February Dispatches

Notes from the runway

Swish, swish, swish. A few turns down the mountain, through a glade, maybe a jump when you return to the trail. It’s ski season and nothing’s better than powder on a bluebird day. Of course, neither is a guarantee, especially the snow part. A recent series in The Denver Post looked at how warming temps and shifting snow patterns are creating a crisis on Colorado’s storied slopes — and who hasn’t seen the images of bone dry slopes in Utah. In New Hampshire, in the shadow of Mount Washington, the snow was great (if only about average apparently) for a recent long weekend on the slopes. But even there, the questions linger about the future of skiing. One good season does not a viable long-term industry make.

Words

The battle for “linear frontage” — an unlikely euphemism for gates — at Chicago O’Hare between American and United is hot, again. United CEO Scott Kirby recently said the airline was drawing a “line in the sand” and not ceding more gates to nemesis (and his former employer) American at O’Hare. What happened next? Both airlines unveiled more new routes. (TPG)

Amtrak unveiled its latest new trains, the Airo, earlier this month. They will debut on the Cascades route this summer, bringing a much needed capacity boost. And, in 2027, they will begin running on the Northeast Corridor. The downside? The new seats aren’t nearly as spacious or comfortable as the old Amfleet seats. (TPG)

American and Porter added new transborder routes, EVA Air sets a date for D.C., Delta tops up its widebody orderbook, why you may see a Wizz plane this side of the pond this summer, and Air Canada will take you to the slopes of Niseko next winter. (TPG)

Reads

“Airports don’t usually attract all that much popular preservation interest. They’re functionally out of easy daily sight; you never walk by them on the town square. And good luck holding a rally to preserve a building inside an airport without a ticket.” Good op-ed from Anthony Paletta with a shout out to Pittsburgh.

Impressive: Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary used a diss session with Elon Musk on X to sell more tickets. And, no, Ryanair has no plans to install Starlink on its planes.

Fliers are reacting to Southwest’s new assigned seating policy and many don’t like it, even likening it to the “New Coke” fiasco in the 1980s. The airline is “trying hard to adopt the least popular policies in an industry that’s unpopular,” one traveler told The Washington Post.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford aren’t really getting along (and that’s not good for anyone).

The advocacy of Tim Lilley, the father of Sam Lilley who was the first officer on American Airlines AA5342 that crashed in the Potomac River a year ago, is admirable.

We’ve all seen it: hotels are getting more expensive, especially when all you want is that affordable, mid-tier room. The Washington Post did a good piece on why those rooms are now so expensive.

I really hope Los Angeles can jump through the remaining hurdles to make the Sepulveda Transit Corridor project happen; from .

RIP Curbed’s city-specific sites and archive.

Fedlandia is DC’s next big neighborhood. But no one can agree, yet, on just what it should be.

“Audiences are boycotting the center, ticket sales have plummeted, and despite claims from the center’s leadership that they have secured some large donations, there is concern that the daily finances may be so bad that a two-year closure is more about saving face than making necessary repairs,” wrote on the sudden two-year closure of the Kennedy Center.

Listens

The Boeing 787-10, as airline executives repeatedly tell me, is a very cost effective plane that is having a moment. In exchange for slightly less range compared to the -9, the stretched 787 can carrier roughly 30 more passengers plus additional cargo. “In a constrained world where there aren’t more gates and there aren’t more runways, more seats per departure is the way to go,” Jon Ostrower said on The Air Show.

“Spaceflight is really dangerous. You cannot treat it as if it’s something that’s just like getting on an airplane. And no matter how far technology advances, it’s always going to be really dangerous and it’s a mistake to think of it otherwise.” Adam Higginbotham, author of Challenger, on NPR’s Short Wave podcast.

Los Angeles, where you can live in a major metropolis and “walk about 10 minutes and encounter something that just feels untamed.” Excellent Atlas Obscura episode with author Rosecrans Baldwin.