This may have been the last time that Bobby Sturgell was able to speak as the head of the FAA, acting or not. So it pays to listen very closely. Officially the Acting FAA administrator, and officially Robert A. Sturgell, he gave his farewell address the other day to Washington. In a pointed note, he urged the flying public, Members of Congress, and the industry to temper their expectations of airport and airline on-time performance, saying, "one of our toughest issues is managing expectations. Everybody has to have realistic expectations." Sturgell told the Aero Club of Washington, "The actual number of operations an individual airport can sustain hour after hour has got to be the starting point in any discussion." And in New York, "you can't expect to see 120 operations per hour at JFK, even in perfect weather, and I think we all know the cap at LaGuardia is too high. You can only run so many planes on two individual, intersecting runways." (The FAA's cap on LaGuardia operations is 75 per hour by airlines, plus six-non airline flights, during peak hours.)
Then Bobby pointed, subtly, to the airlines. He said, "Schedules predicated on a bright sunny day every day are just flat out impractical. They create unrealistic expectations on the part of the passengers and thereby create havoc anytime when weather hits." This is noteworthy, since previous FAA chiefs have tended toward the diplomatic when it comes to overscheduling.
It’s time to use all-CAPS:
Monday, November 24, 2008
BOBBY STURGELL EXITS LIKE GLENN CLOSE IN THE MICHAEL DOUGLAS BATHTUB!
http://indictsturgell.blogspot.com/2008/11/bobby-sturgell-exits-like-glenn-close.html
ABC, and this blog, are now reporting Bobby Sturgell has given his farewell address. That’s only a little over 4 months after Quiet Rockland scooped in July that Sturgell announced he would depart in November.
Next.
Good Bye and Good Riddance to "Bobby" and his cozy relationship.
The only thing we should be realistic about is the fact that after Bobby's tenure at the FAA, we are left with oversaturated skys, overworked ATC's and a sense that our luck is about to run out. The many scandals that have occured under his "leadership" is an abomination.
Let's start fresh with someone who can fix the problems with aviation rather than creat them.