Flying American Airlines in 1951 0r 1949? Runing a airline like a railroad?

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Peterson6868

Well....Some Airlines were started by railroads. CP Air,Boston & Maine Airlines and Air Canada (CN) had Railroad Connections

Boston & Maine Airlines later became Northeast Airlines and is now part of Delta.
Wisconsin Central Airlines was established by the original WC and later became North Central Airlines, merged with Southern and Hughes Air West to become Republic and is now part of Northwest.
Ontario Northland has a small affiliate known as Norontair.

[jchnhtfd]

It is very interesting (perhaps) to observe that some airlines are beginning to go back to more point to point like routes, in preference to hub and spoke systems. The hub and spoke system offered significant advantages to the airlines in terms of cost, as it was much easier to ensure high load factors. However, it has three (at least) disadvantages (besides being horribly inconvenient -- there used to be a joke which went: when you die, you have to change planes at Atlanta to get to Heaven or Hell): first, it tends to cause congestion at certain airports at certain times. The airlines are working on that, by developing multiple hubs, but it is still a real headache at the major hubs. Second, any weather problems at one of an airline's major hubs (which tend to be in the midwest -- thunderstorms, tornados, blizzards and other goodies) can spread havoc with schedules all across an airline's system. And third, it is more mileage -- and with increasing fuel prices, this isn't always desirable.

Anyway...

The two major manufacturers of airliners, Boeing and Airbus, have very different takes on which way the airlines are going to move. Airbus, with the new 380, hopes that the hub and spoke system will flourish (the 380 will carry upwards of 800 sardines (oops, passengers) at a whack). Boeing, on the other hand, hopes that more point to point routes will develop, and has aimed the the Dreamliner (aka 787) at that market.

It will be interesting to watch...

[Anonymous]

Well....Some Airlines were started by railroads. CP Air,Boston & Maine Airlines and Air Canada (CN) had Railroad Connections

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Hub and spokes for FedEx at Memphis is not that much of a problem since they deal with packages only. Cutoff for pickup is 5 PM the day before with a guaranteed delivery of 10 AM the next day. Even allowing for extreme situations such as Kansas City-Chicago by way of Memphis, they still have a lot of time to play around with to meet their deadlinesl.

[DSchmitt]

For public transit hub and spoke only works if well for people who are going to/from the hub or whose origin and origin and destination are on the same spoke.

When I worked in downtown LA the route I was on a "spoke" the bus picked me up across the street from my apartment and droped me off two blocks from work. Approximately a 25 minute trip.

When I was assigned to a satellite office in Eagle Rock the bus trip was apartment to downtown 25 minutes, wait for bus to Eagle Rock 15 minutes, bus to Eagle Rock 45 minutes, walk from bus stop to work 10 minutes.

The alternative transit route was go outbound on my spoke to Western, take the bus on Western to the spoke Eagle Rock was on, then ride that bus inbound as far as Eagle Rock. I didn't try that trip.

A gas buggy trip took 15 minutes or less door to door from home to either work place.

[Paul Milenkovic]

Yeah, railroad hub and spokes network.

I guess the ultimate hub and spokes network is FedEx with their Memphis hub. The idea is that if jet can do 600 MPH (OK, more like 500 MPH at today's fuel-saving Mach speeds), that is about a factor of 10 faster than any other mode, a factor of 3 faster than the fastest high-speed ground transportation be it rail or maglev, that you have speed to burn to ship a package, say, from Madison, WI to Memphis and back to Milwaukee to get a Madison to Milwaukee delivery. Was this point discussed on another thread? FedEx may have some "local" ground connections to avoid some of this circuitous routing.

The whole point of hub and spokes is that you have speed to burn, and apart from say the NY-DC or other "shuttles", no one has an expectation of doing a business trip without at least one overnight anyway. So you can burn up time with security, change of planes, air traffic congestion, and still be faster than ground transportation modes, but I am thinking that anything you can drive in one day, you are better off driving than flying these days.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by SteamerFan

Noting that most Early Airline execs were former railroad execs, It is totally plausible that they would do what they know to work. hence, since no one had hammered out the details of airtravel yet, the execs would probably have stuck to the old railroad formula that worked for railroads and applied it to airlines. As the airlines evolved and it became apparent Timetables and multiple stops were ineeficiant, they soon changed to the system we havein place now (which btw is really a timetable system as well, but adapted to eb more efficiant for airlines)

It is an interesting analogy, and one that makes me think that if former airline execs took over the managements of the railroads, we might begin to see more of a hub and spoke system on the rails.

[Anonymous]

Noting that most Early Airline execs were former railroad execs, It is totally plausible that they would do what they know to work. hence, since no one had hammered out the details of airtravel yet, the execs would probably have stuck to the old railroad formula that worked for railroads and applied it to airlines. As the airlines evolved and it became apparent Timetables and multiple stops were ineeficiant, they soon changed to the system we havein place now (which btw is really a timetable system as well, but adapted to eb more efficiant for airlines)

[dmoore74]

Some of these multiple stop trips were probably mandated by the government.
Prior to airline deregulation the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) or its predecessor
authorized every airline route as well as fares. Very similar to the way the Interstate Commerce Commission regulated railroad routes and fares.

[Overmod]

As recently as the early '90s I rode a "mail run" on, IIRC, American Airlines that made 5 or 6 stops in between DFW and Atlanta. Rather fun, including a 15-minute wait until thunderstorms moved off one of the airports.

Remember that in '51 the speeds and altitude were both quite a bit lower even than in the 'golden age' of Connies and DC7Cs. Made sense to maximize the convenience along the way ... yes, similar to railroad practice (as discussed on other Forum topics) but making use of the higher cruising speed and more direct airline routing (including fairly straight traversal of what would be, on the ground, significant obstacles) between the stops selected.

[Anonymous]

So they made all those stops on the schedule? I get airsick just thinking about it..

[Paul Milenkovic]

Back in the day of the DC-3's, these two elderly ladies and travelling companions decided to take a plane trip out West. Of course, as you pointed out, such a plane made frequent stops, and at each of the stops, a little blue truck would pull up under the wing of the airplane and top off the supply of gas in the tanks.

So the one lady turns to the other and says , "My, these new airplanes sure keep good time." The other lady replies, "Yes, and the really amazing thing is that the little blue truck is able to keep up!"

[Anonymous]

I was reveiwing a old American Airlines timetable and i noticed that on many of there scedules they stoped at as many as 20 places to let on and off passengers before they got to there finale destination. Am I reading this right?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=807&item=6537099269&rd=1&tc=photo
In adition to SKYSleepers they even had sky diners airplanes that there passegers would transfer to for that portion of the trip.