I "heart" commercial aviation!
This past week afforded me with several occasions to indulge my passion for commercial aviation. Unfortunately, that did not include traveling, but it sure has made me antsy to hit the road now that warmer weather has arrived!
For me, the experience of flying, from the time I get to the airport to the time I pick up my luggage at baggage claim at my destination, is an integral part of my entire travel experience. It's not just the planes or the flight itself. I am interested in that, to be sure, but airline operations and business practices fascinate me as well. I think that is why I really like Airways magazine. Earlier this week I took advantage of a nice spring evening to sit outside and read the latest issue. Being an Atlanta native, I am a big Delta Air Lines fan, so I really enjoyed the article on the airline's plans to retire its Boeing 747-400 fleet that was inherited from the merger with Northwest Airlines. The great thing about that article was that it dealt more generally with the status of the 747 with various global airlines, a great read for an aficionado like me. I also enjoyed the story on the history and future redevelopment of Salt Lake City International Airport.
A few days later, I had to pick up my sister at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. I was there early so I was able to do a little bit of light plane spotting from the cell phone lot. It's not the best place to spot at Hartsfield, but as a way to pass time waiting for someone to arrive, the Atlanta cell phone lot is a far better location than the similar lot at other airports. Here are few videos from my brief visit to ATL.
Finally, this afternoon, I was reading a book for work, Segmentation, Revenue Management, and Pricing Analytics...I know...you want a copy of your own...and some of the examples used were airline pricing techniques. For pricing professionals, aviation pricing is absolutely fascinating for its complexity and the ability to get two people, sitting right beside each other on a flight, to pay vastly different sums of money. While many of their strategies are not applicable to my industry, my fascination with the commercial aviation business merged perfectly with my professional industry in this instance.