Okay. Let's start from July 1st, with Hong Kong's 10th anniversary of the handover. (yes, it occured before Canada Day).
So, just a bit of a background, because of Opium Wars, and a couple of (unfair) treaties here and there Hong Kong was given to the United Kingdom, along with Kowloon, and New Territories. I think the New Territories and Kowloon were on 99-year lease which expired on June 30th, 1997. UK didn't had to give back Hong Kong Island, but it made much more sense to do so. I have no memories absolutely at all of the handover, but it must have been an emotional experience for all.
Anyways, soon after the handover, a series of major events happened, including the Asian economic recession\crisis\whatever you call it plus the stockmarket crash, 911, SARS, protests against a resolution or two and a CE(O) of Hong Kong . There's a lot to talk about this, and this really isn't a good summary, but you can look through any of the major global news services, they're bound to have an article or two on Hong Kong.
Canada Day:
I went to a family friend's house today, and we had a great time watching fireworks and playing on the Wii. I could elaborate more, but I want to get through everything first.
July 3rd
Today I left for Tokyo, which is becoming a tradition every summer, I've been there ever since 2002. I don't know if I'm going next year or not, though, I doubt it. Flight was uneventful, we flew JAL as usual. Oh, by the way, the phase I of the new wing has been completed already, and it was quite cool. About a hundred of the people on the plane was on a school trip, another couple were transfering, and some I found were half Japanese-half Canadian. Or that's what they looked like.
I personally think that the example of YVR is amazing as an airport in this world. Sure, YVR might not be first or second in the world, but it has made do with a very tight budget, high lease fees (I'll elaborate later on), and still rank very high on passenger satisfication. Many other airports in the world do not have to pay very high lease fees just to run an airport.
Okay, so after WWII, YVR was given over to the federal government by the municipal government, as it just cost too much to run YVR. Then the federal government in 1993 or so started to make regional authorities run YVR. These were independent non-profit airport authorities who ran them on a 50 or was it 70 or was it 90 year lease. Thing is, they had to pay the federal government to run an airport the federal government should be doing. USA gives money to their airports, and so does many other places around the world. Well, YVRAA shouldered on, and managed to turn YVR from any old undercapacity airport to fourth in the world and first in North America. THat's really saying something. As far as I know, Hong Kong and Singapore don't have to pay airport rents. In fact, I'm doubting Hong Kong makes money in its airport, even though it has a lot of business. Another thing, Vancouver isn't exactly such a large market. Sure, we're Western Canada's Pacific gateway, but that's not really a lot. Salt Lake City has more passengers than YVR gets. Oh, and by the way, YVR is very financially stable. I heard something about getting a good credit rating, but I'm not really sure about that.
Some people say Toronto (YYZ) has to pay a substantially more lease rate than YVR, or any otehr airport in Canada for that matter. Well, sure, YYZ pays way more rent proportionally than any other airport in Canada, but hey, the GTAA is pretty bad in managing the airport. Very bad airline relations, the highest airport landing fess IN THE WORLD (that's REALLY saying something), and extravagant spending. YVR's terminal, although maybe not the most beautiful, was very carefully planned and managed, becautifully done without splurging. YYZ's T1? See those beautiful roof, and all those wonderful open air spaces? Guess how much that cost. A lot. AC is its largest tenant, and I can tell you AC HATES YYZ. I read Robert Milton's book about AC, and they totally don't like YYZ. Really. And the thing is, YYZ has a constant demand, you can't escape it if you want to make it big in Canada. Not like YVR. Nobody has to serve YVR. If you ask anybody, YYZ is a far larger and generally more profitable market than YVR.
Oh, by the way, the airport with the second highest fees in the world is Tokyo's Narita. Their story is a lot more...'colourful', then YYZ. Colourful, as in full of angry, sometimes violent farmers, who were bent on protecting their own farmland from the 'menace' of the federal government's plan for a new airport in Tokyo. Before there was NRT, there was HND. Haneda. The airport was overrun with planes, extremely under capacity, with flights having to divert to Nagoya, which was quite far away, because there was no room for them to land. And then, Narita was chosen as the site for Tokyo's new international airport. Then, the farmers began to get angry, and started to do whatever was in their power to end the construction. These ranged from peaceful lawsuits to not-so-peaceful arson attacks. Eventually, construction went ahead, but the Supreme Court ceded some things back to the farmers. Nevertheless, the farmers still kept on revolting, tearing down a control tower (!) and other things like that, forcing the government to start preventative measures. Now, to visit Narita, you need a piece of ID. Which isn't that bad.
There was one picture on airliners.net which I found quite interesting. I don't think you can find the same scene today. By the way, I don't know where it went, so if you are really interested, search it up on a.net. Anyways, a farmer had a plot of land right in the middle of a planned runway. NRT built a runway surrounding it, but it was only operable right up to the farmer's house. It was completely surrounded by airport property, in the middle of a runway. Last year, another court decision granted the land to NRTAA.
Oh, by the way, Japan is also home to probably the world's most innovative airport today. KIX (Kansai International Airport), which serves as Osaka's premier international gateway. It's on a complete man-made island, designed by a world famous architect whose name I forgot. Anyways, the island had been sinking at a very fast rate, but KIX'll survive. Oh, and Kobe, which refused to create an airport, which was originally supposed to be KIX, just went ahead and created its own airport. Stupid move, I say. Pride must have had a factor. Japanese airports all around were suffering from little business, and had some of the highest landing fees in the world. KIX was suffering from too little traffic, with most airlines except UA reducing their frequencies. Oh, and Nagoya had a revamped, or was it a completley new airport?
Really, only NRT and HND were in any position to charge high prices and still expect traffic. They were where people want to go. Not Osaka. Who ever heard of someone going to Tokyo via Osaka? The opposite'll happen. Oh, and HND is the airport with the most domestic traffic in the world, or maybe its second after ATL. It was the world's largest domestic airport, after the Taiwan flights swtiched to NRT and before scheduled charters to Seoul Gimpo started. HND plans to allow international traffic within a roughly 2,000 mile radius after the creationg of the fourth runway. HND has over 60 m. passengers per year, with almost all domestic. By comparision, ATL, the world's largest has 81m. YVR has 16 m., NRT somewhere around that.
July 7th
Hey, Live Earth started today. I watched the Tokyo show on the internet(not live). I only watched bits and parts of it, but I saw almost the netire portion of Linkin Park and Rihanna. It seemed like everyone was there because of Linkin Park, and nobody heard about Rihanna. By the way, she seemed like she ran out of breath pretty often, and it was pretty much just listening to her backup singers sing. And there wasn't much enthusiasm for RIhanna, either the people didn't know English, or they never heard of her songs before. Must be something for a singer who currently has the number one position on the United World Chart.
As far as I know, the only Japanese big people in the show was Ai Otsuka, and Kumi Koda. The really big people, Hamasaki, Hikaru, and others, wer enot there, but that wasn't surprising. It wasn't as if all the American top charters were in the Live Earth shows.
Kyoto
Wow, it was surprisingly good. I didn't listen to Rip Slyme, though. Anyways, Michael Nyman and YMO were pretty good, I liked their songs. obviously, Kyoto got their own show because of the Kyoto accord, and the possibility that Kyoto was the most environmentally conscious major city in the world.
There's a problem with the feed though. I can't see it anymore.
Shanghai
They had peopled from Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong, with probably Sarah Brightman being the only foreigner. Not surprisingly, it wasn't a real concert. I have my personal thoughts on why.
Sydney
Well, I didn't really watched this one. Not that interesting to me, for some reason.
Hamburg
Watched only bits and pieces of it. Nothing that interesting. At least not the parts that I watched. Which was only Enrique and minutes of other singers, so don't take my word for it being boring.
London
Wow. I was surprised that it was filled to capacity, and having such a wonderful atmosphere.
New York
Again, pretty amazing, obviously the flagship show of Live Earth, followed closely by London, though.
Rio de Janeiro
Didn't watch much, but Macy Gray and Lenny Kravitz were pretty nice.
Jo'burg
Barely watched it, and apparently the Soweto group is missing in the feed right now. Oh well.
Antarctica
These people were playing OUTSIDE in the freezing temperature. Do you have any idea how cold their fingers must be? How in the world can you play guitar like that? You can obviously see that their fingers were that flexible, and pretty rigid. Excellent commitment.
By the way, to many Live Earth critics: Do you research before even saying anything negative about this concert or Al Gore. No, ignorance is not bliss, and its really annoying to other people when you take what you think and try to pass it off as truth. Its not the truth. Well, okay, sometimes it is, but in this case, it really isn't. And keep your mind opened, and if you really don't like Live Earth, do something more substantial than just dismiss everything as Gore propaganda and forget about everything. There are many more productive and practical ways to express your thoughts about Live Earth than some of the stuff that you guys have written on the boards...
Oh, and by the way, the B787 was just unveiled a couple of days ago. Well, just to tell everybody, never EVER take what the major global news services say about anything in aviation as truth. Because, honestly, they know next to nothing about it. Except for maybe BBC, but definetly, say, CNN, and a couple others. No, the B787 isn't revolutionary, its just evolutionary, its not the 'savior', gosh, fuel prices are rising so quickly the increase in efficiency isn't really that much, and no, the decrease in operating costs won't translate to their customers, because of rising fuel prices. And, by the way, almost all of the traffic growth is because of low-cost carriers stimulating the markets (think Southwest, Ryanair). By the way, point-to-point doesn't work everywhere, especially not trans-pacific. Nevertheless, it has been far more successful than anything new anybody else has on offer. The A350 has taken a lot of setbacks, the A380 is a near-disaster, although there's potential. Heck, Airbus is in big financial trouble right now. But dont' worry, it won't collapse. The Germans, if not the French, will find someway to keep Airbus solvent.
By the way, I'll just add this much for now, more coming later. Usually the blogs aren't this long...
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
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