Big North Texas bond issue with regional impact causing fallout

That BIG issue, and one that I would love to see pass, is NOT a school bond issue. Rather, it's one to fund the expansion of McKinney's airport — and its development of commercial passenger service.

Indeed, I devoted part of a newspaper column to that. I noted how it would address the growth of the Metromess up the North Central Texas/75 corridor, and to a lesser degree, up the I-35 north corridor. (A decade plus ago, residents of Lancaster did low level preliminary tire kicking on expanding its airport to light commercial service, and an airport in Ellis County got occasional mention, but I don't see the former happening at all and the latter for 20 years, if at all.)

Anyway, even if just at three-quarters the gateage of Love Field, a new commercial airport would be big. Presumably, given Southwest's near monopoly at Love, and American's at D/FW, the FAA would have Delta and United Continental first in line for gate slots. With that, almost all United flights would go either to its big hub at Houston Bush, and anywhere else from there, or secondarily to its Denver hub, with anywhere in the Western states from there. (A few nonstops would go to Chicago.) Delta, of course, would send all sorts of flights to its massive hub in Atlanta (cue old joke) and probably a few to its secondary hub in Salt Lake City. Starter (in the past decade) airlines might get a gate or two. And McKinney Mayor George Fuller says he can't name names, but, the interest is there. His assistant city manager says the same.

Anyway, the possible expansion is not popular everywhere. Neighboring small-town mayors are afraid of noise pollution. McKinney's mayor says the concern is overblown. And, besides, their town's voters don't have a vote. Add in that, 40 flights a day, 15 years from now, is not that much noise being generated. THAT said, contra McKinney's Mayor Fuller, IMO, you need that airport running MANY more flights than that if you want real economic development. (Current projections are here.) At that size, it's still not much more than a vanity project. (And, he may know that and isn't talking all the facts.)

Personally, I still fly Southwest out of Love, but last year's Christmas fiasco has made me ever more leery of it.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, from my perspective, the bond failed.

Not sure about this Ace Rental Car

I'm taking vacation in a couple of weeks.

Got my plane tickets some time ago, then, over rental car prices at my original destination (a possible domino effect from the Yellowstone floods) wound up changing destinations.

I usually worry about getting a rental car immediately after locking in a flight, though I do look at rental car prices for several different possible destination airports when flying in the Western US, while perusing flights at the same time. Lesson learned, if this wasn't a one-off.

Anyway, will be cutting work close on Friday of vacation start with the change in destinations being an earlier Friday night departure, but I'll be OK.

I switched while perusing rentals, and got a MUCH better deal.

OK, now, to Ace.

Usually, a couple of weeks after getting a rental (and I will pay the extra total cost in exchange for free cancellation if not an outlandish difference), I go back to Travelocity or Expedia and look again.

Well, up pops this Ace, and more than $100 cheaper than my original price.

I'd never heard of them before.

Supposedly, they're a LOT smaller than the other boys, but they truly are independent — not part of Avis, Hertz or Enterprise. (Sixt, in case you're wondering, is German, and bought "gates," if you will, in the US from bankrupt Advantage for its most recent expansion.) But, they, Ace, allegedly only have 59 sites. Or is it 300+, per Wiki?

Well, that's a red flag there, if we don't have agreement on that. Or maybe it's 59 in the US and 300+ overall.

Another red flag? Why didn't I see them a month ago?

Another red flag? ALL of their SUVs? Same price. AND, less than a compact car or the "dealer's choice" mystery car.

Another red flag? Apparently LOTS of hidden fees they try to foist on you, based on these reviews. Also, having Googled "Ace Rent A Car," it looks like there may be a lot of independent contractors signed up under Ace's name. Another red flag.

Final red flag? Per the "our story" at their own website? AND? Contra that "supposedly" link? They sold out to Avis a few years back. In other words, they're probably Avis' loss-leader/come-on division. 

And, a bigger oops? Unless I entered the hours of arrival and departure on my flight wrong, Travelocity misled me. They're closed at the time I would arrive at that airport. (Option B may be that, when I officially booked my car, I entered a later time for "cushion.") No wonder they're so fucking cheap. Closed at 9 p.m. weeknights in an airport that size? If my flight were late, I'd be up shit creek.

Bye!

Flight 370 update — likely correct, surely a week late

I agree with Malaysia's prime minister that Flight 370 is likely at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Or, technically, depending on how far south it flew, it may be at the bottom of the Southern Ocean.

Good luck finding wreckage. Anybody who's seen the Antarctica specials on PBS, March of the Penguins, etc., knows what the currents in the Southern Ocean are like. South of both Africa and Australia, with nothing to block their circumnavigation but Cape Horn, southern currents, like the winds, are fierce. Wreckage could be hundreds of miles away from being directly above where the wreck likely went down.

Here's the details:

The aircraft’s last known position, according to the analysis, “is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites,” (Prime Minister Najib Razak) said. “It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.” 

The new analysis of the flight path, the prime minister said, came from Inmarsat, the British company that provided the satellite data, and from Britain’s air safety agency. The company had “used a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort,” he said. ...

(Chris McLaughlin, a vice president at Inmarsat) said that Inmarsat was confident enough in the new analysis, which it reviewed with Boeing and with a number of independent aviation experts, that it submitted its findings on Sunday to the Malaysians by way of the British safety agency, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.

Per the currents part, even before you're out of the Indian Ocean and into the Southern Ocean?

Erik van Sebille, an oceanographer at the University of New South Wales who studies and has conducted experiments on the flow of water around Australia, said currents in the southern Indian ocean could scatter floating debris in very different directions.

“The whole ocean down there is like a pinball machine,” Dr. van Sebille said. “It is difficult to track or predict where water goes, or do what is really important now, which is to backtrack where water came from.”

Dr. van Sebille described the conditions of the southern Indian Ocean as “extremely hostile,” with large waves, swirling currents and winds that are among the strongest on the planet.

“The longer it takes, the harder it will be to backtrack those pieces of debris,” he said.

Yep. And, thus, harder to find ocean-floor wreckage, and the black boxes that could tell us why this happened.

And, on that front:

The United States Pacific Command said on Monday that it would move a Towed Pinger Locator System, capable of locating a black box to a depth of 20,000 feet, into the region. “This movement is simply a prudent effort to pre-position equipment and trained personnel closer to the search area, so that if debris is found, we will be able to respond as quickly as possible, since the battery life of the black box’s pinger is limited," Cmdr. Chris Budde, a Seventh Fleet operations officer, said in an email statement.

That said, contra Faux News' wingnuts, and somewhat contra Ted Rall, we can probably rule out terrorism but not absolutely. A cockpit hijack attempt, with a struggle between captain and first officer, is possible, but even then, even if we do find the black box, it can tell us only so much. Unless Malaysia is more forthcoming about its search of the home computer and flight simulator of Cpt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, we won't know much on motive, if this indeed is what happened.

And, if Malaysia could have done anything sooner to speed up Inmarsat's work?

That's the "week too late" part. Without various forms of Malaysian obfuscation, we probably could have had Inmarsat get crunching numbers, and spitting out results, sooner than it did, and focusing the wreckage search earlier, before it got scattered from here to hell and back.

Anyway, I'll stand by what I said a week ago; I expect it to take much longer to find floor wreckage from this flight than the Air France flight of 2009.

Malaysia Flight 370 — news of March 17 week (updated)

Special update, March 19 — Perhaps finally at the end of its tether on incompetency plus shame in the eyes of the rest of the world, the Malaysian government is finally asking for outside help, namely from the FBI.

Update, March 18 — more indications that either the pilot or first officer deliberately took over the plane. And, if Malaysia won't quickly hand over what it's learning from the pilot's home computers, I'm sure the NSA had garnered some information on its own, or else is now from Malaysian government computers and phones. Even with the Snowden revelations, it's probably reluctant to say much in public, but may be leaning on Malaysian officials, and leaning hard, in private.

Update 2, same date: A Canadian pilot is claiming a possible aircraft fire overwhelmed the crew. But, if you go to the original posting by him on G+, which I link and not the edited adaptation on Wired, there's a number of commenters with some degree of skepticism. Were it not for residents of the Maldives claiming to see a low-flying plane, I'd give Goodfellow's idea even less credibility. 

The Times of India story about the Maldivan alleged sighting? If this were a plane fire, would the plane really have flown that far? And, even still been at 5K feet? If this is the plane, it's entirely separate from Goodfellow's claims and does not automatically support that.

One problem IMO, as a nonpilot totally, but a reasonably knowledgeable student of geography. On pretty much a straight line of the current path, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) is not much further away, if any, than Kuala Lumpur, at time of last contact. And, I doubt that there would be no other contact otherwise. And, there's some other debunking on his original G+ by those more knowledgable about flight than me.

Per Facebook friend Leo, the old Tan Son Nhat airbase has two runways that are both over 10,000 feet, more than long enough to drop that plane.

I knew a couple of guys where were at Tan Son Nhat in Nam when it was the big USAF base. Didn't know, but makes sense, that it was remade into an airport. And, the last known sighting, per that nice large map, is equidistant from Ho Chi Minh City and Kuala Lumpur. 

So, no, this is likely not correct. Of the two, I think the Maldivan sighting is more likely correct, but without Goodfellow's cockpit fire.

And, Goodfellow is further refuted here, on Slate, for various reasons, one his over-simplicity, the other, more fundamental, being that:

Goodfellow’s theory fails further when one remembers the electronic ping detected by the Inmarsat satellite at 8:11 on the morning of March 8. According to analysis provided by the Malaysian and United States governments, the pings narrowed the location of MH370 at that moment to one of two arcs, one in Central Asia and the other in the southern Indian Ocean. As MH370 flew from its original course toward Langkawi, it was headed toward neither. Without human intervention—which would go against Goodfellow’s theory—it simply could not have reached the position we know it attained at 8:11 a.m.

And I don't care if Patrick Smith of "Ask a Pilot" fame likes Goodfellow's theory because, as he notes, he mentioned it five days earlier himself, I think he's wrong too.

So, I'd politely tell Goodfellow to put a sock in it. And per a note at the end of the Slate piece, quit making ad hoc changes to your claims, ones that further strain credulity. I'd more politely and respectfully say the same to Smith; Wise's refutation of Goodfellow on Slate applies to you too, unless you have more elaborate caveats than Goodfellow, in which case, probably, my "strain credulity" applies to you, too.

Goodfellow and Smith also suffer from the "trying to have their cake and eat it too," phenomenon.

The idea that nobody ever asked for directions or assistance further undercuts their theory. On the plane fire theory, you can't have it both ways on it cutting off different transponders at different times, about an hour apart, but cutting cabin contact in a flash.

Plus, we now know that the copilot's "sign-off comment" was uttered 12 minutes after the plane had started turning west. So, the fire theory is now officially as dead as a doorknob.

Meanwhile, that Times of India story about the Maldivan sighting has a bit of "aroma" to it, too.

Either Bob Woodruff is putting words in some fisherman's mouth, or else he's mugging for Western media. He knows the plane was at 5,000 feet how? As for the detailed description? They do have a newspaper there, I'll venture. Maybe television, too. Wouldn't be too hard for a resident to know what that plane "should" look like.

Or, if that fisherman were north and east of the islands themselves, and Malaysian Airlines has any flights out of Columbo, Sri Lanka, he could have seen that.

And, according to Business Insider, that would put it well too far north of the southern "cone" based on the engine transponder pings. That said, who knows how precise this triangulation is?

Yet more on the Maldivan reports here.


Back to the original post ...

So, to update, here's the latest we know, more on the government of Malaysia than on the missing Flight 370.

First? We do know that Malaysian officials are corrupt, and as a result, some mix of stupid, devious, and conniving.

Confirming the incompetency of the Malaysian government? Somebody pulled strings to call in Uri Geller on the search. And, as of March 17, it's changing its story on when the ACARS system stopped broadcasting.

And, the idea that the man whom pilot Zaharie Ahmed Shah supports, Anwar Ibrahim, is a troublemaker or anything similar (other than being troublesome) to a corrupt semi-dictatorship is ridiculous. Ibrahim has led the Malaysian political opposition for years, and suffered for his pains before his current trial. As Dobson notes, allegations behind this reinforce the ineptitude born of corruption that lies behind this government.

The Daily Mail spread quasi-disinformation in calling Shah's support for Ibrahim "fanatical." I shouldn't have posted the link at first without caveating it.

As for being a religious fanatic? Shah's Facebook page, per Mother Jones, suggests just the opposite, if anything.

It's no wonder Malaysia rejects more outside help. That would only put on display its ineptitude and corruption, even as whispering campaigns and statements at cross purposes with one another continue to be released.

Meanwhile, contra Ted Rall's second guessing, it did NOT get to Kazakhstan. Given Baikonur Cosmodrome and nuke testing in Kazakhstan, there's got to be a gazillion radars there. It would have had to cross either the India-China or India-Pakistan border, with all of its radars and bristling military hardware, too, where it would have been shot down. Rall should have stuck with his first speculation, that it's in the Indian Ocean.

On the radar issue, he tweeted back that Indian officials say they turn off most their radar systems at night to save money. Tis true, on the radar shutdowns. Here's Reuters on that issue. That said, Russia has a bit more money than India or Pakistan. So does China. If the plane turned northwest, depending on when, it would have had to cross Chinese airspace under some flight paths, too. 

Besides, even the typical airline pilot wouldn't be guaranteed to know that India hit the snooze button on at least parts of its radar system. Ditto for a terrorist in the passenger compartment. As for a friendly welcome, Kazakhstan's never been a supporter of terrorist versions of Islam. And, even in more remote parts of that underpopulated country, you still have to land the damned plane somewhere.

Rall's still an an odd duck at times, even if right about India's radar. I agree with about 60-70 percent of what he says, even his controversial stuff, but probably still disagree with 15-20 percent, and to the final 15-20 percent, he says, I say what the fuck?

He's now followed his radar comments by something of the WTF 20 percent. As for why no cell phone calls from passengers? His post suggest that, at best, he committed an elementary memory lapse and at worst left upon the possibility he's a 9/11 Truther, at least without further investigation. 

Actually, teh Google tells me that he's not a Truther EXCEPT for questioning the official account of the downing of Flight 93. And, unless somebody can point me to something definite on Flight 93's cockpit, post 9/11 Commission, some skepticism, if not necessarily quite as heavy as his, is the correct stance

So, I could just call it a brain fart on cell phones mixed with overexcitedness. But, I won't. Rall has explained himself on that, but not retracted/edited the "duh" on cell phones, despite multiple requests by me to do so; his explanations on that are now doubling down on disingenuousness. And, one of his commenters claims that land-related reach of cell phones out to sea is getting greater all the time, so, because!

And, even over land, you have to be over or near an area of cell tower density for good reception. Flight 370, after the turn, wasn't.

So, while I've long learned to generally not underestimate or discount Ted Rall, in this case ...

I AM! Sorry, Ted, you're wrong. The cell phone part, in particular, shows that you're just being stubborn on this issue.

Per your own rhetorical question of, "Is it possible the plane made it to Kazakhstan?" I respond, "Is it likely, or even close to likely?" and respond with a definite "No."

Now, the "why"? Otherwise known as "let's have fun speculating"?

As for the idea of a hijack, not a terrorist takedown? At some point, you have to ask for ransom. It's been a week and we haven't heard that yet. It's also been a week with nobody spilling the beans, even in a semi-deserted Kazakhstan. That's further reason to discount Ted Rall. The longer people are held hostage, even in a theoretical plan as devious as this, the more somebody is likely to talk, or some outsider is to spot some incident.

As for hijacking the plane just for the plane? Ghost ships do exist after being taken over and thoroughly overhauled, but I've never heard of that being done to a passenger jet.

As for it going down? Well, the possible southern flight path is looking more and more likely for that.

And, if it's in the southern Indian Ocean, it could take many years to find the wreckage. Whether by air or sea, the southern Indian Ocean is little crossed. Due to great circle lines, flights from South Africa to India or China largely hug the east African coast. Only transit between southern Africa and Australia crosses significant portions of the southern Indian Ocean. 

Here's a great circle mapper, which makes jet stream and other allowances; it produced that sample map of a Johannesberg-Beijing flight shown here. You can see that, setting aside  east African coastal waters above Madagascar, it doesn't cross the southern Indian Ocean at all.

It took two full years to find the wreck black box of the Air France plane lost off the coast of Brazil. In that case, we had a plane that never turned, and wreckage visible on the surface at least somewhat near being due overhead of the plane's oceanic resting site. If we should find wreckage relatively soon, with the southern Indian Ocean being much wider than the South Atlantic, greater drift is likely.

Stonekettle Station adds to the angle of how hard it will likely be to spot the wreckage, as well as telling Rall to get a clue on Kazakhstan.

Otherwise, this post is to otherwise remind you that we still know not a lot more than bupkis, other than that the communications problems within the Malaysian government are really a sign of corruption and ineptitude. 

Southwest has no Love for flying

CEO Gary Kelly is very bearish on the shorter-term future of flight. He says Southwest’s revenues per seat mile were down almost 10 percent in May vs. a year ago.

Hero pilot ‘Sully’ wrong on airline dereg

Hero pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger told a House subcommittee yesterday airline deregulation was driving pilots like him from the cockpit.

BUT!…

Not so fast, there, sir.

Airline deregulation allows middle-class Joes like me (no Jane at home with me) to fly cross-country in coach for less than $400, often less than $300. Pre dereg, adjusted for inflation, I’d be paying $1,000 a ducat or so.

Therefore, lower-end middle-class Joes like me wouldn’t be flying. Airlines would then run fewer flights.

And, pilots wouldn’t have cockpits to vacate in the first place.

Remind me not to fly AirTran

Yes, AirTran DOES own the Irfan family an apology after giving them the back of the corporate hand, which in tern came after panicky passengers apparently engaged in some Muslim profiling.

A pilot suggests aviation reforms to Obama

Commercial pilot Patrick Smith suggests five areas of needed reforms and improvements – air traffic control and runway ground control; congestion and delays; regulatory burdens; keeping foreign airlines out of domestic routes; and airport security. Read the full Salon article for details in each area.

Unwelcome ‘Saturday night special’ back for biz travelers

With cuts in routes and grounding of planes forthcoming, it looks like the legacy airlines are bringing back Saturday night stayovers for business class.

And, although oil prices have eased somewhat from midsummer peak, I’m betting the airlines can make this one stick. Southwest is scrubbing a few routes itself, and so will offer less of an option to the legacies.

American to whip out baggage police

With American Airlines leading the pack on a $15 surcharge, one way, for a passenger’s first checked bag and $25 for the second, well, DUH… obviously people are going to try to take more stuff as carry-on.

So American and United and using in-terminal baggage police to try to keep people from flouting carry-on rules.

And, these employees are being diverted from where? Or paid how much overtime?

Well, it’s worse than that: They may be contract employees hired for this purpose.

If I can find where in the Metroplex American CEO Gerard Arpey lives, I’ll tell you where to mail a big steaming turd.

Bob Crandall rips legacy airlines a new one

Starting off by telling American, et al to stop blaming OPEC for their losses because they lost money when oil was a lot cheaper, the former American CEO turns up the heat from there.

Crandall, certainly American’s best CEO every, then shoots down other straw men of the modern legacy airlines, such as calls for more consolidation.

His answer?

More regulation.

Three decades of deregulation have demonstrated that airlines have special characteristics incompatible with a completely unregulated environment. To put things bluntly, experience has established that market forces alone cannot and will not produce a satisfactory airline industry, which clearly needs some help to solve its pricing, cost and operating problems.

But not necessarily regulation just like that of the old days.

He calls for things like a national transportation plan.

But, he goes far beyond this, even.

Who could imagine a former American CEO doing things such as:
• Calling for a rejection of the hub-and-spoke system;
• Calling for all flights under 300 miles on rail corridors to be replaced by high-speed trains.

It’s a long but HUGELY interesting read.

That said, some of his ideas of labor costs have no chance in hell until airline CEOs have contracts expressly banning them from getting bonuses.

And, the old, regulated days meant higher prices and fewer people able to travel.

Delta latest legacy airline to further cut flights

With Delta’s pledge to cut its flight capacity 13 percent in the second half of 2008, up from 10 percent, about all the legacy airlines are in full retreat from high gas prices.

Delta’s case is complicated, of course, by its proposed takeover of Northwest.

That said, between the capacity cuts and the checked bag charges, I have to believe Southwest is sitting in the catbird seat. It’s given no indication so far that it will follow either trend.

I’ve not read Jim Jubak or other MSN analysts in a week or two, but, if I were buying stock later this year, I’d take a look at Southwest.

Bag-check fee catches on — and $2 a pop for pop!!

No. 2 airline United and No. 7 U.S. Airways have joined No. 1 airline American in charging $15 for fliers’ first checked bag.

I’m betting, still, that Southwest doesn’t join the stampede, and winds up using this to actually increase its profit margin.

And, no more free sodas on U.S. Airways — it’s $2 a pop for pop now.

Continental joins list of route-cutting airlines

The Houston-based Continental will cut flights “11 percent by the end of this year and ground nearly 70 planes.

With most major carriers now doing this, here’s the ripple effects:
1. Higher prices after this summer, due to limited capacity.
2. Cutbacks in orders from Boeing and Airbus, unless to replace the oldest, most inefficient planes quickly.
3. Opportunities for Southwest, which has trimmed its expansion plans for this year, but still has some expansion plans as of this moment.

We can only hope on No. 3, and also hope here in Dallas that Southwest does not continue its semi-collusion with American as the Wright Amendment continues to undergo its phase-out ending.

Will the last airline to go broke please turn out the lights?

U.S. airlines are projected to lose $2.3 billion this year, according to International Air Transport Association.

The main reason? Jet fuel costs are expected to rise 30 percent over last year.

But wait, you’re just getting the sunny side.

Throw out perennial money-maker Southwest, and the rest of the Top 10 airlines are expected to lose nearly $5 billion this year.

And, that 30 percent rise in jet fuel? It’s based on a Brent crude oil price of “just” $106/bbl.

Jamie Baker of JP Morgan expects the legacy airlines to drop a $7.2 billion dime.

Hey, Gerard Arpey, a $15 bag check fee ain’t gonna cover that at American.

And United, you can talk all you want about not being interested in mergers, but you’d better get interested in doing something different.

Call it the Gerard Arpey fee

American Airlines’ $15 fee for your first checked bag went into place yesterday.

Fortunately, I had just carry-ons for my flight back from San Francisco.

And, we actually got back to Dallas 15 minutes early.

But, let my tell you just what the Gerard Arpey fee did NOT get:
1. A boarding agent to run out the skybridge, hook it up, and open the airplane!
2. Working telephones in the flight attendants’ area at the back of the plane to check on when a boarding agent might get there, after the captain’s original call.
3. Flight attendants happy with Gerard Arpey, his big fat bonuses, or the crappy contract offered to various American unions.

Rather than e-mailing just one person, go to American’s website and bitch at a bunch of people. Since it's now 2 a.m., writing this in advance of going to sleep, I'm too tired to look up e-mail addys anyway!

American Airlines could be in more FAA hot water over Paris flight

And it should be.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating why the pilot of an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Paris in which the Miami-based captain continued the 10-hour flight even after crew members heard what they believed to be an explosion in the cargo hold 14 minutes after takeoff.

As I blogged yesterday:

An e-mail battle is brewing between American cockpit pilots and management office pilots as to whether an American captain on a Dallas-Paris flight should have turned back to D/FW, or flown on as he actually did, after a 3x6 foot panel fell off the belly of his Boeing 767. Management says it was the best decision with available information.

Excuse me, but when you hear a noise and feel a vibration, shouldn’t you turn around?

Especially given the Federal Aviation Administration’s recent crackdown on safety inspections at American, with more due by the end of this month, this will have repercussions.

Anyway, the noise and vibration are now being called a “very strong vibration” and “a loud explosion,” according to an e-mail from an unnamed American flight attendant. It’s not clear whether or not this person was on the flight in question.

Wunderbar. And I’m flying an American 767 to San Francisco in three weeks. Out of D/FW.

As for the Steve Chapmans of the world who claim recent FAA crackdowns on American and Southwest are just CYAs, well, if CYAs will help safety, I’m all for it.

Air travelers take note – gas prices and demand NOT the oil driver

Instead, it’s production bottlenecks for non-gasoline oil products, says Goldman Sachs analyst Arjun Murti.

He notes that not too long ago, the refining price spread, or “crack” had the oil equivalent of gasoline about $9/bbl higher than jet fuel. Now, jet fuel is $30/bbl higher on a per-barrel basis.

“Gasoline, at least in the short-run, has traded more like an annoying by-product of crude than as its core fundamental driver.”

The “crack” widening on jet fuel is going to make the airline industry suffer more. The story notes that airlines are divided between those that regularly “hedge” their fuel costs and those who don’t. Those who don’t, who thing prices are high, even artificially high, right now, may be due for a rude awakening:

Chris Avery, aviation analyst at JP Morgan, told CNBC those that have decided they can’t bear to hedge at current price levels, perhaps because they feel the price is not reflective of a longer term picture, will be hit hardest by ongoing rises in crude prices. For the time being he says the strength in crack spreads is irrelevant, it’s the underlying price of oil that is causing the biggest pain.

But overall trend is undeniable according to products traders. They say demand for jet fuel can only continue to rise as Europe races to compete with soaring demand from the Middle East & Asia. This they say means strength in middle distillates is likely to remain a long-term rather than short-term trend.

OPEC, insisting there is no supply issue, blames the weak dollar, which appears to have bottomed out (for now), and speculators.

But, we know different. The Saudis, in particular, have enough invested in American securities that they can’t afford for the American market to take too much of a hit. So, if they can’t do more, whether through pumping, or other means, to rectify the situation, then there’s a problem.

Airplanes dirtier than previously thought

How much dirtier, in terms of carbon dioxide emissions? About 20 percent worse:

An unpublished study by the world’s leading experts has revealed that airlines are pumping 20 per cent more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than estimates suggest, with total emissions set to reach between 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion tonnes annually by 2025.

The report, by four government-funded research bodies, is one of the most authoritative estimates of the growth of pollutants produced by the industry. It was presented to a conference co-organised by the United States’ Federal Aviation Authority but not given a wider audience.

And, that’s not all.

The four bodies estimate aviation-caused CO2 will more than double by 2025.

Vacation plans hit 30-year low

That’s among the “undercard” items in the latest roundup of economic indicators, but one that should get more attention.

The percentage of respondents to a survey who said they plan to take a vacation in the next six months hit a 30-year low. Why does it deserve the additional attention?

Vacation travel is one of the bigger drivers of the summertime economy, first of all.

Second, airline industry woes. Airlines are already dealing with soaring fuel prices, plus the Federal Aviation Administration’s recent, belated crackdown on safety inspections. Throw in a weak air travel season, and airlines are going to be hurting this summer.