Trouble at the airports
On the FAA's labor shortage, population density, and why unreliable air travel drives Americans crazy
With the Federal government still in a shutdown, the FAA is having trouble staffing its air traffic control centers. The order to cut air traffic by 10% at 40 of the country’s biggest airports, from Anchorage to Tampa, has already caused more than a thousand flight cancellations, and it just took effect.
■ America is unique in many ways, not least of which is the idea that people are free to travel anywhere in a continental-sized nation whenever they like. That’s not the case in China or Russia.
■ The United States is also unique in that our population density is a fraction of that in countries we tend to regard as peers and near-peers: Germany is 6.5 times as dense; the UK, 7.6; and Japan, 9.2. In South Korea, there are 14.3 times as many people per square mile as there are in the US. That makes us unusually dependent upon airplanes for long-distance travel -- we’re spread too far apart for the alternatives.
■ Culturally, we do love road trips, but their practicality for business travel evaporates rather quickly: Even with the speed and ease of Interstate highways, it’s still hard to justify the highway for destinations more than about 500 to 750 miles away (depending on driver tolerance). And as a country with a whole lot of winter weather and strong thunderstorms, road travel is often limited at the same times air travel is delayed.
■ High-speed rail, which remains the dream of countless enthusiasts, could be massively useful if enough technological innovations could be layered to reduce the construction costs, achieve all-weather reliability, and move fast and frequently enough to make sense for interstate travel across entire regions of the country.
