james lawson

A member of the Philip Greenspun's Homepage community since May 10, 2010

If you were to log in, you'd be able to get more information on your fellow community member.

May 10, 2010, on Foreign Airline Safety versus U.S. Major Airlines:
As a 20 year airline pilot I do disagree with the US vs foreign pilot argument, but I will leave that alone as it will involve pages of refutory evidence. There is some basis of fact in what you say, but it is simplistic and, well, thats enough on that... As for flying to JFK. New York is to most airlines who fly heavy jets effectively a third world airport. It is a nightmare to taxi around, as it is way way to small (was designed for 707's max) and aside from seemingly nothing working the way it should and being way way too overcrowded, the controllers make no allowance for non US-English speaking crews. My airline flies around the world and the US is difficult full stop. Unlike almost anywhere else it takes a LOT of practice and understanding of US culture to fully know what is really being said. And our airline is also from an English speaking nation. The problem is that US pilots and controllers _generally_ only operate in the USA and deal with people who have grown up in the sam...