Posts Tagged ‘airline’
West to East Jet Lag – Fact or Fiction?
Many travelers who fly from West to East, from the USA oe Europe to Asia will be on an airplane for 12 hours or more. Then, when they arrive at their ultimate destination, the time is “wrong” according to their body clock.
For example, when flying from New York (JFK) to Bangkok (BKK), you can expect an in flight time of 16 hours in real time, on a non-stop flight. Thus, if you were to leave JFK at 12 noon, you would arrive in BKK at 4PM (assuming that you are on time), having flown over the North Pole completely in daylight both in fall and summer.
So, is jet lag likely to be a major problem?
In my experience, flying west to east has never really caused me any major problems, although there are couple of general observations that I would make.
First, for many travelers, the change in climate can be confused for jet lag, and is likely to be more of an immediate problem. So, if this will be a first trip to Asia, if possible, give yourself at least two days of doing absolutely nothing, in order to acclimatize.
Secondly, especially in Southeast Asia, take at least two showers a day, and even more if possible. A shower is ALWAYS a great refresher, and will revive you whenever you are feeling “jaded”.
Third, try not to sleep until it is nighttime when you first arrive in the place where you have jetted to.
By doing this one simple thing, you will immediately be awake and asleep in the “correct” segments of the daily 24 cycle in the place where you are, rather than in the place you have come from.
In short, jet lag should not pose a huge problem, unless your trip is a combination of business and pleasure, and you have a meeting to go to as soon as you reach your destination.
Remember that “time”, as expressed by hours and days is an entirely man-made labeling system, and such hours are not fundamental biological elements.
Try as far as possible to ignore clock time, and follow daily “time cycles”, so that, for example, when it is dark, assume that means it’s time to sleep, and vice versa.
By following these simple guidelines, you can at least attempt to make sure that jet lag does nothing to hamper your enjoyment of your holiday.
United Airlines: Dot-Com Boom To Bankruptcy To Reorganization
Significantly boosting traffic to the San Francisco hub, United benefited hugely from the boom era of the dot-com world. When United failed to keep operational costs of their online transactions under control, and the entire dot-com industry’s bottom fell out, United Airlines struggled to remain afloat.
United Airlines lost approximately $2.14 billion on online revenues and then applied for a loan of $1.5 billion from the federal Air Transportation Stabilization Board. This government board had been established in the aftermath of the September 11 events in an attempt to help the nation’s airlines recover from lacking demand and revenues.
Though much blame is placed on September 11, United Airline’s decision to declare chapter 11 bankruptcy included many other factors that had been in place for long before September 11 and United’s money problems. Labor disputes, the rising cost of so-called low-cost carriers and problems in the management structure of the company all contributed to the financial situation of United Airlines.
After declaring bankruptcy, United continued to operate as well as to invest in new programs. In 2003 they launched a new carrier service that was intended to compete with low-cost carriers in the national coast-to-coast market including both business and high end leisure travelers.
In order to counter the rising fuel costs in 2004 and 2005, United introduced many fare increases as well as cut overall operations by fourteen percent in an attempt to reorganize and rehabilitate the airline.
Along with rate hikes United Airlines also cut many aspects of employee’s wages and benefits. The most controversial was in 2005 when United decided to cancel their pension plan. This huge blow to their employees is the largest default of its kind in United States corporate history.
Throughout 2005 and in the beginning of 2006 United kept extending terms of its bankruptcy and plans to emerge as a smaller but better run airline. Other major airlines are struggling to complete with their lower airfare. Only time will tell how successful United is at full reorganization over the coming months and years.
The History Of Northwest Airlines
Northwest airline founded a mail route that stretched between Minneapolis, Minnesota and Chicago, Illinois. The air mail was carried in biplanes like the Curtiss Oriole. These were open cockpit biplanes manufactured by the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company.
It wasn’t until 1927 that Northwest Airlines began to fly passengers. The next year, Northwest began its first international service route to Winnipeg, Canada. By the end of the same decade, Northwest Airlines was serving many smaller cities in that region of Canada and the United States.
In 1931 a landmark flight made by Anne and Charles Lindbergh was sponsored by Northwest Airlines. This pioneering flight to Japan proved that flying a route through Alaska saved up to 2,000 miles for a trip from Tokyo to or from New York City. This route became known as the Northwest Airlines Great Circle Route.
During World War II Northwest adopted its telltale red tail that remains the trademark of its fleet to this day. Originally the red on the tail section of Northwest’s planes was used as a visual aid to help spot the planes in bad weather conditions. During this era Northwest flew frequent flights to and from Alaska, carrying military personnel and equipment.
In 1947 Northwest Airlines became the first commercial passenger carrier with flight services from the United States to Japan, through Anchorage, Alaska. When such new Asian routes were added, this branch of the company named itself Northwest Orient Airlines.
During the 1990s Northwest Airlines began non-stop flights to many Asian cities and also began flying to China again, though it had flown there until 1950. Also, Northwest worked at strengthening its presence in the Southern United States and began other international routes to such destinations as Ireland, Britain, Scandinavia and Germany.
Following the United States tragedy of September 11, Northwest Airlines, like many national air carriers declared bankruptcy and has yet to announce when they are likely to pull out and show substantial profits.
Early Airline Development in the United States
The demand and pricing for air travel services depends on a number of factors, including leisure passenger needs, business passenger needs, demand for business cargo shipments and all of these are of course influenced by overall economic activity of a given area or region.
Overall, the demand for air travel services has risen rather consistently. While annual growth rates during the 80s and 90s ranged between 5-6%, this was a drastic 15% in earlier days of aviation during the 1950s and 1960s.
Growth rates are certainly not consistent across the board and differ from area to area. In areas where deregulation provided greater pricing independence and so competition, the results were lower fares and sometimes very dramatic spikes in overall growth.
After World War I the U.S. was inundated with aviators. Many of these aviators opted to use their war surplus planes to perform various barnstorming programs for passengers and spectators.
In 1918 the United States Postal Service began to use airplanes to experiment with air mail service. They used aircraft gotten from the United States Army. After the Army flew many air mail missions, the Post Office decided to start their own air mail network, as the Army proved to be unreliable.
Though the 1920s brought passenger airlines, many of these companies still dealt primarily with transporting mail. Then in the year 1925, Ford bought the Stout Aircraft Company as well as started construction on an all-metal aircraft that became the first American passenger airliner.
Pan American World Airways was the first American airline to go international, and was the only U.S. airline to do so before the 1940s. Even during the depression the American airline industry was profitable for most airlines and continued to be so until the start of World War II, when the U.S. saw much better airline profits than war-torn Europe. Around this time the airline industry really took off with advances in technology as well as manufacturing of aircraft.
