Free Flight From Airline Hell To A New Age Of Travel - Couverture rigide

Fallows, James

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1586480405 ISBN 13 : 9781586480400

Editeur : PublicAffairs, 2001

Synopsis

With the airline industry under siege: A prescient analysis of its problems and an engaging look into its future-as well as a thought-provoking account of the challenges of entrepreneurship in the dot-com age-by the well-known Atlantic Monthly writer and award-winning author of National Defense and Breaking the News. Ask someone who has recently flown commercially about their experience and you'll hear a common complaint: "We spent almost as much time waiting as we did flying. " The airline system has reached a nightmarish state due to a combination of economics and technology. As the average cost of a flight has come down in the last twenty years, the airlines have survived by filling all the seats and funneling traffic through a hub-and-spoke routing system. Virtually all of the technological innovation in airplanes in the last thirty years has been devoted to moving passengers more cheaply, and more safely, between major hubs. Each generation of new planes has been more reliable, and has carried more passengers on less fuel, than before. But what was left out of this equation was, of course, the comfort, convenience, and flexibility of the average traveler. A technological answer to this logjam is underway at the moment. Free Flight will tell the story of three groups who are inventing and building the future of all air travel. There's a NASA administrator who long ago anticipated airline gridlock and began agitating for another system; there are the two brothers who created the first genuinely new small airplane in more than twenty-five years; and there is Eclipse Aviation in Albuquerque, which uses technologies first applied on cruise missiles to develop "cheap" jet planes for "air taxi" services that take you exactly where you want to go, when you want to go there. This book is fascinating reading for anyone interested in the airlines, airplanes, or American business.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

The troubles of the airline system have become acute in the post-terrorist era. As the average cost of a flight has come down in the last twenty years, the airlines have survived by keeping planes full and funneling traffic through a centralized hub-and-spoke routing system. Virtually all of the technological innovation in airplanes in the last thirty years has been devoted to moving passengers more efficiently between major hubs. But what was left out of this equation was the convenience and flexibility of the average traveler. Now, because of heightened security, hours of waiting are tacked onto each trip. As James Fallows vividly explains, a technological revolution is under way that will relieve this problem. Free Flight features the stories of three groups who are inventing and building the future of all air travel: NASA, Cirrus Design in Duluth, Minnesota, and Eclipse Aviation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. These ventures should make it possible for more people to travel the way corporate executives have for years: in small jet planes, from the airport that's closest to their home or office directly to the airport closest to where they really want to go. This will be possible because of a product now missing from the vast array of flying devices: small, radically inexpensive jet planes, as different from airliners as personal computers are from mainframes. And, as Fallows explains in a new preface, a system that avoids the congestion of the overloaded hub system will offer advantages in speed, convenience, and especially security in the new environment of air travel.

Biographie de l'auteur

James Fallows is National Correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, and has worked for the magazine for more than twenty years. His previous books include Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy, Looking at the Sun, More Like Us, and National Defense. Fallows has been a regular commentator on NPR. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: PublicAffairs
• Date d'édition: 2001
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1586480405
• ISBN 13: 9781586480400
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 272
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible