Air traffic controller here…
Where do we even start with this? I guess with the air traffic side since that’s what I know best.
One word: capacity!
DFW and Houston have big airports, that is true. But you can only fit so many airplanes and people in one place. Florida is a bigger problem. Most of their airports are suited for domestic flights, not international. Plus, the airspace is already extremely saturated. It is becoming one of the biggest bottlenecks in the entire US system, probably only behind the NY area.
Domestic airlines could theoretically make the switch. It would take a long time to redo their schedules and adjust departures and such. Flight crews would need different arrangements to get from wherever they end up. Also, this affects other flights since airlines use planes based on where they are. Plus the fuel use would be greater since most of these flights would require flying longer distances.
Foreign carriers could not easily switch. Asian ones almost exclusively have their US operations in California. European ones, in NY typically. Etc. They can’t just say, we’ll fly to DFW or wherever. Most don’t have gates there, maintenance crews, offloading crews, whatever else. It wouldn’t be an absolute nightmare.
Basically, it would take on the order of years to implement and cost airlines many millions of dollars. Which they would pass on to the customers in higher ticket prices.
Airlines would probably sue and at least try to stop this long before it’s put in place.
Not to mention, Mullins would be putting his own people out of work or forcing them to move.
Where do we even start with this? I guess with the air traffic side since that’s what I know best.
One word: capacity!
DFW and Houston have big airports, that is true. But you can only fit so many airplanes and people in one place. Florida is a bigger problem. Most of their airports are suited for domestic flights, not international. Plus, the airspace is already extremely saturated. It is becoming one of the biggest bottlenecks in the entire US system, probably only behind the NY area.
Domestic airlines could theoretically make the switch. It would take a long time to redo their schedules and adjust departures and such. Flight crews would need different arrangements to get from wherever they end up. Also, this affects other flights since airlines use planes based on where they are. Plus the fuel use would be greater since most of these flights would require flying longer distances.
Foreign carriers could not easily switch. Asian ones almost exclusively have their US operations in California. European ones, in NY typically. Etc. They can’t just say, we’ll fly to DFW or wherever. Most don’t have gates there, maintenance crews, offloading crews, whatever else. It wouldn’t be an absolute nightmare.
Basically, it would take on the order of years to implement and cost airlines many millions of dollars. Which they would pass on to the customers in higher ticket prices.
Airlines would probably sue and at least try to stop this long before it’s put in place.
Not to mention, Mullins would be putting his own people out of work or forcing them to move.