AvTalk Episode 258: With respect to documentation

AVT 258 Transcript
EPISODE 258
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello and welcome to episode 258 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. We’re back again. How are you, Ian?
[0:00:20] IP: I'm great, Jason. It's hotdog week.
[0:00:22] JR: It is hotdog week. It will be hotdog Saturday coming up soon, and to –
[0:00:26] IP: Hotdog Saturday.
[0:00:27] JR: - a lot of people listening that might not mean anything and it shouldn't mean
anything.
[0:00:32] IP: For long-time listeners, they'll know what it means. But if you're just tuning in,
Jason and I often travel to our respective cities. Actually, you know what? Episode 258 is a
decent time. I'm springing this on Jason, so forgive me, Jason. It's a decent time to welcome
new listeners and give a bit of a background. If you're a long-time listener, if you listen to the
show for many, many episodes, this is all information you know. But if you're new to the podcast,
which you very well may be after everything that has happened already this year, I think we've
welcomed quite a bit of new listenership for perhaps not great reasons they started listening to
the podcast, or not good news that they started listening to the podcast. But welcome,
nonetheless, and we hope you're enjoying this show.
Just by way of introduction and just going over who we are and why we do this podcast, I am
flightradar24's communications director. This is what I live and breathe, aviation, staring at
planes on a screen, whether it's on a website, or in the app and talking about flightradar24
specifically, aviation generally. If you've met me in person, it's probably been at some aviation
themed event. You may have said, “Hey, I've got a question about flightradar24,” and then
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apologized for that, and I don't know why, because this is literally my job and I love doing it.
Jason has a real job.
[0:02:00] JR: I do. I'm not going to tell you what it is. But talking about airplanes on this podcast
that we don't charge anyone for, and talking about it on Twitter doesn't pay the bills. But I do
have a real job. That's on a need-to-know basis though.
[0:02:15] IP: That pays enough of your bills, so that we can travel to each other from time to
time. I'm based in Chicago. Jason's based in New York. This weekend, Jason's going to come
for hotdog.
[0:02:25] JR: That's right. The annual hotdog pilgrimage. I do it as cheaply as possible,
typically. I'm very happy that Spirit is back in the mix. They have been out of the New York-
Chicago market for quite a while. The flight actually just resumed today, I think, which is great
news for me. $42 out to Chicago and then I'm flying back on an ever-decreasingly expensive
United flight back to New York, so I'm excited about that. With all the vouchers I've accumulated
from United, lowering my fare, I'm going to buy a lot of extra hotdogs.
[0:03:00] IP: Sounds like a plan.
[0:03:02] JR: It's a great plan.
[0:03:02] IP: We'll bring listeners the update next week, I guess, on how many hotdogs were
actually consumed. Speaking of Spirit Airlines, may this be the last time we ever discuss this
giant waste of everyone's time.
[0:03:21] JR: I don't know. I feel like, we haven't heard the last of this, but this certainly feels
like the end.
[0:03:26] IP: Oh, don't say things like that.
[0:03:28] JR: There's always more. Come on.
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[0:03:29] IP: There's always more. Okay. Well, then let this be the last time we talk about it for a
while. I refer to JetBlue and Spirit deciding, realizing, finally understanding that this merger is
not going to happen, and announcing that they have decided to part ways after spending an
ungodly amount of money. I think, Ned Russell put the figure at somewhere north of half a billion
dollars. Not on the merger, just to get the merger going, which is, I mean, just incredible to me.
They've said, “Nah, we're done.” What they said was, “Given the conditions that we would have
to meet in order to successfully complete the merger, we do not believe that we can do those
things in time for the time defined merger agreement that we agreed to back in 2022, before that
runs out.” They said, “We're just going to walk away.”
[0:04:31] JR: Yeah. That was a self-imposed deadline. I think it was in June of this year
upcoming that they had set in the terms, “If we can't get the deal done by this date, we're not
going to do the deal.” It became increasingly evident that at any appeal they would have to go
through the US court system, it just wasn't going to happen before that time. There was just no
chance that was going to happen. Now that JetBlue has new leadership at the very top of the
chain, it seemed like there is no appetite to pursue this any further, which is the smart move.
They seem to have finally realized that this was a gigantic money pit, waste of time. It wasn't
going to work, at least under the current administration here in the US.
The timing just wasn't right. Now everyone has realized, wow, maybe we should take a step
back and maybe we're overpaying for Spirit. Maybe it was a good thing that the DOJ won this
argument, because I can't imagine JetBlue successfully gobbling up Spirit and this being a
positive outcome, knowing everything we now know.
[0:05:33] IP: I mean, forget everything we now know, the conversation never changed.
[0:05:39] JR: It never made sense. But the longer time went on, the more it didn't make sense. I
mean, you have –
[0:05:45] IP: Yeah. We just added to the reasons that this wasn’t happening.
[0:05:49] JR: Exactly. It was never a particularly good idea. Also, remember, JetBlue was
originally in a bidding war with Frontier for Spirit. They ended up inflating the price tag for Spirit
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by nearly a billion dollars, from my 2.9 to 3.8 billion dollars on the table. That is an astronomical
amount to add on to what Frontier was originally offering. I don't know how JetBlue was ever
going to afford that and then afford to absorb all of that operation and then afford to refurbish all
of Spirit's aircraft into JetBlue's specs, when it barely managed to do that to its own fleet. It took
more than half a decade to do that to its own fleet. I don't know what they were really thinking.
But the leadership that set them down this path is no longer in that position.
A new, not fresh, not really new, but refreshed leadership at the top since Joanna Geraghty is
not new to the airline, nor is Marty St. George, who becomes, also, once again, senior
leadership, but it's back to basics for JetBlue. For Spirit, that's a lot less clear.
[0:07:01] IP: Yeah. I called this a giant waste of everyone's time introducing the segment. I
stand by that. I mean, to a T, I cannot think of anyone who was like, “This is a great idea.”
[0:07:16] JR: Lawyers.
[0:07:16] IP: And who made that argument publicly.
[0:07:19] JR: I mean, pretty much just the lawyers who knew this wasn't going to work and
there was – I mean, they're the only ones that ever stand to gain anything from something like
this. Yeah, Spirit is in a really bad position at this point. It's got no partner. It's got no real
strategy to turn it around and make a profit. It's got a ridiculous number of aircraft grounded,
because of the Pratt & Whitney GTF issue. It has a nearly insurmountable amount of debt that
matures next year, more than the, I think, the market worth of Spirit itself.
[0:07:52] IP: Yeah, not great.
[0:07:54] JR: Yeah. Spirit is in a dire position here. I hope they have a plan, because the one
where they get gobbled up by another airline doesn't seem to – at least at this point, be a reality.
[0:08:04] IP: Yeah. It's going to be rough going for Spirit. They seem to be working towards a
plan. At the moment, I don't quite see it yet.
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[0:08:15] JR: I don't know. The plan is to get me to Chicago for a hotdog on Saturday. Beyond
that, I got nothing.
[0:08:21] IP: Yeah. As long as they're around for Saturday morning, then we're fine.
[0:08:24] JR: Yup.
[0:08:25] IP: Okay. We teased this, I think, last episode where we looked at American Airlines
hosting its first investor day in seven years. Okay. And then a big aircraft order. They came
through. They came through with 260 orders for narrow body jets, but between the 737 MAX
and the A320neo family. There was much made about the order for the 737-10 MAX. I like Ned
very much. He's a very good friend –
[0:09:05] JR: Go on.
[0:09:05] IP: - but I think – He was the first tweet I read, where it was called a vote of
conference. I apologize if I jumped on that. I didn't mean to jump on that. My take on this was it's
less a vote of confidence for the 737-10. American doesn't actually want these planes that
quickly. They said, “Okay. Well, why not take them if we can get them for,” I don't know what
Boeing is selling the MAX-10 for these days. But if you order a whole bunch of them, I bet you
could probably just pay a dollar, $2? Maybe $3? I don't know.
[0:09:41] JR: No money down. I don't know.
[0:09:44] IP: We're definitely in the no money down, zero percent financing area.
[0:09:46] JR: No credit, no problem.
[0:09:48] IP: With the MAX 10. The thing I wanted to talk about is, I mean, first of all, the orders
still split. That, again, less a vote of confidence and more a reality. This thing, to me, is very
interesting. I started looking at this a different way, because Gavin Werbeloff, our resident
numbers expert, flagged this for me. He penned a piece over on Aaron's site about this.
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Basically, this aircraft order was not so much an aircraft order, as Americans saying, “We'll buy
more planes, as long as you don't make us take the ones that we already ordered soon.”
[0:10:29] JR: Okay. It's a deferral with a bunch of added on top, on the back half, I guess?
[0:10:36] IP: Exactly. Gavin flagged the 10K that American filed. They had 20 737 MAX family
scheduled to be delivered this year, 33 scheduled to be delivered next year, and 21 scheduled
to be delivered in 2026. I'm still getting used to the fact that it's 2024. After the order, American
issued an 8K, which is an update to financial statements, and saying, it now has 20 737 MAX
family aircraft due to be delivered this year. It more than halves next year's order book from 33
to 14. Again, more than halves 2026 order book from 21 down to 10. It also takes down its
A320neo family commitments, stays at three for this year, drops it from 21 to 16 next year, and
then 35 to 21 in 2026.
[0:11:33] JR: What's most interesting, I think, is what happens, again, theoretically, in 2027,
where American is projecting taking zero 737 family aircraft, a big donut, and only up to 31
A320neo family aircraft. Its highest point of taking on 320 families is its lowest point, which is
zero of the MAX. Very interesting to see a year sandwiched between 10 deliveries and 20
deliveries of just taking nothing from the 73 family. It goes on, Americans fleet outlook is really
stacked into the hypothetical down the line future, because it goes all the way out to the 2029
and thereafter column, where they have 64 320neo family and 95 737 MAX family aircraft. I
would put those more in the hypothetical they're on the order book. We want them now, but
things change. Maybe we don't want them. We don't want them now, but maybe later.
[0:12:38] IP: Yeah. We definitely don't want them now. I mean, 95 airplanes in a year is just
under two per week.
[0:12:45] JR: Well, that's 2029 and thereafter. We don't know what that stretches to. That could
be two years. That could be two years.
[0:12:53] IP: 2029 to 2039, 49, whatever.
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[0:12:55] JR: We don't know, but that's the complicated bit of this. What's crazy is that airlines
have to plan 10 years ahead of time for what aircraft they want to take, when they don't know
the market realities of what happens 10 years from now. It's going to change and change and
change and change before that. It's a real indication that American just, they probably want
these aircraft and they got to put their orders in now, but they have no need for them, at least in
that quantity now.
[0:13:22] IP: They want aircraft, not necessarily these aircraft.
[0:13:27] JR: Well, you know what they do want and we didn't mention this. The order was 85
321neo, 85 737 MAX 10, 90 E175s and –
[0:13:39] IP: Indeed.
[0:13:39] JR: - listener, I would forgive you for thinking that would be the E175 E2. But no, that
is not the case. It is the now long in the tooth, regular, I guess, E1. I don't think it's marketed as
that. Just the OG E175. Again, American is intending to take these to 2029 and thereafter. The
column says 30, so I would assume this is at least through 2030, American will be taking
delivery of a lot of E175s. Earlier this week on Twitter, I called the E175 the cockroach of
modern aircraft. I meant that not in a derogatory way, but in a –
[0:14:21] IP: You can't kill it.
[0:14:22] JR: You can't kill it. It won't die.
[0:14:24] IP: Can’t get rid of it.
[0:14:24] JR: Not that it's a bad aircraft. It's a good aircraft. I love it. I will almost always seek
out an E175 over many of the other –
[0:14:31] IP: Oh, yeah. It's a wonderful plane to fly on.
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[0:14:33] JR: Great airplane. Everyone I know that's flown the aircraft loves flying it. It is just
remarkable that an aircraft that first flew in 2004 will still be being manufactured and delivered to
a major airline like American well into the 2030s. It's disappointing that they will not be taking the
E175 E2, or any of the American airlines. Not just American airline, but any of the US-based
airlines are still not taking any of the re-engined Embraer aircraft, because of contractual issues
with their union and this and that. The aircraft is too heavy, too long, blah, blah, blah. It's just, it's
amazing that the aircraft will continue to be in operation probably through the 2040s, which is, I
mean, that's something that's really only reserved for the 737 at this point.
Every other narrowbody has been re-engined, or significantly overhauled at some point that the
73 through its lifespan went from the classic to the NG, to the MAX. The 320 series has the CO
and the Neo that the Embraer is just an E175 is an E175. Maybe the winglets go out a little
more than they go up. That's about it. It's disappointing to me that we have a version of this
aircraft with vastly more efficient engines that the industry, for reasons, is just ignoring.
[0:15:57] IP: I mean, I hesitate to say ignoring. I mean, it's discounting, because it's not
contractually possible.
[0:16:05] JR: I mean, yeah. Contracts can be changed. Pay scales can be re-arranged. The
aircraft could be flown mainline, which I don't think we will ever see that. To me, you have this
regional aircraft, which there is a better version of it available and now. When airlines say,
“We're doing all these things to curb carbon emissions, we're green, we're green, we're green,”
and then you have this aircraft that's potentially on the shelf that is, I don't know, markedly more
efficient, and it's just not even being considered, because of artificial constraints, which is just to
me, very disappointing.
[0:16:41] IP: Yeah, there's no doubt that it's disappointing. Okay, this is one of those things
where I feel like I've said this before, and I'm sure if I went back and looked at all the transcripts
of the episodes, I would introduce multiple segments involving the NTSB as describing this as
coming out swinging. But man, oh, man, is that exactly what happened today in testimony in
front of Congress by NTSB Chair, Jennifer Homendy.
[0:17:10] JR: She has just been taking shots at everyone recently. I love it.
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[0:17:13] IP: And she gets results. Here's what happened. She was attending a US Senate
hearing. As part of that hearing, criticized Boeing's lack of cooperation with the NTSB
investigation into the Alaska Airlines door plug accident. Homendy had this to say; “Boeing has
not provided us with the documents and information that we have requested numerous times
over the past few months. There are two options. Either they, meaning the documents, exist and
we don't have them, or they do not exist.” She went on to say, “That if they don't exist, that
“raises concerns about quality assurance, quality management, safety management systems
within Boeing.””
[0:18:04] JR: Oh, boy, does it ever?
[0:18:06] IP: Yeah. The documents that she's referring to and the documents that the NTSB has
requested involve who did the work on the door plug? Who were the people? How was the work
accomplished? What documents are available? They want to know exactly step by step who
worked on the door, who worked on the door plug, who did the work, where the bolts went, etc.,
etc. One of those threads there is who worked on the door, or who had access to the door plug.
Later today, after Homendy says these things in front of the Senate, Boeing comes out with a
statement that says, “We have now provided the full list of individuals on the 737 door team in
response to a recent request.”
[0:18:55] JR: This next sentence, I think, is one of my favorite Boeing, definitely written by a
lawyer quotes, I think, of all time.” With respect to documentation, if the door plug removal was
undocumented, there would be no documentation to share.” Wow. Okay. Earlier today on
Twitter, I actually came to that conclusion myself and said, “Look, if Boeing hasn't provided this
information, it's probably because it doesn't exist.” Here we have Boeing saying, not saying,
doing everything they can to dance around the answer by saying, “If there wasn't any
documentation, there's nothing to share.” We have to jump to this conclusion, but I think it's
pretty fair to do so.
[0:19:41] IP: I don't think we're jumping.
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[0:19:42] JR: I don't think we're jumping, but Boeing hasn't come out and explicitly said, “We
screwed up. We suck. There is no documentation. This was done without any documentation,”
without actually explicitly saying that that's basically what they're saying is that the door plug
was removed with no documentation. A massive, massive, unthinkable, ridiculous breakdown in
quality control, SMS, all sorts of things that should have gone into logging exactly what was
going on in the manufacturer and the repair of this aircraft before it was delivered. It's just
unthinkable that they could do something like remove a door plug and do major repairs, or
remove bolts and then not even document it at all. I wish they would just say it. Just own it. But I
understand why, in lawyer's speak here, they said what they said. But it's just, wow.
[0:20:36] IP: Yeah. The backend of that statement is I think the most important thing to take
away from that. They have now provided the full list of 25 names. How many said that there's a
team of 25 people and a manager? The manager has been out on medical leave and the NTSB
has not been able to interview that individual. But prior to today, they had not received the
names of the other 25 people who work on the team. Boeing now says that they have provided
the full list to the NTSB. I guess, all you need to do is go in front of the US Senate and say
things in public for the record and then Boeing will get right on that.
[0:21:19] JR: Yeah. Not great. I'm Boeing now in the very near future says, “We're making
changes, we're making changes, we're being transparent.” Well, again, we have something to
point to, to say, actually, no, you're not. It took damn near an act of Congress to get you to
provide a list of names of people who worked on this. I don't believe it's because they didn't
know who's on this team. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes to figure that out. They just,
apparently, chose not to provide it.
[0:21:46] IP: From what it sounds like is that Boeing provided an initial, and this, I'm going off of
reporting by Dominic Gates in the Seattle Times. Boeing provided an initial list of people that
they thought would have relevant information.
[0:21:58] JR: That's great. But what Boeing thinks right now is not relevant. They've shown that
that's not relevant.
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[0:22:04] IP: the NTSB said, “No, we want to talk to everybody.” Then Boeing finally provided
that list. In addition to this, after we recorded last week, we talked about the FAA audit that was
still ongoing when FAA Administrator, Mike Whitaker, gave Boeing 90 days, which is May 29th,
for anyone who's counting. That would be 84 days from today, Wednesday, March 6th, to come
up with a plan and to publicly disclose that plan, to address both the expert panel and the FAA's
six-week audit, which concluded right after, basically, we had recorded. Or a few days. They
actually gave us a few days.
the FAA found “multiple instances where the companies,” those companies being Boeing and
Spirit AeroSystems, which manufacturers the fuselage for the 737s, “they allegedly failed to
comply with manufacturing quality control requirements. Non-compliance issues in Boeing's
manufacturing process control, parts handling in storage,” this goes back to what we just talked
about, “and product control. And the FAA is providing these details to the public as an update on
the agency's ongoing investigation.” Not great.
[0:23:22] JR: No.
[0:23:22] IP: But nothing hugely surprising.
[0:23:25] JR: No. There's no smoking gun, or anything here. It's just all around sloppy, I guess.
[0:23:32] IP: Yeah, all around sloppy. As part of Boeing's response to all of this, they are now
once again looking to reacquire Spirit AeroSystems, because if you remember way back in the
good old battle days of when you made things and then assembled them and then delivered
those things from start to finish, Boeing didn't own Spirit AeroSystems, because it was just
Boeing Wichita, and they built the fuselages and they shipped the fuselages, and then they put
the plane together and then the plane rolled out and it flew away. Years ago, Boeing spun off
Spirit into its own company. Now it's looking to spin them back in.
[0:24:18] JR: Yeah, more or less. I mean, it seems like something that they probably need to
do, but it's like, the inmates taking over the asylum at this point is Boeing with the mess that it is
at this point coming in to take over Spirit. Is that going to really improve things? Is Spirit so far
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gone that the only thing that makes sense is for Boeing in its current disorganized state, really
going to improve Spirit? I'm not sold on that.
What I will say on this topic is unexpectedly, I think everyone is in agreement that the 20-minute-
long piece on John Oliver's show on HBO, or Max, or whatever the hell it is this day, focused on
Boeing. It is probably, I think Jeremy agreed with this. It's probably the best layman explainer of
what happened to Boeing and how it got into this situation. It covers a bit of the Spirit spinoff
and re acquisition and how they got there. If you're looking for a quick explainer, maybe not
quick, it's 20 minutes, but it's a pretty good explainer on what happened and how they got to this
point.
[0:25:25] IP: Yeah. It was, I think, as good as an explanation as you're going to get without
having followed the industry for a good chunk of your life.
[0:25:33] JR: Yeah.
[0:25:34] IP: I guess, we'll leave it there. Let's move on to some interesting news, some
surprising news. The timing, I think is the most surprising thing about this, but Ethiopian Airlines
has ordered the 777X.
[0:25:50] JR: All right. This one seemed to have come out of absolutely nowhere. It was just
randomly announced on Twitter yesterday. That would be Monday, or Tuesday last week –
[0:25:59] IP: Yeah. Why not?
[0:26:00] JR: I don't quite remember. Just announced out nowhere. Not at an air show, not in
any marquee event. Just like, “Hey, let's order some aircraft for eight firm, plus 12 options for the
777-9.” I believe at this stage, it is only an MOU and then we like to talk about how it’s not a real
order, yet, it's a memorandum of understanding, so they'll firm it up at some point. But the timing
of it was unexpected. But you have to remember in context here, Ethiopian, typically, at least in
the last couple of decades has actually been on the forefront of taking on new tech aircraft. It
was –
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[0:26:35] IP: Sure.
[0:26:35] JR: - I think the first aircraft and airline in the world to operate both the 787 and the
A350 at the same time. If not the first, one of the first. It was a very early 787, or A350 operator.
We know famously, obviously, it was one of the earliest 737 MAX operators. Operating the 777X
rather early on, I guess, isn't that surprising for Ethiopian. It's just the timing of it was like, “Huh?
Where did that come from?”
[0:27:03] IP: Yeah. I mean, I think that this definitely plays into their goal of being able to
connect as much of the world through oddness as possible. With the range of the 777X, I mean,
that certainly becomes more an easier lift. But also, I mean, the strong cargo connotations of the
777 and the 777X. I mean, that's certainly something that they're keen on taking advantage of. I
mean, the order makes sense. It just came out of nowhere.
[0:27:38] JR: Ethiopian already had, I think, or it was intending to order the 777X freighter. I
don't know if they ever got around to it, but they were hinting at it for quite a while. Interestingly,
of all of the new aircraft, Ethiopian doesn't have any Airbus narrowbodies, which I think is an
interesting twist, since it loves all these other new type aircraft, but no Airbus narrowbodies.
Maybe they'll announce that next week randomly on Twitter.
[0:28:03] IP: Sure, why not? Now, that one's going to – they'll do that on TikTok.
[0:28:08] JR: Okay.
[0:28:09] IP: We've been working on some interesting things. We talked a little bit about Spirit
and how they've been affected by the Pratt & Whitney gear turbo fan groundings. We've talked
about this over and over and over again, because it's just affected so many airlines and so
many aircraft. We pulled some numbers and we've got a great blog post up on the flightradar24
blog by Andy Ainsworth, about Wizz having 20% of its fleet sitting around. That number is
growing, though it won't grow as much as a percentage, because they continue to take new
aircraft so quickly, that they've done a fairly good job of just maintaining what they've got, even
though they're parking more and more aircraft.
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I only bring that up in the context of the podcast to say that one of the things that they've done is
extended leases for a 320 CEO aircraft that they're keeping in the fleet, but they're also wet
leasing capacity it. You could end up on a Go2Sky 737-800 that's registered OMGTF.
[0:29:13] JR: Oh, my GTF. Hey, it's in the air right now. 737-800 operating two and a half hours
late to Bucharest. Not great. Yeah, that's a fun one.
[0:29:27] IP: Yeah, I just wanted to bring that up. But we'll toss a link in the show notes,
because the piece is interesting to see how they're dealing with those capacity issues.
[0:29:35] JR: As best they can.
[0:29:37] IP: Yes, exactly. Speaking of GTF engines, Icelandair has selected the Pratt &
Whitney geared turbo fan to power its recently ordered Airbus narrowbody fleet.
[0:29:49] JR: Yeah, good luck with that.
[0:29:52] IP: Well, now that they've figured out the problems, getting the new engines should be
just fine.
[0:29:57] JR: Sure.
[0:29:57] IP: Except, it's not. Because engines are one of the main supply chain constraints, as
are so many other parts, to the point where United Airlines expects s102 fewer aircraft this year
than it had previously for –
[0:30:16] JR: That is a lot of aircraft. That is a lot more than are in entire fleets for airlines right
now, and they expect to take a 102 fewer aircraft this year.
[0:30:25] IP: 102 fewer new aircraft. This is just deliveries.
[0:30:29] JR: Certainly, won’t be taking the MAX 10 as they expected to this year. I guess, the
bulk of that, the rest would probably be the A321neo.
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[0:30:40] IP: Yeah. I mean, it's across the board.
[0:30:41] JR: Not great. No one is living up to expectations, but everyone's really excited about
ramping up their production capacity to build 4 billion planes a year, only to let every airline
down when they can't do it.
[0:30:54] IP: Exactly. United's going to take a 102 fewer aircraft this year. They're still going to
take 63 aircraft this year.
[0:31:02] JR: That's good. That's a lot.
[0:31:04] IP: They were going to take 165. I mean, that's crazy to me.
[0:31:07] JR: Well, their messaging for this year was that they were going to take a new aircraft
every other day. I think it was through the summer, they said they were taking new aircraft every
other day. Now it's like, every other week.
[0:31:17] IP: Yeah, that's not going to happen. Yeah. I mean, it's still a lot of planes. I mean, 63
is nothing to sneeze at, but it's not going to happen this year. Ryanair says, it will take only 40
out of 57 expected 737 MAX aircraft by June. That's not as big of a number gap, but certainly
still a hit to Ryanair's growth plans. We learned this week that the fix for the MAX 7, the anti-ice
fix might take longer up to 12 months, rather than the nine-month forecast that David Calhoun
gave at the earnings report. That pushes things back even further. Tim Clark is preparing for the
eventuality that the 777X might not show up until 2026. Who knows if he'll still be the president
of Emirates by then, but –
[0:32:11] JR: He will just not retire until that aircraft is delivered.
[0:32:14] IP: He's going to retire on that delivery flight. To say that Boeing is the only aircraft
manufacturer affected by this, that's certainly not the case. Airbus is still dealing with a ton of
supply chain constraints and issues, especially with their A320neo family aircraft. The A320, all
the way up to the A321 XLR. Those are also not running quite on time. Then there's a new
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AVT 258 Transcript
entrant into the, “No, we're not going to have that done when we said we were.” Most of the
Russian aircraft programs have been delayed two or more years. The MC 21, the SSJ-New,
which is the all-Russian parts version of the SSJ, the IL 114, and whatever other aircraft you
want to throw in there, all delayed roughly two years, or more.
[0:33:07] JR: Now that is the least surprising news, I think, we have discussed in a while. This
stuff is hard. I mean, the timeline that they gave themselves to make these projects go through
in Russia was ridiculous. I think they've finally, at least admitted publicly that, “Ah, maybe we
need a couple more years.” What they're doing is pretty dramatic. Take your time.
[0:33:32] IP: This is a follow-up to a story that we talked about, oh, months and months ago
now, but Ukrainian prosecutors have formally charged ex-Antonov executives with obstructing
the Ukrainian armed forces in preparing a defense of Hostomel Airport, which is where the
AN225 was based. Prosecutors are saying, these executives did not allow the Ukrainian military
onto the airport property, or wouldn't let them set up defenses, basically, and that allowed the
Russian military the opportunity to damage the airport as much as they did.
They don't come out and say, because of this specifically, the Antonov AN225 is no more, but
the argument is strongly implied there, that it was their intransigence and resistance to allowing
the Ukrainian military to defend the airport that led to the destruction of the aircraft. We're still in
a waiting game, because they're supposed to rebuild it, but that sounds like it won't happen until
after the war and the war is unfortunately nowhere near over. I guess, we'll continue to wait and
see.
[0:34:48] JR: Yup.
[0:34:50] IP: Jason?
[0:34:50] JR: Yes.
[0:34:51] IP: I don't want your head to get too big here.
[0:34:54] JR: Okay.
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AVT 258 Transcript
[0:34:55] IP: But you called it.
[0:34:58] JR: Oh, what did I call? Tell me more.
[0:35:01] IP: Last week, we talked about the issue with the CFM56 thrust reversers, where after
a pilot activated reverse thrust, but then conducted a go around, which you're not supposed to
do out of procedure, but it's happened multiple times.
[0:35:20] JR: To the same guy.
[0:35:22] IP: To the same guy. The CFM56 reverser, the engine control unit software is being
revised to reduce the possibility and risk for the reverser to be locked open in the event that a
pilot initiates a go around after thrust reverse has been selected.
[0:35:44] JR: Hmm. That sounds awfully like what I've suggested last week.
[0:35:47] IP: It is.
[0:35:49] IP: I assume CFM has had had engineers working on this for months and months
already. I am not taking credit for this, nor would any reasonable person do that, but sometimes
timing is fun that way.
[0:36:05] IP: What gets even better is they performed an analysis and the analysis indicated
that this was a one in one million chance that a go around after a reverser selection.
[0:36:21] JR: It happened to the same guy twice.
[0:36:23] IP: Twice.
[0:36:24] JR: One in a million odds. This is what I love about the industry. I don't have the
numbers open now, but they said they analyzed 4 million flights, or something like that, or
maybe the number was dramatically higher. I don’t have –
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AVT 258 Transcript
[0:36:36] IP: 3.4 million flights across 31 operators.
[0:36:40] JR: There you go. That's an outstanding analysis. I assume that took a very long time
to do. Out of 3.4 million flights, you got the same guy doing it twice, and yet it's only one in a
million.
[0:36:55] IP: There's one other person who's done this.
[0:36:58] JR: This guy accounts for two-thirds of the 3.4 million flights where this happened.
[0:37:04] IP: Oh, that is incredible.
[0:37:06] JR: That is a fun stat. We got to tell Gavin. He is our numbers guy, but we just came
up with some fun numbers.
[0:37:12] IP: He'll get a kick on it out.
[0:37:14] JR: That's outstanding. But software will be rolled out in the near future to prevent this
one guy and one other person from doing this in the future.
[0:37:24] IP: Oh, that's the best. To close the show, we're keeping 747s around for just a little bit
longer by shuffling them between airlines. Jason, tell me what's going on.
[0:37:34] JR: Qatar took a whole bunch of 747-8Fs in the latter half of the 2010s. They had that
whole blockade thing, and they really needed to ramp up their freight capacity to get everything
into Qatar. Since all the land crossings were restricted, they really had to be self-sustaining,
which is difficult in Qatar, since it's mostly desert. They don't really have crops there, so
everything needed to be flown in, if it couldn't be shipped or driven in. They took a bunch of
747-8Fs, which I guess, they don't need anymore. UPS will take them off their hands for them,
which is just a nice thing. You wouldn't want these to go to the bone yard after just a couple of
years.
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AVT 258 Transcript
[0:38:20] IP: Absolutely not.
[0:38:21] JR: Good on UPS for taking some lightly used 747s.
[0:38:26] IP: There you go. Keeping them around for just a little bit longer. Actually, it's UPS, so
a lot longer. This has been episode 258 of AvTalk. Thank you all so very much for listening. I am
Ian Petchenik, here, as always with –
[0:38:42] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
© 2024 AvTalk 19