Saturday, May 31, 2008
McCarran's High Ranking In Latest J.D. Powers Survey Bodes Well For Ivanpah Valley Airport
By Robert L. Candiotti
In the latest J.D. Powers and Associates' North American Satisfaction Study - announced earlier this month - Las
Vegas' McCarran International Airport tied with Orlando (Florida) International Airport for second place among large U.S.
airports for customer satisfaction.
Philadelphia International Airport came in first.
Clearly, Nevada's
Clark County Department of Aviation knows how to run an airport and how to improve an airport competently and intelligently
(just a year ago McCarran came in at number five in the same survey).
This year, McCarran came in at number
one among big airports in the areas of check-in and baggage-check processes, as well as airport accessibility.
Therefore, I do have confidence the Clark County Department of Aviation will be able to oversee an extraordinary Ivanpah
Valley Airport that I continue to feel is necessary and inevitable.
8:00 am pdt
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Can Ivanpah Valley Use Napa Valley As A Model For Premium Quality?
By Robert L. Candiotti
What does world-class premium wine have to do with the proposed Southern Nevada Ivanpah Valley Airport?
I
know, at first, they seem so very different, but lately I have been thinking they actually are similar. Or I would like them
to be, anyhow.
A few weeks ago I made a trip to Napa Valley, California. I was in Napa on May 16, the day Robert
Mondavi passed away in Napa Valley's Yountville, at age 95.
Immediately, radio, t.v., and newspaper articles
started covering Mondavi's passing with features about his life, personality, and his inspiring influence on Napa Valley's
wine.
Most of what I was hearing then, I learned for the first time:
1. Robert
Mondavi's winery, completed in 1967, was Napa Valley's first new winery since the 1930s!
2. His winery was an influential architectural masterpiece, and even today is Napa Valley's most popular tourist attraction.
3. His winery grew to bring in $500 million per year, and, in 2003, was the sixth
largest winery in the U.S.
4. Fixated and focused, he spent decades ceaselessly elevating
the quality and reputation of Napa Valley wine.
5. He created Fume Blanc in the 60s, and
caused Chardonnay to be considered "the great California white." Mondavi also joined with France's renowned
Chateau Mouton-Rothschild to create one of the most talked about red wines in the world.
In a Los Angeles
Times Mondavi obituary dated May 17, California state Sen. Patricia Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa) is quoted as saying,
"His passion for excellence and his ability to inspire people were the keys to his success."
At the
beginning of his wine-making career, Mondavi felt California's mediocre table wines could be raised to a premium level.
Similarly, I think, rather than just a "supplemental" airport for Las Vegas' McCarran, Ivanpah Valley Airport
could be a premium airport that would be ranked in the top dozen or so of the world's best airports. Maybe it could even
be ranked in the top five.
Ivanpah needs to be an airport that has a richness, sophistication, intelligence and
smoothness like a delicious glass of Cabernet.
Some people may look at the 22,000 bland acres of desert
between Jean and Primm and see what possibly could, at best, be a landing strip.
I look out at the 22,000 acres
and I see a setting for an international airport that could be one of the most exciting, interesting, functional, "greenest,"
customer-pleasing airports in the world.
I guess I'm suffering from the Mondavi Approach To Presenting
Ivanpah.
11:35 am pdt
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Ivanpah Valley Airport Can Use A Traditional English Tea Room
By Robert L. Candiotti
Last weekend, I traveled to Napa Valley, California, for my niece's wedding and a family reunion.
It
was an extraordinary time.
My last day in the intoxicating Wine Country was spent with an old and cherished friend
who I first met at Sonoma State College (now called Sonoma State University) in the 1970s.
Sharon lives just outside
Calistoga at the Upper Napa Valley. What a nice place. Partially because I live in Las Vegas, Calistoga seems healthy
to me. In fact, I have learned even when the Indians lived in the lush area, there was an abundance of oak trees with acorns
for food, as well as healing natural springs.
The town's first hot springs resort opened in 1862. Today, there
are many hot springs resorts in the town with a full-time population of less than 10,000.
After savoring Sharon's
homemade lunch that included three types of cheese, rice and diced vegetables with brilliantly and delicately layered
flavors, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes and delicious Pinot Grigio from Italy, Sharon led me on an extensive walking
tour through Calistoga.
At the end of our enjoyable walk that included many streets and every park in town, Sharon
brought me to a place the likes of which I had never seen before - the English Garden Tea Rooms at the corner of Lincoln and
Cedar Street.
In a cute little house, with a charming garden, replete with matching red roses china plates, cups
and tea strainers, we enjoyed "high tea" at about 4:00 p.m.
Hosted by proprietors Jim and Jane, this
is an enchanting place. Sharon and I shared a pot of Moroccan mint tea.
Wikipedia.com says the first English
tea garden was established at Chabua in Upper Assam, India, in 1837. The tea garden most definitely has a feeling of
another time, a gentler time.
I enjoyed myself so much. The tea room is awash in history and culture.
So, why am I mentioning Calistoga's English Garden Tea Room in a blog about a 21st century international airport
that is not even under construction yet?
It is because of this idea: Ivanpah Valley Airport, an air transportation
facility that is destined, I think, to become one of the most advanced, light on its feet international airports in the world,
should have a traditional English tea room, even with a garden holding white wicker furniture. The tea room will provide a
tasteful balance to Ivanpah Airport's futuristic nature.
I like the thought of having traditional high
tea before boarding a double-deck Airbus A380 for a non-stop flight to somewhere on the other side of the world.
To enjoy a pot of tea with lavender scones before stepping onto one of the world's most incredible machines, with engines
that generate mind-boggling power, is a nice yin/yang combination in a reasonable life.
So right there, in
the disarming and breathtaking Napa Valley, I got an idea for Ivanpah Valley Airport. An English tea room. It is a reminder
of the importance of balance.
7:54 am pdt
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Tesla Taxis Can Be Rolling Between Las Vegas And Ivanpah Valley Airport Starting In 2017
By Robert L. Candiotti
My imagination was piqued when I read "Tesla rolls out electric sports car" in the May 3, 2008, Las Vegas
Review-Journal.
I read that an inventor, Jeremy Snyder, is now in business selling the cool-looking, head-turning,
two-seat Tesla Roadster - with an all-electric 6,831-cell lithium-ion battery pack that puts out no emissions.
It
can cost up to $124,000, but the company's 2008 production of 600 vehicles is already sold out. Orders are now being
taken for the 1,500 2009 models that are projected to be built.
The car reportedly goes from 0 to 60 in four seconds,
and can travel at speeds up to 125 mph.
But there's more. And this really got me to thinking...
Snyder is quoted as saying, "There's a model in the works right now, a five-passenger sedan that will be
styled comparable to the roadster but a lot roomier to accommodate families, and that is slated for 2010."
A sedan by 2010. So, a Tesla Taxi is entirely possible, and probably a full fleet will be welcomed, to transport people between
Las Vegas and Ivanpah Valley Airport when the new international airport opens in 2017.
If Ivanpah
is to really become an iconic airport of the 21st century, it will need to incorporate all the possibilities of transportation
that are excitingly "green" and interesting.
I can see a fleet of Tesla Taxis running electrically,
going back and forth several times between the Strip, McCarran and Ivanpah, and then being parked at easily accessible stations
to recharge.
In the May 3 article in the Review-Journal, writer John Rogers of the Associated Press says
the Tesla Roadster's electric engine emits "a powerful hum, something like a much quieter version of a jet taking
off."
With the most modern aircraft, and the most advanced electric taxis, Ivanpah will resonate with the
sounds of an exciting and advanced airport.
3:19 pm pdt
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Regarding May Day Article About Green Concerns Of The International Travel Industry
By Robert L. Candiotti
May Day - May 1 - is a date for the worldwide celebration of spring.
The holiday of May
Day may go back to tree worship by the ancient Druids, or possibly even deeper into the past with ancient spring festivals
in Egypt or India.
More recently, for hundreds of years, May Day has been a holiday celebrated enthusiastically
in England with dancing, collecting flowers and wrapping the maypole with streamers. It is also celebrated internationally
by labor unions, workers' political parties and socialist countries.
May Day is a celebration of life and its
perpetuation.
Notably, on this May Day, here in Las Vegas there is a newspaper article about the travel industry
and the sustainability of life on Earth.
Today, in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, there is an Associated
Press article by Denis D. Gray about the "green" aspirations of the travel industry. Reporting from a major Pacific
Area Travel Association (PATA) gathering in Bangkok, the reporter describes a situation in which concern about the world's
green environment is juxtaposed with projected growth in international travel.
States Gray, "International
travelers are expected to nearly double to 1.6 billion by 2020," according to the World Tourism Organization of the United
Nations. "With travelers abroad already spending more than $2 billion a day, tourism is one of the world's largest
industries."
The situation described by the A.P. reporter is similar to that repeatedly discussed in
Ivanpah Airport News, the blog of IvanpahValley.com.
Serious and intelligent brainstorming about possibilities
for environmental improvement regarding air travel is essential, while keeping in mind, and accepting, tangible growth of
worldwide air travel is inevitable.
For the next decade, a significant platform in North America for the
interaction of these two forces will most likely be Ivanpah Valley Airport in the flat desert of Southern Nevada.
5:10 pm pdt
