Denver Airport Automated Baggage System Abandoned 268
cherylchase writes "Denver International Airport opened in 1995 with an ambitious fully automated baggage system: 26 miles of underground track, thousands of small gray carts, all controlled by a mainframe programmed for just in time delivery. But the system never worked well; bugs delayed the airport's opening for months (at $1M/day). The system has now been abandoned as a cost cutting measure." From the article: "Technology, too, has brought change. Back then, the big-brained mainframe doing it all from command central was the model of high tech. Today the very idea of it sounds like a cold-war-era relic, engineers say. Decentralization and mobile computing technology have taken over just about everything, allowing airlines, warehouse operators and shippers like FedEx to learn with just a few clicks the whereabouts of an item in motion, a feature that was supposed to be a chief strength of the baggage system."
Airports and Baggage (Score:4, Interesting)
In another country (Score:3, Insightful)
This may come as a surprise to you, but some of us out here in the rest of the world don't consider US technology to represent the absolute pinnacle of human achievement.
That's not to say that you don't lead in some areas, just not all of them. Judging by the horror stories one hears about US airports, I'm lead to think that aerial transportation is in the latter category.
Correction: "led" (Score:2)
Not British (Score:3, Informative)
BAE Automated Systems of Carrollton, Tex., which designed the system, has since been liquidated, and no one associated with the effort could be reached for comment.
I think you're confusing it with BAe, formerly British Aerospace.
Re:Airports and Baggage (Score:5, Interesting)
As a Denver resident and occasional traveller, I can tell you that when the new airport first opened and they used the automated system the bags were riding around the carousel before you could get from the plane to the pickup. My biggest worry was that someone would snatch my bag(s) before I could get there. Without the automated system, you wait at the carousel at least 10 minutes after dawdling to get off the plane. And there are plenty more places where sticky fingers in the back rooms can steal luggage away.
Re:Airports and Baggage (Score:2, Informative)
Mainframe red herring (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is the 'big central mainframe' the cause of the problems here?
Re:Mainframe red herring (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure why the idea of a mainframe is 'cold-war-esque', since they are still at the centre of much of what we do today.
Re:Mainframe red herring (Score:2)
Not all mainframe need megaflop (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mainframe red herring (Score:2, Insightful)
Software has evolved from a usability standpoint, but there are mainframes out there running basically the sam
Re:Mainframe red herring (Score:2)
Re:Mainframe red herring (Score:5, Informative)
MOD Parent DOWN, Please (Score:3, Interesting)
I've worked on the system... (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact is, it's *the biggest machine in the world*, bar none. There's almost 30 miles of completely automated track, more motors and linear accelerators than you can shake a stick at. A machine that big is going to require lots of time to shake out, and that happened about 5 years ago.. It's been running very smothly since then, because we've established protocols to cataloge and rank priority of repairs. You can't imagine the dynamic loads on it. 1/4 inch thick track pieces can snap in two if they weren't repaired correctly, and yeah, 5 years ago we were having problems. It's all but solved today, it's very smoth running and despite it's costs, it's STILL the cheapest way to move bags around in the world.
Those baggage handlers are full of shit, it should be known. One of the main reasons it eats baggage is because those asshats load the baggage like morons. I've seen more panties strewn about than you'd like to know, and it's almost always a women's bag that gets ate. You know why? They pack the fuckers like sausages, and the baggage handlers just plain don't load them correctly. They won't put them flat, one end will be hanging out--and it's always the heavy end. The machine has close tolerances in some places where tracks intersect go over-under, and tight turns that can fling the bags out if they're loaded poorly, I mean they're going 30mph at some points, an improperly loaded bag will get tossed, regardless of it's weight or size.
It is a mechanical monster, no doubt, any machine that big is bound to be... But it baffles me why they've got to shut it down at the peak of it's opperating efficeincy. It's never run so good, and they decide to kill it after we tamed the beast. You should realize that the command and control system they have in place that operates the machine is always being optomized, and sometimes poor programming has led to breakdowns and increased baggage eating.
Conveyors will be much less efficient, and the airport dosen't have the infrastructure in place to handle the entire load of bags by hand, and even if they did it will be far more expensive. There are 4 turnstyles that will need to be built soon--and airport construction is anything but fast.. Like I said, it dosen't make anything but political sense to shut the machine down.
Re:I've worked on the system... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can feel your pain. I've seen perfectly good systems thrown away for no other reason than politics and focusing on the one feature that doesn't work well ignoring the 95% that performs exceptionally and delivers value. But I gotta say to this:
I'm sorry. That's like saying "Because the user didn't click in PRECISELY the right spot the program crashed" or "because the assembly tech didn't cut to the 1/4" tolerance required for this car, it shook itself apart". If, at the end of the day, you have humans at either end of the system, you need to design for them. How they do their work and how they will use it. If you get frustrated that they won't behave like a computer, then the problem is with you -- not the people.
Re:I've worked on the system... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I've worked on the system... (Score:3, Insightful)
Japanese subway (Score:5, Insightful)
The inventor of the japanese subway tickets system had the same problem (regarding users not being precise enough, sometimes the tickets would go sideways, etc). People were sick tired of having the machines eat their tickets just because they weren't in the right position.
He was so pressured that he almost gave up, so to clear his mind, he took a walk in the park. Then, as he was on a wooden bridge over a small river, he saw a leaf floating on the river moving against a rock. The leaf was perpendicular to the river flow, but then it collided with a small rock, that made it turn parallel with the flow.
Based on this idea, he implemented a small device consisting of a round piece of metal that would rotate the tickets to the correct order, so they would pass the magnetic scan. Currently this magnetic ticket system is implemented in many countries, including the mexican subway which is over 25 years old now.
So, in the end, it all comes to this: A well-designed system will pass even the worst conditions. The Denver Airport Baggage design team certainly needed to work more, and think of the worst cases - i.e. quasi-spherical (i.e. bloated) luggage.
Re:I've worked on the system... (Score:2)
Sometimes there is a Right Way and a Wrong Way to do things. It's not always true that if a person wants to do it in a certain way, they should be able to.
Not the biggest machine in the world. (Score:2)
Re:I've worked on the system... (Score:3, Interesting)
How about the Frankfurt Airport? It has probably more passengers than Denver and had a functional baggage transport system for years (decades).
In fact almost all bigger german airport have automated baggage transport. And
Re:Mainframe red herring (Score:3, Funny)
1) Everyone knows that mainframes are obsolete.
2) Mainframes can't defend themselves while being scapegoats.
HAL 9000? (Score:3, Insightful)
New York Times Don't Know Tech (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's not (Score:2)
They're just looking for a way to diffuse culpability. The fact is that someone screwed up big time, and it cost someone else a metric crapload of money. That's how things are done in the U.S.
Creepy stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
Whether or not it's true, I don't know. You decide.
Re:Creepy stuff (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Creepy stuff (Score:2)
Speaking of the murals... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Creepy stuff (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Creepy stuff (Score:2)
This is. [colorado-mapsite.com]
There are no other airports in the world with runways like that. Most have runways in the direction of the prevailing winds, not in all four directions.
Re:Creepy stuff (Score:4, Informative)
JFK [myairplane.com]
Chicago O'Hare [myairplane.com]
San Francisco [myairplane.com]
Your map is a bit out of date, by the way. It's missing runway 34L [myairplane.com], the recently added runway to the northwest side of the field.
Oh, and the reason for the layout is pretty simple, aside from the obvious weather strange-ness that pervades Denver. When winds are out of the northwest (pretty common), planes can land on 26, 35L, and 35R and taxi to the terminal without delay if they roll all the way to the end of the runway on landing. Similarly, planes can take off from 34L, 34R, and 25 with a relatively short taxi from the terminal. That, and the fact that all of the runways are spaced far enough apart that they can take concurrent instrument approaches in bad weather points to some pretty clever designers in my book.
Par for the course (Score:2)
I don't recall the order or details of the various fuckups, but as I vaguely recall some general problems:
The old airport was just plain old, neglected, and overloaded. Baggage and passenger areas were a day's hike apart, with no delivery system at all.
So they built a new airport. Years over schedule, it finally
Wireless World (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Wireless World (Score:2)
Based on TFA, not unless you have extra parts you won't mind losing.
This is GREAT news! (Score:3, Funny)
Wow old and incorrect (Score:5, Informative)
Also, they mentioned that this system was the first one run by PCs! Wikipedia has had this up for quite some time as well.
Reading up on it, it appears more that the lack of PLANNING was more at fault. The system was designed AND implemented with only 2 years left before opening, and with the majority of construction on the airport already completed, meaning the physical aspects of it had to be squeezed in where ever spae was available, given that, the results are not to surprising.
If anything this represents a massive failure on the part of management to allocate enough time for a project, implementations of far smaller systems than the one at Denver spent two years alone in just the research phase!
Re:Wow old and incorrect (Score:3, Insightful)
What I wonder is, are there comparable systems elsewhere that actually work? When NBC Nightly News covered this story they had pictures of utterly mangled bags, and it made me think how hard it would be to make a system that could handle any size or shape of bag, thousands upon thousands per day, with miles of cha
Re:Wow old and incorrect (Score:2, Interesting)
The hardware and software itself are a classical example of engineering failure. In this world of "agile" and "xp" people don't want to acknowledge that, instead they'll blame it on "mainframes" or "old school this" or IBM or whatever. Bottom line is BAE did just about everything wrong
Re:Wow old and incorrect (Score:2)
Off topic and nit picky, but the IATA code for Denver International is DEN, not DIA. DIA was the code for the old Stapleton airport.
Re:Wow old and incorrect (Score:2)
Re:Wow old and incorrect (Score:2)
This is becoming a classic (Score:5, Interesting)
Just as the implementation of IBM's OS/360 forms part of the "history" section of many Computer Science texts, so the Denver Airport baggage system is fast becoming history. The big difference of course being, OS/360 was a spectacular success, wheras Denver was a catastrophic failure.
Writing this stuff up is fine and good, but I think it would be worthwhile to try to learn from it. What was done differently?
If folklore serves me correctly, IBM was not afraid to throw money at the problem. I seem to remember they put two separate teams on the problem and took the best from each, fully conscious that half the effort would be thrown away. They sank as much money on it as was required, and ultimately succeeded.
Denver probably ate many more Dollars than OS/360, though I wouldn't know. But:
Apparently, this last has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I work in software development for an airline. It's amazing how much of a megaproject a reservation system is proving to be these days, and how many past attempts have failed. That's why one of the world's major reservation systems still runs in assembler on an IBM mainframe.
I think we're talking over-engineering, Big Design Up Front, profiteering, and (attempted, far too late) price-gouging.
Either that, or the only way to make a very large project successful is to code it in Assembler on an IBM mainframe.
Re:This is becoming a classic (Score:2)
Re:This is becoming a classic (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, that isn't true. There are at least three other automated baggage-handling systems (at San Francisco, Munich, and Frankfurt). I think the biggest problem was the #1 project killer: a delivery date was dictated before any analysis or design work was done. Not to mention the fact that the airport had actually begun construction before the system was even fully specified (forcing the design to fit the established plans, instead of allowing flexibility in the plans to accomodate the new system).
I heard a rumor that Siemens (who built the Frankfurt system) was invited to bid on the Denver system, and quickly declined after reading the RFP.
Re:This is becoming a classic (Score:2)
The mechanical failures of the project reek of poor coordination of the project and a failure to coordinate very early in the project with the architects and engineers. The loading, scanning, and software failures show a further lack of understanding of what needed to happen.
Clearly, it w
Re:This is becoming a classic (Score:3, Insightful)
OS/360 was a batch processing OS, and not the only OS available for System/360. OS/360 was the first OS to require "direct access storage devices" - hard drives, which gives you an idea of the state of the art at the time. JCL may be obt
The Real Reason... (Score:5, Funny)
OS/2 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:OS/2 (Score:2)
Re:OS/2 (Score:2)
Unions killed it? (Score:5, Interesting)
A system that would have streamlined and reduced the need for union employees has been found to not be very good by those union employees? Shock and awe, gentlemen. Shock and awe.
Robots do exactly what you tell them to. It only damaged luggage if the luggage wasn't loaded onto the robot correctly, it only misplaced luggage if the robot was told to go to the wrong place.
Can you blame me for wondering if the failure of this system was not entirely because of technical reasons?
Re:Unions killed it? (Score:2, Troll)
Now, where's my patent application robot?
Re:Unions killed it? (Score:2)
Actually, it sounds like you're implying that the failure was entirely due to union malfeasance.
Mike
Frankfurt and Munich (Score:2)
Unions (Score:2)
Systems like these work for Fedex and UPS, so why couldn't it work for bags?
Overblown and out of date (Score:5, Insightful)
It was accomplished on a scale and timeframe that was hard to imagine before the project. As a Student in Civil Engineering, I got a behind the scenes tour in college.
As the automated baggage system a f*ckup? Oh yeah, most certainly. Did they recover well? I'd say so.
Course, DIA is a political animal, and in all things politics, you're guaranteed to piss off more than half your constituents. But it's a damn sight better than Stapleton was.
Funny thing is, I saw a newspaper article about Denver's new airport, how it was in the middle of nowhere, and had cost overruns, and how it was nothing but a boondoggle.
It was written about Stapleton in the lates 1930's. The switchover in 1985 meant that Stapleton was useful for more than _50_ years. I suspect in another 40 years, DIA won't be in the middle of nowhere anymore.
Re:Overblown and out of date (Score:2)
I suspect in another 40 years, DIA won't be in the middle of nowhere anymore.
I'm sure that's what they thought when they built the Kansas City airport.
Not the fault of the computers (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that bags fell off the tracks because the corners weren't banked has nothing to do with the control system. Same for using unstable pallets to hold the bags.
This whole article seems to be based on a flagrant redefinition of the term "bug" as we understand it. It wasn't software bugs that caused the problems, it was crap engineering.
Which begs the question why, when other airports (such as Heathrow) have miles of tracks that work just fine, couldn't Denver do the same?
Re:Not the fault of the computers (Score:2)
In all fairness Heathrow isn't 100% esp if making a hop to Heathrow from one airline to another. The flaw though seems to be in human part of the equation on that case.... where a person checks in in Manchester, their bags to to Heathrow just fine... but for some reason they stay in Heathrow.. for days to a week. This seems to be most troublesome for that Virgin connect
Little grey... carts? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Little grey... carts? (Score:2)
technology failure, yes -- but software failure? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:technology failure, yes -- but software failure (Score:4, Interesting)
Hardware Lies.
Which means, those laser scanners don't always read the label as they should, boxes and things get caught on edges and don't move even when the conveyor is on, electro-mechanical equipment doesn't always work, switches sometimes stick, etc, etc. Your job as a software engineer is to anticipate these and to try to make sense out of the information the hardware's giving it, even though something may be garbled, and write your program so that the system can keep running and that operators are made aware of the mechanical problems the software is seeing so they can correct the situation.
How much does an airport care about your baggage? (Score:3, Insightful)
And then they blame it on the computers.
Typical.
Some companies/public services really do give the distinct impression that they consider their customers/clients a major inconvenience as they attempt to make a profit/index linked pension.
Control Systems Failures (Score:4, Interesting)
DIA's Baggage System? Wasn't a Mainframe! (Score:4, Informative)
The BAE design includes a number of high-tech components. It calls for 300 486-class computers distributed in eight control rooms, a Raima Corp. database running on a Netframe Systems fault-tolerant NF250 server, a high-speed fiber-optic ethernet network, 14 million feet of wiring, 56 laser arrays, 400 frequency readers, 22 miles of track, 6 miles of conveyor belts, 3,100 standard telecars, 450 oversized telecars, 10,000 motors, and 92 PLCs to control motors and track switches.
Let's make some educated guesses here. How many PCs? 300? Good grief! Later in the article it says the PCs were running OS/2. So what? This is just bad architecture, regardless of OS. So many parts, so many points of potential failure. And the NetFrame Systems "fault tolerant" server is simply...a glorified PC. (It's X86, ~300 MHz P2, and likely running Windows NT, according to other sources.) This article [bizjournals.com] has more on the sad fate of NetFrame.
There's nothing even close to a mainframe computer in this baggage handling system. The New York Times sucks again!
Re:DIA's Baggage System? Wasn't a Mainframe! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~dstearns/SchlohProjec
LoB
Software wasn't the only thing late (Score:3, Informative)
they point out that although the software is blamed for the 1.1m / day cost of lateness, the reality is that many other contractors unrelated to the baggage handling system hid their own lateness behind the very public software problems. Even if the baggage system was on time the airport likely wouldn't have opened when it was supposed to.
The book is pretty interesting and uses the Denver thing to show how a lack of risk management played a big part in the software woes.
Anyone remember the "launch" press conference? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyhow, I remember they held a press conference when they finally started the baggage system, and it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life. Suitcases were flying every which way, often ripped in half, and the reporters were all hitting the deck! Of course, this was funny to me because I wasn't down there dodging flying Samsonites; one of the problems with the baggage system was the startlingly high rate of Workers Compensation claims of the workers who had to deal with it, and the most-common cause of injury was, unsurprisingly, falling items.
If anyone has a link to that video, I'd love to see it again. I've tried, but no luck. Maybe some enterprising soul in one of the Denver local news channels can put it up on their website as part of the story of the system's closure?
Technical design snafus... (Score:3, Informative)
It wasn't just a botched set of expectations. Blatently they designed away in full-face of specifications to the contrary that components had working limitations. The attitude was fix-it, rather than design to product spec.
Too little too late? (Score:2)
Anyway, they did address the problems plagueing the system but made it sound like a thing of the past - that the entire system was deployed too early because of pressure to have it operational on the opening day of the airport.
The major problems were that baggage would get stuck or lost.
Lost - mainly due to the tags not being read by the single UPC like laser. The
Reminds me of automated checkouts at K-Mart (Score:3, Funny)
S
Re:Reminds me of automated checkouts at K-Mart (Score:2)
Software Runaways by Robert P. Glass/Prentice Hall (Score:2, Informative)
For more background see Software Runaways: Monumental Software Disasters [phptr.com], ISBN: 013673443X, 1997 by Robert P. Glass includes the history of the Denver airport baggage handling system and 15 other desasters in large software systems, e.g. the FAA Air Traffic Control system (death by committee), American Airlines reservation system and others.
Be aware that this is not a technical book and mostly concerned about project management and the problems of defining the requirements of large projects years ahead of
ahhh sooooo grashopr (Score:2, Funny)
be
more
careful
of
the
word
PROTOTYPE
Modern Marvels (Score:2)
Read this book for a detailed rundown of problems (Score:2, Informative)
Software Runaways [amazon.com] has lots of information about this projects problems. And lots of good info about other runaway projects such as the new ATC system that hasn't gotten off the ground yet.
Planning of backup systems lacking (Score:2)
Hollowing out of workforce by technology (Score:2)
The same can be said of the lowly automobile. Just when you think airplanes are a better deal, new innovations like GPS and wireless internet make the car more valuable and service plans more valuable.
DIA is a success (Score:5, Interesting)
1: There is more room for security which leads to shorter lines. Additionally, connecting flights don't require going through security again, further decreasing the load.
2: The airport design is simple and easy to understand. There is only one terminal building to arrive at, and the concourses are arranged logically.
3: The terminal is very nice - well lit and refresingly open. There is a distinct "open air" feeling that doesn't exist in many airports. There is a wide range of services as well - plenty of food, bookstores, coffee, etc.
4: Unlike Stapleton, snow doesn't shut down DIA.
5: The train system is fast and effective.
6: There is room for expansion, which is particularly important as Frontier expands (DIA is a major United hub, and the only Frontier hub).
7: The large size of the airport and openness of the runways make it easier to land and eaiser to route traffic.
DIA is the world's 10th largest airport. Give it a bit of credit.
Re:DIA is a success (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you have any idea how much civil projects like this normally cost? Here in Seattle, we're adding a third runway parellel to the other two. Not a new airport with 6 runways, three terminal buildings, miles of taxiways, etc. Just one new runway about 1000 feet from the others. Want to know how much it's going to cost?
Between 1.1 and 1.2 billion dollars [portseattle.org]. For 25% of the cost it took to build a new airport, we're building
Nice rebuttal to yesterday's article (Score:2)
(Disclaimer: to be fair, this is a strawman argument. I work in a heavily mainframe-dependent company and industry, and I have no doubt that the mainframe *could* have been programmed properly to handle the load. The real problem in this case were ones of mechanical engineering and bad design/system engineering... Things like bags being
Evidently (Score:2)
$200k, I'll have it fixed in one year, and it'll run on their mainframe.
Doomed from the beginning (Score:2)
1) it is a routing problem. Probably an NP problem like the traveling salesman problem but they wanted to solve it in *real time*. What is the best way to route a piece of luggage and get it to the correct gate so it can be loaded in time?
2) In addition to point 1, there is the added issue of the start and end points changing. This is more than a static routing problem, it is a dynamic problem., due to gate changes etc. It strikes me as a much harder problem.
Applying a little *gas
I work in the automation industry... (Score:2)
Now, 5 years later I've become the old fogie, parading the KISS principle around like it's a religion unto itself. I've seen first hand on many occasions how an
Proving once again (Score:2)
Involving the government in any way, shape, or form is the surest way to fail it.
I'm sorry people, but the government is simply not capable of delivering quality results. How much money, lives and time will be wasted until people figure this out?
The Chimp? (Score:2)
Re:I'm not surprised! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you are only seeing the negative and assuming that is all that is out there. The problem with constant media is that we really do lose our sense of proportion. Yeah, one airport luggage system failed because of bad planning. You don't think anything like this ever happens in Europe? Or that there aren't success stories in the US? Think again.
You mention outsourcing that is another story that has been blown out of proportion by the media, including the self-promiting asshats..I mean "researchers" at Gartner. Yeah, some jobs have gone over to India, and they may not be coming back, but it's not nearly as big of thing as NeoIt, Gartner, or the Washington Tech Alliance(is that their name? Can't remember, the group in Washington State who is organizing against outsourcing) would have you believe.
The media only reports on what is new and interesting. Remember the huge SARS scare? Worldwide that killed about 800 people. That is about the number of people who die on America's highways PER WEEK, and yet whenever the Transportation Safety Board issues it's report on how 40,000 people died last year in car accidents, the media gives it a blurb and then turns it's attention to whatever the scare tactics of today are.
The US economy isn't nearly as bad as the naysayers claim it is, nor is it nearly as strong as the Bush apologists boast. The hardest thing to find in this sea of information is the truth.
Re:I'm not surprised! (Score:2)
Re:Fools ! (Score:2)
Automated baggage handling is nothing new, or revolutionary. This was just a crappy design and crappy execution, by people who were so insular and myopic that they didn't look at the rest of the world and therefore still think they were the first.
Poor sods...
Sadly. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sadly. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's like buying a house next to a railroad track and complaining about the trains. If the house you're buying is mysteriously cheaper than the same house in another area: Find out why! And if you buy it anyway: Live with it!
But hey. (Score:2)
Re:DIA, a monument to the past (Score:2)
Now, as to United failure (or not), what impact will it have on DIA (or more generally, flying)? Absolutely none. As fuel costs go up and we get rid of those in the admin who push cars and fossil fuel based electricity, societies will switch to Nukes and alternatives energy. In doing so, the cost of flying will plummet agai
Re:DIA, a monument to the past (Score:2)
Would almost be fitting, eh?
Re:DIA, a monument to the past (Score:3)
But since you mentioned it, Kunstler is a hypocrite and jackass. He flies all over the country promoting his book in the least-efficient way possible. He came to speak at Google and stayed in San Francisco, took no public transportation to Google campus (which is served by Caltrain amongst others), then rode in a taxi from Mountain View to Berkeley, a trip that could easily be
Re:The best baggage system is no baggage system (Score:2)
OK, this sounds like a good system if you are flying nonstop. But I wouldn't want to try to deal with this when making a transfer from one plane to another when I only have 45 minutes to make my connection. Even if it did onl
Re:The slow death of aviation (Score:2)
So if the price of oil goues up to 400 bucks a barrel, the price of tickets should double.
Since a large percentage of people who fly are doing so for convenience, they will have to make a rational cost benefit decision. If I fly to the UK for 3 weeks my hotel bill will still be a far more important cost than the price of the ticket. (about $2500 at the moment).
I think $400 oil would have much more