AvTalk Episode 169: It was a hit and run

AVT 169 Transcript
EPISODE 169
[EPISODE]
[00:00:08] IP: Hello, and welcome to Episode 169 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as
always with –
[00:00:17] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Hello, welcome back home, Ian. How's the family?
[00:00:22] IP: Well, it's good to be back home as they say. For the regular listeners, you'll know
that last week, Jason and I were both over in Europe. I was in Stockholm. Jason was in
Hamburg at AIX. I was in the flightradar24 offices, enjoying meeting some new people and
catching up with some folks who are working on some great stuff, which leads me to what we're
going to talk about later in the show.
Our product lead will be joining me in conversation later in the show. Laurence Hambrook is
going to tell us about some of the things that his team is working on that we're going to have in
the apps and on the web in the future.
Back to Jason's question. You figure recently over the past few years, if you travel, you're at
greater risk to contract COVID. That's something that's always in the back your mind, although
less so these days, I guess with decreased transmission rates and everything like that. As it
turns out, what I should have been concerned about, was my kids getting COVID while they
stay at home?
[00:01:22] JR: You'll sneak attack.
[00:01:24] IP: The COVID is coming from inside the house.
[00:01:26] JR: The place you least expect it. My kids were staying with my wife's family.
Unfortunately, my wife's aunt who watch them one day had gotten it and passed it on to them.
Thankfully, my oldest has not had any symptoms, whatsoever. You wouldn't know it without a
test that he had it. The twins had some slight fevers, but now they've bounced back. I'm thankful
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on one hand. On the other, I want them out of the house now. It's been an interesting week to
go from having no kids and focusing completely on work and other adult things, like eating food
uninterrupted. Now we're back and that's been fun. Jason, how are you, sir?
[00:02:08] JR: I'm good. I'm home. It's nice. I don't have COVID. The windows are open, and
it's nice out.
[00:02:13] IP: We have talked since the spring about airports and airline meltdowns that have
been occurring and the problems. I was traveling from Stockholm last week. One of my big
concerns all week since arriving there was going to be getting home. The airport itself had been
a madhouse.
[00:02:37] JR: Yeah. Things are meltier than they have been in the last few weeks even.
[00:02:41] IP: When we arrived. It was chaos. When we arrived, we had to wait – like I
mentioned last week, we had to wait nearly an hour for passport control. That's never happened
to me before in Stockholm. I was very girding loins getting to the airport and they had mentioned
that you can only get to the airport three hours before your flight. They had stopped the airport
train from stopping at the terminal that we needed to get to. It stops at the first stop and not the
second step, so you have to get off. Everybody gets off the train, then you have to walk through
–
[00:03:13] JR: What? For real?
[00:03:14] IP: Yes. You have to walk through the airport?
[00:03:15] JR: How does that help anyone?
[00:03:18] IP: Well, it stops the overcrowding because it elongates the flow of passengers from
basically, flooding into the area. It stretches things out. I get the idea behind it. Frankly, because
we can walk faster than some other folks. You walk into the terminal hall, and then they've got to
Orlando's credit, they put every vest they could find into action. They had people blocking the
entrance to terminal five, standing there, asking you what time your flight departed and allowing
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you into the terminal only if your flight departed within three hours. We got there right at the
three-hour mark and they let us in. Then they've got the machine set up. They've got the check
in desk setup. They were managing the lines fairly okay. We went to scan our passports. Mine
scan just fine. My wife’s, which is the brand-new US passport, did not scan.
[00:04:12] JR: I didn't even know there was a new one.
[00:04:14] IP: Yeah. It's the for those that have looked at the US passport, it's the purpley one
with the plastic card in it, the hard plastic. I had no idea that was a thing.
[00:04:24] IP: Identity card. I didn't either, but my wife had renewed her passport. The State
Department got it back within a week. She requested the expedited service, but she didn't go in
person to do the rest. They got it back to her within a week. This was before our trip. Anyway, so
we tried to scan it and that didn't work. They were like, okay, go stand in the checkout line.
We're like, “All right. Fine.” That took about 40 minutes to check in. We were standing in the
Chicago and Newark check-in line for SAS. That took about 40 minutes to get through in the
regular line, just to drop our bags and get our boarding passes.
Then the real dread set in, because security in Orlando had been, it's either – it's real hit or
miss. It's either been, you walk right through and there's no problems, whatsoever. Or, it's an
hour and half wait. The time that we were there, it was supposed to be bad. Check the app. It
was eight minutes, five minutes. I was like, okay, that seems not terrible. I hope that's true.
Then we start walking, and we're walking, walking, walking through the places where I had seen
pictures of people standing for a long period of time. I’m like, okay, fine. We get to the gates
where you scan your boarding pass to get into the actual security screening area, so still
nobody. Get upstairs, there's still nobody. We waited maybe 40 seconds in security. It was 10
times longer in the fast-track lane. When one of those rare circumstances where everything just
– it just worked.
I will give the airport a lot of credit. They put in a lot of procedures, and they brought out a lot of
people that I had never seen before standing in places, directing traffic, making sure that
queues were orderly, so that people were standing in the right – because I mean, I think that's
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one of the biggest things is when there's that crush of people, you don't know if you're in the
right line. That's the dreaded, am I standing in the right line?
[00:06:20] JR: That's where I'll pick up the conversation, I think. I had a couple days after you. I
think, I went through Hamburg and then connected at Heathrow onward to JFK. Thankfully, I
had no issues, but it's because I played my cards right. These days more than ever, you have to
be smart about how you travel. You need to use every tool at your disposal to get from A to B,
because if you misconnect, you're screwed these days, since there's no availability on any other
connecting flight.
I got to Hamburg about an hour after someone else I know who had gone through there. They
said, okay, they got their regular security in about 30 minutes. Not all that bad. Hamburg is not
the greatest airport in that regard. When I got there about an hour later, I walked into the main
terminal building, and oh, my God. I don't know what happened in that hour between she went
through and I got there. It was just chaos.
Very stark contrast to you at Orlando, where they had employees out there, I guess metering
people going in, and guiding people, setting the lines. There was zero attempt at Hamburg's
airport to make any sense of the chaos going on in there. Of course, it's ironic that it's the
Aircraft Interiors Expo and you have all sorts of airline and industry executives going through
there.
[00:07:43] IP: Well, Jason. It’s not the Airport Interiors Expo.
[00:07:47] JR: It's not and that shows. Very disappointed in the Hamburg Airport Authority and
people for doing not even the bare minimum. They did literally nothing to make the experience
not miserable. It's a weird setup. Then it's technically two terminals, but it's not. It's one building.
It's one combined security checkpoint that has two lines, one for terminal one and one for
terminal two. I accidentally entered in terminal one. Fast-track was not open. I said, “Oh, God.
This is going to take hours.”
I'm going to miss my flight, because there are people everywhere. On the terminal to side where
I was supposed to be thankfully, fast track was open. The line, the actual set area where you're
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supposed to be waiting for security is relatively small, after you do your boarding pass scan.
Then the line just spilled out into the terminal and wind into the left and then went to the right
and then made a little squiggle and then went around all the check in desks. It was just chaos of
the line just winding everywhere. I literally could not figure out where the end of the line was.
Thankfully, I was on business classes trip and I had fast track and that line. Although it was very
long, it took less than 20 minutes for me to get through. The regular line probably would have
taken hours. I'm just going to say again, I'm extremely disappointed that they made absolutely
no attempt to manage the lines. They could have very easily put out some ropes and guided
people, made them go in a zigzag fashion, instead of stretching all throughout the terminal. I
mean, if my local Trader Joe's can do that and have a person with a flag saying, “The line
begins here.” Why can't the airport do that? It was just a much more stressful chaotic situation
than it needed to be, because that airport probably in the normal day operates at maybe 60%,
70% capacity and that just barely works as it is. When you push it to a 100% capacity, probably
over that and don't make any changes, whatsoever, it's just a miserable experience there.
[00:09:40] IP: Yeah. The real difference between utter chaos that happened basically the week
before and our chaotic, but –
[00:09:52] JR: Managed.
[00:09:53] IP: Managed chaos. That was really the people that they had at each entrance to
each queue saying, there's a line here. Then they had roaming people that were tidying up the
back end of a queue, and informing people what line that was. Because we got to the end of the
line that looked like it was for the SAS check-in. That was the end of the line for the Pegasus
check in desk.
They looked at us like, which line are you in? “We’re like, “We're looking for the SAS.” They're
like, “Oh, that's up there. You have to cut inside this line.” I mean, not great. They were helpful
and they were there. I think that's really what made a difference.
[00:10:32] JR: Right. Could have been worse. It could have been Hamburg. Like you, I got to
the front of the fast lane checkpoint or whatever. There were people trying to cut in and
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everyone said, “No, no, no. Get to the back of the line.” People just stood there like, “No, I need
to go. My fight’s in –” Yeah, we all have fights to catch. That's why we're here. You point to the
back of the line.
I literally had a conversation with one German business traveler, and I said, no, it's only been 15
minutes from the end of the line to this point. You can do that. Go away. That's exactly what
happened. Unlike you, I had a connection. I could not fly from Hamburg straight to New York.
Heathrow has been in the news a bit recently. Thankfully, I was originally booked on a 65-minute
connection through Heathrow, which if you've ever been through Heathrow, especially these
days, you know that's probably not going to work out in your favor.
[00:11:17] IP: Mathematically impossible these days.
[00:11:19] JR: Yeah. That's not going to happen. I've done it before in the normal days, but
these are not normal days. Thankfully, I appealed to BA on Twitter to change me to the earlier
flight. They thankfully did without any change fees, or fare difference. I ended up with a nearly
five-hour connection, which is way too much time to spend in the terminal. It actually worked out
well. I was able to leave the airport.
I went through the E-gates, which were thankfully open and it only took about two minutes. I
hopped on the new Elizabeth line out to Paddington Station, had lunch with a friend to get – saw
some of the new stations and came back and went through fast-track security at Heathrow and
probably took, I think, eight minutes to get through. That all worked out, because I know
someone else who I actually met at the lounge who went through transit security, and that took
45 minutes.
In some cases, it might actually be quicker for passengers to not do the transit security transfer
process, and physically enter the country, go through border control, and then back through
security and into the terminal, would’ve been much quicker than doing the actual process.
[00:12:24] IP: I love it. I love it.
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[00:12:26] JR: All in all, using the tools at my disposal, I had a very good experience. The only
hitches we got, well, we had a bus gate at Heathrow, which sucks. Stop doing that to JFK
flights. It happens all the time. I know very, very entitled New Yorker.
[00:12:40] IP: Quit whining.
[00:12:41] JR: Now it sucks, because they don't know how to manage it well. Kept us on the
bus for 15 minutes before it left. We ended up leaving an hour late. Then we got to JFK 20
minutes early and customs was backed up, so they held us on the plane for 15 minutes. If that's
the only thing that goes wrong these days, I'll take it.
[00:12:57] IP: Take what you can get. Yeah. I think that, I mean, and our audience's a good mix
of people who travel on – travel even much more than we do. Folks who just enjoy the aviation
side of things. I guess, I say to those folks listening, we're sorry that it requires an advanced
degree in airportology.
[00:13:18] JR: But it really does.
[00:13:20] IP: We'll talk a little bit later in the show about how it's not going to get much better
quickly. In some cases, may get worse.
[00:13:27] JR: Yeah. I said this before, but use the tools at your disposal if you can afford it. If
you can get global entry for entry into the US, get it. If you can get fast track for your European
departures, or within Europe, get it if that's an option. For the love of God, get fast track,
because it probably saved hours off my entry into Hamburg. I know sometimes you can't buy it.
It's only included in business class, but maybe consider that upgrade just for fast pass.
[00:13:55] IP: Yeah. It ain't great, and it's not going to get better very quickly. We'll talk more
about that later in the show, I guess.
[00:14:01] JR: Yeah. We have other things to talk about.
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[00:14:02] IP: Yeah, exactly. Let's talk about what happened this week in Miami. A Red Air
MD-82 on landing, suffered a left main gear collapse. Skidded off the runway to the left, based
on the photos that I've seen impacted a radio tower and caught fire. This is a former American
Airlines MD-82 that was retired from American in 2014. Then went on to Orange Air, flew for
Lazar, the Venezuelan airline, and then came over to Red Air in 2021. This is the airline's first
serious incident of this kind. There were multiple reported injuries, though I haven't seen
anything that says any of those were life threatening, but we'll stay posted on that. The big issue
here I mean, aside from the aircraft's landing gear collapsing, which the NTSB will investigate.
[00:15:03] JR: Bursting into flames is never good.
[00:15:06] IP: Yeah. The bursting into flames is never good. Based on what I saw and the
burned area, it looks like, the flames were a result of that radio tower impacting the wing. I don't
want to say that's for sure what caused the fire.
[00:15:23] JR: No. Also at the same time, shout out to the Miami Airport Fire Rescue teams,
because they were on the scene exceptionally quickly. I know the way out of that airport quite
well and one of their on-field stations is just quite close to where the incident was, but they were
there very quickly. Props to them.
[00:15:44] IP: The big issue that Jason I want to talk about is an issue that we've talked about
previously, when there is a serious incident that involves an evacuation, where you have people
grabbing all of their luggage, basically. The video that's been most widely shared is a phone
video taken by a gentleman who has a rollaboard in one hand, his phone and a bottle of water
in the other. I think you can see a backpack strap, too.
[00:16:16] JR: He’s pretty filming everything he entered that aircraft and probably some more
along the way.
[00:16:21] IP: Yeah. Then he goes down the slide. Then that's where the film picks up outside
the aircraft. You see a gentleman and a woman to the right of the video, where the gentleman is
pulling two rollaboard bags. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
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[00:16:40] JR: The whole video is just very surreal. Of course, this guy has a bag and a water
bottle and he's recording it on his phone. Also, the interaction between himself and the cabin
crew on the way out of the now burning aircraft is just a real weird case in how people behave
during emergencies. I know this is pointed out a whole bunch of times on Twitter. Basically, he
said like, okay, thanks. Have a nice day and the flight attendant said, “Okay, great. Have a good
day.” As they jump out with baggage onto the evacuation side. It was basically, the exact
interaction you would have had had there been a jet bridge attached to the aircraft and you're
walking into the customs hall. It was just very strange.
[00:17:20] IP: Was this guy expect – this is how we expected the flight to end?
[00:17:23] JR: All right, we're in Miami.
[00:17:24] IP: It’s like, “All right. We’re here.”
[00:17:26] JR: I didn't know it would be this hot.
[00:17:29] IP: I know anyone listening to this podcast knows better. If you know someone who
might not know better, send them this episode of the podcast and say, “Hey, listen to this.”
Because you can't keep doing this. It's already cost people their lives and other evacuations. I
guess, fortuitous timing, the Qantas A330 evacuation that happened in Australia two years ago,
the ATSB in Australia issued their final report, basically saying that the evacuation of the aircraft
was chaotic, unordered, and there were a lot of things that could have gone better, if the
procedures and training in place for both the passengers via the safety video and crew
announcements and the crew itself, things could have gone better. One of the things that they
mentioned was the then safety video being shown to passengers, included passengers bringing
their hand luggage to the evacuation slide.
[00:18:31] JR: Not great. It's several years ago, probably within the last five to 10 years safety
videos have definitely strayed away from their primary purpose of being a safety video, and
they've leaned heavily towards entertainment. They're these huge production and they forget
that they're supposed to be a video about safety and how to evacuate the damn aircraft in case
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you need to get out to save your life. They screwed up in a couple of instances in that particular
video that was shown.
On one case, they brought a bag to the evacuation door, which is not something you want to do.
Then, they also portrayed the passenger going down the side by leaning back, instead of
leaning forward, which could lead to injuries. Sides are very steep. You go down very fast.
[00:19:13] IP: If anyone's ever gone down a waterslide, lean back, you're going to go faster.
[00:19:19] JR: Yeah. Not great. It was also interesting that it mentioned that the crew
procedures needed to be worked on, because it was a weird case where the aircraft was at the
gate, but not yet connected to the jet bridge and the slides were disarmed and they needed to
evacuate in that tiny phase, between disarming the doors and the jet bridge being attached.
They really didn't have a procedure for that. There was a lot of weirdness going on there.
[00:19:44] IP: Yeah. I guess, the related thing here was that those evacuation procedures I
think, and there's been a call for this, need to be revisited, to really focus on not bringing hand
luggage. I know a lot – people have offered, well, why not lock the bins, have some sort have
electronic locks and things like that? I feel like, that just adds even more complication to it.
Getting something like that certified. I mean, take a better part of a decade to design, certify,
and then even begin installing a new aircraft. I think, there's a lot of things that can be done
instead, or in the meantime, before you address something with a technological solution.
Let's talk about JetBlue and Spirit again.
[00:20:30] JR: We have to.
[00:20:31] IP: We have to, because there's more money involved now. 3.64 billion dollars.
[00:20:37] JR: Wow.
[00:20:38] IP: Do you have 3.7 billion dollars, Jason?
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[00:20:40] JR: I don’t. Somebody should ask Frontier, if they have that, though.
[00:20:44] IP: Well, Frontier says that they do, but they ain’t paying. It looks like JetBlue has
taken on front runner status for the acquisition of Spirit Airlines. They've upped their offer to
33.50 per share. That's significantly more than Frontier is offering. The deal structure is such
that they've reiterated their commitment to vesting Spirit’s holdings in New York, Boston and
Fort Lauderdale, which Jet Blue argues will satisfy regulators and allow the deal to go through.
Who knows if that's true at this point? But that's their argument. It looks at this point, if there's a
vote on the 30th of June, Spirit may be acquired by JetBlue.
[00:21:41] JR: Okay.
[00:21:43] IP: Okay. That begins a whole mess of other stuff to whether or not that deal goes
through. I mean, we could be looking at a situation where JetBlue is the first winner of Spirit.
They make it all the way through the process. The DOJ says, no. Then frontier could come back
and say, “Hey, our offer still stands.” It's ping pong. We'll see what happens next. I guess, the
next bit of information will be the 30th of June. Not next week's episode, but the week after that,
we should have some more news to share. Boring news before then.
[00:22:22] JR: Can't wait to see Frontier’s eventual bid to buy Allegiant? I don't know.
[00:22:27] IP: Who knows? No, I think we could see this come back full circle is what I think. I
am happy to be wrong, as I often am, both happy and wrong. Podcast@fr24.com, if you have
thoughts, prognostications, insight into this lovely Jet Blue-Spirit-Frontier acquisition triangle.
Let's talk some good news. BRA and ATR and Nesta completed the first 100%, true 100%
sustainable aviation fuel commercial aircraft flight this week.
This is not a 100% of the 50% allowed that other airlines have claimed. This is a 100%
sustainable aviation fuel powering both engines from one city to the other on a commercial
aircraft. This was an ATR 72-600 operated by BRA. The registration was SEMKK. It went from
Malmo to Stockholm on the 21st of June. Not a long flight.
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[00:23:38] JR: But a flight. It wasn't a long fight, but it was a flight. I think it's also important, and
you mentioned this in the blog post to mention that it was the good kind of sustainable aviation
field, the actual sustainable stuff where it was one of, and I'm quoting you here, abundant,
renewable and sustainable raw materials from waste, such as used cooking oil, animal fat and
waste fish fat.
[00:24:00] IP: That was my favorite part.
[00:24:01] JR: Yeah. I had to read that slowly. Waste fish fat. Not a sentence I've ever said
before. It's the good kind of sustainable aviation fuel. Not the quite damaging feedstock of corn
turned into fuel, which is bad in all sorts of ways, but this is good. This is a good first step. I'm
happy to see that this wasn't the bad sustainable aviation fuel. Good all around.
[00:24:26] IP: Yeah. The goal here is the 2025 certification of the ATR fleet fully for a 100%
sustainable aviation fuel. ATR has been using its flying testbed to test ground and flight tests up
to certain percentages of sustainable aviation fuel. This was the first 100% flight and hopefully,
we ramp up from here at this point. I mean, yeah, I also mentioned the fact that we still faced
cost and supply pressures. Those we've talked about in the podcast before. There's that.
I think, this is something that we actually need to mark and celebrate and say, okay, we got this
far. What's next? Let's keep going. I think that's important. Together with that, Qantas and Airbus
this week announced a 200-million-dollar, Australian dollar commitment to SAF. That is going to
basically, kickstart the Australian SAF industry. Airbus has a distinct interest in that partnership,
because of the Project Sunrise flights, and the ability to really go for a net zero emissions aspect
for those flights and making those flights. I think this is a very good thing. It's a good chunk of
money. It's by no means, all the money that's going to be necessary, but I think it's definitely a
good first step.
[00:26:02] JR: That step in the right direction, at least.
[00:26:04] IP: I will take what I can get these days. Let's take a quick break. We'll come back
with my conversation with Laurence, and talk about some of the things that his team is working
on to make flightradar24 better. I know, that's been an oft requested segment on the podcast.
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Being in Stockholm for the week finally gave me a chance to sit down with Laurence. We'll listen
to our conversation next. We'll be right back.
[BREAK]
[00:26:36] IP: Welcome back. I am now joined in Stockholm by Laurence Hambrook, who is our
Product Team Lead here at flightradar24. Laurence is leading the team that makes flightradar24
better on a regular basis. He is the person who has the, I think, enviable job of turning me down
when I throw out some crazy ideas. Laurence, I know you're here semi against your will. I've
convinced you to sit down and talk to us. Thank you for joining.
[00:27:04] LH: Thank you very much for having me.
[00:27:05] IP: Now, tell us a little bit more about what you do here at flightradar24, and then
what your team is getting up to?
[00:27:14] LH: Yeah. I'm the guy who says no, when you ask for pink flying unicorns on the
map.
[00:27:19] IP: Well, once a week I ask for them. Once a week, you turn me down. I appreciate
that.
[00:27:24] LH: I'm working a lot with product strategy and roadmaps, planning what we're going
to be working on in the future in dealing with requirements. Also, working with a couple of
talented designers to build prototypes and work on designs. We get a lot of requests and ideas
and suggestions. My team is really looking into these requests to see if feasible and if things as
a company we actually want to do.
[00:27:48] IP: You're triaging my requests for pink unicorns and hopefully, one day prioritizing
that up at the top, right?
[00:27:57] LH: Maybe in the year 2026.
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[00:27:58] IP: All right. I'll take what I can get. As someone who's entrusted with adding new
features, what are some of your favorite existing features?
[00:28:07] LH: Yeah, tough question. I'm obviously a massive flightradar fan myself. There's a
couple that does spring to mind, I guess. Most track flights, I think that it's really intriguing. I
spend way too much time trying to figure out why 5,000 people are tracking a Cessna rover out
of Mexico, for example. Also filters. I mean, filtering is very powerful. It's really interesting to be
able to filter out aircraft and look for specific things.
[00:28:34] IP: Maybe not necessarily your most favorite personally as a user. As a product
developer, what are some of the features that once they're out there in the wild, you love
watching other people use?
[00:28:47] LH: I think, web allays is probably one of them. We get quite a lot of feedback
regarding web allays. There's obviously a strong connection between aviation and weather.
Being able to visualize that is really amazing.
[00:29:01] IP: Do you see a lot of the things – I mean, dealing with social media, I get to see a
lot of people using our product. I know, I send you – mostly what I send you is people having a
hard time and say, “Hey, let's fix this.” Does it ever catch you off guard when you see something
that somebody's like, you didn't expect it, or didn't think it would have the impact on somebody
that it does?
[00:29:23] LH: Yeah. There's definitely use cases. I mean, we never really imagined we often
hear of customers using our products and data for things that we never even initially thought
were possible. I think, also, the way that the product is it's very highly customizable. Obviously,
having things like the web allays and filtering and the aeronautical charts, for example. There's a
lot of things that you can really do with the product.
[00:29:48] IP: Let's talk about what we're working on now that hasn't yet made it out into the
wild. Give the folks at home a little bit of insight. I know, you said, “No, I can't really tell anybody
much.” I know you can't tell anybody much, but give us a little bit of insight of what's coming
next.
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[00:30:04] LH: Yeah, I can't really go into details. I mean, first and foremost, we're constantly
working on data quality and data sources. We're always looking at ways in which we can
improve our data. We really want to ensure that when someone clicks on an aircraft on the
website, or taps on an aircraft in one of our mobile apps. We want to ensure that they're seeing
accurate data. We're also looking at ways in which we can add more data sources, as well as
making improvements to our existing data. That's a constant, I guess, constantly in development
for us looking into improving data quality.
Another thing that I can go into a bit more detail about, bookmarks. We released bookmarks on
the website around six months ago now. This is towards the end of 2021. We're expanding that
functionality. Bookmarks is something that a lot of people have been asking for for a very long
time. I'm really happy that we're able to deliver this. We'll be releasing it on Android soon. Might
possibly have already been released, depending on when you're listening to this. iOS is coming
up shortly after the Android release.
The idea here is to make things cross platform, so you can create bookmarks on the website
and get them in the apps and vice versa. The cross-platform side of things, that's really where
we want to go in the future. We will be looking into more cross-platform functionality, so people
can really maximize the use of their subscriptions between the website and the mobile apps.
Another thing I can't really go into a lot of details on, but there's quite a lot of data that we have
that we're currently displaying on the website that we also want to show in the mobile apps. We
really want to extend the functionality there in the mobile app to show more data and be more in
line with the website. I'm really looking forward to be able to get that release, hopefully later this
year.
[00:31:55] IP: I tried to pry as much out of him as I possibly could. I'm thankful that I got that
much.
[00:32:01] LH: I can also just mention the flying pink unicorns, right?
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[00:32:04] IP: 2026, right? Yeah. That’s all on the web and the app side. Your team also works
on the B2B side. I know some folks from airlines and airports are listening to the podcast on a
regular basis. What are you cooking up for them?
[00:32:21] LH: Yeah, exactly. The B2B side is very interesting for us. Our B2B team has been
working quite a lot, especially earlier this year, going out to meet some of our customers and
really understand how they're using our products, and also, gathering their feedback and ideas
and suggestions for improvements.
Obviously, aviation has been looking at ways to save money, and we see things like, much more
fuel efficient aircraft in use today. We really believe that our data can be used to make the
aviation industry more efficient. I really can't go into a lot of details, but we definitely have plans
in the upcoming months to work on improving our B2B products and services.
[00:33:03] IP: Fantastic. I pried it out of Laurence earlier. He told me, I couldn't record it. But it
does sound awesome. Now I'm looking very much forward to hearing more about that as soon
as possible, Laurence. As soon as possible. These are ideas that we've had and nurtured and
grown and things like that. Where does some of the other ideas come from? Are you getting
emails from people? Where are you taking other inspiration from?
[00:33:31] LH: Good question. I mean, we have multiple different channels. Obviously, our
support team is dealing with a lot of contacts from end users that come to us with ideas and
suggestions. We also have app reviews. People are constantly leaving app reviews with ideas
and suggestions. It's really interesting to read through the reviews. Then as I mentioned before
on the B2B side, our B2B team is getting contacts from customers with ideas and suggestions.
They come to ask asking, “Can we do this? Can we do that?” Yeah, it's really interesting. Ideas
and suggestions coming from all around.
[00:34:07] IP: You do have a suggestion after listening to what Laurence has had to say, send
us an email at podcast@fr24.com. We will be happy to send it along to Laurence. If enough
people asked for the pink unicorns on the map, he has to do it, right?
[00:34:20] LH: Looking forward for that one. Yeah, sure.
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[00:34:21] IP: Okay. Laurence Hambrook is our product team lead here at flightradar24, and
has been gracious enough to join me semi against his will, to record a small segment of the
podcast. For that, I thank you, Laurence.
[00:34:36] LH: Thank you very much. It was fun.
[00:34:38] IP: We'll be right back.
[BREAK]
[00:34:44] IP: Welcome back. It's now time for another round of things that airports and airlines
are doing to ensure that they can actually operate their schedules. As it turns out, the easiest
thing for them to do is to just not operate flights.
[00:35:04] JR: Okay.
[00:35:05] IP: Yeah. I know. The latest this week is EasyJet a few days ago said, that they were
canceling a variety of flights and will operate 90% of their pre-pandemic capacity in July, August
and September, so for the next three months, and that's about a 7% reduction than what they
would have. They've blamed tight labor market for crew, a long wait time for security checks. Of
course, good old-fashioned Brexit on some of these things. Basically, they had too many flights
and not enough people. We'll see if that works out for them.
Sticking in the European area, Gatwick has kept its flights for July and August. Instead of
operating about 900 flights on peak days, Gatwick will cap July flights to 825 operations per day.
850 in August, hoping to avoid some of the things that have happened there over the past few
weeks. It's getting better, because they're figuring it out a little bit. This really seems like
something that should have been taken into account before. Was there an overly optimistic
scenario where airlines thought that they could hire the right number of people to operate these
flights? Did they think that they could get away with not having the people in place to operate
those flights? I don't know which is more true, or if they're both equally true. Either way, that was
never going to work.
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[00:36:45] JR: No, no. Meanwhile, stateside, just this morning, United announced that it was
going to trim, I think, 12% of its flights, or 50 per day, I think it was from its Newark hub, since
Newark for last couple of months has just been an unmitigated disaster operationally. That
ripples throughout the entire, at least the northeast and ripples surely throughout the country in
some aspects. This one is less of a crew, or employee shortage, so much as Newark’s just
going to be Newark, and there's a lot going on there. There are too many flights for the airport's
overall capacity. There's some runway construction that's coming up. There's the terminal A
expansion that's wrapping up hopefully, by the end of the year that has some terminal space
restricted, or some gates restricted that is.
To United, JetBlue, Spirit, FAA, port authority, have all been pointing fingers at each other for
months at this point, yelling that there's too many flights. This has to change. Finally, somebody
has blinked, in this case, and that would be United with a reduction of a few of its flights. FAA
has given them permission to do that for the remainder of the summer, while completely
disregarding and ignoring its own issues of staffing availability for its centers to keep flights
operating, which is a constant issue for Newark as well.
[00:38:08] IP: Yeah. They'll take 50 flights out a day. What it looks like they're going to do is
reduce frequencies to some destinations, not cut destinations out of Newark construction, FAA
staffing, all sorts of good fun stuff, leading to just a poor experience in Newark. That's nothing
necessarily new.
[00:38:26] JR: A poor experience at Newark? No.
[00:38:29] IP: It's just more acute right now.
[00:38:30] JR: Yes, it is particularly bad.
[00:38:33] IP: Let's stay in New York. I think this is the first time that this podcast has ever
covered a hit and run.
[00:38:39] JR: What kind of hit and run?
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[00:38:40] IP: Indeed. What kind of hit and run?
[00:38:43] JR: Story is bizarre.
[00:38:45] IP: Well, it just keeps getting even more bizarre. At JFK, there are areas of the
airport where aircraft are in very close proximity. In previous incidents, aircraft have hit one
another. I think the most famous impact was when the Air France A390 spun a Delta CRJ. There
have also been –
[00:39:09] JR: That was a good one. That was a long time ago, but I remember that one well.
[00:39:14] IP: Yeah. I think it doesn't hurt that that one was caught on video. Then there was
some wingtip fence issues and things like that. We don't actually know where these two aircraft
impacted. An ITA Airways still in old Alitalia livery. This plays in in a minute. Impacted an Air
France 777. Somehow, well, the Air France Flight was arriving and the ITA Airways Flight was
departing.
The Air France Flight calls the ground frequency and says, “Hey, they just hit us. Don't let them
take off.” The ground controller at JFK has A, trouble understanding what the Air France pilot is
saying. Then B, doesn't care. Or, just doesn't want to be bothered with it. He says, “Well, go call
the tower.” Not call the tower frequency.
[00:40:09] JR: Here's the phone number.
[00:40:10] IP: Gives them the phone number to the tower. Which I mean, I guess maybe is a
better way to get a hold of somebody of tower, because if the phone rings, they pick it up. The
flight had departed by then. By the time Air France said, “Hey, they hit us,” the ground controller
said, “What do you want me to do about it? Go call the tower.” They call the tower. The ITA flight
has gone.
[00:40:31] JR: Yeah. The whole sequence of events is very strange, listening to the audio put
together by, I guess, in fast aviation, there doesn't seem to be much urgency coming from the
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Air France pilots. That might just be, I don't know what to boil that down to. It doesn't seem like
the urgency was conveyed enough to the ground controller who really didn't seem to be
bothered by what was being reported at all. Remember, he's just the guy in the tower. If I'm
getting this right in my mind, he could just turn to his left and say to the whoever's working the
tower frequency, “Hey, don't let ITA depart. They just hit Air France.” That should have been that,
I think, if that is truly how it works in the tower, which I'm pretty sure it does.
The whole situation was just very weird. Then eventually, the ITA flight was contacted and they
said, “Well, we have no issues. We're just going to keep on going. We're fine.” Is that aircraft still
on the ground in Rome?
[00:41:24] IP: The Air France 777 is still on the ground in New York. This happened local time,
the evening of June 17th. The Air France aircraft is still on the ground. The ITA Airways flight,
that once it was on the ground, stayed on the ground a little bit longer than it normally would
have, but has since returned to service and has flown, oh, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
flights. Whatever the impact was, it obviously wasn't serious enough to keep the ITA Airways
A330 on the ground, but was serious enough to keep the Air French 777 on the ground.
It'll be interesting to see if there's a report of some kind out there. If the FAA investigates, if the
Port Authority of New York or New Jersey investigates. I don't know who would investigate this.
What assumes that Air France will be billing ITA for whatever damage to the aircraft?
[00:42:28] JR: Yeah, very strange all around. Not really the way you'd expect a situation like
this to be handled by pretty much anyone that handled it. I guess, it was one of those
unfortunate moments where an aircraft pushed back from JFK and actually took off relatively
quickly, and they weren't able to figure it out before they did take off.
[00:42:45] IP: Yeah. Hopefully, we hear more about what actually happened eventually. Let's
close the show with some business news. We have LATAM on its way out of chapter 11. The
judge in the case has approved basically, their plan and they are now moving on their way out of
chapter 11. That's good to see. Garuda Indonesia also secured creditor approval for their
reorganization. That'll be interesting to see how that proceeds. Well, again, the last thing we've
got is EasyJet buying more aircraft.
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[00:43:18] JR: Can they buy more pilots to operate them to?
[00:43:20] IP: They're going to have to. Jason, how many planes did they buy?
[00:43:22] JR: A lot. 56 320neo family aircraft for delivery from 2026 to 2029. Hopefully, things
will be figured out by then. They're also converting 18 existing 320neo orders to the 321neo,
because everybody loves that aircraft now.
[00:43:38] IP: Yeah. It's funny how the 321, and I think we may have talked about this before,
but the A321 went from this also ran aircraft.
[00:43:49] JR: An outcast that nobody wanted.
[00:43:51] IP: Yeah. No one really knew what to do with. It turns out that if you make it go a little
farther and put some better engines on it, it turns out to be a very attractive plane for a lot of
airlines.
[00:44:04] JR: Yeah. For a long time, the A321 was shunned. US Airways was actually the by
far, the largest operator of the type of the CO. They knew something. They had an idea that that
aircraft could live up to its full potential. Now here we go. Everyone wants it. Who wants a 320
when you can have a 321 and put another 30 people onboard?
[00:44:24] IP: I mean, that's not a bad idea. Yeah. This was Episode 169 of AvTalk. We're really
working on it. We should start thinking about what we're going to do for episode 200.
[00:44:36] JR: It’ll sneak up on us.
[00:44:38] IP: They always do. Thank you so very much for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, if
you enjoy what we're doing, or if you say, “I just listened to this podcast, and I've got some
things to say.” By all means, do say them. You can email us directly at podcast@fr24.com, or
you can go wherever you get your podcast and leave a rating or review. Those help other
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people find the podcast and broaden our reach, so that we can keep doing what we are doing
when we are doing it.
This has been Episode 169. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always with –
[00:45:15] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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