--On Friday, 18 July, 2008 17:53 +0300 Jari Arkko
<jari.arkko@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> For local flights, what would be the effect? I don't have a
> lot of experience with US local flights... maybe you can fill
> me in? To look at this, I entered a few major cities on both
> coasts into my flight booking tool, and it showed flights from
> Minneapolis leaving throughout the day. For west coast, the
> last flights seemed to leave about 10 PM or so, for east coast
> sometime after 6 PM. You could still make a 6 PM flight even
> if the meeting ends at 3:15 PM.
Not, in the general case, if you follow the rules and especially
if you have any inclination to avoid very expensive cab fares
(although the EUR 40 "opportunity" in Dublin with no coach or
train service _to the hotel_ is probably a new low). In theory,
a 6 PM international flight says that you are supposed to be at
the airport at 4 PM. That gives you 45 minutes to get out of
the meeting, collect bags if needed, find a taxi or synchronize
with a coach, and get to the airport. Maybe.
Minneapolis is actually an odd case. It is centrally-located
(as these things go) and a major connecting hub for one
important airline (a situation that may not last very long in
that particular case). For places to which Northwest does not
fly, or for anyone for whom Northwest is a "do not fly if at all
avoidable" carrier, things get quite a lot worse. For example,
a departure from Minneapolis at 19:00 that requires a domestic
connection may miss a "latest departure" window and require an
overnight stay at the intermediate point. Chicago shares the
same general location advantages but has hub-quality service
from several carriers, so one is less likely to get trapped.
By contrast, consider the possibility of meetings on either of
two coasts of the US. From the east coast, almost all flights
to Europe leave late afternoon or evening (there are a few
exceptions for selected city pairs), so a noon-ending meeting
works for a Friday departure. Whether a mid-afternoon ending
works depends on distance to the airport, check-in time
requirements, and so on. For example, there are city pairs for
which the latest Boston departure is around 4PM, for which see
above. Asian flights tend to leave relatively early in the
morning, so either even Friday morning sessions get blown off
(relatively safe for most people in recent years) or there is
going to be an overnight stay. From the west coast, both Asian
and European flights tend to leave mid-day to early afternoon --
one might get to one morning session, but finishing at noon or
later will mean an overnight stay before departing for most city
pairs. And, again for most city pairs on the east coast of the
US (especially destinations the prohibit late-night flight
operations), the cutoff before a flight turns into an
otherwise-avoidable red eye is between 2 and 4 PM depending on
the departure airport.
> Anyway, my conclusion from this very unscientific study is
> that while having a longer Friday certainly means arriving
> home hours later, it would still seem to be possible for at
> least some people to go back the same day.
It is almost always possible. And I always appreciate, in
principle, the fact that many flights to the US from Asia permit
me to arrive before I left (of course, my body doesn't
understand that wrt jet lag). But...
> But are there other factors at play? Need to arrive home
> sooner? Too tired on Fridays? Would have to carry luggage
> around if the hotel checkout time cannot be extended? Rules or
> preferences about airline selection affect availability of
> flights? Week is already long enough?
Yes. In order: Yes (for me, unnecessarily losing the ability
to spend the weekend -- starting early Saturday if not Friday
night-- with friends and extended family is a big deal. It is
probably an even bigger deal for many folks with small
children). Yes. Yes (see above). And Yes. FYI, the IESG
tried, some years ago, to hold a Friday get-together to review
the week, plan for the future, avoid lots of breakfast meetings
that kept ADs away from the community, and save the expense of
separate retreats. It really seemed like a good idea until we
discovered that, after 4+ days of intense meetings, we just sat
around and started at each other. Of course, that was while we
were still doing evening (after dinner) meetings including
open-ended plenaries, so maybe it would be different now.
That, in turn, leads to an experimental evaluation that I'd
encourage the IESG to perform before launching this particular
"more Friday" experiment. That is to measure, however
subjectively, how effective WGs are that meet in Friday after
their participants have been at the meeting all week and active
in meeting sessions (groups that meet only Friday and that have
significant people flying in on Thursday don't count).
> P.S. I generally do not leave until Saturday anyway, mostly
> because I often have private meetings after the sessions. And
> RRG meets until 5pm Friday in any case. And I would be too
> tired to pack and fly on Friday.
Ok. But, if the IESG fills up Friday with sessions, some of
which you need to attend, would, for example, RRG shift to
Saturday, leaving you with the necessity for a Sunday departure?
That is the other potential consequence of this plan: lots of
things do go on Friday, some in parallel with the
lightly-scheduled Friday morning slots and some into and through
the afternoon. If this proposed more intense use of Friday
pushes those activities into Saturday, the meeting is getting
really long, especially for those whose meetings now start the
previous Saturday or Sunday morning.
Again, I think the real thing that this all points to is the
need to be probing the reasons why people think they need more
time, rather than moving immediately toward ways to give it to
them because they have asked.
john
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