to the airport. We still had to clear security at the airport; but, at least we got rid of the bags. Europe, with its developed mass transit rail system, has the airport to rail connection down to a science. Most major airports are connected to a rail system by a short walk out of the terminal building.  

Give these guys in Loveland  an “A” for effort and innovation. Time will tell if the idea catches on.

Anything to reduce friction in travel is good. With the exception of price, travel by private aircraft takes care of all of the issues this proposed service are attempting to solve. How about a private flight out of Loveland Airport non-stop to your destination on your schedule.  Bypass DIA entirely!