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Why is it so hard to build an airport?

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Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#451

Post by vel0city »

masklinn wrote: post #429
vel0city wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LUV is an airport in Indonesia, Dallas Love Field is DAL. DAL was forced to be a domestic-only airport from the Wright amendment as DFW was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere in '79, nobody would have bothered going out there if they weren't forced to by federal law. American Airlines wanted an airport, and the federal government gave it to them. And sure, IAH is the bigger international airport in Houston, bu…

> DAL was forced to be a domestic-only airport from the Wright amendment as DFW was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere in '79, nobody would have bothered going out there if they weren't forced to by federal law. American Airlines wanted an airport, and the federal government gave it to them. That's more than a little revisionist: following the CAB's demand for a joint international-class airport (Dallas refuse…

Thanks for informing me to the history of the CAB decisions. In the end though, it still seems like American and Braniff weren't happy people were sticking it out with Love instead of their larger and fancier airport, and deregulation gave people the market to choose which airport they really wanted to go to until the Wright amendment forced people again. Even knowing this additional history of it being a joint decision pre-deregulation, I'd still argue my earlier viewpoint still has a good bit of truth to it. American Airlines (and a few others) wanted people to use the new airport instead of the airport the people wanted and got Congress to force people to go to DFW. GSW failed because people didn't really want it. DFW would have failed post deregulation as well if the federal government didn't force it to succeed.

FWIW I do agree this was ultimately a good thing in the end though. It would not have been good for DFW airport to fail, and the region definitely did need a larger airport.

It seems like we do agree with this line though:

> nobody would have bothered going out there if they weren't forced to by federal law.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#452

Post by notatoad »

walthamstow wrote: post #408
myrmidon wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is disingenuous; "City of London" is a tiny, central district of London. It is most emphatically NOT "London, the city", in exactly the same way that Civic center is not the city of San Francisco. It's just confusingly named.

There is no other definition of London, the city. There's the Greater London region, which is 9m people, but that's it. Parliament, for example, is in the City of Westminster, one of 32 boroughs which (+ the City) make up Greater London.

When normal people talk about a city, they're talking about an urban area under the jurisdiction of a mayor and city council. that's exactly what "greater london" is, so when people talk about a city called London it's safe to assume they mean the 32 boroughs.

"the city of london" is just a confusingly named area inside a city called "London", it's not a city.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#453

Post by Andrex »

rqtwteye wrote: post #222
thaumasiotes wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the main counterexample to that argument was the fact that it has never worked anywhere. From what I've heard, the Olympics have failed to benefit every city that's hosted them except LA, and the reason they were good for LA was specifically that no new infrastructure was built to accommodate them.

I think Munich did well in 1972. They got a lot of public transport and most of the sports facilities are used a lot.

Shame about the security, though.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#454

Post by m0llusk »

samtho wrote: post #213
duped wrote: post #145

Airlines should go build their hubs in a better geographical location than major cities, like O'hare. And pay for it with their own money. At ORD for example, something like half of all the air traffic are connecting flights. There's a bit of money to be made by gate fees, but the pressure on the surrounding suburbs (I don't even know if the neighbors even get those fees, since the airport is technically within Chica…

Why would an airline have any business in acquiring, getting approved/zoned, and constructing an bespoke airport close to a major metro that would presumably only benefit that airline? Airlines already operate at razor thin margins, specialize in only the transporting aspect, and would not be the best party to oversee the development of airfields and airports. Additionally, companies other than the major airlines use…

This way the airline can be nearly certain of getting plenty of gate space. Delta played a strong role in building Atlanta Hartsfield.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#455

Post by drstewart »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #364
bluGill wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering population and size I'd expect more. It would be interesting to see what is different that they don't have more.

> Considering population and size I'd expect more. London has like four major airports: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airports_of_London

So does New York and LA. Not special.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#456

Post by ghaff »

ghaff wrote: post #390
dylan604 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How very 1800s of you. Curious minds wonder what you do to be able to have that kind of time for travel. The amount of time you require in just travel is more than most Americans receive in a year's vacation

Fairly routine tech jobs. In a prior long-term job I got up to about 4 weeks of vacation after a time and did some month-long vacations, especially Nepal treks. I was pretty careful to preserve time off for single vacations for the most part and had flexibility to take a few hours here and there without tapping into my pool. I'm pretty close to that currently--although it's combined sick/personal/vacation. I've done…

I'd add that I've always been pretty religious about taking all my vacation and I've seen a lot of people shocked that I just took off for a month. But I've done so deliberately and with an eye to future commitments and it's never been an issue.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#457

Post by drstewart »

sofixa wrote: post #132
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The distinct lack of green space in US cities is very noticeable to the non-US observer. Huh? I felt the exact opposite in France. Many French cities have a bunch of nice parks, but everything else is wall-to-wall pavement. I always felt the common refrain about there being dog shit all over Paris is because on many streets there is barely a patch of grass for a dog to even go, so if you have a rude person that doe…

I live in Paris and was recently in the US, and I strongly disagree - US cities have much less greenery, be it trees on the streets, mini parks or big parks. Most French cities have parks all over the place, and in general lots of squares with trees, random trees on the streets, etc.

I live in the US and was recently and Paris and I strongly much more disagree. Paris was claustrophobic it was such an urban hellscape. There's a reason Haussmann wanted to raze it to the ground.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#458

Post by bobthepanda »

thrawa8387336 wrote: post #263
jrockway wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Montreal isn't the only city that failed with a too-far-away airport. Tokyo built Narita against much local opposition (they still check your ID before you're allowed inside the airport, to make sure you're not an angry local resident), and the opposition resulted in not being able to build the transport link they wanted (the Narita Shinkansen). The result is a good hour wasted on conventional rail to get to Tokyo. (…

I had to laugh out. The Japanese do not like the American tourists?

more like, Narita cost a lot of money to build, and the smart money if allowed to would just flood Haneda with as many flights as possible and leave Narita an empty husk.

Putting more restrictions on Haneda allows Narita to not be a totally useless airport.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#459

Post by FireBeyond »

yamazakiwi wrote: post #404
balderdash wrote: post #358

I would be pretty upset if all of a sudden my house was under the flight path of a new airport (and the associated economic consequences) but I always find it surprising how annoyed people get that put a house near an airport and then complain about it, where one of my parents lives there is a small but fairly busy private airport that has been there close to a hundred years, so almost no one that lives by it now can…

Reminds me of that person protesting a Beer Festival in Golden Colorado. On their sign they stated they wanted to keep alcohol activities out of Golden but the city is home to Coors Brewing Company. https://kdvr.com/news/trending/golden-residents-anti-beer-fe...

Jack Daniels distillery is famously in a dry county in Tennessee. It's legal to distill it there, but illegal to purchase it in county.

https://thesterlingtraveler.com/jack-daniels-distillery-tour...

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#460

Post by slaymaker1907 »

tzs wrote: post #50

My understanding is that electric airplanes are much quieter but batteries do not have a high enough energy density to make an electric airliner with more than very short range. I wonder if it would be feasible to make some kind of hybrid that uses electric engines for takeoff and landing and regular jet engines for the rest of the flight?

Largescale use of electric planes still seem like sci-fi for the time being, but you did get me thinking that airships would likely produce a lot less noise pollution than planes.
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