Archives…
June 19 Update…
SCASD Docket 2017…
What do these airports have in common?
Sarasota. Bozeman. Charleston. Santa Fe. Fresno. Midland. Binghamton. Erie. Richmond. Bangor. Spokane. Shreveport. Latrobe. Traverse City. Springfield…
They’re a few of the examples of where a BGI-crafted Small Community Air Service Grant Application has led to recruitment of new air service.
Since the SCASD program’s implementation in 2002, Boyd Group International has been at the forefront of crafting innovative, successful grant applications for communities across the nation.
In fact, we’ve assisted our clients win more dollars from this program than any other consulting firm.
The DOT is expected to issue the docket for the 2017 Small Community Air Service program shortly. We’ve just completed our Guide To Filing A Successful SCASD Application. It covers all the bases – what the program does and the issues that communities should include when considering applying.
The Guide outlines strategies for crafting an application, as well as the traps and mistakes to avoid to assure a competitive filing.
The Guide pulls no punches and discusses the factors airports need to consider before making a filing decision. We candidly review the types of grant uses that will get the DOT’s attention, as well as how to define which “air service deficiencies” can be addressed with a grant.
The Guide is complimentary, and can be requested by clicking here. Go there, and we’ll get it right off to you. It will give you a candid and forthright review regarding whether a SCASD application is a viable path to enhance your community’s air access objectives.
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Monday Update, June 19, 2017
Trump’s Cuba Policy
It Could Give Airlines More Cover To Pull Down Gracefully
It’s not there. And won’t be there for years.
We’re talking about the supposed expected boom in air travel to Cuba. The one that Trump’s new Cuba policies supposedly will harm.
It’s pretty hard to cut back on things that don’t exist.
Such as the supposed “great opportunities” for US business and for US airlines in Cuba that certain folks are now criticizing Trump for trampling upon.
Let’s Recap Realities. Boyd Group International’s independent reports on the Cuba “opportunity” in 2009 and in 2014 were very clear – and very accurate on the future of air travel potential with Cuba. That “bonanza” is years away, and entirely in the hands of the Cuban government.
So, Where’s The Common Business Sense? There is no business foundation in Cuba. There is no consumer buying power. There is no free trade. There is limited leisure-travel infrastructure, and what’s there tends to be of the “adventure” category.
Message: Tossing 737s into Cuban airports that have no traffic won’t create it. Nor will that change the people who are responsible for this economic mess.
Most of the businesses, such as they are, are run by the Cuban military, the same military that makes very sure there is no political dissent on the island. Their citizens can’t travel freely, let alone speak freely.
The air traffic bonanza that the media and the travel industry parroted as if it just got belched up at Delphi is a complete dud…and nothing Trump did, didn’t do, or might do, will change that.
Too Bad The Cuban Government Doesn’t Agree. But now watch the oh-so-concerned-about-humanity types denouncing the Administration’s latest actions. Funny, but we don’t hear these same “humanitarians” denouncing the people who’ve made Cuba a showcase of totalitarian mismanagement over the last half century.
Somehow, their twisted logic is that it’s the US that’s keeping Cubans in near-poverty, in an environment where free speech is dangerous and political repression is the foundation of the cleptocracy running the country. All that’s needed is more travel access, and all of that will change. It’s up to us, see.
It’s reminiscent of the anti-war protesters in the 1960s.
Funny, they never tried a few bars of “Give Peace A Chance” in downtown Hanoi.
It’s pretty much the same thing with the folks hyping Cuba “outreach.”
They have a message. But it’s devoid of any semblance of integrity – much like the Cuban government they refuse to criticize.
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Monday Update, June 12, 2017
To Start This Week…
Congratulations to Traverse City… New Nonstops to DFW on American start this week.
BGI is proud to have assisted TVC with the successful Small Community Air Service Development Grant that made the service possible, as well as working to recruit AA.
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Before We Launch Into This Week’s Insight… Clear Your Calendar
Air Access Realities & Opportunities 401
Hub-Choke. Road-Hubbing. Consumer Alternative Dynamics. Fleet Shifts.
You won’t hear about them at “air service development” events. But these are the factors that are now critical to understanding how the new air transportation realities will affect air service access in the future.
Planning The Future With Futurist Metrics. Three years go, the IAFS outlined how traditional “air service development” approaches were becoming obsolete, and were founded on an airline system that no longer exists.
Furthermore, they tend to focus on what the community “needs” instead of what the new realities of airline economics can deliver.
Blind reports such as “true market studies” and “drive analyses” and web-based “cost calculators” merely measure things – often not very well – instead of delivering insight that relates to forecasting the future. And that means a lot of these exercises only deliver flashy and expensive documents.
That’s because most of these ASD programs are accomplished in an absence of honest professional knowledge of the emerging dynamics of the consolidated airline industry, so the numbers just measure the past, instead of forecasting the realistic future.
On August 27, there’s a new Workshop that will illuminate whole new directions to assure viable air access from the global economy.
Air Access Realities & Opportunities 401 will go into the new dynamics that airports and communities must deal with, such as analyzing what consumers will actually do in the real world of air service alternatives, not what they say on an unscientific survey that asks softball questions, the answers for which have no bearing on consumer behavior.
We’ll outline new consumer trends. Things like road-hubbing, which represents strong opportunities for some airports, and tough realities for others – realities that a “leakage study” or web-based “cost calculator” won’t change. We look at hub choke – a factor that requires forthright analysis of the value of the traffic that a market can deliver. We look at the new applications of new-technology fleets.
These are core planning factors that “ASD” ignores completely.
The global economy will affect all airports. So we’ll look at the regional consumer air access effects as airports such as Columbus, CVG, Sacramento, Indianapolis and others gain long-haul international access.
This all goes way beyond current “air service development” – because it addresses the future.
Bring your board members to this Workshop. The mayor, too. But come ready to work… we’ll be covering and discussing issues that will pummel a lot of ambient thinking.
For more information on the Summit, and the other exciting pre-Summit Workshops, click here…. And get prepared for whole new perspectives beyond shopworn “ASD” concepts.
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ATC Privatization Pro & Con
Either way, It’s Preserving Incompetence. Not Fixing It.
It’s rare to have a dispute where both sides are flat wrong.
But that’s exactly the case with the brouhaha with ATC privatization. The “pro” side is spouting off all manner of nonsense about how privatization all by itself will magically lead to better air service, less cost for the consumer, and more efficiency in moving airplanes across the skies. Instant solution!
Nowhere do they state how this will all happen, except for some babbling about “reliable funding, government red tape removal, and – of course, “it’s satellite based!”
The anti-privatization folks are much more creative, albeit just as far off the mark as the pro crowd.They claim it’s a giant power grab by the airline industry, who will use ATC to cut off air service to small communities, and use it to their evil advantage to make more money. Small airports will be savaged by a greedy cabal fixing to torpedo their economic future. It’s right up there with the Chicken Little stuff that’s been spouted about the proposals to end EAS. Lots of self-righteous emotion. Short on facts.
Neither side has ever – ever – focused on the reasons that air traffic control is a Third-World mess. In fact, both sides, most of the members of which couldn’t tell the difference between ATC and an ATM machine, are in total agreement on keeping the two things that are at the root of this 40-year-old scandal.
Those are NextGen – which they accept like a pack of gullible “marks” at a rigged carnival game – and the sheer incompetence of the management of the ATC programs over the last four decades.
NextGen itself – and any honest review of the history of this program shows this – has been a parade of shortfalls, missed deadlines, dishonest promises and wasted money. But the veneer “experts” talk about it as a miracle, and it’s only funding that has held it back.
Now, it’s not politically correct to point out that the NextGen emperor is as naked as a jaybird. After all, every media story touts the program as the new messiah of the sky. “Course, none of these reporters ever check the source.
The second reason for the ATC program swamp is more fundamental. There is no accountability for failure or mismanagement.
There is total agreement from all sides of the privatization issue: NextGen is not to be questioned, and the people responsible for this mess are not to ever be held accountable..
Neither side – and heaven knows the media, too – have ever bothered to check out GAO and DOT IG reports on the NextGen fiasco. The reports are clear: the entire program is a misfire when it comes to delivering a clear, well-visioned system to meet the future. Deadlines missed. Timelines revised. “Delay” stats with no real improvement.
And this in the light of the fact that last year there were 15% fewer airline flights than in 2007.
And both the Trump Administration and its opponents want to ignore it all.
So, don’t fear change. As for the ATC fiasco, there won’t be any.
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