Honolulu International Airport Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Honolulu International Airport - Research Paper Example In 1947 it was renamed as Honolulu international airport. On account of its strategic position in the center of Pacific Ocean, it functioned as a halting station for many flights crossing the ocean which flew from the Asia and Australia to the regions of north and South America. It is publicly owned by the state of Hawaii. With the continuous use of the airport, many developments have taken place in the airport especially after 1950s, in order to cater to the growing needs of air transport and to facilitate the increasing amount of air traffic. In 1965 the original terminal building at the airport was demolished in for the development of the John Rodgers building. The terminal building underwent many expansions and the Diamond Head Concourse was added to it in 1970, the Ewa Concourse in 1972 and the Central Concourse in 1980. The airport covers about 2216 acres of land area and about 2210 acres of water. It has four runways with asphalt or bituminous surface and two runways on water that provide service to the seaplanes for landing and take off. Out of them, two are parallel east-west runways and two crosswind runways. The reef runway (8R/26/L) is entirely constructed offshore on reclaimed land. It has been identified as an alternate landing place for the NASA space shuttles. The airport also shares some of the defense airfield facilities with the Hickam Air Force Base. Currently, the airport provides services to 31 operating airlin... The terminal has facilities for shopping, medical service, business center with conference room, restaurant and hotel. The Wiki Wiki buses run between the terminals for transport on the airfield. Functioning as a hub and spoke airport, it acts a primary hub for international aviations and as a point to point airport for the domestic airways. It is one of the large hub airports of total 29 such hub and spoke airports in the United States. It shares 1.36% of the total passenger traffic out of the total large hubs in the United States with a total number of 84,796 fight departures and commuting a total number of 8,684,893 passengers.1 It also transfers a freight of 199,144.89 tones and 28,931.18 tones of mails in the year of 2000.2 The mode of transportation to and from the airport The airport is connected with freeways to other parts of the island and to other islands via domestic airlines as well as water ways. As of now, in Honolulu, there are no fixed rail mass transit systems. The interstate H-I freeway connects the Honolulu city with the international airport and the same road also connects the Hikam Air Force base with the airport. Nimitz Highway and the Queen Liliuokalani Freeway connect the airport with other parts of the Oahu Island. Many state-authorized and non authorized bus services shuttle between Waikiki, a well known beach resort on Oahu Island, and Honolulu Airport. The buses offer transportation to other hotels in Waikiki from where transportation services are available for other travel destination. The airport is in excellent connection with the Honolulu city with the public transportation service, called 'The Bus'. Buses commute from the place at an interval of 30 minutes to the city area thus providing good amount of connection to the

Is It Cheaper to Keep Inmates on Death Row or Execute Research Paper

Is It Cheaper to Keep Inmates on Death Row or Execute - Research Paper Example This essay will be outlining the varying opinions and suggestions for the arguments. One reason why it is cheaper to keep inmates on death row for life imprisonment than to execute them is because of the number of appeals that take place by the yet to be executed inmates. During the appeals, the tax payers bear the cost of hiring lawyers, which, when calculated, comes up to millions of dollars. In comparison, in case a person is imprisoned for life, the costs of maintaining the convicts can only run from 15-25 thousand dollars annually, which is approximated to be about one million after a period of 40 years. The costs of retaining a lawyer is more severe when the crime committed is a capital case, hence it will consume an amount of legal and maintenance fees. This is because the cases can take 20 years or more before any verdict is reached, which accumulates and adds up to the sum of maintenance which is hard with the worsening economic conditions (Trevor, 136). Another key reason w hy capital punishment like execution is being discussed and discouraged is the risk of convicting an innocent person. Majority of the convicts have been found to be innocent after DNA tests have been carried out. The costs of carrying out appeals are expensive as majority of the lawyers who handle such cases are well recognized and experienced, and they would require large sums of money to be hired. In some places in Texas, United States, it is difficult to find lawyers who will take up other cases as they view some of the cases as non- lucrative. This is despite the fact that statistics show that if one hires a good lawyer the chances of being sentenced to death are considerably less (Mutual, 165). Other costs that accrue from executions include costs resulting from a number of DNA tests, costs of relocating inmates into specialized segregated rooms as well as costs of hiring and training specialized guards to look after the inmates. Statistics in Europe have shown that the number of death sentences in the continent have gone down by 7% in 1999 to 15% in 2008, the reason being that a second chance can be achieved during life imprisonment. In addition to the complex appeals, procedures and tasks, a person who is well convicted has another chance or possibility of repeatedly applying for pardons which then adds up to the excessive appeals procedures. It has also shown that prosecutors in Dallas County have stopped asking for death penalties, instead they are requesting life in prison with the possibility of being pardoned after a period of 40 years. It is estimated that a return to execution rate of six per year would cost approximately 90 million dollars annually (Michael & Borg, 62). However, other people have a different view, arguing that death penalty is the only sure and open way to clearly indicate that justice has been done. They state that even though the case may take longer and large costs might be encountered, eventually justice will be accomplished . In support of this, a pro-capital punishment group led by Kent Scheidegger argues that if an effective appeal is brought, the whole process then must cost less and eventually justice can be obtained in the shortest time possible. The only way was to revamp the appeal process to take place more quickly so that the inmates need not spend more of their years before execution can take place (Hans, Klas & Villian, 56). According to California crime statistics, its appeal system produces a wait of about 20