Wings Across Europe

Examines the current state of European airlines. It seeks to determine if the current institutional structure provides a sustainable basis for the continued vitality of air transport as a facilitator of economic development

Airlines, like most industries, contain a mixture of good and badly managed companies (and perhaps more important, lucky and unlucky companies). More important in the longer-run is the institutional structure in which the companies offer their services. Air transport is a major industry in its own right. But it is also the fastest growing mode of transport for both passengers and freight, a large employer of labour, at the forefront of many technological developments and often a pioneer in adopting such innovations. It is the source of important economic stimuli for local economic development. This book examines the current state of European airlines - mainly, but not exclusively, those within the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA). It seeks in particular to determine if the current institutional structure provides a sustainable basis for the continued vitality of air transport as a facilitator of economic development, and it can serve as an input into wider matters involving the social and political integration within Europe. It also includes material on airports, slots and security. It provides the opportunity to look at factors that currently influence the efficiency of European airlines and to see how the industry has moved to meet these challenges. The book is also designed to be accessible with a glossary at the end, definitions of key terms and concepts, a list of abbreviations and acronyms and two annexes that provide more details of the European air transport market within the wider international regulatory system. The readership includes all concerned with airline and airport management, including regulators and government departments of transportation, and researchers in air transport. While of main interest to those in Europe, it is also important to all who are dealing with similar questions in other continents, and all concerned with inter-continental air transport provision. In the current aviation context the key features of the book are: "

From the eccentric Fairey Battle to the lethal-looking CF-18, from modern airliners that have no defects (and no character) to the classic North Star (which had both), here is the ultimate line-up of the aircraft that have served Canadians in the last century. With over one hundred photographs of fifty historic planes, Wings Across Canada is a retrospective of Canada’s aeronautical technology. This book does not compare the planes, nor claim that all are "classics" in the traditional sense of the word. Instead, it is a celebration of a love affair with aircraft that all served a purpose in their own time.

Hanski, a leading thinker in metapopulation ecology, studies checkerspot butterfly populations in Finland. Ehrlich, one of the leading ecologists and conservation biologist, investigates checkerspot butterfly populations in California. This book reports on and synthsizes the major long-term research of both workers' careers on the population biology of checkerspot butterflies.

The thrilling true story of the daring female aviators who helped the United States win World War II--only to be forgotten by the country they served. When Japanese planes executed a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Cornelia Fort was already in the air. At twenty-two, Cornelia had escaped Nashville's debutante scene for a fresh start as a flight instructor in Hawaii. She and her student were in the middle of their lesson when the bombs began to fall, and they barely made it back to ground that morning. Still, when the U.S. Army Air Forces put out a call for women pilots to aid the war effort, Cornelia was one of the first to respond. She became one of just over 1,100 women from across the nation to make it through the Army's rigorous selection process and earn her silver wings. In The Women with Silver Wings, historian Katherine Sharp Landdeck introduces us to these young women as they meet even-tempered, methodical Nancy Love and demanding visionary Jacqueline Cochran, the trailblazing pilots who first envisioned sending American women into the air, and whose rivalry would define the Women Airforce Service Pilots. For women like Cornelia, it was a chance to serve their country--and to prove that women aviators were just as skilled and able as men. While not authorized to serve in combat, the WASP helped train male pilots for service abroad and ferried bombers and pursuits across the country. Thirty-eight of them would not survive the war. But even taking into account these tragic losses, Love and Cochran's social experiment seemed to be a resounding success--until, with the tides of war turning and fewer male pilots needed in Europe, Congress clipped the women's wings. The program was disbanded, the women sent home. But the bonds they'd forged never failed, and over the next few decades, they came together to fight for recognition as the military veterans they were--and for their place in history.

“A compelling account of the air war against Germany” written by the navigator portrayed by Anthony Boyle in Apple TV’s Masters of the Air (Publishers Weekly). They began operations out of England in the spring of ’43. They flew their Flying Fortresses almost daily against strategic targets in Europe in the name of freedom. Their astonishing courage and appalling losses earned them the name that resounds in the annals of aerial warfare and made the “Bloody Hundredth” a legend. Harry H. Crosby—depicted in the miniseries Masters of the Air developed by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg—arrived with the very first crews, and left with the very last. After dealing with his fear and gaining in skill and confidence, he was promoted to Group Navigator, surviving hairbreadth escapes and eluding death while leading thirty-seven missions, some of them involving two thousand aircraft. Now, in a breathtaking and often humorous account, he takes us into the hearts and minds of these intrepid airmen to experience both the triumph and the white-knuckle terror of the war in the skies. “Affecting . . . A vivid account . . . Uncommonly thoughtful recollections that address the moral ambiguities of a great cause without in any way denigrating the selfless valor or camaraderie that helped ennoble it.” —Kirkus Reviews “Re-creates for us the sense of how it was when European skies were filled with noise and danger, when the fate of millions hung in the balance. An evocative and excellent memoir.” —Library Journal “The acrid stench of fear and cordite, the coal burning stoves, the heroics, the losses . . . This has to be the best memoir I have read, bar none.” —George Hicks, director of the Airmen Memorial Museum

The ongoing deregulation and liberalization of worldwide air transport markets confronts airport planners with an increasingly problematic context. On the one hand, the capital intensive, large-scale and complex airport investments need a detailed, long/medium-term planning of airport infrastructure. Such planning requires at least predictable traffic volumes (and traffic composition) within the planning horizon. On the other hand, airline route networks are increasingly dynamic structures that frequently show discontinuous changes. As a consequence, the much more volatile airport traffic restricts the value of detailed traffic forecasts. Volatility of airport traffic and its composition requires flexibility of airport strategies and planning processes. The book explores this dilemma through a detailed study of airline network development, airport connectivity and airport planning in the deregulated EU air transport market. The questions the book seeks to answer are: · how have airlines responded to the regime changes in EU aviation with respect to the configuration of their route networks? · what has been the impact of the reconfiguration of airline network configurations for the connectivity of EU airports? · how can airport planners and airport authorities deal with the increasingly uncertain airline network behaviour in Europe?