There’s been some media discussion recently about the state of Madison’s Air Service, specifically, United Express (regional carrier for United Airlines). Many of United Express’s flights are served by Appleton based Air Wisconsin.
I experienced these service issues firsthand this past winter. The random number generator that is United Express service between Chicago and Madison became so bad that I phoned J. Kevin LaWare, Air Wisconsin’s Vice President of Operations. Service examples include

• Incorrect Gate Information
• Incorrect departure time information
• Last minute cancellations (“weather”)
• Gate agents who were left in the dark as operations personnel moved planes and schedules around (leaving the flying public further in the dark and irritated)

I asked LaWare if their random number scheduler would continue to plague Madison passengers (and therefore I should not bother to purchase any tickets on United).
Surprisingly, he called me back several weeks later (February, I recall) and mentioned that

• O’hare had become over utilized (again!). This makes sense. The number of large aircraft flights has likely gone down while regional jet service to and from O’Hare has exploded.
• The FAA has allowed AA and UA to coordinate schedules to and from O’Hare, which should improve things.

I appreciated his call and can report that in fact service has become more reliable (I would say that schedule reliability is better. However, there is still room for improvement). You can periodically see how they are doing by viewing daily inbound and outbound (Chicago) flights.

ABQ or Albuquerque’s Sunport features free wireless internet access (WiFi). This enlightened approach makes it very easy for passengers and visitors to check email, surf the web or use a VPN (Virtual Private Network), things not possible at our local airport (MSN). I find it astonishing that a supposedly tech savvy area has non existant airport connectivity.
UPDATE: Sharyn Wisniewski in County Executive Falk’s office left me a voice mail today that the Madison Airport will be accepting bids shortly for a paid WiFi service, to be installed this summer. Better than the current situation, I find Albuquerque’s tech friendly approach to be superior (just works, vs digging out a credit card, signing up and going through the login process). The County should rethink this plan (we’re not talking about much money – I would imagine that the administration of a 3rd party contract is more expensive than installing 5 DSL lines with wireless access points).

Duncan Walker of the BBC writes:

The prospect of a revolution in air travel has been raised by Nasa’s successful test of a 5,000mph plane. But are we likely to see similar advances in other forms of transport?