Government shutdown - flights?

[Lewisc]

For one thing you wouldn't want to stop flights being used for medical appointments

I guesstimated that number at 10%. If I'm wrong make an adjustment.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I guesstimated that number at 10%. If I'm wrong make an adjustment.

I wasn't asking you to be precise there just using that as an example where there's just a lot more into private aviation than we probably think about (in the medical part is organs flights, life flights, medical evacuations, medical appointments and more). I'm sure most just conjure up the very wealthy just flying around which is for sure the case but isn't all that is there.

In particular Alaska is a place where that comprises of most of their flights having the most private aviation per captia than any other state (at least 2023 figures but I'm sure doesn't change much) and they already said they wouldn't be cutting flights to vulnerable communities which is most of the state (Ice Airport Alaska is a fantastic show for reflecting just what happens in aviation in that state).

Private aviation can include planes that don't even need to land at an airstrip under an air traffic controller. And as far as I can see the FAA earlier this week only looked at private flights at 12 airports whereas the National Business Aviation Association states that most business jet operators don't even use the busiest commercial airports (a quote from the President of that association). That same association states "more than 40% of member flights were to airports with no or limited scheduled airline flights. More than one-third were to airports that had never had commercial airline flights" They are also used for disaster relief including Jamaica right now.

I don't really think the FAA looked necessarily at the nitty gritty of the impact the private flights had on those airports but may have just assumed one less flight is one less flight.

All of my comments are viewing it through your comment about how they should have just cut 90% of private aviation flights (in lieu of commercial I assume).

I think you'd have to have justification for looking at and grounding only flights that were from a viewpoint of absolutely not necessary and IMO I think that would take a ton more effort to do so. Lesser of the two evils perhaps doing it the way they did even though I agree with you if you're thinking the millionaire or billionaire doesn't really need to take that flight on their private jet just to get lunch if it adds to the air traffic controller's burden.

 

[Lewisc]

Private aviation can include planes that don't even need to land at an airstrip under an air traffic controller. And as far as I can see the FAA earlier this week only looked at private flights at 12 airports whereas the National Business Aviation Association states that most business jet operators don't even use the busiest commercial airports

Teteboro Airport is for general aviation. It's 18 miles from Newark Airport. Obviously it impacts air traffic control in the NYC area.

The statements you quoted threaded the needle. TEB doesn't have commercial flights.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Teteboro Airport is for general aviation. It's 18 miles from Newark Airport. Obviously it impacts air traffic control in the NYC area.

The statements you quoted threaded the needle. TEB doesn't have commercial flights.

I feel like you're trying to take something that the association said and make it bend to suite your point. They said "most" business operators obviously that doesn't mean 100% so you pulling a particular airport out to make your point doesn't make sense. General aviation is the large umbrella of types of flights including those under medical. In your first comment you said private jets.

It's also not quite what is being said. The entire U.S. is broken up into bubbles that are the prevue of a specific air traffic controller system. The context is specific airports not airspaces. If the FAA had instead held a directive that all flights in and out of a particular airspace was now being controlled by them subject to them saying a plane, helicopter, etc can't fly through it because it burden them then your point about a particular airport's impact on the airspace would make sense. The private planes don't land exclusively at commercial airports that was what the association was getting at (with their particular quote being one third of them don't in that association). I don't know what methodology the FAA used to pick the 12 airports they did but what the association was saying was in a nutshell is they could be going after the wrong perceived problem.

This is exactly why calling for a broad "private jet" discussion gets complex and murky very quickly. It's a lot more nuanced than commercial flights that land at commercial airports.

ETA: To put in a clarifying aspect all the comments from the association I quoted were in a rebuttal to a group calling for all private jets to be banned during the shutdown so their points being made were in that vein.