Tag: Memphis International Airport

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Calling the Bluff Music

Memphis Airport Offering Live Music For The Holidays

220px-Memphis_Intl_Airport_Logo.svg.png

Thanksgiving and Christmas are two of the biggest holidays of the year.

Countless people anticipate the arrival of these holiday seasons every year, so they can travel out of town to enjoy the days with family and friends. And those arriving at the Memphis International Airport for either of the two holidays can look forward to enjoying a memorable experience.

The Memphis – Shelby County Airport Authority (MSCAA) has partnered with the Memphis Music Foundation (MMF) to welcome visitors to the Bluff City with some live musical entertainment.

“The airport is the first impression many people get of our city, whether as a final destination or changing planes,” MMF President Dean Deyo said in a press release. “We join other music cities that showcase their musicians in their airport. We are excited that the Airport Authority sees the value in this program too. We have also worked with the airport to provide recorded Memphis music 24 hours a day in the new parking facility.”

Live music performances will take place in Concourse B Rotunda, Concourse A (Southwest Airlines), and Concourse C (American Airlines, US Airways and United Airlines).

Here’s the performance schedule for the Thanksgiving holiday:

Friday, November 22
• Singa B (Soul) 11:30 am -1:00pm
• Faith Evans Ruch (Americana) 2:30-5:00pm

Tuesday, November 26
• Kate Bond Middle School Choir (Holiday music) 11:30 am -1:00pm
• Paul Taylor (roots rock) 2:30-5:00pm

Wednesday, November 27
• Cordova High School Chamber Singers (holiday music) 11:30 am -1:00pm
• Jason Freeman (rockabilly injected blues) 2:30-5:00pm

The performance schedule for the Christmas holiday hasn’t been announced yet.

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Opinion

Southwest/Air Tran Adding Four Flights from Memphis

Southwest-Airlines-logo-300x225.jpg

Southwest Airlines, through its Air Tran subsidiary, is adding four flights out of Memphis starting in August, the Memphis Shelby County Airport Authority announced Monday.

The news is certainly welcome in the sense that it reverses the trend of declining passenger service at Memphis International Airport. Jack Sammons, the new chairman of the Airport Authority, called it “a home run.” But when you do a little comparative pricing, it looks more like a single. More on that follows, but first the basics of the announcement:

In a national release by Southwest, the company detailed four new Memphis flights to three new AirTran routes; twice a day between Memphis and Chicago Midway, and once daily service between Memphis and Orlando, and Memphis and Baltimore/Washington. The new flights will begin service on August 11, 2013, and are in addition to the current five daily non-stops on AirTran between Memphis and Atlanta. The new service is available for booking immediately for flights on or after August 11.

“We are very excited that Southwest has decided to add three new city pairs for Memphis to fly under its AirTran subsidiary. Many years of relationship building with Southwest are paying off,” said Larry Cox, President and CEO of the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority. “This service addition reinforces the message given to Memphians last September by Southwest Executive Vice President Ron Ricks when he stated ‘We’re here. We’re here to stay … You’ve got to be patient with us, and things will not happen overnight.’”

“We are excited and grateful that Southwest Airlines has decided to include MEM in their network. This news is a home run for travelers in our region hungry for affordable flight options,” added recently elected Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority Chairman Jack Sammons. “Southwest management has informed me that they will add additional flights this year based on how well these initial flights perform. As one Southwest executive remarked in our meeting last week, ‘The more flights we take, the more we get.’ It’s a new era in aviation in America and certainly a new era for our airport. Your Airport Authority will continue to be relentless in our efforts to make Memphis the airport of choice for the traveling public.”

Now for a little number crunching. I could book a flight to Chicago Midway on August 15th, a Thursday, with a return to Memphis on August 18th, a Sunday, for as low as $253 on Air Tran. But there is only one non-stop flight on each of those days. Otherwise, you go through Atlanta, and the trip takes approximately four to six hours each way and the fare goes to $276 or $316. Still not a bad deal if you have the time, but you are dealing with one of the biggest and busiest airports in the world — Atlanta — and a secondary Chicago airport on the east side of the city which makes it more or less convenient depending on your destination. The business fare on Air Tran is $823 round trip.

For travel on the same dates, Delta has several nonstops for a round-trip price of $253. The first-class/business fare is $1,181. For travel in March — five months before the new Air Tran service begins — you can book a weekend Thursday-Sunday trip to Chicago O’Hare on either Delta or United non-stop for $396 today.

As always, when and how you travel — short notice, business or pleasure, flexibility — makes a huge difference in the cost, duration, and convenience of air travel in the age of booking through Kayak, which makes everyone a travel agent. Again, this looks like a small piece of good news but it’s only a home run if you are playing in a Little League park with a 200-foot fence.

UPDATE: After doing a little more checking, I see there are two, not one, daily non-stops in the service to Chicago that begins in August. My bad. But one of them, be warned, leaves Memphis at 5:35 a.m. As for the new flights to Orlando, Memphis to central and southwest Florida is already well served. There is service to Orlando, Tampa, Sarasota, and Fort Myers for under $350 round trip in February and March, most of it through Atlanta. And if money is more important than time to you, Amtrak offers a $99 fare (each way) from Memphis to Chicago that puts you in the heart of the Windy City.

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Special Sections

Wilson Field and Amelia Earhart

Harry Wilson and chief pilot R.S. Weaver at Wilson Field in 1950

  • Harry Wilson and chief pilot R.S. Weaver at Wilson Field in 1950

Six years after Amelia Earhart vanished in the Pacific, her airplane crashed and burned at a little-known airport in Memphis.

If that sounds like an episode from The Twilight Zone, let me explain. A Lockheed Vega was one of the first airplanes that Earhart purchased, but she replaced it with a larger plane before attempting her doomed flight around the world in 1937. The Vega crashed upon takeoff at Wilson Field on August 26, 1943, while it was being ferried across the country by a new owner. Blurry pictures taken right after the crash (such as the one below) are filed away in the Memphis Room at the main library.

The wreckage remained visible for years, joining a fleet of other demolished and dismantled aircraft that caught the eye of anyone driving past the cluster of hangars and dirt runways at the northeast corner of Ridgeway and Raines Road.

Wilson Field was owned and operated by Harry T. Wilson. A self-taught pilot since 1915, Wilson had flown in the Signal Corps during World War I and teamed up with Vernon Omlie, one of this area’s first aviators, in the 1920s. He took over Omlie’s Mid-South Airways Corporation after the older pilot died in a plane crash near St. Louis in 1938.

Wilson moved the company to Memphis Municipal Airport, but had to relocate several miles east when the U.S. Army commandeered the city’s main airfield during World War II. During the war, he supervised pilot training for the military. In later years, he provided flight classes, aircraft maintenance, and other services, and slowly built up a sprawling “boneyard” of vintage airplanes and parts.

In the 1960s, a reporter visited Wilson Field “in the quiet countryside” and noted that “airplanes remain on the field from World War II training days. Weeds and young trees grow through their fuselages. Wilson says one man wants one of the old planes as a plaything for his children.”

It was certainly an odd place. Many years ago, I confess to a bit of trespassing, when I went with some friends to explore it at night. At the time, there was even a big old DC-3 parked there, and we climbed through a door, roamed through the cluttered cabin, and sat in the cockpit. Suddenly, a light flashed on in the hangar across the field — we didn’t know anyone stayed there at night! — so we got spooked and scurried away, half-expecting to get shot before we reached our cars.

Wilson, hailed by the Memphis Press-Scimitar as “a pioneer figure in aviation in Memphis,” died in 1975. I don’t really know what became of all the wrecked airplanes, but rows of houses now stand atop the old grass runways of Wilson Field.

PHOTO OF HARRY WILSON COURTESY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS LIBRARIES. PHOTO BELOW COURTESY BENJAMIN HOOKS CENTRAL LIBRARY.

Amelia Earharts former plane

  • Amelia Earhart’s former plane
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News The Fly-By

Flying Blind

CREDIT: Kiyyah | Dreamstime.com

Last month, three local air traffic controllers lost their certifications after three planes landed too closely together at Memphis International Airport.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) guidelines require pilots and air traffic controllers to maintain at least five miles of separation between planes, yet the planes landed with 4.85 miles and 4.86 miles between them.

Though there is no way to prove that the errors occurred because air traffic controllers are overworked, local members of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) worry that such situations will become more frequent as new FAA guidelines lead to controllers working more overtime.

“This is a thinking job. All the work is done in your head,” says Pete Sufka, local president for NATCA. “The more time you spend on position with less chance to get away and recharge yourself, [the more] the quality of work begins to erode.”

Many Memphis controllers work 10 hours a day, six days a week, because of staffing problems at the Memphis Tower (which directs planes for Memphis International Airport and FedEx) and the Memphis Center (which controls the airspace above West Tennessee and most of Arkansas and Mississippi).

Last week, the FAA released staffing targets for the country’s 314 air traffic control facilities. Under that document, the Memphis Tower should employ between 59 and 72 fully certified controllers. The Memphis Center should employ between 244 and 298 controllers.

The local air traffic controllers’ union, NATCA, does not have a current contract with the FAA. However, staffing levels negotiated for a 1998 contract required the Memphis Tower to employ 75 controllers and the Memphis Center to employ 354 controllers, at least 50 positions more than what the FAA says the center currently needs.

“The controllers keep using those 1998 numbers, but 1998 was a long time ago,” says Diane Spitaliere, an FAA spokesperson based in Washington, D.C. “Those numbers have no bearing on today’s traffic levels.”

Spitaliere says the new staffing targets were based on traffic levels at each facility. However, she admitted that air traffic has grown in recent years.

“We’re up a little, and we think it will grow significantly in the next 10 years,” says Spitaliere.

Sufka says Memphis International has 23 more flights per day than it did before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Air traffic dropped dramatically for several years after the attacks but later rebounded.

Part of the understaffing problem is a result of more controllers retiring, moving into management positions, or transferring to other facilities. By the end of the year, after retirements and transfers, Memphis Tower expects to employ 51 certified controllers.

As a result, controllers are putting in more overtime. Though the FAA claims overtime is voluntary, Memphis Tower controller Peter Nesbitt says he’s on the “no-call” list for overtime, but that hasn’t stopped management from asking him to work nearly every one of his scheduled days off.

“I like to compare it to an emergency room trauma center,” says Nesbitt. “When you go to the trauma center, you want doctors who are alert, trained, healthy, and ready to go to work in the emergency room.”