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One more thing that shut down the Concorde was the post-9/11 increase in security procedures at airports, greatly diminshing the relative advantage of supersoni
by qq66 11y ago
One more thing that shut down the Concorde was the post-9/11 increase in security procedures at airports, greatly diminshing the relative advantage of supersonic flights. If getting on the plane takes an extra (unpleasant) 45 minutes on each end, then the percentage time savings from supersonic flight is reduced.
- zrail 11y agoConcorde tickets require global entry or your country's equivalent. Problem solved.
- 15155 11y ago> require global entry It's not a matter of people delaying or impacting flights, it's a matter of the flight being less appealing with inevitable security wait times. Requiring anything like this will only make an already niche service less accessible with no benefit.
- dalke 11y agoSome airports have special priority lines for the business and first-class passengers. There are no security wait times if you have the money to skip the lines. Eg, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/01/AR2005080101435.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08... and http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/magazine/11wwln-lede-t.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/magazine/11wwln-lede-t.htm... . And Concorde passengers had the money.
- InclinedPlane 11y agoGlobal entry is easy to get and cheap compared to the cost of concorde travel.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoStupid easy. $100 fee for five years, background check, and a digital record of your fingerprints are kept on file.
- darklajid 11y agoI hope you missed the /s tags. A background check and your fingerprints, because ..? I recently landed in Heathrow after a looong time staying in Europe (yes, England's not Europe) only. I was literally shaking when I saw all the people going through a random scanner, looking into a camera, providing their fingerprints. Ignoring that the system didn't even work half the time while I was watching and that it needed a supervisor that reset everything, brought the people back out of the 'check zone' to .. turn it off and on again: That's insane. This is the amount I'm willing to pay to a crappy government to go easy on me: This is the list of governments that are allowed to take my fingerprints outside of a criminal investigation(* ): Again, I really really hope you were just kidding and making fun of a bad situation. *: The next time my German ID runs out I _might_ have to do that for my own home country - and I still try to figure out ways to avoid that/let the ID run out (illegal) without a renewal etc. And I try to vote for the parties that aren't insane.
- johncolanduoni 11y agoI can't speak for the poster, but I have global entry and share the same sentiment without sarcasm. The government didn't "take" my fingerprints, I gave them to it in exchange for skipping most of customs and domestic security screening. The interview was probably the most noninvasive interaction I've had with CBE. If you don't feel like s worthwhile for you, then don't do it. If the government gets a hard on for framing me, they have much more surefire and efficient methods than planting my fingerprints. Until they start making the normal screenings worse to try and force people into it (which I don't think is the case, the TSA has gotten a lot easier to deal with in the last few years) I don't see it as a miscarriage of justice.
- stouset 11y agoMy GE interview was a joke. The only question I was asked was about my move from Atlanta to SF. For some inexplicable reason, I was asked three or four times if there was any gap between living in the two cities, to which the answer was no: I moved directly from an apartment in one to an apartment in the other. That was the full extent of the questioning, which lasted maybe 5 minutes.
- hn9780470248775 11y agoAre post-9/11 security times really longer? Security screening actually seems pretty efficient (i.e. quick) to me. Even before 9/11 we had baggage x-ray and passenger metal detection. These measures were introduced in December 1972.
- miah_ 11y agoYes. I have to opt-out every time I fly now which adds ~20-30 minutes to my visit to security.
- hughes 11y agoOpt-out of what?
- diyorgasms 11y agoPresumably the millimeter wave body scanners, which are both invasive and relatively unstudied in its health effects.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoApparently millimeter wave radiation can be ionizing under the right circumstances. That's sort of terrifying. http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.5294 http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.5294
- oakwhiz 11y agoThe paper you referred to doesn't make any claims with regards to ionization - the effects considered are mainly having to do with the molecular dynamics behaviors of DNA.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- throwketchup 11y ago
- Spooky23 11y agoThe other thing for the super-rich is fractional jet ownership. If your flying to dinner in London from NYC, Your concierge experience at Teterboro to hop in a Gulfstream with nominal security is way more pleasant than facing the masses of wannabe VIPs at the big airport.
- techdragon 11y agoWhich is why there is continued work on "affordable" supersonic flight in the private business key industry and has been for decades.
- aianus 11y agoIs that it, though? I was under the impression that the rich flew private for time savings not because they actually enjoy the flight that much. Put me in a cattle car for an hour over a private jet for seven hours any day.
- bwilliams18 11y agoNo security at Teterboro. Or most other private airports for that matter. Just a Customs check if you're going international.
- youngtaff 11y agoAirbus withdrawing support for it was what really killed it - BA wanted to carry on flying them but couldn't
- peteri 11y agoFrom memory at LHR Concorde had dedicated check in and lounge (this was in 2003). I'm pretty sure we went through dedicated security for Concorde (might have been VIP) I certainly don't remember hanging around much. Can't say what JFK on the way was back like as I flew to Barbados, where facilities were a little more basic. There are still ways to get faster through security, London City airport always feels fast when I fly through it and one day I will do the BA001 flight (Concordes old number) to JFK where again I suspect time spent in security theatre will be small.
- superuser2 11y agoWhat do delays at the arrival end of your trip have to do with 9/11? Customs screening for international flights has always existed; only security on the departure side has gotten slower, and this is a problem you can solve with not very much money by enrolling in pre-check. Your air travel experience will be much more pleasant if you exclusively do carry-on. I've never needed more than a backpack and a suitcase. Most destinations have laundry machines. My understanding is that weather, taxi gridlock, and under-provisioned gates are the primary drivers of slowness in airports.
- bwilliams18 11y agoPre-Check is great, when you have it, and did not exist from 2001 until the concorde shut down in 2003, thus was a significant factor. It is probably safe to say that almost anyone flying on the concorde at the time would have pre-check today.