
Free Flight
Inventing the Future of Travel
James Fallows(Author)
PublicAffairs,U.S. (Publisher)
Published on 5. September 2002
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-1-58648-140-7 (ISBN)
Description
The troubles of the airline system have become acute in the post-terrorist era. As the average cost of a flight has come down in the last twenty years, the airlines have survived by keeping planes full and funneling traffic through a centralized hub-and-spoke routing system. Virtually all of the technological innovation in airplanes in the last thirty years has been devoted to moving passengers more efficiently between major hubs. But what was left out of this equation was the convenience and flexibility of the average traveller. Now, because of heightened security, hours of waiting are tacked onto each trip. As James Fallows vividly explains, a technological revolution is under way that will relieve this problem. Free Flight features the stories of three groups who are inventing and building the future of all air travel: NASA, Cirrus Design in Duluth, Minnesota, and Eclipse Aviation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. These ventures should make it possible for more people to travel the way corporate executives have for years: in small jet planes, from the airport that's closest to their home or office directly to the airport closest to where they really want to go. This will be possible because of a product now missing from the vast array of flying devices: small, radically inexpensive jet planes, as different from airliners as personal computers are from mainframes. And, as Fallows explains in a new preface, a system that avoids the congestion of the overloaded hub system will offer advantages in speed, convenience, and especially security in the new environment of air travel.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
410 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-58648-140-7 (9781586481407)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Previous edition
Book
06/2001
PublicAffairs,U.S.
€41.03
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Person
James Fallows is National Correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, and has worked for the magazine for more than twenty years. His previous books include Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy, Looking at the Sun, More Like Us, and National defence. Fallows has been a regular commentator on NPR. He lives in Washington, D.C.