Big Swiss

In case the big cross on the red tail wasn't clear enough, Swiss has recently increased the size of their name on the front of the aircraft.

Changes

I noticed what I thought was a misprint on a flight's radar data tag a few days ago: a Delta flight coming in from Tokyo's Haneda airport was shown as a B767-300. Ever since Delta started service between LAX and Haneda last year, the route has been covered with a B777-200 or an A330-200. The other carrier on this route, All Nippon, started service with a B777-200 and now uses a B777-300. But sure enough, when the flight arrived on runway 24 right, it was a winglet-equipped B767-300. A short time later, the outbound flight was also in a B763. I thought that perhaps it was a fluke of some sort, but it's continued for about a week now. So for the moment, Delta has the smallest aircraft flying nonstop to Japan from LAX.

Delta isn't the only one down-sizing aircraft on a route:

American started service to Washington Reagan National with B757-200s, but today I saw them run a B737-800 to DCA. Permanent changes? I don't know, but it doesn't really matter. I'd much rather they run smaller aircraft than drop the route entirely.




We have heard that Delta is adding destinations out of LAX this summer. Among them, three new destinations from LAX: San Jose, Costa Rica; Bozeman, Montana; and Spokane, Washington. None of these currently receives scheduled service from LAX. Delta is also renovating Terminal Five. For more about Delta at LAX, check out this article on Airnation.net.



American is also adding destinations this summer. New destinations from LAX will be Hartford, Connecticut, and Redmond, Oregon. See this article on Airnation.net for more about American's additional flights.


In additional to the new destination cities, both American and Delta will be starting service to cities that already receive airline service from LAX. Among them, Delta will be adding Boston (already served by American, JetBlue, United, and Virgin America); Nashville, Tennessee (already served by American and Southwest); San Jose, California (already served by American, Southwest, and United); and Seattle, Washington (already served by Alaska, United, and Virgin America). Meanwhile, American is adding Columbus, Ohio (already served by Delta); Indianapolis, Indiana (already served by Delta); and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (already served by United and US Airways).

There may well be other changes looming that we haven't heard about yet. The summer travel season is traditionally a busy time for us, and it sounds like this year will be busier than last year. Just to make things interesting, we start taking our furlough days on Sunday, the 21st. There have been plenty of dire predictions made already, so I won't bother. We are expecting to have severely reduced traffic flows because of reduced staffing. How reduced is yet to be determined - check back in eight or nine days . . .

Wake Turbulence cheat sheet

 Some time ago, I did a series on Wake Turbulence. Times change, but wake turbulence is still a fact of life for controllers. Recently, we were given quick reference cards for wake turbulence separation standards. For those of you playing along at home, I present them here.

 

The FAA is currently researching reduced wake turbulence separation standards to allow greater airport capacity. This is being done by re-categorizing aircraft into six categories, up from the current five. A test program is underway in Memphis, home of Fedex, who operates a great number of wake turbulence aircraft. See this recent Flying magazine article.

For an airline pilot's thoughts about wake turbulence, read this posting at JetHead.

Flying the flag

After the flurry of activity in February, in which I had the personal goal of a new post every day, it's been pretty slow here on Ye Olde Blogg. In addition to the 500 posts milestone, the blog reached its unheralded five-year anniversary last month. Lots of things are going on at the moment, both at work and away, which have conspired to distract me from regular posting. Here's hoping that I can return to some consistency this month. 

We'll start with another look at the new American livery. Funny thing I noticed in this shot: the orientation of the pseudo-US flags on the tails. American has the field along the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer, while US Airways has the field on the viewer's left - exactly opposite.