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Eyes on the skies
By STEVE HUETTEL
© St. Petersburg Times, You get to the gate, look for your plane and see nothing but an empty ramp. Airline dispatchers can glance at a computer screen and see if the aircraft is on final approach, stuck in a holding pattern or still hundreds of miles away. So can officials at many airports or anyone surfing various travel Web sites. But frustrated travelers are forced to take the airline's word, which isn't as good as gold. The Department of Transportation says one in five flights delayed 20 minutes or more is posted on airport monitors as running on time. Now, two companies that make aircraft tracking systems are trying to sell airlines and airports on a new use for their competing products: Share the images with customers wondering when or if their plane will show up. "People want to know what's going on and want to see it in moving pictures," said Jim Barry, chief operating officer of Megadata Corp., based in Greenwich, Conn. "This will make people feel good about the airline, especially when things are going wrong." Maybe so. But while United Airlines, Continental Airlines and Delta Air Lines use Megadata's radar system for their own operations, none has bought the company's public information product called FlightNews Live yet. The reason, airline officials and aviation experts say, is that carriers aren't eager to show customers exactly what goes on behind the scenes when the friendly skies turn ugly. "We want it to appear seamless to customers," Delta spokeswoman Cindi Kurczewski said. "This could generate more issues than are necessary." Airlines routinely shift particular jets to different flights, usually to inconvenience the least number of passengers, said Michael E. Levine, a former executive with Northwest and Continental who teaches law at Harvard University. "The problem is people could begin to feel a real ownership: Hey, they took my plane," he said. "It may limit (an airline's) flexibility. Suppose you had 1,000 people watching, each convinced it was his or her plane being swapped out?" Megadata and competitor Flight Explorer in Fairfax, Va., might have more luck selling airports on their products. Passengers at Rapid City (S.D.) Regional Airport can watch a screen produced by Flight Explorer's Flight Snapshot that shows planes flying between the airport and three airline hubs and weather systems that could impede air traffic. Airports in competitive markets could use the displays to attract frequent business travelers who often switch flights the moment they smell trouble, said Walt Kross, president of Flight Explorer. "One up-to-date visual view can tell the savvy traveler an awful lot about his personal situation," he said. Airlines might wary of arming customers with that information, but public outrage over flight delays and cancellations could force their hand. The uproar has sparked several bills in Congress to strengthen passenger rights. Most require carriers to give customers the most timely information when a flight is delayed or canceled. Flight problems, including delays, cancellations and missed connections, are the No. 1 complaint the DOT receives from air travelers. Airlines try to give passengers the best information about flight problems, the agency said in a February report, but they frequently fall short. "The airlines' credibility has gotten so low ... that in general, people tend to discount what they're told," said Paul Hudson, executive director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project, a Washington-based group founded by Ralph Nader. Megadata is trying to convince airlines their best defense is full disclosure. Showing passengers conditions in skies, like thunderstorms or planes stuck in racetrack-shaped holding patterns, will help convince them that many delays aren't the airline's fault, Barry said. Some airline supervisors like Rick Hoefling, Continental's operations director at Newark International Airport, are believers. When air-traffic controllers hold up planes to avoid storms, for example, nobody knows how long it will be before they can take off or land, he said. Leveling with passengers by sharing the picture the airline is watching will help them understand, he said. "Customers are well beyond ready for this," Hoefling said. "Sometimes we can't tell them when the airplane's going to go. The reality is the agent doesn't know, the airline doesn't know and the (Federal Aviation Administration) doesn't know." Megadata and Flight Explorer began by selling tracking systems to airlines. Flight Explorer uses radar feeds that the FAA collects from control centers across the country and sells to private companies. That's the same data, updated every minute, that travel Web sites use to show the location of individual flights. The company sells a PC-based graphical display that airlines such as American, Southwest and US Airways use to track their entire fleet or estimate when a specific flight will touch down at its destination. Megadata specializes in the airspace around airports. The company collects aircraft locations from its own radar antennas more than 40 airports, including Tampa International Airport. The antenna picks up signals from an airport radar and the responses triggered by an airliner's transponder. The system, called PASSUR, pinpoints each plane's location every 4.6 seconds and shows customers a view of all aircraft within 150 miles. Its computer brain remembers the routes airliners take when they are diverted by air-traffic controllers into holding patterns and flashes an alert when one heads in that direction. The computer also measures how long it took the last plane out of a holding pattern to land and, using an algorithm, calculates new estimated arrival times based on each plane's position in the stack. With the computer-generated ETA, Hoefling said, employees at Continental's Newark control center can accurately alert baggage handlers, plane cleaners, caterers and fuelers when to be at the gate to meet a plane. Gate schedulers can do a better job shuffling planes around. "Running a hub you need accurate ETA information," Hoefling said. "You can only get it when (the plane) is at the heart of where it's going, in our case the most congested airspace in the country." Airports buy PASSUR and similar radar systems to make sure pilots follow noise-abatement rules designed to keep planes from disturbing nearby neighborhoods. Tampa International, for instance, requires that jets taking off to the south use runway 36-Left and fly over Tampa Bay rather than a parallel runway that would take them over homes in Tampa's Westshore area. The system stores months of airliner tracks on a computer hard drive. So, when a resident complains about a jet roaring overhead, noise officer Ken Reed can search the computer and quickly pinpoint the specific plane, its speed and altitude at various points along the way. "There used to be no way to verify it," he said. "You'd call the control tower and they'd either say they sent (the plane) there and why or they didn't know anything about it." San Francisco International Airport displays the radar on its noise-abatement Web site. Residents upset by low-flying jets can log on and see flight paths and altitudes of airliners flying to and from the airport or two others, Oakland and San Jose International Airports. Airports such as Tampa International could buy FlightNews Live and generate estimated arrival times independently from the airlines. But few would want to risk confusing passengers with conflicting information, said Louis Miller, executive director of the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, which runs TIA. Megadata designed FlightNews Live for big, flat-screen monitors many airlines already are installing to display information at airport gates. Passengers would see a map with their plane, the estimated arrival time, distance from the airport and other flight information. But United Airlines officials won't even officially acknowledge they're considering the new product. "How we display information that's accurate, credible and valuable to customers is always of interest to us," spokesman Joe Hopkins said. "We try to make it as credible as possible." Says Levine, the former airline executive and Harvard Law professor, "Obviously, this kind of thing would have value, but it could also be a little awkward for the airlines." - Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3384.
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From the Times Business report
From the AP
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