Tag: airport
United and Archer will open an air taxi route to Chicago’s O’Hare airport in 2025
Archer Aviation and United Airlines announced a partnership today to launch a commercial air taxi route in Chicago. The companies plan to open the flight path between downtown and O’Hare International Airport in 2025.
Besides being United’s headquarters and largest hub, Chicago’s airport commute makes it an ideal testbed for flying taxis. For example, the drive to or from O’Hare, in the western suburb of Rosemont, can take anywhere from 35 minutes to over an hour, depending on traffic; even in one of the city’s elevated trains, it can take around 45 minutes. But Archer estimates a flight in one of its air taxis will only take 10 minutes to travel from O’Hare to its destination at a downtown helipad. The program will initially be limited to the mainline O’Hare / downtown route, but the companies eventually plan to add smaller paths to surrounding communities.
Archer describes the upcoming route as “cost competitive” for passengers without going into specifics. But even if it’s initially limited to deep-pocketed business travelers, the program should be good for the environment. Archer’s air taxis use electric motors and batteries and don’t produce emissions. “This exciting new technology will further decarbonize our means of transportation, taking us another step forward in our fight against climate change,” said Mayor Lori Lightfoot. “I’m pleased that Chicago residents will be among the first in the nation to experience this innovative, convenient form of travel.”
The partnership is the latest in United’s aggressive investments in flying taxis. Last year, the airline ordered at least 200 electric flying taxis from Eve Air Mobility; that followed a $10 million deposit it placed with Archer the month prior.
In addition to Chicago’s (ground-based) taxis and ride shares, the city has a robust public transportation system built around elevated trains and buses, the latter of which the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has committed to converting to electric by 2040. (The CTA already deploys 23 electric buses.) If all goes according to plan, the flight path will help decrease emissions and traffic congestion, something most Chi-town residents can get behind.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/united-and-archer-will-open-an-air-taxi-route-to-chicagos-ohare-airport-in-2025-191352804.html?src=rss
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Meet Randel Darby, CEO and Founder at Airport Technology Company: Airportr
Airportr is a digital platform built to improve the customer experience, make travel more connected, and optimise operational activities on…
The post Meet Randel Darby, CEO and Founder at Airport Technology Company: Airportr appeared first on TechRound.
Experiencer Recalls UFO ABDUCTION & POSSIBLE IMPREGNATION Near Asheville NC Airport
A Henderson County, NC woman recalls her encounter with a saucer-shaped craft near the Asheville Airport. She believes that she was abducted and possibly impregnated during 90 minutes of lost time.
I recently received the following account:
“I had an experience in the early 1980s while driving home in Hendersonville County, North Carolina. This happened just before daybreak on a warm summer morning. I was driving south on Highway 26. I had just dropped my husband off at work and was heading home. The morning light was still low and it was a bit foggy so I was driving cautiously in the right lane. as I was passing the Asheville Airport exit I saw a large bright light high in the sky coming down vertically directly in front of me. I remember thinking that airplane is off course and headed in the wrong direction. It looked like it was trying to make a landing on the interstate.
I pulled over next to the guardrail and turned my radio volume down low as the light came closer. It stopped and hovered just above the interstate about a hundred and fifty yards away from me. Then the craft slowly made a sharp right turn and moved to the east of me to hover about one hundred and fifty feet above the dairy farm below. This property is now the golf course at the Asheville Airport. The craft was only about 50 yards from the guardrail now and where I sat in my car I was mesmerized. I rolled down my window and turned off my car. I could hear the noise of the craft pulsing and whirring. It did not look or sound anything like the airplanes I had seen and heard flying at the Asheville Airport over the years. The craft was flat on the bottom and domed in an upside-down saucer shape. It was huge at least the length of a football field and as it pulled alongside me on my right the bright light on the front of the craft was behind my view inside the car as it illuminated the pasture and the trees. Beneath the craft, I could also see that there were three smaller lights on the side that I was now facing. It was a red light flanked by two small blue lights located at the bottom of the disc. I could also see faint lights of the Asheville Airport runway in the background. I remember thinking it must be some type of top-secret aircraft being tested by the Air Force.
I got out of the car and walked around to the back and over to the guardrail. I stood there for some time just staring at it and trying to rationalize what I was seeing. Why had the airport control not called the Highway Patrol I thought to myself? Why is no one stopping? Why is there no response from police or emergency services? All of these questions ran through my mind as I stood there for several minutes staring at the craft and waiting to see what it would do next. I felt like I was in some kind of a trance or hypnotic state.
That was the last thing I remember until 90 minutes later when I found myself sitting in my car with both windows rolled up and the radio blaring. The car was running, the heat was on high, and I was drenched in sweat, but then it was full daylight and cars were zooming past me. I was dazed and confused as I drove home emotionally shaken, crying, and generally terrified. I was also in intense pain, so I went to bed immediately and I slept for several hours due to the stress. It felt like I had been raped and the pain in my lower abdomen was excruciating.
I never said anything to my husband or anyone else for that matter for many years until now about a month later after this incident. Years later, I had a very painful miscarriage which I feel was associated with the incident. I don’t know what happened during these 90 minutes of lost time but I believe I was taken on board and I was impregnated. I will never know for sure. I did not see or come in contact with any creatures that I know of because I don’t have any memory of the 90 minutes. But this I do know, whatever happened to me was against my will and it was very painful it has taken me many years to get my head wrapped around what actually happened to me. It has not been until the advent of the internet and YouTube that I have come to understand there are others who have had worse experiences with abductions. Can I prove that I was abducted? No. But I do know this if this was an alien craft the creatures inside it were malevolent and very dangerous. I believe they are demonic in nature and for anyone to think that aliens are here to help us is naive. Thanks for your time. KL”
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Have you had a sighting of a winged humanoid or huge bat-like creature in the Chicago, Illinois metro area / Lake Michigan region? The entity has also been referred to as the ‘Chicago Mothman’, ‘Chicago Owlman’ & ‘O’Hare Mothman’ or ‘O’Hare Batman.’ – Chicago / Lake Michigan Winged Humanoid Regional Interactive Map – Please feel free to contact me at lonstrickler@phantomsandmonsters.com – your anonymity is guaranteed. Our investigative group is conducting a serious examination of his phenomenon. We are merely seeking the truth and wish to determine what eyewitnesses have been encountering. Your cooperation is truly appreciated.
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Palm Beach International airport ordered to evacuate as man makes bomb threat on plane
Dozens of flights cancelled at Heathrow Airport – find out if yours is affected
DOZENS of flights have been cancelled today due to foggy weather.
At least 85 British Airways flights have been affected to and from London Heathrow.
Dozens of flights have been cancelled from London Heathrow due to the fog[/caption]
Affecting more than 10,000 passengers, routes that have been grounded include Amsterdam, Milan, Paris, Prague, Rome and Stockholm.
A number of domestic routes to Edinburgh, Manchester and Glasgow have been cancelled, as well as a long-haul flight to Miami.
Lufthansa, United, Air France, Virgin, Aer Lingus and SAS have also been forced to cancel flights.
Here is the full list of departing BA flights that have been cancelled today from London Heathrow:
- 9:20am to Milan
- 9:25am to Glasgow
- 9:40am to Miami
- 10:15am to Manchester
- 10:20am to Prague
- 11am to Aberdeen
- 11:45am to Edinburgh
- 12:10pm to Munich
- 12:10pm to Edinburgh
- 1:20pm to Brussels
- 1:40pm to Milan
- 2:50pm to Lisbon
- 3pm to Paris
- 3:15pm to Dublin
- 3:25pm to Frankfurt
- 4:25pm to Madrid
- 5:10pm to Belfast
- 5:10pm to Hannover
- 5:45pm to Amsterdam
Fuming passengers complained on social media with many stuck on the plane for hours after it landed.
One Twitter user wrote: “Flights cancelled. Where are the shuttle buses? No information, no buses, no staff, long queue standing in freezing cold for well over an hour.”
Another tweeted: “We’ve parked but there’s no shuttle bus available to take passengers from the plane to the terminal…an hour late, now.”
A third said: “Landed over an hour ago at T5 and still haven’t got off the plane.”
The cancellations come after temperatures dropped as low as -8C, resulting in dangerous fog across the runways.
The Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning, explaining why it affects airlines.
The website states: “Fog, snow, ice and crosswinds mean that air traffic controllers have to increase the gap between planes that are landing, reducing the number of aircraft that an airport can manage.
“The same weather can make it slower and more difficult for the planes to taxi between runway and terminal building.”
It comes after around 70 BA flights were cancelled yesterday due to the weather as well.
A British Airways spokesperson said: “Like other airlines, our schedule has been affected by the continued freezing fog weather conditions experienced across London.
“We’ve apologised to customers whose flights have been affected and are doing everything we can to get them on their way as quickly as possible.
A Heathrow spokesperson also said: “Poor visibility is forecast this morning at the airport and across the South East.
“While there may be minor changes to today’s schedule as a result of the weather, we want to reassure passengers that our colleagues are working in close collaboration with our airline and air traffic control partners to get them safely away on their journeys as quickly as possible.”
More than 80 flights to and from Heathrow have been cancelled[/caption]
Hitting the Books: That time San Francisco’s suburbs sued the airport for being too loud
San Francisco has long sought to square its deeply-held progressive ideals with the region’s need for tangible, technological progress. SFO international airport, which opened for business in 1959 and has undergone significant expansion and modernization in the years since, is a microcosm of that struggle. On one hand, the Bay Area likely wouldn’t be the commercial, technical, and cultural hub that it is today if not for connectivity the airport provides. On the other hand, its installation and operation has had very real consequences for the local environment and the region’s populace.
Dr. Eric Porter, Professor of History, History of Consciousness, and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, examines how San Francisco International came to be and the challenges it will face in a climate changing 21st century in his latest work, A People’s History of SFO: The Making of the Bay Area and an Airport. Porter’s connection to the topic is a personal one. “My grandfather worked as a skycap there beginning in the 1940s,” Porter wrote in a recent UC Press blog. “Carrying white people’s luggage and the racial baggage that came with it was servile but good-paying work.”
Excerpted from A People’s History of SFO: The Making of the Bay Area and an Airport by Eric Porter, published by University of California Press
The Politics of Jet Noise
As Black skycaps protested changes to their working conditions during the spring and summer of 1970, a different group of activists, largely white and operating primarily as homeowners rather than as workers, were engaged in their own SFO-focused struggle. The issue was jet noise, a long-standing nuisance that had become more unbearable as the airport grew and as environmentalists and government agencies deemed it a form of pollution that could have detrimental effects on human well-being. That November, after months of unsuccessfully lobbying airport and government officials for changes to SFO flight operations, thirty-two property owners from South San Francisco, a then largely white working- and middle-class suburb located northwest of the airport, filed claims with the San Francisco Airport Commission seeking compensation for the disruptions caused by jets taking off over their neighborhoods. The commission denied the claims, so the following February the South San Franciscans filed a $320,000 lawsuit ($10,000 per plaintiff) against the City and County of San Francisco on the grounds that jet noise had “diminished and damaged” the “reasonable use and quiet enjoyment of their property.” Subsequently, ten individuals from the tonier suburbs of Woodside and Portola Valley, located southeast of the airport, filed their own lawsuit, requesting the same per-person damages caused by noise from aircraft on approach to SFO.
These lawsuits, ultimately settled by the Airport Commission’s promise to institute a $5 million noise mitigation program, were among the many antinoise actions undertaken by outraged SFO neighbors following the introduction of jet aircraft to the facility in 1959. Their communities had grown in symbiotic relationship with SFO in ways physical, social, political, and economic. Jet sounds helped to compose their soundscapes, or acoustic environments, offering their inhabitants references through which they conceptualized and lived their urban experiences. The sounds oriented local residents toward the sky, providing a generalized sense of being urban, while also defining their relationships to SFO through the horizontal positioning of homes, workplaces, recreation sites, schools, and other places they inhabited in relation to takeoff and landing vectors and the facility itself.
How people experienced this relationship to place via jet sounds — whether positive, negative, or ambivalent—was affected by people’s proximity to such sounds, the frequency and duration of them, their relative audibility in relation to other components of the soundscape, and the social and political meanings they were conditioned over time to hear in them. When Bay Area residents heard jet sounds as “noise,” it was often simply because they were loud and profoundly disruptive. But at other moments jet noise was a more subjective, socially determined “unwanted sound.” Such determination happened, in part, as anthropologist Marina Peterson’s work on LAX and its environs helps us understand, because of what these insistent sounds had come to symbolize as they catalyzed relationships among an expanding ensemble of individuals and community groups; government officials, agencies, and regulations; activists and their organizations; scientists and other researchers; the airport and its operations; and a broad set of social, political, and economic forces.
Some local residents were willing to tolerate the noise. It was an inconvenience to be put up with in exchange for the benefits of living, working, or doing business near the airport. Noise itself, and the impunity to make it, might have signified the financial and political interests of airlines, airport officials, and other powerful interests, but these entities offered something (jobs, construction contracts, airport employee spending, convenient travel, and so on) in return. For others, however, this loud component of the soundscape signified differently on the pros and cons of living near the airport as well as on the relationships in which they were immersed. Jet noise, in other words, could be heard as a manifestation of the forms of power that defined the regional colonial present, and it raised the question of how local residents would live out their attachments to them.
Anti–jet noise activism by individuals, homeowner associations, political figures, environmental groups, and others around SFO usually reflected their relative degrees of privilege and aspiration as mostly white beneficiaries of accumulated colonial power in the region. Yet their activism simultaneously articulated critiques, explicit and implicit, of the ways elements of the power—economic, legal, bureaucratic, and so on—that lay behind the noise had diminished human thriving in the region more generally. Airport and local government officials, labor unions, and others who opposed, deflected, or sought to incorporate strategically the goals of these activists also expressed or otherwise engaged multiple forms of social, economic, and bureaucratic power while seeking to advance or protect their own accumulated interests.
The activists had some successes. SFO and its surrounding communities eventually became less noisy because of changes in aircraft technology (especially engine technology) and also because the FAA, airport operators, civic leaders, and others eventually started to listen to anti-noise activists and made significant efforts to mitigate jet noise. But jets continued to generate noise at and near SFO, and some people are still complaining about the problem today. Still, the history of antinoise activism around SFO—the version in this chapter runs from the late 1950s into the 1980s — is still worth exploring because it makes audible some of the complex ways that challenging and reproducing power in the mid- and late twentieth-century regional colonial present occurred through the synergies, conflicts, and missed opportunities for cooperation among largely white homeowner, environmentalist, and worker movements when they collided with SFO as manifestation of broader economic transformations and modes of governmental infrastructure development and resource stewardship.
• • •
Aircraft noise had been the subject of intermittent complaints in the Bay Area going back to the early days of aviation. Concern that loud air planes might depress real estate prices was among the factors that led to the shuttering of San Francisco’s early civilian airstrip in the Marina District. Noise was initially not a problem around Mills Field. Aircraft of the 1920s and 1930s were not terribly loud, and there was little residential development nearby. That began to change after World War II as commercial air operations at what became SFO increased, aircraft grew in size and sound-generating capability, and residential neighborhoods encroached upon the airport. As was the case elsewhere in the United States, growing local concern about airport noise dovetailed with fears of aircraft crashing into homes or businesses below, as happened near the Newark and Idlewild airports in late 1951 and early 1952. Two pre–jet age incidents of aircraft developing engine trouble after taking off over South San Francisco increased the level of anxiety about that community’s proximity to SFO in particular. Complaints, emanating primarily from five surrounding cities, grew exponentially with the arrival of jet aircraft in April 1959. Residents of San Bruno, Daly City, and, most vocally, South San Francisco were primarily affected by aircraft departing to the northwest from runway 28, oriented to allow aircraft to take off into the wind through the “gap” between San Bruno Mountain and the Santa Cruz Mountains. South San Franciscans formed neighborhood jet noise committees, but their complaints were often channeled through city councilman and later mayor Leo Ryan and City attorney John Noonan. The two officials began a dialogue with airport representatives, pilots, airlines, and federal officials about the coming jet noise problem in 1957, commissioned an engineer’s report on the matter, and stepped up their efforts after the jets arrived.
As complaints from South San Francisco increased, and as technological advancements permitted more takeoffs in crosswinds or slight tail winds, flights were shifted to the intersecting, perpendicular runway 1 in an effort to redistribute aircraft noise. This made things more difficult for residents of Millbrae and northeastern Burlingame and especially for those living in Bayside Manor, a Millbrae neighborhood established in 1943, across the Bayshore Freeway from the end of the runway. Bayside Manor residents were primarily affected by the “jet blast” (i.e., noise, vibration, and fumes) from aircraft as they began their takeoffs just seven hundred feet away from the edge of the development. Residents organized primarily through the Bayside Manor Improvement Association, formed in 1948, which had for several years been fighting the placement of industrial facilities on undeveloped land near their subdivision.
Local residents experienced a variety of dramatic and disruptive effects from jet engine-produced sound waves. According to a Millbrae woman, “We thought the old planes were bad enough. But jets are terrible. The house shakes, light bulbs burn out from the vibration, and we can’t hear TV programs when the planes are taking off.” People also complained about frightened and crying children, sleepless nights, distractions in schools, disrupted church and funeral services, interrupted in-person and telephone conversations, jumping phonograph needles, the inability to entertain outside, and actual physical damage to their property from sonic vibrations: cracked walls, stucco, chimneys, fire places, gas lines, and windows, as well as dishes breaking after falling from shelves. They worried about falling home values and about their physical and mental well-being. Some were exhausted. Others complained of headaches, earaches, temporary hearing loss, and other ailments. According to one petition, some South San Franciscans were “in a constant state of anxiety and have had to undergo medical treatment for nervous conditions said to have been induced by the noises created by the jet aircraft and the anxiety due to the passage of jet aircraft over their homes.”