AvTalk Episode 173: Farnborough a go go

AVT 173 Transcript
EPISODE 173
[00:00:08] IP: Hello, and welcome to episode 173 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik. Here, as
always with –
[00:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. And hello from London. Ian, how's it going?
[00:00:19] IP: It's going well, Jason. How is London, but not Farnborough?
[00:00:23] JR: I survived successfully the hottest day in recorded history in London and the UK.
I'm doing okay.
[00:00:33] IP: Oh, that’s good. Yeah, it got over 40 degrees rest of the world degree units
yesterday. I'm glad to hear that you made it through.
[00:00:42] JR: I don't recommend it.
[00:00:43] IP: Well, I mean, I tried to avoid the heat whenever possible. I mean, room
temperatures a little warm for me.
[00:00:49] JR: Yeah, it was intense here in London for a couple of days and a couple of hours.
It was really – Stepping outside had an eerily familiar feeling to like being in Dubai, which is just
not right when you're in London, and most things are not air-conditioned.
[00:01:05] IP: Yeah. I was talking to a colleague who works north of London, and he mentioned
you how hot it was? And I said, “Do you have AC?” And he just started cackling at me. I think
the heat had gotten to him.
[00:01:17] JR: Yeah. Well, thankfully, most of my time here was spent in an overly air-
conditioned office. And after a 3am argument with the hotel room thermostat, I got things sorted
out. And it has been nicely conditioned in here the whole time.
[00:01:30] IP: Well done, sir.
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[00:01:31] JR: Thank you.
[00:01:32] IP: You have been enjoying the comings and goings at Heathrow, even though you
haven't been at Farnborough Airshow, which we'll talk about more in depth in just a minute. But
you have been thoroughly, at least based on what I've seen on Twitter, thoroughly enjoy what's
happening at the airport.
[00:01:47] JR: Yeah. I swear, I am here in London for business meetings. It just so happens to
be that our office is directly beside the runways, or one of the runway pairs here at Heathrow.
Honestly, I don't know which one I should probably figure that out one of these days. Wait, give
me five seconds. 2-7 right. It is just at the touchdown point of 2-7 rights. The first of the two
days, they were unfortunately taking off in that direction. We basically just got noise and watch
the airplanes roll by. But today, they were landing in that direction.
And if you've ever plane spotted at Heathrow, you know just that the selection of aircraft you get
here. But I was able to plane spot with my actual DSLR. I brought it along for the trip. On the
hottest day in recorded temperature in London, I plane spotted at Heathrow from the cool
confines of our conference room.
[00:02:40] IP: Well done, sir.
[00:02:40] JR: It was nice, the variety here. Shocking kind of just to see the number of a A380s
operating in and out. There's BA, obviously, Qatar, Emirates. Just kind of a nonstop flow of them
for an aircraft that was supposedly dead. It's good to see them.
[00:02:58] IP: It has come back. Yeah, I think what struck me the most or what always strikes
me the most about Heathrow in particular, but a lot of the European major hub airport. Like,
Paris, or Amsterdam, or Frankfurt, but to a lesser extent, is just the sheer variety of aircraft that
are landing. I mean, having grown up next to O'Hare, the variety of aircraft in terms of the types
of aircraft has often been varied. Though, that has gone away in recent years, is O'Hare has
become more of a regional airport with some larger aircraft, I guess.
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I mean, just the variety of things that land at Heathrow, especially, that you won't see – I mean,
you could see them somewhere else, but never together. It's the only place so many of those
aircraft can be seen together.
[00:03:46] JR: Yeah, and especially some of the sequencing here was pretty funny. I think there
was a Loganair. Maybe it was an ATR 42 sequenced directly in front of an Emirates A380. Just
like it's a fun place to watch some airplanes. If I couldn't be at Farnborough, this was the next
best thing.
[00:04:04] IP: It was the next best thing.
[00:04:05] JR: And I'm just thankful that the windows in the conference room were quite clean.
[00:04:09] IP: That's always the important thing, is to have clean windows, if you're inside them
all the time.
[00:04:13] JR: Yes. It was literally meetings where they were my meetings, and everyone else
in the room had to do as I said. But basically, mid-sentence, I would get up, go to the window,
take pictures, sit back down, and we would continue.
[00:04:27] IP: Continue.
[00:04:28] JR: Continue mid-sentence. It was great. And everyone on my team is an Av geek.
So other people who are facing the windows, they'd be mid-sentence and suddenly their speech
rate would get slower because there was something to look at outside.
[00:04:43] IP: That's important. I mean, you have to have priorities. You have to keep those
priorities in order. And I appreciate that you did that.
[00:04:50] JR: But Farnborough did happen elsewhere somewhere down the –
[00:04:53] IP: It did happen. Somewhere down the carriageway, I believe. Feel free to email me
at podcast@fr24 if I just got that one wrong in my slight correction of Jason. But it did happen.
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There were airplanes to be had. Lots going on. Let's talk about who bought what first. And then
we'll talk about some of the other news that wasn't necessarily orders that came out of the air
show.
So far, we have a total of 313 aircraft orders. 243 firm orders. 12 that were old, but had a press
conference this time. 40 tentative orders. So, letters of intent, memorandum of understanding,
etc., etc. 79 options included along with the firm orders, most of those options coming along with
Delta's 737 MAX 10 order, and then a smattering of others. And then no swaps or conversions
at this particular air show. These are all numbers coming from FlightGlobal's order tracker that
we'll toss a link to in the show notes. Because by the time the podcast comes out, these
numbers will be updated with some new numbers.
[00:06:10] JR: Yeah, not a blockbuster show in terms of aircraft orders, especially since the
headlining order with Delta for the MAX 10 we already knew. Jon Ostrower broke that a couple
of weeks ago already. So, we were expecting that. That's 100 order firm, plus 30 options. Delta
also ordered a top up of their A220-300s. Another dozen of those. Some of the other larger
aircraft, the oddly named 777 Partners, ordered 30 737 MAX 8200s. And then another 36
options for the MAX 8. AerCap was a previously undisclosed customer for five 787-9s. Alaska
Air Group for the horizon unit ordered eight firm E175, plus 13 options.
One of the more interesting orders, Porter ordered an additional 12 e 195E2 before it's even
taken delivery of its first aircraft. So apparently, the prospects for what it sees in that particular
aircraft are so strong. They said we want to get in line for another 20 aircraft. And there were
some smaller orders Azerbaijan Airlines topped off for another four 787. Potentially, it’s not an
LOI. But it's a tentative order. And then there's EasyJet, which ordered 56 320neo. And I'm not
sure if that's a new order, or reconfirmed, or something. FlightGlobal says new.
[00:07:38] IP: Yeah, FlightGlobal says new. But that's interesting, because it's a firming of an
existing order.
[00:07:43] JR: Yeah. It's not really new. It's a firming up of an already announced order. Yeah.
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[00:07:49] IP: Yeah. More than half of the ordered aircraft went to Boeing. So far, 58%. Airbus
picking up 18%. Embraer, almost 11%. And then ATR picking up 12%. Because ATR picked up a
letter of intent from Feel Air. They also got an order of one from ORC, and an order of one from
Afrijet.
[00:08:17] JR: Hey. Those single order that up eventually.
[00:08:20] IP: They do. I mean, airplane here, airplane there. Pretty soon, we're talking about
real flying. And a little bit of back and forth is always to be expected between Boeing and Airbus
about who ordered what and things like that. I thought I would – To break it down for the full year
so far, including the air show, because Airbus is saying, “Well, our selling is just fine. We're
talking with people who have money in rooms that aren't necessarily press conferences. We
don't need to shout it from the rooftops.”
Boeing has said the same thing in previous air shows when Airbus made big announcements.
And then Boeing only sold a couple headline aircraft at an airshow and then went on to sell
more aircraft later after the show.
Before Farnborough, 259 for Airbus, net on the year. 186 – These are net orders. 186 for
Boeing. Airbus taking 68 new orders for a total 327. Boeing taking 217 for a total of 403 total
orders for the year. Fairly close in the order count. Airbus still leads in the delivery section of
things. But obviously, as the 787 recommences deliveries, hopefully, sooner rather than later,
those numbers will start to even out.
But yeah, as Jason mentioned, not a huge blockbuster show, as far as orders go. Nobody
ordered. There was no 400 A320Neo order from Indigo partners this year or anything like that. It
seems that fleets are just kind of topping up as the case may be at this particular air show.
[00:10:00] JR: Yeah. By far the fewest number of orders since – This chart goes back to 2013
in Paris. But it is almost exactly half the next lowest order year, which was Farnborough 2016,
where that was 742. It's nearly half the orders of the prior worst year in the last decade, which is
a bit surprising considering the rebound of air travel and the shoring up of airline financials
expected more this year.
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[00:10:31] IP: To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what I expected going in to this year's air
show. I thought it would be a good year. I thought there would be not necessarily a blockbuster
order. But I did expect more airlines or at least more lessors to begin reentering the market with
some larger orders. But I mean, again, we're recording on Wednesday. There could be a
surprise Thursday order somewhere.
[00:10:56] JR: Oh, nobody orders anything on Thursday.
[00:10:59] IP: Not expected. But it's not impossible. We'll put a teeny tiny asterisk on this
conversation. And let's talk about what else happened at Farnborough and some of the more
interesting announcements that will either come to fruition or not as the case may be.
First up, we've got Airbus' hydrogen test that will be coming up. They have codenamed it Blue
Condor. And that project will take a pair of gliders to Arcus-J gliders and modify one of those
gliders with a gaseous hydrogen engine. This glider is not unique.
But on the more interesting side, because it's a motorized sampling, that includes a retractable
jet engine. The glider can either launch itself, or basically get across country so that you can go
glide somewhere else.
What Airbus is going to do is they're going to modify one of these to introduce a hydrogen
combustion engine, and then launch a flight campaign with both a traditional kerosene-powered
version, the hydrogen-powered version, and then they will fly an aircraft behind the two to take
sensor measurements.
We've talked about this before. It's actually the DLR that's doing it, the German Aerospace
Center, that's doing the measurement flights behind this aircraft. And we talked about this over
few years ago now where they were flying a – I think it was their Falcon aircraft behind NASA's
DC8. And they were sniffing out particulate measurements and things like that. This will be a
similar thing to measure contrail development with a hydrogen engine, because that's one of the
top concerns about hydrogen power is the development of contrails at altitude. They'll take
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these two powered gliders, and they will fly behind them and take measurements of non-CO2
emissions, they say.
The glider that is being modified has been modified. And if we're taking the visuals put out by
Airbus at face value, that aircraft is N887DT. That's at least one of them. I'm not sure if that's the
one they've actually modified. But we're working to confirm that to see if that's the one that is
hydrogen-powered. And that will be available for tracking. Stay tuned on that. So that's a pretty
interesting development. And one thing that will be fun to follow as they do those measurement
flights and to see how they go.
[00:13:49] JR: Okay. That's different and exciting.
[00:13:52] IP: You want to hear something even more different?
[00:13:53] JR: Always.
[00:13:54] IP: Alright, let's talk about the RISE open rotor engine. CFM, the engine maker,
which is a joint venture between General Electric Aviation and Safran Engines, says that Airbus
is going to mount one of their RISE, which stands for Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable
Engine on it's A380 flying testbed. That's going to be cool.
[00:14:20] JR: That's cool if we saw the rendering of what that's going to look like. And yeah,
anytime you take an A380 and do something weird with it, I'm ready to see it.
[00:14:29] IP: Yeah. That will be the latter half of this decade. All of the renderings show the
aircraft flying in the number two position, so the left inside position. So that'll be interesting to
see so far. The open fan technology, it's basically a jet engine, but there's no cowling around the
fan.
And on this new design that Airbus has in their renderings, it looks like there's a second
immobile, I guess, staters is I guess – But they're all around. I'm not sure if that you would call
them staters. But they're variable pitch. So, they don't rotate, but they can turn to better direct
airflow. This thing is going to look really cool when it flies.
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[00:15:15] JR: Yeah, it's going to take a while. But I would definitely take a trip out to Tolu to go
see that.
[00:15:20] IP: Yeah, absolutely. I would love to get close to this thing. I think it'd be great fun.
Now, let's talk about something that is supposed to happen by the end of the decade.
[00:15:32] JR: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:32] IP: Mmm. At Farborough, one of the biggest flashes, perhaps a flash in the pan, I'm
not sure yet, was Boom’s re-introduction, reevaluation, rerelease of its redesigned overture
aircraft. This is the company that has promised it is building a supersonic passenger aircraft.
Still, they say, for introduction to passenger service by the end of the decade. The new overture
design features four engines slung low under the wing. It's a low bypass engine, and I guess
reminiscent of the 707. Am I wrong here?
[00:16:24] JR: Yeah. Kind of. Sort of.
[00:16:25] IP: I’m kind of sort of wrong? Or kind of sort of looks like?
[00:16:28] JR: No. No. It kind of sort of looks like that.
[00:16:30] IP: The reintroduction – And we'll put a link in the show notes to what this plane
looks like now and all that good fun stuff. It's redesigned. It's bigger. It's wider. It's longer than it
was before. The aircraft has grown. It has changed in shape. It has added new engines. What it
hasn't gotten is any closer to having an actual engine manufacturer committed to making the
engines for the aircraft.
[00:16:57] JR: Which you kind of need to have that part, don’t you?
[00:17:00] IP: And now you need twice as many.
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[00:17:02] JR: Yeah. That's a good point actually. Those probably won't be too easy to make.
But Jon Ostrower put out kind of scathing tweet thread about this the other day, that there is no
way first flight 2025 entering two service by ‘26 is even remotely possible now given the last
round of flight testing that we had with the geared turbofan for the A220, the A320, and all that.
These programs take years. And then forget the engines. You have to certify the aircraft for
supersonic passenger flight. That's just – I mean, we're waiting longer in New York to certify new
subway cars. I can't imagine that certifying a new supersonic air transport vehicle is just going to
take as little bit of time as they say it will. I don't believe a word of it.
[00:17:56] IP: With each passing day, their promised certification timeline becomes even more
– It was unrealistic to begin with. It becomes even more unrealistic. But the only reason I'm even
bringing this up, because there's nothing new here. Yeah, they redesigned it. But there's nothing
substantially new. There's no substantial progress. There's no – Nothing out really that makes
me believe that they're actually going to fly this plane, except one thing.
[00:18:23] JR: Go on.
[00:18:24] IP: Boom signs partnering agreement with Northrop Grumman.
[00:18:27] JR: Yes, that's what I was going to say. But just because other companies are willing
to milk this for whatever consulting, contracting part supplying they can get along the way until it
goes bust, it doesn't make it more real.
[00:18:41] IP: That's not what this is. That's not what this is.
[00:18:43] JR: What is it?
[00:18:44] IP: Today at the Farnborough Airshow – And I'm quoting Boom’s release here. Today
at the Farnborough Airshow, Boom Supersonic has also announced the landmark partner
agreement with Northrop Grumman to develop special mission variance for the US government
and its allies. Here is something that we talked about when we had Jon Ostrower and John
Walton on the show when we spent the entire episode specifically on the future of supersonic
passenger transport. And one of the things that Jon Ostrower mentioned, I called back to now,
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and he said that it takes billions and billions and billions of dollars, and often government
support. And so, he said, without that, it seems like a long shot.
And I agreed with him at the time. And there was the inkling of government support for a military
version of this aircraft. That seems to be moving towards becoming much more realistic at this
point, given that Northrop Grumman is on board with this. And given that, it seems more likely –
I'm not saying likely, but just more likely that this aircraft will actually fly in some shape or form.
[00:20:03] JR: In some form, but probably not for airlines. And definitely not on their ludicrous
timeline at this point.
[00:20:11] IP: I just appreciate that United is milking it on Twitter and Instagram for all that it's
worth. Is that a wise decision? I don’t know.
[00:20:21] JR: We've mentioned it before, they have nothing to lose. They either get the thing
and fly it or they don't say they tried.
[00:20:28] IP: I mean. Yeah, there's that. But there's also the fact that one of the main threads
at Farnborough this year was sustainability. And yeah, okay, fine. Boom says that this whole
thing is going to be developing on SAF. And then you say, “Okay, that's great. Where's this SAF
going to come from?” And they sit there and go, “Ugh –”
[00:20:46] JR: But they also can't guarantee that an airline is going to fly it on 100% SAF. That's
not up to them to do.
[00:20:54] IP: Right. But it is up to United. But what I'm saying is even with – I mean, the report
that we talked about last week, as far as where that SAF comes from, and the ability to generate
enough sustainable aviation fuel based on non-biomass sources, non-food adjacent biomass
sources, basically taking corn and soy away from the existing food supply. It's just not possible
at this point. Is there a magic bullet of technology coming? Maybe. But probably not. It's
probably going to be iterative. And eventually, we'll end up with something that actually works
that is actually sustainable. But with this timeline, it's just patently ridiculous.
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And I really thought that it was interesting that we've had Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren on the show
before. And he tweeted, I forget how long ago, about Boom being the fairness of aviation. And
some reporter in London asked Blake Scholl, the CEO of a Boom, about this, and he
disappeared and said there's always going to be detractors. But fascinating insight into how
people are thinking about this inside aviation versus how it's being portrayed in media outside
aviation.
[00:22:11] JR: I like that comparison, though. At this point in time with, the information we have
available, that seems like a fair comparison.
[00:22:18] IP: I'm not sure if it's a fair comparison, because for better or worse, I believe that the
people believe they're doing something worthwhile, and that they're going to succeed.
[00:22:31] JR: I do not believe for a second that there's anyone in that team that thinks they will
revolutionize and revitalize supersonic air travel going point to point anywhere in the world for
$100 a ticket in business class. Nobody believes that. But that's their messaging.
[00:22:45] IP: Okay.
[00:22:45] JR: Yep. Looking at the full story, not just can they fly supersonic? The answer is
yes. It's been done before. They can do it again. I'm looking at the full marketing stick at this
point. Can they do what they say they're going to do? No. That's ridiculous. I can't fly anywhere
for $100 right now subsonic. I can't take a train anywhere for $100.
[00:23:06] IP: You sure can't. Yeah, no, that is very fair.
Let's stay in the UK. Let's leave the air show for now. Maybe we'll come back next week, if
there's a surprise Thursday order, which we're not expecting, but you never know. Let's go down
to the airports of London and talk about some of the things that were happening to the runways.
Now, Jason, you were quite warm. But as it turns out, the UK, as you mentioned, doesn't have a
lot of air conditioning. It's not used to a lot of these things. And one of the things that happened
was that runway surfaces, which are made of asphalt are not so good with the heat. And this
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was at London's Luton Airport. They put out a release. They stopped traffic and put out a
release. They said, “Following today's high temperatures, a surface defect was identified on the
runway.” Engineers were called immediately to the site to repair works and are currently in
progress to resume operations as soon as possible. There was a hole in the runway because,
yeah, it got too hot.
[00:24:14] JR: It melted. Yeah. Honestly, there was a moment where I thought that happened
here at Heathrow when we were sitting at our meetings. We watched a Delta 764 and a Qatar
A380 go around back to back. And one go around, it happens. But two in a row, seemingly, it's
pretty unusual to see that if there's no significant weather. And I thought, “Oh, no, the runway
probably melted here, too.” Thankfully, that did not happen. But I wouldn't have been surprised if
it did.
[00:24:41] IP: I mean, it's a sign of the times.
[00:24:46] JR: Yep. Not great.
[00:24:47] IP: No. It's not great.
[00:24:48] JR: But the runways, like the railways, and much of the other critical infrastructure
here in the UK and elsewhere in Europe is just not built to withstand temperatures this high.
[00:24:57] IP: Yeah. And this is unfortunately something that we're going to see more and more
of as time goes by. I mean, these extreme heat events are not quite the new normal yet, but
we're on our way there. As temperatures continue to rise as extremes continue to swing both
ways, it's certainly not something that a lot of airports are designed to handle. And these types
of things I think we're going to start to see more of and see how we can adapt our infrastructure
and manage that.
Let's shift our attention to Greece, where a Ukrainian cargo carrier, Meridian, and An-12BK
crashed in Greece as it was trying to return to Niš, Serbia, where it was originating. It was flying
from Niš, to Amman, Jordan. And its eventual destination was Bangladesh. It was carrying
munitions and other assorted products for the Bangladesh Defense Ministry.
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The aircraft turned around over the Aegean Sea and was trying to return to Niš, but did not, in
fact, make it that far. It then began to lose height. Tried to make to Kavala in Greece, but was
unfortunately unable to make it to that airport and crashed about 18 kilometers west of Kavala.
Unfortunately, the aircraft not only crashed, but became a site of very, very unsafe situation
because of the cargo onboard. Hazardous materials specialist were called in to deal with kind of
a continued fire from the aircraft.
[00:26:49] JR: Yeah, not great. That'll certainly make any search, and rescue, and crash
investigation scene more dangerous than it needs to be.
[00:26:57] IP: Yeah. There was eyewitness video of the aircraft. This hasn't been verified
completely yet. But there was eyewitness video from the time in the area what is believed to be
the aircraft. And that appears to show the aircraft on fire before it impacted the ground. The
pilots reported engine trouble and turned around and tried to make it back to Niš. They were
unable to do so. In fact, tried to make it to Kavala.
It's unclear so far what the exact sequence of events was, and which engines may have been
affected. But it appears that they thought they could make it all the way back to their origin. But
it turns out that that was not the case.
Let's, once again, turn our attention to airports trying desperately to make it so passengers can
get through the airport in less than 12 days or so.
[00:27:55] JR: That would be good.
[00:27:56] IP: Yeah. Jason, do we want to go to Frankfurt, Amsterdam or London first?
[00:28:00] JR: Well, I'm in London. So, let's start with that.
[00:28:04] IP: Okay, so last week, we talked about how Heathrow was limiting passenger
operations over the busiest period of the summer. 200,000 passengers a day. Not a huge cut.
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But a big enough one where airlines had to figure out a way to trim their schedules under the
threat of legal action by the airport. Emirates pushed back and said, “Are you kidding?” And then
had a meeting with Heathrow Airport where they came to an agreement and kind of brush things
off.
Finnair taking a different tact, and today announcing that between today, the 28th of July and
the 24th of July, they are canceling a number of bookings for passengers who had previously
said they were going to fly from wherever to Heathrow, or connecting on Finnair into Heathrow.
Doesn't necessarily mean where they started.
Finnair not saying exactly whose bookings they're canceling. Not saying exactly which bookings
are canceling. But this goes back to what we talked about a few episodes ago. Make sure that
the airline operating your flights has your phone number and your email address. Because the
only way you are going to find out from Finnair if your reservation has been cancelled –
Because they're not canceling flights. They’re canceling specific reservations, because they can
carry a certain number of passengers on these flights. And because the slot regulations said,
“No. You have to keep operating your flights.” They can't just cancel flights and consolidate the
flights. They need to keep those flights and get rid of some passengers. The only way that
you're going to know if Finnair has canceled your reservation is if you're on top of it on their web
portal, or if they have your email address or phone number so that they can text you. So, let's
harp on this again. If you book a flight, make sure that the airline operating your flight, not
necessarily who you booked through, but the airline operating your flight, has your contact
information.
[00:29:57] JR: Yeah. And to that point, we talked last week how my parents were flying to a
European cruise. And they were going now on Air France through Paris. Thankfully, they and
their bags surprisingly made it. But they met another couple on their flight who was going in the
same cruise. They were originally booked on Lufthansa, but didn't know that their flight or their
itinerary had been canceled until they got to JFK terminal 1 and tried to check in with Lufthansa
who said, “We don't have a reservation for you.” Because apparently, somewhere along the line,
their flight had been canceled or their connecting flight was canceled. And basically, their
itinerary was dropped and the cruise company rebooked them, but they didn't get notice. And
they were rebooked on Air France. It wasn't even like United or anyone in Star Alliance. But
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thankfully, Air France is in the same terminal as Lufthansa and JFK. So, they were able to just
go to a different counter. But people are literally going to the airport these days. And it's not a
fluke. And then finding out only then in there that their flight doesn't exist anymore, or their entire
reservation is gone.
[00:31:00] IP: Yeah, thankfully, that sounds – I mean, there are a lot of people who go on
cruises. So, maybe it's not as rare as it should be. But I mean, I've been rebooked on other
airlines before on purpose. But to be rebooked on another airline entirely, not even another
airline, but another alliance entirely. That's a curveball. To find out at the count – I mean, that
feeling.
I can't remember if we talked about this. Last September, when I flew from Los Angeles to Paris,
the person in front of me checking in, their passport had expired. And they realized that trying to
check in. And just like the feeling I felt for them. I mean, beyond the how could you not noticed
this? But that feeling of like I can't imagine walking up to the counter and being like, “Here are
my bags. I'm ready to go.” And they're like, “Who are you? Why you're here?”
[00:31:52] JR: Happened to a friend of a friend recently, too. Their passport wasn't expired. But
it expired within the next three months, which still basically means that your passport is
functionally expired at that point. And the airline basically said, “Sorry. Next.”
[00:32:08] IP: Yeah. Oh, how bad. Okay, over to Frankfurt, which has, again, limited the number
of flights. Jason, walk me through the numbers.
[00:32:17] JR: Well, a while back when things really started hitting the fan. At first, they took the
arrival flow, both the arrivals and departure total number of aircraft movements per hour, from
106, down to 96 at Frankfurt. We'll get to Amsterdam. But Frankfurt, once again, is reducing the
flow rates at Frankfurt down to 88, which is a pretty substantial cut from the original 106.
[00:32:43] IP: Yeah. I mean, it's great that they're continuing to try and work things out. But
would it not have been better to just really rip the band aid off and say, “We're going to –”
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[00:32:56] JR: Yeah. What do you do with all the people that were supposed to be on those
original 106, and then 96, and then down to 88 flights per hour? That's a lot of canceled flights.
[00:33:08] IP: Yeah, this is the summer of canceled flights. That's what the summer is. This is
the summer of lost baggage and canceled flights.
[00:33:15] JR: And then there's Amsterdam.
[00:33:18] IP: And there's Amsterdam.
[00:33:20] JR: Then there's Astrodome. We can actually put some quantifiable data together
now that Amsterdam released some numbers. And I took a look. And they said 5.2 million
passengers flew to from or through Amsterdam in June 2022. Turns out that is actually 1.3
million fewer passengers than went to from or through Amsterdam in June 2019. That is a
combined total of 15% fewer flights than 2019. Not only are there more than a million fewer
passengers going through Amsterdam. But there were 15% fewer flights overall. And this is still
what we're seeing in Amsterdam.
[00:34:04] IP: But, Jason, that’s not all.
[00:34:07] JR: Oh, continue.
[00:34:08] IP: I will. If you dig into the numbers, it's even fewer flights than the fewer flights
would lead you to believe, because the number of private flights actually increased. The
passenger still count as passengers. But if you look at the breakdown between commercial
passenger traffic and non-scheduled passenger traffic, the number of non-scheduled
passengers increased not insignificantly. It's not even a context of having that many fewer
flights, that many fewer passengers in the terminal. It's even fewer passengers in the terminal
than it was in 2019, because the number of non-scheduled passengers who aren't using the
traditional terminals has increased. It’s even worse.
[00:34:52] JR: Yeah. Overall, it is not great. It's just kind of indicative industry-wide that we're
only running at about like 85% of 2019 passionate are numbers and traffic flow. But things are
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just so chaotic and broken that forget 100% of 2019. We can even do 85% without things being
totally chaotic meltdown mode everywhere. It's going to be an interesting case study in the
future.
[00:35:20] IP: I think the interesting thing that I hope someone does, because I'm not smart
enough to do this, I'm not wise enough in the ways of science to do this or social science. But it
would be interesting to take a global look at the number of passengers, the number of flights
versus the number of people working in airports, the number of people working at airlines, to
see where that imbalance shakes out. In the next couple of years, looking back, maybe starting
in 2019, and then moving forward. To see how that imbalance is created and where shown
through the most. Is it in particular positions at airports? Is it security? Is it assistance? Gate
agents? Flight attendants? Pilots? All of those things. Hopefully, somebody much smarter than I
am, could work on that. And we would love to have them on the podcast to explain their
findings.
Let us move on to some not breaking news necessarily, but a report that was issued this week,
entitled event involving Ryanair flight FR4978 in Belarus Airspace on 23 May, 2021. A riveting
report title from the ICAO fact finding investigation.
I always enjoy reading ICAO reports on anything, because they're written in it's intentional.
They're written with very specific diplomatic language in mind. It makes them nearly impossible
to read, because the prose has to be so diplomatic.
[00:36:57] JR: Now, remind us in non-diplomatic terms what happened here.
[00:37:02] IP: Here comes the big but. This is the report that the fact-finding investigation has
released. I don't know it's a final report, but it is a very in-depth report, that navigates us through
what happened to Ryanair flight 4978 that was flying in Belarus at the time. It was flying from
Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania, and it was forcibly diverted by Belarus to Minsk. The aircraft was
alerted that there were multiple bomb threats against that particular flight. And they were told,
while in Belarusian Airspace, that they needed to land in Minsk, even though Vilnius was closer.
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The long and the short of it is that pretty much everyone believes that this was an act by Belarus
to forcibly divert the aircraft and take one of the passengers who was a Belarusian dissident off
the aircraft and arrest him. And this led to a number of reactions by European national
authorities to ban aircraft flying into Belarus, ban Belarusian aircraft flying into to Europe and so
on and so forth.
And so, this particular report comes about a year later, a little over a year later, and provides a
lot more evidence and a lot more narration to exactly what happened. It includes a lot of what
exactly happened on the aircraft. It includes what happened in the control room in Minsk. It
includes what happened with Ryanair’s operational control center. All of the things that
happened before, during and after the flight. Walks you through an entire timeline. And then
analyzes it, and comes to the conclusion that this was an illegal action by Belarus.
They contravened the Montreal Convention. They forcibly diverted this aircraft for a false
purpose, and so on and so forth. The report is interesting, because while the conclusion
sections and the introduction sections are written in this very, very diplomatic language, the
timeline itself is very easy to follow, and becomes very clear that this was a concocted bomb
threat that never existed. And the aircraft was forcibly diverted for political purposes. Not great.
[00:39:41] JR: No. Not great is exactly what I was going to say.
[00:39:45] IP: The kicker here is that in the United Nations, in the ICAO meeting, to discuss the
report, Russia strenuously objected to Belarus being named as the party at fault.
[00:39:58] JR: Was.
[00:39:58] IP: Aha. I don't know what to read into that or what to make of it further.
[00:40:04] JR: Who would be the party at fault? If not Belarus, then, certainly, it would be
Russia.
[00:40:08] IP: That seems to be the logical place to take that. But that doesn't make sense to
me. But that's the report. It'll be linked in the show notes. And we'll put a link also to kind of our
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coverage of the aviation reaction going back to last May. So, you can kind of catch up if you
haven't been following this particular story since then.
Let's go to some good news and some weird news. And then we'll call it a show. Good news
first, the SAS strike is over. An agreement has been reached between the four pilots unions that
were party to the strike and the airline. The airline got a lot of it wanted. The pilots got some of
what they wanted. But it moves things forward. Gets everybody flying again over the next
couple of days and kind of smooths things for the chapter 11 proceedings that SAS is currently
under and allows the airline to keep going.
Not great. But as far as what happened, when it happened and how it happened. But good to
see there has been a resolution to that particular strike. And hoping the airline can turn itself
around.
[00:41:18] JR: That was certainly a long strike. Not too often.
[00:41:21] IP: It’s got 15 days.
[00:41:22] JR: Yeah. I mean, we often see strikes that have limited impact, maybe a couple of
days. But 15 days is – If you are an SAS passenger stuck abroad, that was not great for you.
[00:41:32] IP: Yeah. Not great for you. But it's over. They’re getting back to flying. And we'll
hopefully see SAS flights more than 50% in the year very shortly.
Okay. Let's end the show on just a bizarre note. I saw this tweet earlier in the week. And I was
like, “Okay. That's interesting. Wait, what?” Because I just thought, like, at first glance, I thought
it was a guy with a big laptop. As it turns out, no. This gentleman had brought an iMac on to his
flight, onto a United flight. He was seated in the exit row of what I think is the United 757. And he
had an iMac, like a 21-inch iMac.
[00:42:18] JR: That's odd. Notably, not a portable computer.
[00:42:22] IP: Generally, not thought to be a computer that you carry with you. No.
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[00:42:25] JR: No. I think it was a 737. Not that, at this point, it matters whether –
[00:42:29] IP: Oh! Is it 73800? Okay.
[00:42:31] JR: Same difference. But you could see he's done this before, because he had it
propped on the extended portion of the tray table leaned back against the seat back in front of
him, which has no risk of reclining, because he's in an exit row. So, the computer can't be
smashed in half. But I'm just kind of impressed that he not only got the power plug to actually
stay in the outlet, which on those aircraft is notorious for kind of spitting your plug back out. But
it actually delivered enough power to run that thing.
[00:43:01] IP: He clearly knew what he was doing. It was clearly the first time he had done this.
[00:43:05] JR: But why? They make laptops now. They're portable. They've got a battery and
everything. I'm using one right now.
[00:43:14] IP: I just want to meet him and ask him. I really do. I wish the guy had identified
himself on Twitter so that we could talk to him about this. Because he's clearly done this before.
He's got the thing down. He's taken the stand-off the iMac so that there's no impediment to
resting it kind of on the seat back and tray table. He's got the keyboard and trackpad setup so
that they're small enough, they'll fit on the stand. He's chosen the second exit row. So, there's
no chance of anyone reclining into him. It's a great setup, except my only issue is that he's in an
exit row with a large computer.
[00:43:52] JR: Yeah.
[00:43:52] IP: And I was told by some folks that this isn't a problem as long as he's put it away
for landing.
[00:44:01] JR: Where do you put it?
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[00:44:03] IP: Well, number one, is his carry-on bag big enough to fit – Is he just sliding an iMac
just like into the bin? I mean, I guess you would have to. And then second of all, if there is an
incident where there's an emergency landing, is he going to have enough time to pick up his 21-
inch iMac and stow it in the overhead bins?
[00:44:26] JR: I guess, because you're supposed to have put it away, larger electronics long
before your landing. So, I guess it’s –
[00:44:34] IP: What I'm saying is, like, in the case where it's –
[00:44:37] JR: A rapid descent or something.
[00:44:38] JR: A rapid descent. Yes.
[00:44:41] JR: It seems like an activity that should not be allowed in an exit row.
[00:44:44] IP: Just truly bizarre – Both impressive and bizarre. But here's the thing, Stranger
Things have happened.
[00:44:53] JR: That's true. Something stranger probably happened on that very flight. And we’ll
never know.
[00:44:59] IP: We'll never know. Jason, I will let you go enjoy what is now I believe much nicer
weather in London. The heat has broken. You enjoy that. Enjoy the aircraft. And to everyone at
home, we will talk to you next week. This has been episode 173 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik.
Here, as always with –
[00:45:23] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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