Airlines To Get GPS Navigation...Someday

I’m here to have a very special talk with you about an important issue. An issue that affects thousands of people each and every day. Look, I know that paying for a flight costs an unseemly amount of money. And now, as I found out first hand a few weeks ago, airlines are trying to nickel and dime passengers out of money to pay exorbitant gas prices. It sucks, and I don’t necessarily begrudge the airlines. After all they do need to make money, otherwise you’d better start building the S.S. Zion to get yourself over to Europe.

There are a lot of problems with the airline industry, but right there at the top of the list is the navigation system. Those of you sporting a Garmin GPS unit in your car have a far superior navigational system than the airline industry. Think about that for a moment. The airlines are still using a WWII era network that relies on radar beacons. In order to keep a plane on track it has to fly out of its way to hit these beacons. The traveling map animation seen in the Indiana Jones films have been lying to you, more often than not a plane does not fly a straight course to its destination.

It is estimated that going to GPS would save carriers around $10 billion per year in fuel cost. Wow. So why hasn’t it been done yet? The switchover has been talked about and planned for over a decade, but ironically due to cost and funding issues has never left the planning stages. Going to GPS would an inordinately complex task to take on, but it is imperitive that it happen. On top of the billions spent on fuel there are billions of tax payer dollars going to bail the flailing airlines out of bankruptcy.

According to an article in USA Today the government doesn’t see the switch taking place until 2020. That’s if the airlines survive that long.