The Panama Canal is an incredible waterway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Around 13,000 ships make this journey each year, crossing the canal and saving time and money. Let's explore how ships navigate through the canal, overcoming a height difference and using locks like giant stairs.
The Lock System:
The Panama Canal uses locks to help ships move up and down the canal. These locks are like big chambers that act as steps. Ships have to pass through three sets of locks during their transit. It's these locks that make the canal possible.
The Transit Process:
When a ship enters the first lock's chamber, the gates close behind it. Then, the sluice is opened, and something amazing happens. Gravity helps the water flow from the higher chamber to the lower one. This equalizes the water levels and allows the ship to move forward. The ship repeats this process until it passes through all the locks.
Saving Time:
Transiting the Panama Canal takes about 8 to 10 hours. It's a well-managed and efficient process. Ship arrivals and departures are carefully scheduled to make the most of the canal's capacity and minimize delays. The canal's operators work hard to ensure a smooth and timely journey for ships.
Boosting Global Trade:
The Panama Canal plays a vital role in international trade. Using the canal allows ships to take shorter routes and save valuable time and money. It has revolutionized shipping, making it faster and more efficient. In 2016, the canal expanded to accommodate larger vessels, further improving its importance in global trade.
Conclusion:
The Panama Canal is a remarkable achievement of human engineering. Ships worldwide pass through its locks, crossing the heights and connecting two major oceans. It has transformed global trade, making it faster, more accessible, and economical. As ships sail through the Panama Canal, they are witnesses to human ingenuity and the power to overcome challenges.
Had a bad experience at Newark Liberty Airport last year? You’re not alone, according to recent rankings.
The New Jersey hub ranked as the worst U.S. airport in the 2019 annual ratings from AirHelp, an organization that specializes in air traveler rights and seeks compensation in cases of delays or cancellations. See last year’s rankings here.
U.S. airports in general didn’t fare particularly well, with the highest-rated Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport taking 34th place of 132 around the world. Newark held the lowest U.S. spot, at 116. A major reason is weather-related delays, says Henrik Zillmer, AirHelp’s chief executive officer; they are a huge problem for American airports, compared with European ones.
“If you have the slightest amount of snow at JFK, the airport will close,” Zillmer, says, referring to the New York hub that ranked 86th. Beyond that, quality of service in the U.S. has room for improvement, with long security lines a frequent problem.
The airports are rated based on three factors: on-time performance, service quality, and food and shopping options. The first accounts for 60% of the score and the other criteria each make up 20%. AirHelp’s data comes from multiple commercial vendors, along with its own database, plus 40,000 passenger surveys collected in 40 countries during 2018.
Topping AirHelp’s rankings are Doha’s Hamad International Airport, Tokyo Haneda International Airport, and Athens International Airport, which have taken the top spots since the ratings began in 2015. It’s worth considering the overall picture of each airport in looking at the list. For instance, high ratings for Athens puzzled the AirHelp team at first, says Zillmer, until you consider that its sunny weather results in fewer delays, and vacationers are more likely to leave positive reviews.
“It’s a good efficient airport, there are a lot of things I like about it,” says Scott Mayerowitz, executive editorial director at travel website the Points Guy, about Athens International, but noted there’s nothing inspiring about it. The fact that at just works seems to be enough, even without bells and whistles such as a butterfly gardens or ‘rain vortex.’ “At the end of the day, you’re not going to choose a destination because it’s got a great airport—you’re choosing a destination because you’re either going to that place for vacation or you have business meetings there.”
But when you do have choice, as in the New York City metro area, it can factor in.
“Newark is traditionally one of the worst performing airports in the country and one that travelers avoid because of the delays there,” says Mayerowitz. He also expressed surprise at Billy Bishop Toronto City airport being ranked so low, as opposed to Pearson, noting it’s a favorite of business travelers who love its convenience to the city center. “I thought it should have been higher.”
Congestion continues to be the biggest problem facing airports: The flight industry is experiencing a rapid increase in global tourism. The Worldwide Tourism Organization estimates that worldwide international tourist arrivals increased 6%, to 1.4 billion in 2018.
“Some airports are expanding quickly, but it’s still a big issue for most, especially during peak hours,” says Zillmer.
Hamad International Airport (DOH) in Doha, Qatar, has again topped AirHelp’s worldwide airport rankings.
4. Afonso Pena International Airport, Brazil (CWB)
5. Gdansk Lech Wałęsa Airport, Poland (GDN)
6. Sheremetyevo International Airport, Russia (SVO)
7. Changi Airport Singapore, Singapore (SIN)
8. Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, India (HYD)
9. Tenerife North Airport, Spain (TFN)
10. Viracopos/Campinas International Airport, Brazil (VCP)
During holiday travel, passengers wait at London’s Gatwick Airport, which ranks as one of the world’s 10 worst.
Photographer: Ellen Milligan/Bloomberg
The 10 Worst Airports of 2019
123. London Gatwick Airport, United Kingdom (LGW)
124. Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, Canada (YTZ)
125. Porto Airport, Portugal (OPO)
126. Paris Orly Airport, France (ORY)
127. Manchester Airport, United Kingdom (MAN)
128. Malta International Airport, Malta (MLA)
129. Henri Coanda International Airport, Romania (OTP)
130. Eindhoven Airport, Netherlands (EIN)
131. Kuwait International Airport, Kuwait (KWI)
132. Lisbon Portela Airport, Portugal (LIS)
American Airlines Group Inc. planes stand at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). The airline jumped to second place, from 23rd, in this year’s rankings.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
Among the 72 airlines for which the company has statistically significant data, AirHelp rated them by on-time performance, service quality, and claim processing, with each category weighed equally.
For the second year in a row, Qatar Airways ranked as the top airline, followed by American Airlines, Aeromexico, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, and Qantas in the top five. At the bottom of the list were Ryanair, Korean Air, Kuwait Airways, and the U.K.’s EasyJet and Thomas Cook Airlines.
Better weather conditions led to fewer flight disruptions in 2018 overall, Zillmer says, with on-time performance improving across the board. This may have contributed to American Airlines securing the second-place spot—a big jump, considering that the airline ranked 23rd last year.
“I was a little surprised to see Korean Air be so far down,” says Mayerowitz, trumping its service. “It’s one of Asia’s best airlines.” He goes on to wonder at American’s jump as well, noting their struggles with on-time performance and customer satisfaction. (American Airlines reps declined to comment on the specific results of this ranking.)
United Airlines Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. were also significantly higher in 2018 than in 2017, respectively ranking 16th and 17th, compared to 37th and 47th. While Aeromexico went from 26th to 3rd place, SAS Scandinavian Airlines jumped to 4th from from 36th, and Air France climbed up 15 spots to 34th.
One area Zillmer in which says many airlines need to improve is claim-processing operations, which tidily wraps into the mission of AirHelp. Instead of canceling a flight as soon as it’s clear that a plane won’t be able to fly, many force passengers to wait in the airport during long flight delays. “They’re not economically incentivized to put you on a different airline to get you to your destination,” he says, hoping that rankings like this can shed light on how airlines are falling short and motivate them to step up service.
Mayerowitz agrees: “At the end of the day, rankings help push airlines and airports to be better.”
Here are the best and worst airlines of the year, with on-time performance records.
Qatar Airways again takes top spot on the global airline rankings.
Photographer: Jeff Schear/Getty Images
The 10 Best Airlines of 2019
1. Qatar Airways (84% on-time performance)
2. American Airlines (75%)
3. Aeromexico (78%)
4. SAS Scandinavian Airlines (73%)
5. Qantas (79%)
6. LATAM Airlines (77%)
7. WestJet (74%
8. Luxair (78%)
9. Austrian Airlines (71%)
10. Emirates (75%)
U.K.-based Thomas Cook ranked as the worst airline on AirHelp’s list.
Imagine a future where you tap an app on your smartphone to summon a self-driving car. Heard this one already? Okay, what about when your robot car drives into an airless tube hundreds of miles long and careens across country at close to the speed of sound? Now are you impressed?
This completely outrageous vision of the future comes courtesy of Hyperloop One, the occasionally troubled Los Angeles-based startup working on Elon Musk’s vision of an ultrafast transportation system. The company is currently gearing up for its big “Kitty Hawk” moment later this year, when it will conduct a full-system test in the desert north of Las Vegas.
But while we’re still a long way off from seeing a fully functional hyperloop in operation, Hyperloop One’s top executives are already thinking ahead to a future where lightning-quick travel is as commonplace as automated vehicles, and vice versa. Some of the startup’s top brass were at CES in Las Vegas earlier this month meeting with companies that are working on driverless technology to discuss possible mergers in their respective missions.
Josh Giegel
In between meetings, I sat down with Hyperloop One co-founder and president of engineering Josh Giegel and Nick Earle, senior vice president in charge of global field operations, to talk about the company’s progress and when the world could see a working, passenger-ready hyperloop.
Both met recently with representatives from two computer chip makers, Intel and Nvidia, to talk about their respective efforts to expand into the automated driving space, as well as with supercar company McLaren. But it wasn’t just about gushing over each other’s futuristic pipe dreams, Earle said. Rather it was about a realistic effort to find a way to link self-driving cars to the ambitious and costly transportation system.
“The idea is you have a transmitter in your car,” Earle said. “As you approach the hyperloop, it would be like a fast pass on the freeway. So you actually get the ability to open the air lock and drive into the tube.”
In talking to these companies, Earle says he describes Hyperloop One as the WAN, or wide area network, of transportation that should be able to interface with all the local area networks, or LANs. “We want any autonomous vehicle to go into our system,” he said.
This is the type of starry-eyed thinking that gets the hyperloop routinely dismissed as a great-but-ultimately-outlandish idea. Critics say the costs alone — Hyperloop One’s own estimates put it at around $11.5 million per mile of tube — make it largely unrealistic. But Hyperloop One is barreling ahead, bolstered by $160 million in seed funding, green lights from countries like the United Arab Emirates and Finland, and faith that it is the company best positioned to make the dream of 760mph, tube-based travel a reality. It maintains that it will perform its first full-system test sometime within the first three months of 2017.
In preparation, a team of around 60 engineers and contractors are busy building a test track at a site in North Las Vegas, near where the company conducted its first public test in May 2016. The test will feature a magnetically levitating pod using electromagnetic propulsion to travel a distance of 500 meters, or less than a mile, through an airless tube at a speed of over 100 mph.
It should be more exciting than Hyperloop One’s first public test last May, which featured a 10-foot-long sled flying down a short train track and then crashing into a pile of sand. Perhaps ironically, Giegel stressed the need to move slowly and iteratively as it develops its ultrafast technology.
“It’s a drawing on a piece of paper until somebody proves it,” he said. “And right now, we have the team capable of doing it. And we are doing it.”
If it works, the hyperloop could vastly simplify intercity travel and freight, reduce congestion and pollution, and potentially revolutionize transportation worldwide. When he first introduced the idea back in 2013, Musk called it a “fifth mode of transportation.” (The other four being cars, trains, airplanes, and boats.) There’s no question the hyperloop could be transformative... in a perfect world, that is.
In the meantime, Hyperloop One needs to raise sufficient amount of capital to fuel its high-velocity dreams. Last week, the company promoted Brent Callinicos from senior advisor to chief operating officer and chief financial officer. Callinicos was brought on board last October from Uber, where he helped build the ride-hailing startup into the world’s most valuable tech company.
Earlier this month, Hyperloop One announced the winners in a “global challenge” it launched to find additional possible routes across the world. Over 2,600 submissions were whittled down to 35 semifinalists from 17 countries. One route suggests a triangular hyperloop linking Austin, Dallas, and Houston. Another would build a hyperloop between Mumbai and Delhi.
The company will host three events over the next few months to showcase the winners: February 28th in New Delhi, April 6th in Washington, DC, and April 27th in London. The next round of finalists will be announced in May.
Not every one of these will become a hyperloop route, but they provide a snapshot of the level of international enthusiasm that exists. Indeed, while the first test will be conducted in the US, the first operational hyperloop is most likely to be built between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, thanks to the full-throated support from the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority. Earle stressed that without a government buy-in, its doubtful the costly system could obtain the land rights and right-of-way permissions necessary to achieve its promised speeds.
The startup also has feasibility studies underway in Finland and Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Moscow, the Port of Los Angeles, and the UK. The company’s recent flurry of activity is meant to convey the message that Hyperloop One is a serious business working on a serious transportation project with global implications.
But it also appears to be an attempt to shift the conversation away from the embarrassing and reputation-damaging lawsuit filed last year by Hyperloop One’s former chief technology officer. The company countersued and eventually both lawsuits were settled in November.
No doubt, 2016 was a bit of a roller coaster for Hyperloop One. This year could be even rockier, depending on the company’s ability to demonstrate its viability to its investors, its government partners, and the public, especially those who aren’t convinced that humans were meant to travel at 760 mph on the ground.
“I get this all the time, people say to me, ‘Oh, your face will peel off and you’ll turn to mush,’” Earle said. “But it’s basically like an airplane 20 feet off the ground. Millions of people take airplanes every day and their faces don’t peel off.”
