AvTalk Episode 290: Boeing brings the battle axe

AVT 290 Transcript
EPISODE 290
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello, and welcome to episode 290 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Hello, Ian. What's going on?
[0:00:19] IP: A lot. It's been a busy week.
[0:00:22] JR: It's been a busy week, both with the news and work and everything in between.
[0:00:29] IP: Everything in between. There's been so much going on, and we're here to talk
about it.
[0:00:33] JR: It's the fall avalanche of news, and DOT news, and DOT OIG news, and
everything in between. Everything you didn't want to hear during the summer, because you
were just too busy. Now it's happening.
[0:00:47] IP: It is. It is. Okay, we've got a big bit of Boeing news, and we'll start with the fact that
the machinists are still on strike, which is helpful context for what comes next. Boeing
announced late last week that it is laying off 17,000 people, or approximately 10% of its entire
workforce. Along with those, Boeing is throwing a reduction in force, they also announced that
they will continue building and delivering the already ordered 767 freighters, but that program
will sunset in 2027, though KC-46 tanker production will continue.
They also announced, as part of this reduction in force announcement, that the 777 program will
first deliveries should not be expected in 2026. However, that has nothing to do with the current
machinist strike.
[0:01:49] JR: No. Convenient way to break the news that everyone already knows, and every
airline has been saying for a long time. In the words of Jon Ostrower, I think he said, if you're an
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aviation journalist and you are writing that the 777X is delayed into 2026 because of the strike,
basically check out now, because you're done.
[0:02:12] IP: Yeah. No, it's delayed because it hasn't flown since the aircraft was broken. Then
repaired and then flown back to Seattle, and it turned out that all of the 777X thrust links were
either separated or damaged.
[0:02:28] JR: Might have something more to do with it.
[0:02:30] IP: Yeah, and the aircraft has not yet been put back into test flights. That's why it's
delayed. Boeing said, as well as from the flight test pause, which is an interesting way to phrase
it, and ongoing work stoppage, which, okay, no, but nice try. They're delaying the program
timeline. We don't all often talk about defense and space, but Boeing's defense and space
program lost a ton of money this quarter. We can talk about it in the context of the fixed price
contract that they signed up for for the forthcoming, eventually, maybe we'll see eventually –
[0:03:12] JR: Maybe.
[0:03:13] IP: - possibly new Air Force One aircraft. They've lost billions on that in total, but not
just this quarter, but just, they continue to rack up the losses on that particular –
[0:03:25] JR: With no end in sight. We still have no idea when those aircraft are being
delivered, or at least flying for the first time, or powered on for the first time. I don't even think
they've gotten to the point where they've done system testing, let alone ground testing, let alone
flight testing. Forget about delivery of those aircraft. This is just not good.
[0:03:44] IP: I'm fairly certain that one of my kids is going to be old enough to be president by
the time they deliver those aircraft.
[0:03:50] JR: We only elect presidents in their 80s or above, so that's not good, I think.
[0:03:55] IP: There you go.
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[0:03:56] JR: Not good for you.
[0:03:57] IP: What we do know about the layoffs that Boeing is planning is that they will not in
this round affect the machinists who are on strike. It seems if we're reading between the lines
and listening to people who know much more about these things than we do, such as Boeing
beat reporter Dominic Gates at the Seattle Times, that these are targeted layoffs mostly at the
managerial level. One of the stated goals of these layoffs is to flatten the organization. It sounds
like, these will be targeted mostly at white collar workers who are not actually building the
aircraft, but it'll be interesting to see who at Boeing is let go and in what programs. That
information we do not yet have.
[0:04:48] JR: Yeah. To be clear on the 777X part, Boeing didn't explicitly blame the strike on
delaying that program. The actual quote was, “The challenges we have faced in development,
as well as from the flight test pause and ongoing work stoppage will delay our program.” They
did acknowledge that, hey, this program is a mess already. This is just the cherry on top that's
going to announce the delay into 2026. Now, will Boeing actually meet the delivery in 2026?
That's anybody's guess. If you're Tim Clark over at Emirates, you're recommending bankruptcy
for Boeing, apparently, at this point, because you're really pissed off.
[0:05:28] IP: Yeah. Poor Tim Clark. I mean, he's just been Boeing's best customer, or one of
Boeing's best customers for –
[0:05:38] JR: Never.
[0:05:38] IP: - decades, and just can't catch a break. What he said was, because Boeing is also
raising funds this week, attempting to raise something in the neighborhood of 35 billion dollars. I
believe, 10 billion through debt and 25 billion possibly through equity, or at least that's one of the
targets. What Tim Clark said was basically, if they can't raise the money, he doesn't see how
they avoid bankruptcy at this point, which I mean, just wow.
[0:06:10] JR: Didn't expect to have that conversation, which I use the word conversation
because Tim Clark says, the delays have been very costly and the airline will have a “a serious
conversation with Boeing.” He's not the only one to note that they're an airline with a lot of
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Boeing aircraft that they want to no longer operate and have to keep extending the life. I know
we weren't planning on talking about this, but we see Emirates extending the life of
777-300ERs, because the 777X isn't in service.
We have Lufthansa Group saying, “Yeah, we have 40-something airplanes in service that we do
not want to have in service. We were supposed to be replacing them with 787s and newer gen
aircraft. We can't do that.” We're also talking later on, we might as well just bump this up now,
but Lufthansa is ceasing its route to Beijing in part, because it's losing on some operating days
over half a million dollars per operating flight, because it is forced to operate these flights with
outdated aircraft, I assume probably the A330, A340-300 maybe. These were not supposed to
still be in service. They're due something like, 40 or 50 new 787s at this point, which are not
there. This is very much a trickle-down problem here where it's not just the 777X being delayed,
but all of these airlines not being able to take delivery of new aircraft extending the life of their
older aircraft. Again, I guess we might as well bump this up.
[0:07:39] IP: Yeah. We'll skip the order that we have. Let's do this as a package. Yeah.
[0:07:43] JR: Delta is also now retrofitting a part of its 757 fleet. The current international/
premium transcontinental fleet, instead of retiring those and replacing them with 737 MAX 10
and A320neo, so this is also on the Airbus side. Delta now has to retrofit its very elderly 757s
and fly them, presumably forever, because we don't know when the MAX 10 will enter service.
This is very much an industry problem, not just Boeing, not just Airbus, not just the Tim Clark,
loudest guy in the room problem, but very much widespread.
[0:08:23] IP: Yeah. I mean, we also have – I mean, we can continue talking a bit about it on the
Airbus side. We've got Malaysia Airlines saying they're “deeply disappointed that their A330neos
are late. Waiting for those consistently.” United says, it now expects its first A321XLR in January
of 2026. This one is rather interesting to me, because it hits on supply chain issues throughout
the industry, but also the fact that airplanes use consumable resources and need to be
maintained. BA, this came from a podcast listener. The story itself is that BA is canceling certain
flights, because of issues with the Rolls-Royce Trent engines. But the flights that they're
canceling aren't necessarily just those that are supposed to be operated by the 787, which is
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powered by the Rolls-Royce Trent engine. I'm going to read a portion of an email that a podcast
listener sent in that they received from British Airways regarding their flight.
This was an email that said, “Your flight is canceled, but here we're detailing some earlier
changes to your travel plans.” “Unfortunately, Rolls-Royce, our engine supplier for our fleet of
Boeing 787 aircraft is experiencing challenges resulting in the late delivery of its Trent 1000
engines. This means that we currently have 787 aircraft on the ground that are unable to fly.”
Then in the next paragraph, it says, “Unfortunately, the impact extends beyond our 787 aircraft.
For the last few months, we've been using standby aircraft from our 777 fleet to avoid
cancellations by switching flights that would have been operated by some of our unavailable
787s.”
Now I'm paraphrasing. The increased usage of the 777s that weren't supposed to be used as
much because the 787s are on the ground now mean that these 777s need to go in for heavy
maintenance and those are unavailable. Now they're canceling flights. Band aid after band aid
after band aid, and now they're canceling more flights. I mean, it's –
[0:10:23] JR: What's old is new again, for the entire lifespan of the 787 in service. We've seen
this where there's some issue taking them out of service, whether it's the late delivery of the
aircraft, the battery fire, the engines, whatever. It has not been the most widely available when
you need it aircraft, but it's interesting to see that BA is just outright having to cancel aircraft,
because the backup plan it has of putting the 777s in those slots is not that going well. But there
are airlines out there that you can call upon to borrow aircraft from.
[0:11:00] IP: This is why we do the podcast, because we have to transition into this story. This is
not in the show notes, by the way.
[0:11:08] JR: No.
[0:11:08] IP: This is not in the show notes, but this is exactly where I wanted to go.
[0:11:12] JR: Yeah. Hi Fly, the, I believe the Maltese charter specialist has just taken delivery of
two new A330s this very week. You don't want to be on them.
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[0:11:22] IP: Portuguese by people, Maltese by AOC.
[0:11:27] JR: Yeah, they're all over the place. It's very fascinating. But they just took delivery of
two new A330, I think 300s. One of them is the –
[0:11:34] IP: 200s.
[0:11:35] JR: Man, 200s. I was so close. 50-50 shot. But one of them is in the extremely high
density, 333 layout. The other is not, but neither of them have interiors you really want to be a
part of. I would understand why BA might not want those. In other interesting charter airline
news, Wamos Airline has a new owner, and who owns them now?
[0:11:57] IP: They are now part of the Opera Group, which is –
[0:12:01] JR: Who?
[0:12:02] IP: Exactly. The Opera Group was formed by the shareholders of Gohl and Avianca to
be the parent company of both airlines. Wamos was their first strategic investment, the parent
company's first strategic investment, and now their first acquisition. This week, officially, Wamos
is now part of The Opera Group.
[0:12:26] JR: Which has an interesting callback to whatever episode number would have
occurred after July 24th, when we saw the news from Airbus that Abra group had signed an
MOU for five A350-900s going, “Huh. Well, they're probably not going to go into service for
Avianca or Gohl. They're probably going to Wamos.”
[0:12:46] IP: Yeah. That'll be interesting to see what comes of those and who they end up
operating for. I think that'll be the –
[0:12:53] JR: Yeah. You might think, wow, that's weird. That's such a specific aircraft, an A350
operating for a charter airline like that. Never forget that Hi Fly operated the A380. That's
probably as weird as it will ever get, but it happened.
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[0:13:08] IP: Yeah, that's about as good as it gets. I'm just going back to the Hi Fly A330s that
they picked up this week, and they have some fantastic pedigree. We've got –
[0:13:16] JR: Oh, they're one of those that could never find a permanent home.
[0:13:20] IP: I mean, pretty much. They bounced around. Well, they were with a couple of
airlines for quite some time. We've got what is now 9HAF, HFL, MSN 1002. That started. It was
not taken up by Air Comet.
[0:13:37] JR: Who?
[0:13:38] IP: Exactly.
[0:13:39] JR: Okay.
[0:13:40] IP: A Spanish airline. Then it flew for, oh, man, this one's good. It went to Arik Air.
[0:13:45] JR: Oh. Wait, what's the reg of when it was operated for Arik Air, because I've
probably seen this?
[0:13:51] IP: 5NEIA.
[0:13:56] JR: Not familiar.
[0:13:57] IP: And 5NBNA. It bounced around from based on –
[0:14:01] JR: That's the Nigerian airline.
[0:14:03] IP: Yes. This was the one that was impounded in – where was it impounded?
Johannesburg.
[0:14:09] JR: For a long time, I think, right?
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[0:14:12] IP: Yeah. For almost a year. Then it went to Royal Jordanian. Then it went to
Nordwind, which is where you get the dense configuration and then it's been in storage ever
since. The other one was originally a TAM, then it went to Atlas Global, then it went to Maleth
Aero, where it was doing Prater flights during COVID. Then it was with Saudi Arabian Airlines for
Hajj service, back to Maleth Aero. Now it's with Hi Fly Malta. Just the life of an A330 is just, it
never stops, Jason.
[0:14:47] JR: No, no. Very interesting business. I think actually, speaking of Arik Air, one of the
Hi Fly A340-500s, I think is still since 2015 stuck in Lagos, Nigeria.
[0:15:00] IP: And will be forever.
[0:15:02] JR: Yeah. Rest in peace.
[0:15:04] IP: Speaking of rest in peace, or do we want to go back to –
[0:15:07] JR: I don’t know where we’re going. We’re completely out of order now. You go
wherever your heart takes you.
[0:15:12] IP: Okay. Let's do the transition. Speaking of resting in peace, or resting in pieces, the
Ural Airlines A320 that landed in a field because the pilots forgot that gear was down, and so
they used a whole bunch more fuel than they thought they were using. Well, they dismantled it.
Or are in the process of dismantling it.
[0:15:35] JR: We knew it was going to happen.
[0:15:36] IP: The engines are off, the hydraulics around.
[0:15:37] JR: Disappointing.
[0:15:39] IP: It was a one in a million shot that they were going to let the frost freeze the field
and then fly it. Man, that would have been amazing.
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[0:15:47] JR: Too bad. We're all looking forward.
[0:15:48] IP: That would have been amazing. Oh, well. All right, let's talk about – well, we are
well out of sequence here. Let's talk about the US Department of Transportation's Office of
Inspector General's report that came out late last week. That is the final report of an audit that
was requested by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and its subcommittee
on aviation and the Senate Commerce Science and Transportation Committee. This request
was backrounded by gesturing wildly, everything that has happened since late 2018. What the
audit found was that the FAA's oversight of Boeing is weak and limits their ability to identify and
resolve production issues with the manufacturer.
Among other thing is the FAA does not use data-driven assessments to target the audits and the
FAA hasn't structured its audits to perform comprehensive assessments. They have not
adequately ensured that Boeing and its suppliers can produce parts that conform to the
approved design, which seems like step one in any regulatory environment.
[0:17:09] JR: Yeah.
[0:17:10] IP: FAA's compliance system cannot track milestones, or determine whether potential
repetitive non-compliances have occurred. The FAA cannot assess the effectiveness of Boeing
safety management system. The FAA has not established criteria to return delegated authority
to Boeing's organization designation authorization, which is where Boeing can certify that the
aircraft is airworthy. They can issue the airworthiness certification.
They also talked about Boeing's undue pressure on people who work for Boeing reporting
instances and infractions that should be reported to the FAA. The FAA's review process of those
procedures have delayed the FAA's ability to resolve allegations of undue pressure reported by
Boeing. Lastly, despite the FAA organizational changes to improve oversight, FAA managers did
not know about the investigations of ongoing undue pressure allegations when they initiated a
request to expand the authorized functions of Boeing's ODA. Basically, it's not clear that anyone
who's doing anything knows what anyone who's doing anything else is doing.
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[0:18:24] JR: Yeah. It's really unclear what exactly the FAA, what their role is here with Boeing.
Boeing's supposed to be left to its own devices, without any real meaningful oversight from the
FAA. It's good that the OIG is explicitly calling out this fact that it's becoming less and less clear
what exactly it is the FAA does when it comes to things like aircraft certification and oversight of
Boeing, because it appears to be not a whole lot. The OIG laid out 16 recommendations. I don't
think we're going to run through all of them, but –
[0:18:58] IP: We will definitely put a link in the show notes, so that you can run through them at
your leisure.
[0:19:02] JR: Yes. All 42 pages. But they range from developing and implementing inspector
guidance on how to assess risk within the Boeing manufacturing facilities to establishing
procedures to periodically evaluating Boeing safety management system, including how it
interfaces with Boeing's existing quality systems. These are very basic things that appear to not
be happening with the FAA, or maybe the FAA thinks they're happening, but they're not.
[0:19:30] IP: I think that that is one of my takeaways, where it's not that the FAA is not doing
anything. It's that they're all doing something and nothing's really getting done.
[0:19:45] JR: Yeah. That's what the conclusion, part of the conclusion from the OIG states is
that the FAA has tried to enhance its oversight of Boeing through increased audits and
organizational restructuring intended to improve collaboration among FAA groups overseeing
Boeing. However, the agency has yet to move from a reactive approach focused on addressing
individual manufacturing issues to a more proactive data-driven model to identify and address
risk with Boeing's manufacturing process at all levels, nor has it demonstrated inability to
resolve allegations of undue pressure on Boeing employees acting on the FAA's behalf, and you
mentioned that.
Basically, the OIG is saying, the FAA is so hyper-focused on individual defects and individual
items that it is not seeing the bigger picture of the deficiencies at Boeing. That it's so focused on
the little things that it can't see the bigger picture of what is going on at Boeing. What do we
have to do to fix the machine, rather than the little part, the little symptom? You need to cure the
disease, not the symptom. I think that's exactly what the OIG is calling out.
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[0:20:56] IP: Yeah. I think the full report is, I mean, if you're listening to the podcast, there's a
decent chance that the full report is worth reading for you. We hope it is, because it's a rather
illuminating examination of what the FAA's role is and what the FAA's role should be. Worth
reading and definitely check out the link in the show notes for the full report. This week, multiple
Indian airlines were subject to hoax bomb threats, which is –
[0:21:28] JR: Don't do that.
[0:21:29] IP: Yeah. I mean, a variety of bad. But one particular flight, Air India's flight from Delhi
to Chicago was threatened, or the threat was received while it was very, very far north. They
diverted to Iqaluit in northern Canada, which is not unusual for flights that are traveling those
long distances near the polar region. Iqaluit’s a perfect diversion place for all sorts of airlines,
including the Swiss 777 that needed an engine change. All sorts of airlines have diverted there
for a variety of reasons. The interesting thing here was instead of sending a new plane, or a
new crew, or anything like that, the Canadian government used one of its A330 MRTTs to bring
the passengers to Chicago.
[0:22:25] JR: That's an unexpected twist.
[0:22:27] IP: That's what I said. I don't think we've ever seen that before.
[0:22:29] JR: No. I'm surprised the MRTT had enough seats onboard to absorb the entirety of
an Air India, what was it? A 777-300?
[0:22:39] IP: 200.
[0:22:39] JR: 200. Interesting. We don't get those here. I guess, that is a good fit. What was the
deal in Canada? They just were able to do a sweep of the aircraft to confirm it's a hoax. Should
they just put everyone on another plane?
[0:22:54] IP: I'm not sure exactly what happened, or why they settled on this particular solution.
I'm hoping for more details, either from the airline, or from the Canadians. Because it's a rather
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interesting turn of events. It got the passengers where they needed to be much more quickly
than they otherwise would have.
[0:23:14] JR: 211 passengers and crew, by the way, so that's easily absorbable by an A330
MRTT like that. Apparently, it determined a rapid relocation of an RCAF aircraft to bring the
passengers to their original destination, not in Canada. And Chicago was the best way forward
for all passengers, because the local area, they can't absorb that many passengers overnight.
There are no hotels for that. It would be very difficult to get all those people meals and
everything else they need. Yeah, it's very odd that they couldn't do, okay, it says – I'm reading
from an MSN article from – Actually, no. It's a CBC article reprinted on MSN. They were – oh,
man. Where did it go? I just had it. Come on. I scrolled up to see the source of the actual article.
Now –
[0:24:04] IP: How dare you, sir?
[0:24:05] JR: I know that. Now I can't find it. Well, it seems like, people were very upset with Air
India for zero communication. “They abandoned us here and left,” they said. It was basically,
Canada wanted them out of there. They didn't want to have 200 something people in a city that
simply can't support it. I understand that.
[0:24:24] IP: Yeah.
[0:24:26] JR: Yeah. Oh, here it is. I found it. The Indian airplane wasn’t checked for bombs,
because they don't have the explosive detective units, according to the RCMP in that region as
suspected. They probably don't deal with that that often in that region. That makes sense. Man,
a foreign Air Force delivering passengers to an airport that is neither the origin, or destination.
That's a different take.
[0:24:52] IP: Yeah. We'll go with it.
[0:24:53] JR: They’re so friendly up there.
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[0:24:55] IP: This is also a bizarre story. This one comes to us via a media request that we
received. They said, “Hey, do you have a flight path for this aircraft?” I said, “Yeah, what's going
on?” They said, “Oh, the captain locked the first officer out of the flight deck.” I said –
[0:25:12] JR: That's not good.
[0:25:15] IP: What happened is the investigation –
[0:25:17] JR: Allegedly. Allegedly happened.
[0:25:19] IP: The investigation is looking into whether how much of this is true. Allegedly, the
captain became upset with the first officer after the first officer left the flight deck for a restroom
break and did not arrange with the relief pilot to come onto the flight deck to make sure that
there were always two people up there. So, in response, locked the first officer out.
[0:25:48] JR: Well, that doesn't make any sense at all. No. If you're upset that the co-pilot left
the flight deck without arranging relief pilot, locking them out permanently off the flight deck and
leaving yourself in their loan is very counterintuitive.
[0:26:05] IP: Yet. Hopefully, we learn more in the investigation.
[0:26:09] JR: Apparently, the cabin crew had to persuade the captain over the intercom to let
the first officer back in the seat of the aircraft. Yeah, that's not great.
[0:26:18] IP: I don't even know what to say beyond that. But there's an investigation that's
ongoing. We'll see if we learn more. Hey, let's talk about some good news. It's official that the Air
Canada pilots have ratified their contract. They now have a four-year contract in place and
everybody's happy.
[0:26:36] JR: All right. We'll never deal with it again.
[0:26:40] IP: I mean, I'm setting my watch for four years from now.
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[0:26:42] JR: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. Who's next? I think it's the United flight attendance
possibly?
[0:26:48] IP:  Somebody.
[0:26:50] JR: There’s always another group.
[0:26:51] IP: Somebody. Right now, we're going to talk about Washington DC.
[0:26:56] JR: And news that came out mere moments before we recorded, which is highly
unusual and suspect.
[0:27:02] IP: Good job us. Jason, what do we have for the DC slot awards?
[0:27:08] JR: The DCA slot allocation, if you recall, we talked about this a while ago. DCA in
close to Washington DC, but still not DC is slot controlled. More importantly, it is also perimeter
limited. Flights cannot go beyond a certain distance without an exemption, which there are a
number of. The DOT awarded five new slot awards that go beyond the perimeter. They are, I
feel like, we need a drum roll. Do you have a drum roll sound effect for me? No? No. Okay. I’ll
just wing it off.
[0:27:43] IP: Wait.
[0:27:45] JR: That's not the right –
[0:27:46] IP: Not a drum roll.
[0:27:47] JR: - sound. That's not a drum roll at all, but I'll take it.
[0:27:49] IP: Hold on. Wait. I can do something after. Okay, give me the first one.
[0:27:52] JR: American Airlines to San Antonio. All right. I'll take that, too. Alaska Airlines to San
Diego. Do you have another one?
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[0:28:04] IP: That's all I got. Do we really want to subject the listeners to this again?
[0:28:08] JR: No. Delta to Seattle. Southwest to Las Vegas, and United to San Francisco, which
is actually a second daily flight for United on that route. Those are preliminary. I'm sure they will
all be awarded permanently and operated by these airlines. That shuts out, I think, JetBlue and
Spirit who wanted to operate additional flights to San Juan. They were eliminated for some
reason. Doesn't really matter why. American, Alaska, Delta, Southwest and United will be
operating outside beyond the perimeter flights from DCA. I hate that the perimeter rule is still a
thing, but I get it, I guess. Hey, more exemptions. The better, I wish we could have such a thing
here in New York at LaGuardia, which also has not just a lot of restrictions, but also the
perimeter rule.
[0:28:59] IP: So many rules. So many rules.
[0:29:01] JR: Too many.
[0:29:02] IP: Well, good luck to them. This story is one of those where the names matter, but
not really. Because we're talking about Iranian Airlines. I'm fairly certain that if you need a plane
painted and you need it done fast, you should have it done in Iran. Because I have seen planes
go through registrations, like three registrations and three liveries in a week. I'm exaggerating,
but not really. They cycle through them all the time. This decision by the European Union to
impose additional sanctions on certain airlines, okay, but why stop there? We've got Iran Air,
Mahan Air, and Saha Airlines.
Iran Air is government owned. Mahan Air is government owned-ish, and Saha Airlines is owned
by the military. These airlines are being further sanctioned. They were already under sanctions.
Now, they're including more sanctions, because of missile transfers between Iran and Russia.
Or missiles and drones, I should say.
[0:30:19] JR: Yeah. This is for the entire European Union. Whereas, previously, we had
discussed they were under some sanctions by, I think, the UK and maybe Germany. This is the
EU as a whole at this point.
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[0:30:31] JR: Yeah. Further sanctions. Though, as we've seen in the past, those don't seem to
make a difference to airlines within Iran. They somehow managed to continue to acquire aircraft
and aircraft parts. I think it was only a few months ago where a couple of A340s that had been in
Uzbekistan were on their way “to Uzbekistan,” had to divert in Iran.
[0:31:00] JR: The old devotion acquisition.
[0:31:03] IP: Yeah.
[0:31:03] JR: Finders keepers, I believe.
[0:31:05] IP: Exactly.
[0:31:07] JR: You landed in Iran, so we're just going to take these now, which is always the
plan.
[0:31:10] IP: These are ours. Yeah. Not a huge deal. But interesting to see that they're adding
new sanctions. We don't talk about Air Peace enough, I don't think. Because I think they have
one of the best laser American gladiator themed liveries since ever.
[0:31:32] JR: It's on 737. Are they classics? Or are they NGs? I'm not even sure, but they look
nice.
[0:31:38] IP: And a 777.
[0:31:39] JR: Oh.
[0:31:41] IP: Yeah. I mean, if American Gladiators, if the early – late 1980s version of American
Gladiators was going to run an airline, this is the livery you would have. But that's not what we're
talking about. What we are talking about is that the cover up is always worse than the crime,
Jason.
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[0:31:59] JR:  Ah. Well, what are you talking about? There'd never be any cover up, or any
misdeed with a Nigerian airline. Come on.
[0:32:08] IP: What could possibly go wrong here? The founder and chief executive of Air Peace,
Allen Onyema has been indicted by the US not for a crime that he allegedly committed, but for
filing false documentation intended to stop investigators looking into a previous crime.
[0:32:33] JR: Hmm. That's an interesting twist.
[0:32:35] IP: He had been charged with a long list of financial crimes a few years ago. He was
trying to say, “No, no, no. I didn't do this. I did not commit these crimes.” Now, he's charged with
fraud for giving false documentation in the financial crime investigation.
[0:32:53] JR: Yes. A false documentation was to actually purchase five Boeing 737s from a
Georgia, the state, not the country, registered business called Springfield Aviation Company,
which apparently, he owned, but not the aircraft. The whole thing is really quite twisted and
interesting. They probably had a hell of a time detangling this web. But always fun when it's the
cover up that gets you taken down, not the crime itself.
[0:33:21] IP: Yeah. I mean, just a circle of financial dealings, basically, between the people
running the airline and the people running the organizations, supposedly not associated with the
airline, but in fact, associated with the people running the airline. Not great. For his part, he says
that these are mere allegations at the moment, and there –
[0:33:45] JR: The airline continues to operate as it ever does.
[0:33:48] IP: There you go. Now we have two bits of extremely important news. Which is to say,
all right, the ARJ21, which was the Chinese domestic version of the DC 9-ish is now the C909,
Jason.
[0:34:11] JR: Okay.
[0:34:12] IP: They've rebranded.
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[0:34:13] JR: That's all we have in the show notes. It's just, okay, period. Yeah, I get. I don't like
it.
[0:34:19] IP: We knew it was coming.
[0:34:20] JR: I understand that they want to incorporate it into the family of aircraft, that is the
current C919 in service and the future widebody C929, you roll it into the family. I liked that they
had the ARJ21 off and its own thing with its own naming convention as a beta product. This isn't
the real thing. You don't want this. Let's not include it in the family name. It's like, if you had the
A318, 19, 20, and then over there, you had the Airbus Q2871, or something like that. Like, it’s
over there. Don’t pay attention to it. It was what we were tinkering with when we were getting a
real family line, the A320 in order. Yeah, I get it. It makes marketing sense. But the ARJ21 is not
an aircraft, I think, that it is going to be successful because they rebrand it to the 909.
[0:35:10] IP: No. It's going to be successful, because airlines are told that they need to
purchase that if they want to purchase a C919 as well.
[0:35:18] JR: Interesting.
[0:35:19] IP: Good luck. The undisclosed order that we teased last week that we said could
possibly be Riyadh Air. Bloomberg, I believe, was the first to report that no, it is in fact Air India's
order, though that has not yet been confirmed. Air India would in fact make sense for such a
large order from Airbus, though neither side has said anything at the moment. That's after we
talked about the possibility of Airbus building a final assembly line in India, or reviving that
conversation with Airbus CEO, Guillaume Faury in India last week. I thought they would have
said something, but they didn’t.
[0:36:00] JR: Yeah. Maybe they're planning a big reveal of some sort.
[0:36:03] IP: Maybe. To cap it off, we want to thank everyone who wrote in, either emailed us, or
sent us notes on social media about Jason's pronunciation of an Australian city last week.
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AVT 290 Transcript
Thank you to our Australian listeners who helped us out. Jason, do you want to give it another
go?
[0:36:23] JR: I guess, if I must, I think it is Maroochydore. Is that right? Did I get it this time?
[0:36:29] IP: I think that's as close as we're going to get.
[0:36:30] JR: I think so. I swear, Wikipedia used to have a thing where you press a button and it
recites text to you. I can't find that.
[0:36:37] IP: For some, they did, but I don't know if they have it for this one. Either way, thank
you to all of our Australian listeners. We appreciate it. If you have anything about this episode
where we pronounced it wrong, we didn't cover something you wanted us to talk about. We
covered something you didn't want us to talk about, or you have suggestions for future
episodes, or you just must say, “Hi, how you doing?” Email us at podcast@fr24.com. While
you've got the computer open, or your phone up, why don't you go ahead and leave us a rating
or a review for the podcast, because that helps other people find the show, and we appreciate
that ever so much. This has been Episode 290 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:37:20] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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