AvTalk Episode 363: Collision on the runway

AVT 363 Transcript
EPISODE 363
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello and welcome to episode 363 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here as always
with –
[0:00:15] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Ian, we find ourselves recording on a Tuesday again. We have
to stop doing this.
[0:00:21] IP: We do, indeed. Circumstances have brought us once again to recording on a
Tuesday. The circumstances were originally good. They were, because you are in Los Angeles,
along with a host of other wonderful people, enjoying –
[0:00:38] JR: I think all the wonderful people are here, except for you for some reason.
[0:00:42] IP: Good catch, good catch. I'm enjoying the dulcet tones of spring break with my
children. You are in Los Angeles as a guest of United Airlines, because they've unveiled a whole
host of things to their aircraft, onboard product and route network and all sorts of things that we
are going to talk about later in the show. You've got a segment coming up with some good folks
from earlier today there.
[0:01:06] JR: Yes.
[0:01:08] IP: Then we come to the other reason we're recording on a Tuesday, which is the
collision between a CRJ-900 and a airport rescue firefighting truck at LaGuardia Airport in New
York. Let's get into that story, we’re a few days removed from that crash, and we've had a few
NTSB briefings, so we know a little bit more, but not much.
[0:01:35] JR: We know enough to be angry, I think, at this point.
[0:01:39] IP: We do indeed know enough to be angry, or at least thoroughly confused and
concerned at the same time. Let's walk through what we know about the sequence of events so
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far, what the NTSB has been able to tell us from their investigation so far, and some of the
things that we know at this point, we still do not know. On Sunday, March 22nd at 11.37 PM local
time in New York, a CRJ-900, operated by Jazz Aviation for Air Canada Express collided with an
airport rescue and firefighting vehicle at New York's LaGuardia Airport. The captain and first
officer of the aircraft were killed in the crash. One crew member, whom we believe to be the
forward flight attendant, there were two flight attendants onboard. One seated at the forward
part of the cabin, one seated in the rear. We believe the forward flight attendant was ejected
from the aircraft and still in their seat during the crash. That flight attendant, as well as 40
passengers were taken to area hospitals with varying levels of injuries. The two firefighters
inside the truck were also injured and taken to the hospital.
What was happening at the airport that led to the collision and what was going on in the
background? The firefighters were being dispatched from the firehouse on the west side of the
airport to the east side of the airport, because United Airlines flight 2384 had twice rejected its
take off. After the second rejected take off, they called the tower and informed the tower that
they had an indeterminant smell onboard. Not quite smoke, but just an odor of some kind.
[0:03:38] JR: Something they would have checked out.
[0:03:42] IP: There was some questions about what they wanted to do. Did they want to go
back to the gate? Yes, they were trying to get back to the gate, so they could get the
passengers off the aircraft. There was a bit of back and forth trying to arrange which gate the
aircraft would return to. If the aircraft could not immediately return to the gate, they were going
to request air stairs from the fire department, so that they could deplane the passengers on the
taxiway and then bust them back to the terminal.
The ARFF trucks were being deployed based on that event from the fire station that is off of
taxiway Delta on the far west side of the airport, all the way to taxiway Bravo, a beam runway 13
on the east side of the airport. They had to drive across much of the airfield, including crossing
runway four, which is where air Canada flight 8646 was landing. They were responding to that
call of trying to cross runway four. The aircraft was arriving from Montreal and cleared to land on
runway four. The truck and company, so there were multiple vehicles as part of this detachment
that were being cleared across runway four at taxiway Delta.
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As the CRJ landed and continued its landing roll, the tower controller can be heard telling a
nearby Frontier flight to hold its position and then telling truck one to stop multiple times. The fire
truck entered the runway at taxiway Delta and then was struck by the CRJ, demolishing the
front part of the CRJ from the nose all the way back to door one. A large portion of that aircraft
was just demolished.
[0:05:39] JR: Yeah, absolutely tragic. I'm sure you've probably all seen the images and videos
from whether or not you really want to. These days, you don't seemingly have a choice whether
or not you see it, but it's just absolutely horrifying imagery. Thankfully, the firefighters weren't
gravely wounded, because a fire truck is built to withstand a hit like that. It is a robust thing.
Whereas, the nose of a CRJ-900 is not built for an impact of that nature and it never stood a
chance, unfortunately. It's tragic.
We know some more now than we did yesterday and the day before, the NTSB, the amazing
experts, they are at what they are doing. What do we know so far? Why am I angry right now? I
know I am angry, but let's tell the audience why we should be angry.
[0:06:32] IP: What the NTSB provided today was a relative timeline of events based on the end
of the CVR recording. Yesterday on Monday, the 23rd, the NTSB recovered the flight data
recorder and cockpit voice recorder and those were immediately transferred to the NTSB labs in
Washington, DC. They have had a chance to listen to the CVR recording, but they have not yet
auditioned it, we'll get there in a minute what that specifically means. They've listened to the
recording and today provided at their briefing this afternoon a relative timeline based on the end
of the recording of the CVR. They provided a timeline for the last three minutes. We'll put a link
to that full timeline in the show notes, but I want to focus on the last 10 seconds prior to the end
of the recording.
10 seconds prior to the end of the recording is when the aircraft is about to touch down. At 10
seconds prior to the end of the recording, there's the 10-foot enhanced ground proximity
warning system call out. Nine seconds before the end of the recording, the tower tells truck one
to stop. Six seconds before the end of the recording, control of the aircraft is transferred from
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the first officer who had been flying the aircraft to the captain. We don't know anything more
than what the NTSB said that the aircraft controls were transferred from the first officer to the
captain. At this point, we don't know anything more than that.
Four seconds before the end of the recording, the tower again tells truck one to stop. Then at
zero seconds is the end of the recording and ostensibly, the collision between the aircraft and
the truck. The CVR and FDR were in good condition, and then the full addition of the CVR will
be done tomorrow, Wednesday. There's 25 hours of audio. As someone noted today, this might
be the first accident in which a 25-hour CVR comes into play. Not that it's necessarily important
for this particular investigation, but this might be the first time that a CVR with that length in
recording is –
[0:08:59] JR: Yeah, that's interesting too. Since this was maybe a 20-year-old aircraft. For it to
have the 25-hour CVR is quite positive news. Of course, in this case, it doesn't really matter, but
this was not a new build aircraft. Good to see that it had a modern 25-hour recorder onboard.
That is an interesting twist.
[0:09:19] IP: Yeah. What they'll do tomorrow at the NTSB laboratory is they will audition the
CVR. That means the CVR group will listen to the recording and discuss what they are hearing
and determine what each and every sound is coming from each and every microphone. What
does that click mean? Can we determine what warnings were going off? Was there an utterance
of surprise from the first officer, or from the captain? What do the sounds that the ambient
microphones are picking up? What are those sounds? That will all be put into a transcript, which
will then be released as part of the NTSB's investigatory docket.
We will never hear that recording. That's not how it works. That never happens. The actual
recordings are never released to the public. If you want to hear more about why that is and how
the NTSB treats these recordings, we always say, go back and listen to the interview that we
conducted with Sean Payne, who is now the leader of the NTSB's recording division. We
recorded that interview a few years ago now, and I think it's worth a listen if you're interested in
how this process actually works. The FDR itself has 80 hours of data, and that will be in red out
on Wednesday as well.
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Additional information shared by the NTSB today is why Jason is upset. We know a few more
things about the situation on the airfield. We know that the runway stop bars were working.
Those stop bars indicate activity on the runway.
[0:11:09] JR: Activity, meaning an aircraft is coming or going.
[0:11:13] IP: Something is on the run –
[0:11:13] JR: Something is happening, and only that aircraft should be on that runway.
[0:11:19] IP: If you see the stop bars illuminated, you should not enter the runway, regardless of
what clearance you may or may not have. The other reason that Jason's upset is that the ARFF
truck did not have a transponder. It's too early to say whether or not the truck having a
transponder would have changed this next piece of information. But the ASDEX, so the Airport
Surface Detection Equipment, Model X, which is a high-fidelity, multi-technology system
designed to keep track of everything on the airfield, including vehicles, aircraft, everything,
anything moving, that system did not alert the tower to a potential collision, because the system
was overwhelmed by data.
I want to read this direct quote from NTSB Chairwoman, Jennifer Homendy, who was quoting
the FAA technicians who analyzed the ASDEX playback. “ASDEX did not generate an alert due
to the close proximity of vehicles merging and unmerging near the runway, resulting in the
inability to create a track of high confidence.” Vehicles here is the important word, because
we're not just talking about one fire truck. We're talking about a compliment of vehicles that is
dispatched to an emergency. This includes fire trucks, command cars, maybe a stair truck. It
could be anything.
[0:13:03] JR: Airport with all the vehicles, anything.
[0:13:05] IP: Yeah, it could be anything. We don't know the exact makeup of the vehicles that
were being dispatched. What we do know is that because these vehicles, or at least the truck
one did not have a transponder. We don't know how many of the vehicles had transponders, or
if any of the vehicles had transponders. But Chair Homendy said that the ASDEX display
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showed two “blobs” as radar targets, because you're relying on radar, rather than any
transponder interrogation for these vehicles. None of that provided enough confidence in the
system for the system to say, “Hey, this is a conflict. Stop this.”
[0:13:54] JR: It isn't necessarily that the equipment wasn't working. It's that the equipment didn't
have the confidence of data it needed to not trigger a nuisance alarm. Because if a system like
this is constantly alerting controllers that, “Hey, something's on the runway. Hey, something's on
the runway,” but that's not actually the case, you're worse off in the long run, because controllers
will just ignore these false positives consistently to the point where there will be an actual alert
that they'll just ignore, because they're so used to false positives with a system like this.
Between the ARFF truck drivers violating the stoplights and ASDEX not picking up the surface
vehicles, because they did not have a transponder, this is why I'm so mad, because there are
layers and layers of redundancy and technology in place to prevent exactly this situation from
happening. But enough pieces of the puzzle were missing that there were enough holes to let
something slip by until that a tragedy happened. To me, this is personal. This is my home
airport, on an airline I fly on a route, I fly. I was there at LaGuardia at around that hour just a few
days earlier. It's personal to me and it's scary. Things like this shouldn't happen. I personally, of
course, I'm sure the NTSB would want to know why this aircraft rescue, firefighting piece of
equipment did not have a transponder. It's not a budget thing, because the Port Authority of
New York and New Jersey has infinite money and infinite resources at its disposal.
I think this is the case at a lot of North American airports, really US airports, it's that I don't think
it's all that common, or typical for ground vehicles to be outfitted with transponders. If you look
at flightradar24, or any of the tracking services at a lot of European airports, Canadian airports,
you will see all sorts of equipment, not just with transponders that might have information that
the tower can pick up, but at ADS-B as well that we can see. These are fuel trucks, airport
administration vehicles, snowplows we famously see in the winter. You'll see 10 snowplows side
by side, clearing the runways. This is just not something you see at US airports in particular.
Is this just one of those things that US airports don't do, because someone hasn't explicitly
mandated that they have to do? Or, why, basically? I want to know why an entity like the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey doesn't use its infinite amount of money to put a
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transponder on its emergency vehicles that are moving all around the airport at all times. You
can't get anywhere at LaGuardia, practically speaking, without having to cross an almost
certainly active runway. There is no way to get around those runways. There are no taxiways
that go around the edge of runways at LaGuardia. I'm just personally taken aback by we have a
crash at an airport with loss of life, people that unfortunately, they died because of this. Why?
That is something I hope the NTSB looks into is why did the Port Authority not equip these
vehicles with technology that could have prevented it. Ian, we were also talking about something
interesting. Again, only happens in the US.
[0:17:22] IP: Yeah.
[0:17:23] JR: You take it.
[0:17:24] IP: The one thing that we didn't talk about yet with regard to –
[0:17:28] JR: But have talked about before a number of times.
[0:17:30] IP: Yeah, we have talked about this before, is the – I'm not sure where it comes from,
but it's a US centric. Anytime this happens, we get comments from folks not based in the US,
that are near [inaudible 0:17:47] this ever happens. I want to read a little bit more of the timeline,
because the CVR timeline that the NTSB released starts at three minutes and seven seconds
before the end of the CVR recording, when the aircraft checks in with the tower. Two minutes
and 45 seconds before the end of the recording, the aircraft lowers its landing gear. Two
minutes and 17 seconds, the tower clears Jazz 646 to land runway four, number two.
[0:18:23] JR: Which means this crew was cleared to land at LaGuardia in Queens. Wow,
they’re probably still over Brooklyn. They're not even in the same borough, or flying over the
same borough of New York when they're cleared to land. They might even still be over the
ocean at that point, to be completely honest. All over New York Harbor, just that is such a
tremendous amount of time to clear an aircraft to land minutes. Obviously, we see it.
[0:18:50] IP: Two minutes and roughly seven or eight seconds before touchdown.
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[0:18:56] JR: So much can and does happen in two minutes and what was it? 17 seconds that,
yeah, I'm sure we're going to get people writing in again and say, “I cannot believe it is not just a
practice in the US, but common accepted practice for flights to be cleared to take off in
sequence number two, or three, or four.” Because at that point, it's meaningless. It's just
procedure at that point, where it has no actual application other than checking a box. I don't
think this crash will change that behavior, but it is as baffling now as it is every time we talk
about it becoming a problem.
[0:19:33] IP: Two minutes and 17 seconds before the end of the recording, the tower clears
them to land runway four. Then 21 seconds before the end of the recording, truck one and
company are cleared to cross runway four at Delta. Almost two minutes go by from the time the
aircraft is clear to land and the time the truck is cleared to cross the runway. The aircraft has not
yet landed.
[0:20:04] JR: No. Two minutes before, they would indeed have actually been over Brooklyn,
probably an aircraft, I would have seen right out of my window. Not quite over the bay, but very
close. It's just two minutes is an eternity. I hope the NTSB has something to say about this, not
that anyone of any position will listen, but this has got to be such a massive part of the chain of
events here.
[0:20:31] IP: Yeah. I really hope that we get to learn more about how the NTSB looks into this
practice.
[0:20:37] JR: What they're also going to be looking into is air traffic controllers at LaGuardia.
[0:20:42] IP: Yes.
[0:20:43] JR: It feels like, we're having the same discussion that we did after the crash at DCA.
LaGuardia and National NTC are basically twin airports. They are in extremely busy airspace.
They are in downtown Northeast cities with intersecting runways. They're essentially twins of
each other. We know what happened at DCA. Controllers were overworked. They were
understaffed. They were pumping in aircraft at a rate, probably that we know was too high.
Slightly different circumstances at LaGuardia. This happened shortly before midnight, where
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there is actually a quite low traffic. There's almost no departures at that hour. Very few arrivals,
because for most of the year, LaGuardia actually has a midnight soft curfew. Not this time of
year. But there's very, very little going on. This was a big part of the initial discussions of, oh no,
there was one controller working ground and tower. Well, there may have been one controller
on frequency, but we know now, I believe, Ian, that there were multiple controllers in the cab at
least, but potentially one working the radios at that time.
[0:21:55] IP: Right. Here's what we know so far about the controller situation in the tower, and
here's what we don't know yet. What we do know is that there were two people in the tower cab.
There was a local controller and a controller in charge. The controller in charge is responsible
for the overall safety operations in the controllable area for the tower. They were working the
clearance and delivery, so providing clearance to departing aircraft.
[0:22:26] JR: Of which there wouldn't have been much of any at that hour.
[0:22:30] IP: The local controller was working the arriving and departing aircraft moving about
on the active runways. What we don't know yet, and what the NTSB is still trying to determine
with certainty is which controller was working the ground. Who was the ground controller at that
point? Who was the person that was responsible for coordinating movement on the taxiways
that are spread throughout the airfield? They don't know that for certain yet. We do know there
were two people in the cab. We do know that they were both doing jobs. What we don't know is
who was doing the groundwork.
What we also know is that consolidation of those positions is standard operating procedure at
LaGuardia for the mid-shift. As opposed to at DCA, where there's a set of procedures that the
air traffic control organization has to go through to determine whether or not sufficient conditions
exist to consolidate those positions. It's a bit of a different thing. Because as Jason mentioned,
this is a period of time where the airfield is not that busy. It is standard operating procedure to
consolidate these positions. That said, the NTSB is still looking into who was the ground
controller? Who is acting as the ground controller at that time? That's information we do not yet
have.
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[0:24:01] JR: We have another tragedy in overburdened Northeast Airport. Hopefully, we will
learn as much as we can from it, prevent it from happening again. You hate to take lessons out
of an incident like this that should never have happened. We all know, we all say that aviation
regulations are written in blood, and there's just been a lot of blood spilled recently. It's just
unnecessary. Really hate to see stuff like this that should just never have happened. When the
NTSB puts out its initial report within about 30 days, we will talk about it again.
[0:24:40] IP: Yeah. If we learn materially more information before next week's episode, we'll
discuss it then. But yes, we do look forward to reading the preliminary report when we can. Let's
shift focus back to what we've been talking about for the past few weeks, as we are now in
week four of the war in the Middle East. We have some updates on what is happening, not to
the airspace in the region, because that hasn't changed, unfortunately. Most airspace, large
swaths of airspace are still closed. Much of the airspace is still restricted. But we are now
starting to see more commercial effects of the closure of airspace, the closure of airports, the
lack of demand.
What we're seeing this week, or what we've seen over the past week is Qatar Airways parking
20 jets at Teuel, Spain. There are now 20 Qatar Airways aircraft in what is an airport that is
consistently used for long-term storage. They range from a good chunk of the A330 fleet for
Qatar, to 777s, A350s. We're seeing aircraft flown from Doha. There was one that came in from
LAX, so an operated commercial flight. Then from LAX flew to Spain for storage. We could see
more at some point throughout the week, but there aren't currently any scheduled to move at
the moment. That's the largest example of aircraft in storage. There are also aircraft just sitting
at airports.
Thinking about airlines like Emirates, they're sub fleets, so the fleets of specific aircraft types.
The A350s are operating about half capacity. The A380s are a little bit over half capacity. It will
come, I don't think as much of a surprise, that the Emirates freighter fleet is operating as much
as it can and near the pre-war averages for flight activity. The 777-300ERs, those are down as
well, just a little over half. Still a lot of aircraft sitting on the ground.
[0:26:58] JR: Yeah. It's basically like a mini-COVID event, but just for the Middle East. It feels
like, just a couple of days ago, I was working with Qatar in my actual day job, where they were
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very focused on very different things, like Wi-Fi and seats and suddenly, now it's back to the
early 2020s, where they're having to figure out where to put their aircraft, because you can't
keep them in Qatar too long, because it is not a hospitable place for long-term aircraft storage.
[0:27:30] IP: Unfortunately, in this particular case, not just because of environmental factors.
[0:27:35] JR: That, too. You really don't want aircraft there for any reason.
[0:27:38] IP: For a variety of reasons. Absolutely. Elsewhere, we have entire countries warning
airlines that they might have to cut their flights there, because of a lack of fuel. Vietnam was the
first entire country to say, “From April onwards, there might need to be cuts in schedules,
because we don't have enough fuel for all of these flights.” That is spreading a bit outside of
Vietnam to Thailand and other Southeast Asian states, because a lot of their fuel comes from
the Middle East and through the Strait of Hormuz, which remains closed to nearly all traffic.
[0:28:33] JR: Yikes. This is going to get worse before it gets better, because there is seemingly
no path to fixing this situation that, who could have possibly seen this coming? Anyone with half
a brain could have figured this out. This was going to be a direct result. This is going to hurt.
This is going to hurt a lot of airlines that probably can't afford the skyrocketing of the price of jet
fuel and also the bottoming out of availability of fuel right now. Not great for anyone. Certain
airlines can absorb these costs in other regions, like the US, not so much a problem, because
not a lot of that fuel comes from the Middle East, or none of it, I don't think. For other countries, I
know, like even South Korea, they import all of their fuel, I think all of their oil. This is going to
become a problem for some, not just small Vietnamese startups. It's going to be a problem soon
for some major airlines.
Where there are problems for some airlines, others will see that as an opportunity. We talked
about last week how SAS is already dialing back a number of maybe off-peak routes, and some
routes that it just won't be able to afford with fuel being so high. But then, neighbors at
Norwegian are picking up that slack already. How opportunistic of them, let's say?
[0:29:57] IP: They've been able to add flights to take advantage of the –
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[0:30:00] JR: 120 of them. That’s not nothing.
[0:30:03] IP: Yeah. It is not nothing. They've been able to take advantage of the SAS cuts to
add flights. The low-cost carriers seem to be, for the moment, weathering this fairly well. The
European low-cost carriers. This week, easyJet said that between how their route structure is
focused and their fuel hedging and contracts, they've been able to weather this storm thus far.
But they did say, the longer this goes on, the less we were able to absorb the impacts.
Obviously, ticket prices will rise.
[0:30:43] JR: Yeah. Apparently, Norwegian was able to do this, because it had canceled a
number of Middle Eastern routes. It's free of aircraft, which it could then deploy to the famous
cities that you might vacation to from Europe, so Málaga, Ozpamis, other places like that,
according to this Reuters article. It's not that they magically spun up a bunch of 73s out of
nowhere. But they were also impacted and they had aircraft on the ground that needed to go
somewhere else to make some money.
[0:31:11] IP: Exactly. Let's take a break and come back and we'll head to LA where Jason is
and we'll go back in time a few hours and hear from Jason from a few hours ago, when United
unveiled a whole bunch of stuff today and get a take from Jason, Ned Russell, and Jon
Ostrower. Stay with us. We'll be back with them in just a moment.
[JASON, NED AND JON]
[0:31:43] JR: Hello. I'm joined with Ned Russell of freelance, wherever he is these days.
[0:31:47] NR: Independent aviation journalist.
[0:31:50] JR: And someone you may have heard before on our own show, Jon Ostrower of The
Air Current.
[0:31:55] JO: So good to be back with you guys. Been a long time.
[0:31:57] JR: Been a minute. You've actually spun up your own podcast in that minute.
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[0:32:01] JO: I like podcasting so much, we started our own, right?
[0:32:04] JR: It's good. You should listen to it if you haven't, which is also me, because I don't
listen to podcasts. But gentlemen, where are we right now? Ned, where are we?
[0:32:12] NR: We are sitting on the first CRJ-450, which is a modified CRJ-200 for United
Airlines due to interservice later this year.
[0:32:21] JO: Fall. Fall.
[0:32:22] NR: Yeah.
[0:32:22] JR: This is a weird airplane. If you're familiar with United Express, you may have
heard of the CRJ-550 before, which is a derated CRJ-700, taken down from what, 76 seats
down to –
[0:32:33] NR: 65.
[0:32:34] JR: - 50.
[0:32:34] NR: 50.
[0:32:35] JR: Now, they've taken a CRJ-200, everyone's least favorite aircraft in the world, and
lopped off nine seats onboard?
[0:32:43] JO: I don't know, the ERJ-145 ranks that [inaudible 0:32:44].
[0:32:45] NR: I would stay in the 145.
[0:32:47] JR: That's a whole other conversation. But they've introduced first-class and
economy, economy plus. Jon, tell me about the aircraft.
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[0:32:56] JO: Well, it is a CRJ-200. For all of us who have loved and been abused by the
CRJ-200, United has put their own spin on it with, again, 41 seats. They took out the nine in the
front and economy and put in seven first-class seats and got rid of the bins in the front and
added in the coat closet. It doesn't feel like a CRJ-200 as much anymore. I mean, the windows
are still at your ankles.
[0:33:23] JR: Yeah, I'm not sure I quite buy the lineup. It feels like a private jet, because you're
still on a CRJ-200 at its heart.
[0:33:29] JO: As long as someone can still buy a tuna fish sandwich and sit next to me, it's not
a private jet.
[0:33:35] JR: It's at least just fascinating to me that an airline has spent literally any time
thinking about the experience on a now sub-50 seat regional jet, because this aircraft, they say,
will also get Starlink Wi-Fi, just like the rest of the fleet. It will get USB-C power, eventually.
These things up until earlier today were not something you'd ever find on a jet of this size. Why
do we think they're doing this?
[0:33:57] NR: Well, it's part of this larger move by United to capture more of the premium
market, by being able to offer seven first-class seats on their shortest routes, like Chicago,
O’Hare, South Bend. The argument by their leadership is those passengers will then pay for
business class, or first class on longer flights and will become part of this premium ecosystem.
It's a bet on the future of premium travel. But Scott Kirby, CEO of United has been telling us
today that he thinks that the market is underserved right now and it's not actually growing. It's
just, airlines are expanding the supply of premium seats to meet the existing demand.
[0:34:28] JR: Speaking of premium experience, right off to our left outside of the tiny little wing
of this CRJ, whatever this is, is a brand-new, not yet even in commercial service 787-9. Jon, tell
me about it.
[0:34:40] JO: 787-9, it is almost half business class seats. As far as the cabin goes, this is
going to be the first 787-9 in the fleet with the new business class, which is what they say, 88
seats? Something like that. 80 something seats. I don't remember what the –
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[0:34:55] JR: It’s something along those.
[0:34:56] JO: Yeah, it's a lot. It's a big number. Yeah. I mean, it's all part of the same
premiumization trend. When you pair that with the fact that they've got a root network that's
going to pretty much everywhere, they really see an opportunity there. I mean, look, the reality
is that a K-shaped economy means people who have the resources are going to want to take
advantage of the front of the cabin. They're designing to that.
[0:35:17] NR: Absolutely. They're even offering more for people who aren't necessarily the front
of the cabin. They've got the new thing called the United Relax Row, which is they've taken Air
New Zealand’s sky couch and they're installing it up to 12 rows in every 787. That's, like Andrew
Nocella, the Chief Commercial Officer said, they're trying to offer improvements for everyone
from the front and the back. I think there's also a lot of people who maybe have the means to
travel, but aren't necessarily going to be traveling the very front of the plane.
[0:35:40] JR: Yeah, they pulled a one more thing on us here at the press conference today,
where the last thing they announced actually was, if you're familiar with Air New Zealand sky
couch, basically their own iteration of that. What do they call it? The United Relax Row?
[0:35:51] JO: Yes.
[0:35:52] JR: Coming first to 787s and then eventually, some 777s. There's what? Eight
different bespoke versions of a seat, basically on that aircraft. You have regular economy, relax
row, economy plus, premium economy, business, business studio. What is that? Six or seven?
[0:36:11] NR: Seven. That's seven.
[0:36:11] JR: That’s seven variations of seats, and then the pilot seats upfront, and jump seats.
[0:36:15] NR: Not quite as complex as Lufthansa’s new Allegris, but still.
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[0:36:18] JR: Critically, these are certified. You can actually book them and sit in them and they
will fly, which is something they've been talking about a lot. Certification is not easy and this
product also is not particularly simple. There's actual multiple variations, like Allegris on this
aircraft, or the middle section in the forward cabin. I think the seats face, your feet are closer
together, but in their aft cabin, the middle seats, your head is actually closer together, which is
really interesting. They spin it as there's something for everyone. If you want to sit in that, you
can go up front. If not, you can go in back. Jon, there was a particularly noteworthy comment by
Scott Kirby, United CEO earlier today. I'm not even going to have to mention the topic, because I
know what I'm talking about already. What was that about?
[0:37:03] JO: Scott Kirby was asked his view on airport shuttles, particularly with eVTOLs. that's
probably the single most promising market. One of the single most promising markets for
eVTOLs, which are very much still under development, and Scott Kirby did not mince words. He
said, “I don't think there's really – they're going to fit in the airspace operations that we have
right now, given what happened at DCA, given the complexity of airspace management, given
congestion, generally, that they haven't yet proven that those eVTOLs can slot seamlessly.”
Well, super awkward. Archer, their partner in eVTOLs is here with a giant full-scale mock-up of
Midnight, the aircraft is currently being developed, for this purpose. Yeah, it was unexpected, a
little awkward for Archer and United. Honestly, it was a bit of a bombshell.
[0:37:52] JR: It was unprompted, too. It wasn't like a response to a question. This is a part of a
scripted Q&A.
[0:37:58] JO: Yes. Yeah. It was a very structured Q&A. He just went and volunteered that. I
think he's thinking aloud in terms of how a lot of folks are thinking about eVTOLs right now, and
how long they're taking to come to market, and everyone's moving at the pace of the FAA. The
FAA is notoriously conservative on all these things, whether it's just day-to-day operations and
certification, or the bigger picture on how you put eVTOLs in the U.S. aerospace system. Yeah,
that was incredibly surprising. Again, largely unprompted.
[0:38:28] JR: Yeah. Then there was the comments about Boom Supersonic, where they're
basically, his only comment was, “Yeah, they're using those engines for data centers in
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Herndon, Virginia now.” That's cool. That doesn't seem any more real now than it did five years
ago?
[0:38:42] NR: The truth is, is eVTOLs brought more than Boom. I mean, all of these felt like,
even when they were talking about this in 2021, sort of long-distance hopes. These are still
ways out. eVTOL companies have loved to spend their timelines as looking at the original 2020
release. They said, “2024, we were going to be flying an Archer Midnight eVTOLs.” Here we are
sitting in 2026, they're not even certified yet, let alone flying commercially. Now we have Scott
Kirby saying, he opposes them flying in a major airspace. What is that? Yeah, pushes the ball
further out.
[0:39:15] JR: One last topic. Day 321, the twin variants here, the XLR and the Coastline, or
which I love to see an airline bringing in a new sub fleet and naming it something, instead of
just, this is the A321. No, this is the A321 Coastliner.
[0:39:28] JO: And a special livery, too.
[0:39:29] JR: And a special livery. In the press release, they even said, plane spotters out at
LAX will see it, and they'll know what a Coastliner is. Sad to see that it's really the direct
successor to the 757, so it does put a clock on the 75. As those come in, the 75s will come out.
What does that mean to you, Jon?
[0:39:48] JO: Well, look, I think that this is the long arc of the 757. I mean, this is the final
transition for those airplanes out of United’s Fleet, where the XLR is coming in and the 320neos
configured in Coastliner configuration, that's the death knell for these airplanes, right? It's the
legacy of United.
[0:40:06] JR: You hate to hear it, but it’s the truth.
[0:40:06] JO: Exactly. But it is. It is. It’s United, yes.
[0:40:09] NR: We all knew this day was coming.
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[0:40:10] JO: We did, we did. You're talking about 30-plus percent per sea fuel burn savings.
Right now, that's more important than ever.
[0:40:18] JR: You say that as we're on a modified CRJ-200 to have even fewer seats than
before.
[0:40:23] JO: Well, guess what? Hypothetical world we'd be living in, if there was still a 50-seat
regional jet that was being manufactured, right? You can get 180-seat, single-aisle airplane from
Boeing and Airbus. They would buy new airplanes. The question is, at 50 seats, which again,
hasn't been in production for ages, either at Embraer, or Bombardier. This is what the options
look like.
[0:40:47] JR: Final thoughts?
[0:40:49] NR: I like what United is doing. I have questions about the strength of premium long
term. Management here seems confident. Yeah.
[0:40:58] JR: Jon?
[0:40:59] JO: I think that, which means we need to see how they manage the complexity of all
this, right? There is so much going on. I mean, airlines are complex to begin with. It's how you
actually handle seven different, physically different products on a wide body aircraft, all the
revenue management around the new relax. There's just a lot going on. Granted, I think they
want there to be a lot going on. They don't want to be like 2002 Southwest Airlines, right? This is
not a one size fits all. There was a place in a time, but I think they see the U.S. economy
trending in a direction. They see that people want to spend their money this way. They want to
be there to accommodate that. Look, I think that they're taking risks. I think that is something
that is really encouraging for the rest of the industry, because I think you want this industry to be
taking risks. I mean, it's, you know.
[0:41:52] JR: You want it to stay exciting.
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[0:41:54] JO: Well, absolutely, absolutely. I think that, look, the moment it becomes boring is the
moment I'm going to hang on my spurs. But until then, it's damn exciting.
[0:42:01] JR: On that note, we promise we're going to bring you an air show, AvTalk mashup at
some point before Jon hangs up his spurs, when the industry gets boring, which, honestly, I
don't think it's going to be tomorrow, but stay tuned for that. Ned, Jon, thanks for joining.
[0:42:17] NR: As always.
[0:42:18] JR: Ian, we'll toss it back to you.
[BREAK]
[0:42:25] IP: Welcome back. Lots of good stuff in Los Angeles. I'm very disappointed that I
couldn't make it out there.
[0:42:32] JR: We missed you. I feel like United could have taken all of the things they
announced today and stretched it out over an entire year and trickled a bunch of that stuff out.
Here's our fancy new 789. Then two months later, here's our 321XLR. Then two months later,
here's our 321 Coastliner. Then two months later, here's our CRJ-450, literally made it up. Didn't
exist before. Not even a real thing, but here it is. Two months later, here's our version of sky
couch. Just a whole bunch of stuff, actually nice to see it all at once and be able to see most of
it in person. Really, really nice event. Happy to see all of it. Unfortunately, the 321s were not
here, because they are still being assembled like a big old Lego in Hamburg. Look forward to
seeing those in the near future.
[0:43:26] IP: I'm excited about some of this stuff. I hope we get to try some of it out in the air
when it takes flight.
[0:43:31] JR: You don't live on a coast though, so you're not going to see the Coastliner much.
[0:43:35] IP: Yeah. Well, there's that.
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[0:43:37] JR: Only 757-300s for you.
[0:43:40] IP: Ooh. And CRJ-450s.
[0:43:42] JR: Yeah, if you want to fly the South Bend, sure.
[0:43:45] IP: Who doesn't?
[0:43:47] JR: Who doesn't? That's true.
[0:43:49] IP: Where's Kalamazoo in the mix?
[0:43:50] JR: Don't forget Gary, Indiana. You need first-class seats to fly Chicago to Gary,
Indiana.
[0:43:58] IP: Oh, boy. Oh, boy. The US FAA and DoT have finalized rules that put into place,
basically, rules that would have prevented the mid-air collision in DCA in January 2025. These
new rules ban the use of visual separation between helicopters and other traffic in high traffic
airspace. So, around airports like DCA, or LaGuardia, or O'Hare. They are now required to use
radar separation in those areas to maintain lateral and vertical separation between those
aircraft. This follows, basically, a safety review by the FAA that began shortly after the DCA
crash and culminated with this new rule that enforces radar separation, rather than visual
separation.
[0:45:10] JR: By visual separation, we mean the classic see and avoid situation, where you are
cleared into an airspace, and although there is ATC monitoring the airspace, it is up to individual
pilots to basically not fly into each other, which in some very busy airspace like LaGuardia, DCA,
or Chicago, it turns out to be quite difficult, because there's just so much traffic and we've seen
that that doesn't always work out so well. This seems to have happened quite suddenly, this rule
being put into. Didn't I see some controversy that it wasn't really expected at exactly the time it
was put out, or did I misread that situation?
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[0:45:50] IP: I'm not exactly sure, but it did come not out of nowhere, I would say, but the
announcement where the timing of it was unexpected. I mean, it wasn't paired with anything
else.
[0:46:03] JR: Yeah. It's definitely going to make movement around very busy airspace like this a
whole lot more difficult, I guess, for helicopter pilots in particular, or VFR traffic, just Sunday joy
riders going along the coasts.
[0:46:19] IP: In one particular example, there is a massive amount of helicopter traffic in Las
Vegas. Not only are there tours above the strip, there are rivals and departures from Grand
Canyon tours, from just general go up and look at the area tours. There have been multiple
occasions now after this rule went into place, where those tours were not able to go into place
because there was not enough ATC staffing to accommodate radar separation of these aircraft.
The helicopters just didn't fly.
[0:47:00] JR: It's a massive change. I don't know off-hand if this impacts the Hudson River
corridor along the Manhattan shoreline, because that is famously, or I think the East River as
well, those are famously sea and devoid visual separation corridors, which are massively busy
between at the higher levels, the approach to LaGuardia. Below that you have the sightseeing
helicopters, below that you have the transportation helicopters flying in and out of the heliports.
You've got VFR traffic just going for a joy ride. You have military aircraft just screwing around,
seeing the sights, doing 360s over the Statue of Liberty, NYPD helicopters, all sorts of things,
taking away that visual separation. There's no way any control airspace like that is going to have
enough controllers to keep all of that guided. Definitely have to take a look to see if there's been
any drop in the traffic over the East River and Hudson River, because, yeah, there's no way that
anyone in control is going to be able to keep track of all of that traffic. It's so much.
[0:48:07] IP: Yeah. I can foresee circumstances beyond Las Vegas, or circumstance that's
already happened, where these aircraft just don't operate anymore, because they don't have
enough airspace. They don't have enough controllers to manage the process now with the new
rules.
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[0:48:26] JR: Yeah. We've talked about this many times, how I absolutely loathe helicopters
over New York City. Not exactly the way I would want to have gotten rid of them. I don't think
that's actually the case, because they’re still very much out there. But yeah, I guess safety first,
but doesn't seem to be the greatest outcome here, does it?
[0:48:47] IP: No. No, it does not. We'll see what comes of this if there are any revisions to the
rules, if there are any further commercial implications, because all of this seems, we're figuring it
out as we go very much so. Speaking of figuring it out as we go, last week, we talked about
massive TSA lines at a number of airports. One of the airports that I drew attention to was
Austin. We had a longtime listener of the show and person we know in real life, Jason, through
Dorkfest, Justin wrote in and said, “Hey, those lines at Austin are not really out of the ordinary.”
Even that –
[0:49:28] JR: I mean, even the ones that go three hours out into the parking lot?
[0:49:32] IP: He said, “Yes, they were much longer.” But the fact that there are lines that go all
the way out into the parking lot are actually not that unusual at Austin.
[0:49:40] JR: Does anything work in Austin? That airport is cursed.
[0:49:45] IP: As it turns out, there were a few more factors beyond the lack of TSA screeners
that go into this. One, the terminal is incredibly poorly designed to accommodate the number of
passengers that currently move through the airport. They're building –
[0:49:59] JR: That tower is old as time.
[0:50:01] IP: Exactly. There were also some events that led to large increases in passengers on
those specific days. Then also, they're missing a whole bunch of TSA agents.
[0:50:14] JR: Yeah. Again, you can't jump to conclusions, just like we talked about last week
from me going through LaGuardia. The lines I saw there, which were massive hours long, had
nothing to do with the TSA callouts. Yeah, don't believe everything you see. There are
shockingly more than one input here, creating the output of long lines.
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[0:50:36] IP: But because airlines are still dealing with the fallout from this, Delta came up with
a very interesting way today to, I think, put a fine point on it, for those who might otherwise not
be impacted by the long lines. They told Congress, “Hey, you're not special anymore.” Here's
what happened. Delta, and I assumed this, but I didn't know it had a name. I assume all airlines
have this, but I didn't know that it had a name and all this good stuff. Delta has a crew at airports
dedicated to making sure that members of Congress can basically skirt the line and get through
security as quickly as possible, get to the gate if they need to, get to wherever they need to go
within the airport. They help them do that.
Delta said, “Hey, because of these long lines, because of the DHS funding, not being in place,
we're dealing with a whole host of things that are creating problems for us. So, we are going to
not provide special services to Congress anymore at the airport. You are now on your own. You
can go stand in line just like everyone else.”
[0:52:02] JR: There's nothing worse than someone special thinking they're special being told,
“You ain't so special anymore. Back in the line.”
[0:52:12] IP: That's true, Jason. What about someone who might not be that special being given
something very special, not because they necessarily earned it or deserve it, but because the
airline has nowhere else to put them?
[0:52:31] JR: Yeah, whoops. What happened here is explicitly forbidden in countries like the
US, but this flight, a Transavia flight from, I believe, Egypt to Amsterdam was oversold.
Transavia flight 6134. Reading this from One Mile at a Time, who read it from view from View
from the Wing, news gets around. Apparently, this flight was oversold. In the US, they would
have voluntarily, or in the worst-case situation, involuntarily denied some boarding, gave some
compensation, gave a hotel room. In this case, this airline was allowed to fly some people in the
jump seat. Not like the jump seat in the cabin. The flight deck jump seats. Apparently, the flight
crew told the audience and said, “Who wants to come sit up front for the entire flight?”
Apparently, a woman and her maybe about 10-year-old child volunteered and ended up sitting
in the cockpit jump seats for the whole flight, which is outstanding. Absolutely outstanding. Why
can't that happen to me?
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[0:53:40] IP: Well, gestures at history.
[0:53:43] JR: Yeah. Everything here.
[0:53:45] IP: Yeah. I mean, it used to be perfectly common for people to visit flight deck all the
time. I mean, as a kid, I remember doing it. 2001, that changes. Now, we've been talking about
the secondary barrier on the flight deck for the past 25 years. Some airlines are starting to fit to
those on in the US. Times change, things change, events happen, and we can't have nice
things.
[0:54:15] JR: In Europe, this is totally fine. You can do this. It's up to the captain's discretion to
allow it or not. In this case, the options were leave people behind, or put them up in the jump
seat, as long as they're not distracting. Yeah, they can fly up front.
[0:54:28] IP: I'm not going to say this was totally fine. It doesn't appear to have broken any
regulations. It appears to –
[0:54:36] NR: It is totally fine.
[0:54:40] IP: All right, fine. We'll leave that there.
[0:54:43] JR: I see what you did there.
[0:54:44] IP: We've talked about Finnair in the past, and how they've had a rough go of it lately.
One of their shining moments has been their non-adoption of the A320neo family aircraft, or
specifically, the Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engines on the A320neo family aircraft,
because they've been completely unaffected by the groundings. They will continue to remain so,
because they have placed a big order for the Embraer E195 E2. They've announced that they're
going to acquire 12 used A320 family aircraft, CEO version.
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[0:55:33] JR: Wait. Used CO. CO air – I guess, there are plenty out there. We'll just talk to
Steve Giordano about where they're getting them from. I wonder which airline they're taking the
320CO scraps from.
[0:55:47] IP: I don't know if we know that yet. Finnair has not said exactly where it is sourcing
the used A320s from, or A320 family, because it would be a combination of A320-200s and
A321-200s. That remains to be seen. However, just the complete and utter lack of want for the
A320neo is just fascinating to me.
[0:56:17] JR: It is fascinating. For an airline the size of Finnair to be still placing orders for the
CO. Who do they think they are? Spirit?
[0:56:29] IP: Maybe that's where they're coming from.
[0:56:31] JR: No, Spirit needs all its COs. They can't afford neos anymore. You know that.
[0:56:36] IP: That's true. That's true. Except for profitable growth opportunities, I think was the
phrase that's been used last time we talked about this.
[0:56:41] JR: Whenever that occurred. Yes. But that is not today.
[0:56:45] IP: This week also marks the occasion of the end of COVID related aircraft
groundings for Air India. After six years, they have finally returned all of the COVID era stored
aircraft to service. 777 VTALL is now back in the air after more than six years on the ground. It
went in for a sea check in February of 2020, and then COVID hit, then they used it for spare
parts. Now, after almost a year in heavy, heavy, heavy maintenance, they've brought the aircraft
back and it re-entered service this week. Good for them. I mean, it was a long time coming. On
the other hand, Jason.
[0:57:38] JR: Oh, it gets worse.
[0:57:40] IP: When you operate aircraft and operate different sub fleets within this particular
airline, you want to ensure that you have the correct permits and permissions to operate that
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aircraft to its destination. That did not happen for Air India this week, when they sent the wrong
777, or tried to send the wrong 777 to Canada. What happened?
[0:58:04] JR: Apparently, they tried sending one of its 777-200LRs. I believe one of the aircraft
it took from Delta when Air India was first transforming itself into something that didn't suck as
badly. It had clearance to operate the 777-300ER, but not the 200LR. On a flight from Delhi to
Vancouver as AI185, reading from the Times of India, it had to turn around, which is just
unfortunately. It was an eight-hour flight to nowhere, I think, give or take?
[0:58:43] IP: That's, I mean, not the longest flight to nowhere we've seen in recent weeks, but –
[0:58:47] JR: Still.
[0:58:49] IP: How do you, I guess, as the pilot, how do you make that announcement?
[0:58:55] JR: Well, folks –
[0:58:56] IP: From [inaudible 0:58:56]. This is the wrong plane.
[0:59:01] JR: It's the darndest thing you –
[0:59:01] IP: Sorry.
[0:59:03] JR: Yeah, won't even believe it. But hey, paperwork is important, and this is not the
first time this has happened. It won't be the last time. Every time we see it, it is just as every bit
as embarrassing as the last time it happened to some other airline. That's rough. But paperwork
is important.
[0:59:22] IP: This is true. We'll close the show with a bit of order news. Aircraft lessor AerCap
has agreed to purchase 100 Airbus A320neo family aircraft. As is tradition now, this is crazy to
me, the A321 for so long was so unloved. Then the A321neo comes around and everyone
wants it. This 100 aircraft order includes 23 A320neos and 77 A321neos with deliveries
beginning in 2028, stretching through 2034. The entire narrowbody fleet's going to be 321neos.
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[1:00:03] JR: Yeah, everyone's really excited about this order, except for Finnair.
[1:00:09] IP: How dare they order neo aircraft? Finnair is just going to be sourcing A320COs
forever.
[1:00:15] JR: But not everyone's that excited about the 321. We've seen a couple of airlines
scrap their orders for the 321s. Agean recently, JetBlue. In general, yeah, I think, the vibe at
United today was very much like, we're taking 8 billion 321neos between now and 2030. Yeah,
popular aircraft. These, apparently, will be delivered 2028 through 2034, to whichever airline out
there is willing to pay the most.
[1:00:45] IP: There you go. Yeah, I mean, the thing about United, I think, that's worth noting is
that, and other airlines still have a ton of orders for the 737-10 just sitting there.
[1:00:57] JR: We don't talk about the 737-10. Actually, coming back to the United event, did not
come up once at all at any point today. It's a paper order at this point, even though the first
737-10 is actually a United painted liveried aircraft, it seems less likely day by day that that
aircraft will ever actually happen, at least for United.
[1:01:24] IP: Delivery's any day now, right?
[1:01:25] JR: Any day now.
[1:01:27] IP: Notification right around the corner. Although, to be fair to Boeing, they do seem to
have their act much, much, much more together lately.
[1:01:36] JR: Yeah. I don't know if it matters at this point. The Coastliner, not to have another
discussion about United at this point, but the Coastliner only exists because United does not
have the 737-10 and has no idea when it will get the 737-10. The 757, as we know,
unfortunately, cannot last forever. It had to do something. Now, we get a 321neo Coastliner.
Love to see it.
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[1:02:03] IP: There you go. All right, on that note, we will hopefully be back next week recording
in a normal time. We'll see what we can do about that. Until then, this has been episode 363 of
AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always with –
[1:02:22] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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