Salon :: Tech & Business

Ask the Pilot: What happens when you have more -- but smaller -- planes, flying to more cities, more often? Can you say "gridlock"?

Of all the terms presented in my <a href="http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2007/05/04/askthepilot230/">recent glossary of airline-ese,</a> two of the most familiar were "gate hold" and "holding pattern." Congestion, logjam, gridlock; if you haven't noticed, flying has become more delay-prone than ever. How this has come to be, and what can be done about it, aren't always understood. Step 1 is to lay blame where it's due. Say what you want about short-staffed airlines and an inefficient ATC (air traffic control) system, the baseline cause is better explained in simple logistics: There are too many planes carrying too few people. <P>Twenty years ago, here at my hometown <a href="http://dir.salon.com/topics/airports/">airport,</a> Boston-Logan, the typical rush-hour takeoff queue was a mix of wide-body jets and assorted smaller types. A typical 10-plane queue went something like this: DC-10, 727, DC-9, 767, L-1011, A300, 727, 767, DC-10. That's 10 aircraft carrying about 1,800 seats. Nowadays, that 10-plane queue is a 20-plane queue, and it might look like this: CRJ-100, A319, MD-80, 757, 737, EMB-135, CRJ-100, Dash-8, A320, ERJ-170, EMB-145, A319, 767, 737, A321, BE-1900, MD-80, 757, CRJ-700, 737. For those who aren't hip to the various makes and models, those are mostly small planes. That's twice the number of aircraft carrying the same 1,800 seats. <p>...</p><img src="http://feeds.salon.com/~r/salon/tech/~4/121254134" height="1" width="1"/>

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