AvTalk Episode 199: One crashed, two came close

AVT 199 Transcript
EPISODE 199
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello and welcome to Episode 199 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. How's your week going, Ian?
[0:00:18] IP: It's a week. It's certainly been a week. We ended last week, began this week with
a death of the family. Some scrambling of –
[0:00:27] JR: Sorry to hear that.
[0:00:28] IP: Yeah, thanks. It's my wife's grandmother passed. She was in her mid-90s and
lived a very long and very interesting life, for my wife's grandfather was in the army from World
War II, until the time he retired, either in the army itself, or working for the army. They lived, I
think my wife's mother said, they moved 14 times.
[0:00:51] JR: Wow.
[0:00:51] IP: As a family. That doesn't include the times they moved after their daughters were
out of the house. They lived in places like Italy, Thailand, Germany, the UK and then all sorts of
places in the US. She lived a very long and very interesting life, but passed away this week. We
were doing a lot of travel planning and all that fun, to get the family down there. I'm manning the
fort with the kids, but it's been a good week. We made it. I'm here. How are you, sir?
[0:01:22] JR: I'm doing well. In comparison, I've got nothing really going on. Just trying to keep
up with the news.
[0:01:28] IP: It's been a long year.
[0:01:30] JR: Yeah, it's been a long year this week already.
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AVT 199 Transcript
[0:01:33] IP: It's Wednesday. I'm almost hesitant to do an episode for what may come.
[0:01:38] JR: It really does feel like one of those weeks, where we record and we hit stop and
then something major is going to happen.
[0:01:45] IP: Then something is going to happen.
[0:01:47] JR: It feels like that kind of week.
[0:01:47] IP: Knock on wood that that doesn't happen. Later in the program, we're going to go
to Gabriel Leigh, who had an interesting conversation with the folks at Swedavia, which is the
Swedish Airports Authority about electric and hydrogen propulsion and how airports are getting
ready for that. That's later in the show. First, we begin with the big news of this week, or one of
the big stories of this week over the weekend. The first is the Yeti Airlines flight 691 that crashed
near Pokhara in Nepal. It was an ATR 72-500 that crashed on approach. Was flying from
Kathmandu to Pokhara. Sadly, all onboard did not survive.
I guess, the moments before the crash were captured on camera. I suppose, we should briefly
discuss what has been purported to be a video from inside the cabin, though, for a variety of
reasons, I remain unconvinced that it is a legitimate video for a variety of reasons. It has been
shared widely against my call to not do that, mostly because I don't think it's an accurate video,
but also, because if it's accurate, it needs to be seen by crash investigators and that's about it.
[0:03:03] JR: And nobody else. Yeah. When I came across it on Reddit, I did share it with you
and some other people with the explicit instructions to not watch it, but be aware of it. I would
give that recommendation to pretty much everyone else, because it's still not been
authenticated as an actual, authentic video. Even if it was, don't watch it. That's all we'll say
about that.
[0:03:23] IP: Yeah, you don't need to. But investigators are combing through the wreckage. The
flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder have both been recovered in good condition.
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[0:03:34] JR: In good condition, importantly to note.
[0:03:35] IP: That's good news. Yup. That is good news. Hopefully, the investigation does yield
fruit, as far as the cause of the crash and any learnings we can take. I will discuss the ADS-B
transponder issues that we've encountered with this particular aircraft in the Yeti Airline's fleet.
This particular aircraft has had an issue with its transponder for a very long time, years, where
the transponder is just not reliable. The data coming from the transponder, when taking human
eyes to the data, you quickly realize there's something wrong with the transponder. Erroneous
altitude and speed data coming from the transponder. Unfortunately, the position information
stopped before the end of the flight.
We had data coming from the aircraft, including altitude data, speed data, extended Mode S
data, which includes some of the autopilot settings, but not position information for whatever
reason for this particular aircraft towards the end of the flight. That's not unusual with this
particular transponder. Of course, it had to be this one, because all of the other aircraft in the
Yeti Airline's fleet are perfectly fine.
[0:04:48] JR: Yeah. To clarify on that, that's not a flight safety issue or anything. It is almost
certainly just the ADS-B portion of this transponder sending out erroneous information to us as
observers on flightradar24. Looking at the ADS-B data, it looks not great. But I'm sure the
information presented to the operators of this aircraft was not impacted in the same way,
because it certainly would not have been an airworthy aircraft, especially not for years.
[0:05:17] IP: That's an important point to make. The data coming out of the transponder versus
what the pilots are seeing, which is why the recovery of the flight data recorder is so crucial,
because that will show what the pilots were seeing, what the pilot instrumentation was, versus
what the ADS-B transponder, for whatever reason, is including a lot of erroneous information. In
the blog post that we put together discussing this a little bit, what I did was take – I did a sense
check, the altitude values, and only included those that were sane, looking at historical data
from previous flights by the same airline with the same aircraft type on the same route and
taking the autopilot setting. We've talked about this before, the MCP alt setting, the mode
control panel, the altitude setting for the autopilot. Taking those values and then reconstructing
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the altitude of the aircraft based on those values, excluding some of the values that we were
getting, which were nearly a 100,000 feet in altitude.
Clearly, no ATR is flying at a 100,000 feet. Taking that and reconstructing the altitude profile
gives us a better picture. Because the transponder stopped sending out position information, it
becomes a lot harder to correlate things. Again, we wait for the FDR readout.
[0:06:41] JR: Yeah, definitely interesting. Noteworthy, at least, that the data just stopped being
transmitted by the transponder in this aircraft. Because looking back at the history, that doesn't
appear to be very typical of the transponder. Usually, there is data from end to end. It's garbage,
the data, but you're usually getting something. But on this particular flight, unfortunately, the
data stream just stopped entirely.
[0:07:03] IP: Yeah. It's important to note that the data stream didn't stop. The transponder
continue to send data. It just wasn't sending position updates.
[0:07:10] JR: Yeah. Which is definitely noteworthy and strange. Whatever information, we're
going to have to wait until the flight data recorders are not recovered at this point, but read,
interpreted and some sort of preliminary report is released. I would not trust any of the
information coming out of the media in Nepal right now, because some of the information is
quoting officials from the region, speculating that there was a mechanical issue with the aircraft
of some sort.
This is a quote lifted from a local news report, now on Wikipedia that says, a Civil Aviation
Authority of Nepal spokesperson said, the weather was clear. According to the preliminary
information, the cause of the crash is a technical issue of the plane. There is no information I am
aware of to confirm that as being true. There are no reports of any mechanical issues. There
were no calls from the pilots of that aircraft to air traffic control that they were having any issues.
There was no Squawk code issued. Nothing really points to there being some technical issue on
that aircraft, aside from the outcome, of course. We're going to have to wait until an official
preliminary report is issued, because what we're seeing now is just not accurate, unfortunately.
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[0:08:23] IP: We'll leave that one there for now and return to it once we know a little bit more
and a preliminary report is issued. Let's go to New York, where a quiet Friday night got much
less quiet and could have been very not good. Quick eyes and quick senses from air traffic
controllers and the pilots involved, especially the Delta flight contributed to it being just a case of
hot brakes and delayed flights. Jason, I don't know if you want to run through the scenario of
what happened here.
[0:08:57] JR: I will say, that this near incident, actually, gained a lot more media attention than
the crash of Yeti Airlines, in a weird twist of reality here where the actual crash didn't get all that
much attention. This runway incursion at JFK keeps getting media attention. We’re five days
beyond and it's still in mainstream media. The day after the incident, I was actually tipped off by
the person who did break this news, one way or the other, XJohnNYC on Twitter, who always
seems to have inside information, especially on things like this. But somebody told him, “Hey,
look at AA106 yesterday.” He told a few people, myself included to go look at that. I was busy,
so I didn't have the chance. But the more people looked into it, the more it became clear that
there was a near catastrophe at JFK.
The word Tenerife was thrown around a number of times. Maybe correctly, maybe not, but what
had happened was Delta 1943 was already on its departure roll on JFK’s runway 4 left, as
American 106, a 777-200, I believe, unfortunately, did not follow the instructions given to them
by air traffic control. Instead of turning right on taxiway Kilo to cross over runway 3-1 left to then
get to runway 4 left, they crossed on, I believe, taxiway Juliet, over the active 4 left runway
directly in front of the departing Delta 737-900 ER.
That Delta 737 was reported, I believe, 104 knots before they slammed on the brakes after air
traffic control up at JFK tower got on frequency and said, “Cancel takeoff clearance. Stop.”
Fortunately, even though every other protection to prevent something like this from happening
failed, the radio frequency was not blocked. Basically, one of the only things potentially
preventing catastrophe here was that the frequency was open, the Delta pilots heard, the air
traffic controller told them to stop, and they did so. When all was said and done, there was
1,028 feet between the aircraft while they're both on the runway.
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We don't really know for sure whether or not there would have been an actual aircraft on aircraft
crash here, because you do need to do the math to say, okay, American 106 was traveling at
this rate of speed, accelerating from 8 knots to 15 knots, while crossing, while what would
happen if the Delta 739 continued to accelerate on its takeoff roll and didn't stop. Those are
questions that the NTSB and FAA are going to hopefully, provide us, as they are both
investigating this near catastrophe at JFK.
Unfortunately, the CVR, the cockpit voice recorder will not provide any answers at least from the
American aircraft as they, after about 20 minutes, probably less than that, holding short of
runway 3-1 left, they eventually did end up departing JFK enroute to London. Modern-day
cockpit voice recorders are digital, but they are still artificially limited in the amount of audio they
can record. That's typically about two to four hours. That audio is long gone. There are definitely
questions that remain today of should that crew have been allowed to depart JFK on that flight.
Now that evidence of what happened at least from the cockpit voice recorders point of view is
now gone and erased and is unrecoverable. Lots of things to be answered by the NTSB and
FAA and definitely, anxious to get that report from them.
[0:12:40] IP: It'll be very interesting to see the different focuses of the FAA and the NTSB, if the
FAA does in fact issue a report. I know, we'll get a report from the NTSB. It'll be interesting to
see what the FAA has to say as well. The interesting thing to me is the FAA opened an
investigation pretty much right away. Then it took a few days for the NTSB to get involved. I'm
interested to understand what the deliberative process was for them to announce, or if it was
just a delay in announcing it.
[0:13:11] JR: I think it was probably a delay –
[0:13:12] IP: That might be the case.
[0:13:13] JR: - in announcing it. Yeah. Because our friend Ross Feinstein over on Twitter, who
used to be court comms from American, actually did dig into the NTSB rules and all that and did
note that on occasion of a runway incursion of this nature, the NTSB is supposed to be
immediately notified. There is going to be the question of was the NTSB notified immediately as
it was supposed to be, or did possibly, not all links in the chain work as it was supposed to, and
NTSB, I don't know, learned about it on the morning news, which is possible, but I hope not.
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There's lots of questions to be answered, why did multiple layers of protection against this very
thing fail when it basically came down to the air traffic controller in Kennedy tower seeing this
and getting on the radio and preventing it and the Delta pilots hearing that transmission over the
radio and being able to stop on time.
Other people like you have probably mentioned that, thank goodness, this was a 737-900 ER
with the probably absolute worst acceleration rate in modern jet aviation. Had this been, I don't
know, a 767, or 757, this might be a very, very different story.
[0:14:22] IP: Also on the flip side, had it been 767, a 777, a 747, or something much larger, less
so the acceleration rate, though that becomes a factor, but also, the bigger you are, the longer it
takes to stop. Does that become an issue? All of the factors that went into this being the world's
worst aircraft, the 737-900 ER, and a 777 that for whatever reason, decided to accelerate as
they crossed the runway. For whatever reason, they did. Not a lot. I mean, they went from 12 to
18, to 20 knots by the time they crossed the runway.
[0:14:58] JR: It mattered.
[0:15:00] IP: All of that went into making this less close than it could have been. Thankfully, not
an incident, or not an accident, but rather just a runway incursion incident. Definitely looking
forward to reading that report. Let's go to Amsterdam for another Delta issue. This time, it was
Delta's fault.
[0:15:21] JR: Oh.
[0:15:22] IP: Yeah. A delta A330, landing on runway 2-2 came up a little short. They landed on
the lip of the paved area of the runway, or touched down on the lip of the paved area of the
runway, which is about 300 meters, or almost a 1,000 feet short of the touchdown point of the
runway. Quite short of where they should have been. That's another investigation and another
report that we'll be interested to read, whether or not weather played a factor, because the
weather wasn't great, but it wasn't the worst we've ever seen in Amsterdam. Another one to
watch and another one to look out for. We're just racking up accident and incident reports today.
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[0:16:13] JR: Yeah. Not applying blame to anyone here. We don't have the full story. Maybe
there was some weather condition that forced the aircraft to land unfavorably like this. It was
interesting to see the initial news come out saying, “Oh, they landed short of the runway by a
few meters.” Well, no, they landed short of the physical pavement of the runway. They were 300
meters short of the touchdown point. They weren't even close. There should have been all sorts
of low energy, low speed, low altitude warnings on that aircraft. But again, maybe there was a
microburst. We don't know. We'll have to wait for the Dutch and I guess, maybe the NTSB gets
involved here. Somebody will issue a report and we'll find out what happened here.
I think the aircraft is back in service now. I know it was shuttled over to Detroit on a repositioning
flight, but I think it is now back in service. Thankfully, and yes, it is today, it is in Paris, out of
Minneapolis. It hasn't gone back to – Actually, no. The other day it went Atlanta to Amsterdam.
No, wait. That flight was canceled. Never mind. It looks like, they're keeping it away from
Amsterdam for a little bit.
[0:17:22] IP: There you go. This particular incident won't generate a report, but it did generate
some terrible reporting.
[0:17:30] JR: Oh, geez. I know what you're talking about. This was – you know that Twitter
account, @awfulaviation? This should be the pinned tweet forever.
[0:17:38] IP: It really should. Qantas 144 was flying from Auckland to Sydney yesterday, or
technically, yes, today.
[0:17:45] JR: Time travel.
[0:17:47] IP: Time travel. I hate time zones. What happened was is at some point, between
Auckland and Sydney, the crew received an indication of some sort and shut down the engine.
Shut down one of its engines. This is a 737-800. With one of the engine shutdown approaching
Sydney, they squawked 7700. Initially had declared a mayday. They revised that down to a pan-
pan. Less urgency, just be aware of it. We're going to ask the rescue services, meet the aircraft
on the runway, because we're going to be coming in with a single engine landing, etc., etc. Not
out of the ordinary in any sense of the word for this type of procedure.
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[0:18:34] JR: Important to note that the engine did not fail. The engine was apparently shut
down by the crew. There's a distinct difference there.
[0:18:41] IP: Right, right. This was a crew decision to shut down the – There was no engine
failure. The crew received indications and chose to shut down the engine and then followed all
proper procedures. Then they landed just fine. Photographers, because there was a lot of notice
here, photographers were able to position themselves to watch the landing. There were
helicopters involved. There were photographers on the fence line. The right-hand engine
opened up as the CFM56 does with its thrust reverse and it opened up to allow the reverse
thrusters to do their reverse thrusting. Those photos were captured by photographers and sent
to their respective wire services and newspapers and to journalistic outlets, and I think I'm being
generous here.
[0:19:30] JR: Oh, you are being real generous. To tabloids. Let's say, tabloids. Call them what
they are.
[0:19:35] IP: Yeah. To tabloids. The Herald Sun and The Daily Telegraph, both claimed that the
damage was visible on the aircraft.
[0:19:43] JR: Oh, my goodness.
[0:19:47] IP: They saw the reverse thruster open.
[0:19:48] JR: What do you think they would say when they saw the door open? They’re like,
“Oh, my God. There's a hole in the side of the plane.” Oh, it’s a door. Never mind.
[0:19:56] IP: That’s exactly what they said.
[0:19:57] JR: “Oh, my God. The wing is getting bigger.” No, those are the flaps. Yeah, this was
some of the worst aviation and I'm air quoting here, “reporting I have ever seen.” The worst part
of it, they were called out on it, as they should have been and they just left it up. I think it's still
up right now.
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[0:20:15] IP: For them, it's a click thing. Which is why I didn't share a link to any of the articles
when I posted this on Twitter, because it's stupid. They're stupid for posting it, but they don't
care, because it still gets clicks and it drums up engagement with them and people calling them
idiots. They don't care. Because the more people that click on that story, the more they get paid.
It's as simple as that, and it's stupid.
[0:20:39] JR: I have nothing to add. No, no. Good job.
[0:20:43] IP: Anyway. Okay, so let's go back to what happened last week with the NOTAM
outage. That got solved. The update is they were trying to update the NOTAM system and that
didn't work. Then they updated the NOTAM system. Did we ever get confirmation that they
actually finished the updates?
[0:21:03] JR: I don't know. We also don't know what happened. As far as I know, we don't know
what happened with the Canadian NOTAM system either. Maybe the same faulty USB drive
was put in both national systems. I don't know. Still, very suspicious of the whole thing. What is
known, what does stand is that these systems do desperately need to be upgraded to prevent
something like this from happening again. Not that modern systems are infallible. Anyone who
knows who's used any modern-day Windows system knows that maybe they should stay on
Windows XP. I don't know. But this probably can't be allowed to happen again.
[0:21:40] IP: Switching over to a bit of business, we've got Lufthansa going in alone for ITA
Airways. They're initially bidding for a minority stake by themselves now. They had previously
been part of a group bid, but now they're going for it by themselves, with the possibility of full
ownership later. Lufthansa Group looking to open up an Italian hub. That's worked out
marvelously in the past for others, so I'm sure it'll be fine this time.
[0:22:06] JR: Yeah. What could possibly go wrong? I don't know. Lufthansa Group seems to be
by far, the most interested party in an ITA, the late Alitalia. It is. There are all sorts of caveats
here before they do anything. It is contingent on both parties signing an MOU for the
negotiations. This is on an exclusive basis at least. There's all sorts of regulatory and business
requirements that need to be met. Who knows if this goes through, even in this minority stake,
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let on full stake. But I'm sure the Italian government would be more than happy to accept some
free cash from the Lufthansa Group here and make it their problem.
[0:22:48] IP: There you go. The other thing that we said was going to happen that then actually
did happen was the 737 MAX has finally flown in China with a Chinese airline for the first time,
since March 2019. We talked last week, assuming that it might actually happen and it did.
[0:23:07] JR: Yeah. We got one right for a change.
[0:23:09] IP: On schedule. Look at that.
[0:23:10] JR: Yeah. It was three-year and 10-month hiatus. Bravo Dash 1206 and Bravo 1127,
both operated on the same day. I think, they're still going, right?
[0:23:24] IP: Chugging right along.
[0:23:25] JR: Wasn't just like a one day, yeah, let's put these in the fleet and see what happens.
I think they're both going.
[0:23:31] IP: They’re back in.
[0:23:33] JR: Which is I'm sure to the relief of many, many people up in Chicago. No, wait.
Boeing's not in Chicago anymore. They moved to, what was it? Virginia, or –
[0:23:43] IP: Washington.
[0:23:43] JR: Washington, Maryland, whatever.
[0:23:45] IP: Washington, DC-ish.
[0:23:46] JR: The greater DMV. I don't know. They're out there somewhere. I'm sure many
people are happy about this situation. That's great news. There are other airlines in China that
have the MAX that have not yet put them back in service. We'll see when that happens.
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[0:24:01] IP: There you go. We've talked over the past year or two really, in a variety of ways
about what airlines and manufacturers and to a much lesser extent, airports are doing to look
towards the next generation of aircraft. How they're going to be powered, whether that's
sustainable aviation fuel, electrics, hydrogen, what have you. We have an interesting
conversation now coming up. Our Gabriel Leigh, recently went behind the scenes at
Stockholm's Arlanda Airport. He's got a great video coming up about that, about the airport in
particular, in the inner workings of the airport. That's going to be on our YouTube channel soon.
While he was there, he also visited with John Nilsson, who is the Strategic Manager for Electric
and Hydrogen Aircraft at Swedavia, which is the Swedish airport’s manager. They manage 10 of
the largest airports in Sweden, the largest commercial airports in Sweden. In their conversation,
they're going to talk about how the airport and the airports in Sweden generally are planning for
electric and hydrogen infrastructure and some of the other things they're doing to get ready for
what's coming next. We'll be right back with their conversation. Stay with us.
[BREAK]
[0:25:24] GL: I'm here at the Swedavia offices, just outside Stockholm's Arlanda Airport terminal
area with John Nilsson, who's responsible for strategies around electric and hydrogen aviation.
John, thanks for chatting with us. I was hoping to hear a little bit about what you are actually
working with. What are the tangible things you work with day-to-day, as you gear up for these
things? For many of us, it's a quite an imaginary thing to think of electric and hydrogen aviation.
It's really interesting to hear from you what you actually do with that.
[0:25:51] JN: First of all, thanks for having me. It's always fascinating to speak about the future.
That's what I'm working with, the future when it comes to airports. What will happen when we
start flying with electric, or hydrogen-driven aviation in the future, and what will be the
consequences on our airports? Because we at Swedavia, we take care of the airports and we
plan the airports on the long-term with master plans and development plans. It's very important
for us to understand what we need to build on the airports in the future, to make sure that we
offer as interesting product as possible when it comes to new kinds of aircrafts in the future.
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My role is basically, to form more strategies when it comes to how we should adapt to airports,
to make sure that we can have those airlines and aircrafts on our airports in the future. It
involves adapting the master plans that we have, adapting the development plans that we have
to make sure that we build the right thing at the right time.
[0:26:55] GL: That seems like, quite a challenging thing to try and do, I would imagine. Is that
correct?
[0:27:00] JN: It is challenging. But at the same time, it's very interesting, because I get to be at
the forefront of the new technologies. Trying to understand what happens, which are the new
upcoming types of aircraft. We're talking about Heart aviation in Sweden, but also Eviation,
based in Washington now, Washington State, and trying to figure out what will be the range of
these airplanes, how many passengers we’ll have, what will be the needs of these electric
airplanes when it comes to charging infrastructure, what will be the needs of the refueling of
hydrogen-driven airplanes? Will it be straight to jet engines, or will it be with the fuel cells in the
future?
We need to adapt, especially our apron area and our terminal areas and our gate areas to those
new airports, aircrafts, I mean, excuse me. And how our airports need to increase the energy
when it comes to electric energy on the airports to be able to have those turnaround times that
we have today, also with electric aviation. An example that I can give you is the new types of
commercial electric aviation that are expected to be on the market in 2027-2028, if you ask
Eviation, or Heart Aviation, they need about 2 to 3 megawatt of power input to charge the
batteries, if we want them to have a turnaround time of 40 minutes. That is a huge amount of
energy for an airport.
We need to figure out how to be able to cope with that high demand output and try to figure out
how to deal with that. Should we take it straight from the net, electric grid, I mean, or should we
have other types of energy reserves on the airport to be able to handle that in the future? That's
fascinating, but also very complex way of planning the airport that we are not used to. This goes
away from the traditional side of planning airports, where we had our fuel depots and we
refueled our aircrafts on the stands, or remotely and that was it. Now it's a whole new vision, a
new approach that we need to figure out.
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[0:29:06] GL: Do you imagine that airports will end up looking quite different from how they do
now in terms of how the apron is laid out? Or is it not going to be such a fundamental change?
[0:29:14] JN: Both, yes and no. Running an airport is a complicated matter and it's an
expensive matter. We would like to have as much flexibility as possible in the future. We'll also
see that in the future, it will be a mix of aircraft from hydrogen aircrafts, electric aircrafts and
also, more conventional aircraft that we have today. We will have to have our stands to be fully
flexible, so we can cater all types of aircraft on the stands.
No, there might be some differences with today. But most of the time, I think we'll try to strive to
have airports that are pretty similar today, because the aircraft shape won't be that much
different, because it's been made to be the most efficient possible and I don't think that will
change.
[0:29:57] GL: Right. I think a lot of people are skeptical that these planes are even realistically
coming. That it's kind of, you mentioned, getting negative comments about greenwashing, when
you talk about plans around these things. I think that's a common conception, especially in this
area. How do you counter that?
[0:30:10] JN: Well, I don't think we will ever be – won't be less curious about traveling in the
future. I think, we'll be more curious about traveling about exchanging with other cultures, about
also discovering new places and also, visiting our families or friends in different countries. We
won't go away from traveling in the future, but we need to travel more responsibly and travel
more sustainable approach.
I see a great future for electric aviation and hydrogen aviation. Electric aviation, there are some
airplanes already today flying full electric. The two seaters with Pipistrel, for example, or the
ΦNIX, for example. The market that is seen for those shorter range, point to point routes
between for example, Stockholm and Visby, or Oulu and Vaasa, I do believe there's a market for
that in the future. Those electric airplanes will cater for that market.
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However, for the mid-range airplanes, electric aircraft won't have necessarily the range for that.
It looks more likely than not that hydrogen airplanes, either the fuel cells, or straight to engine
will be interesting enough to be able to fly those routes and those routes will cover up to 80% of
all the existing routes in the world. Those are those short to mid-range routes, less than, I would
say, 2,000 kilometers. Those are the majority of the routes in Europe, at least.
When it comes to hydrogen, we need to differentiate between the gray hydrogen that you get
when you split fossil, petrol and etc., or fossil and natural gas and also, the green hydrogen. It's
important to use green hydrogen, where we'll be fueling with hydrogen. Green hydrogen, you
get by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen with green electricity. It's going to need a new
ecosystem for sustainable fuels in the future. Also, a bigger priority on sustainable electricity in
the future that will be needed to produce that fuel. Maybe more of a local production electricity
that could be used to then for a long day, produce hydrogen on the airport, so in the vicinity of
the airports.
[0:32:20] GL: A lot needs to happen. You see it as essentially realistic, that if we can work our
way through the various challenges.
[0:32:26] JN: The Swedish aviation branch, [inaudible 0:32:28] has put goals to be fully
sustainable and the carbon neutral for the domestic routes by 2030 and for all the routes by
2045, from Sweden. It's not a matter of if. It's about a when it will happen. It's a tough target, but
it's also a necessary target. I don't see a way of not achieving that target. We’ll just have to do it.
We want a good way of doing it. We have Heart Aerospace when it comes to electric aviation.
We have Eviation, but we have also other startups looking at hydrogen aviation, for example,
ZeroAvia, H2FLY. Then we have Airbus looking at hydrogen aviation as well for beyond 2030,
between 2030 and 2045. There's a lot of interest in that right now. Especially after the
pandemic, it's been a renewed interest in looking into alternative fuel sources, and sustainable
fuel sources for aviation. I really do believe it's going to happen.
[0:33:27] GL: Do you get the sense that all the players in the aviation industry are equally
feeling the motivation to get this figured out, airlines, manufacturers, airport operators?
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[0:33:38] JN: I see a large interest of the airlines and airlines operators into this. I also see, it's
a balancing act, because obviously, it's a competitive market out there. There's also a need for
the airline industry to be more sustainable. They understand that they also need to do it,
because the customers, their customers also care more and more about a sustainable
approach. They put a lot of weight into the possibilities of traveling in a sustainable way. Many
airplanes, airlines now offered a way to buy fossil-free fuel, sustainable aviation fuel to offset
your travel.
The more that happens, the more production of sustainable fuel will happen and the lower the
prices will be also for sustainable fuel. I see it as a necessity to encourage that way of traveling,
of actually buying a sustainable aviation fuel for your travels.
[0:34:37] GL: I'm not sure if this is exactly your area, but you mentioned, I think, that Swedavia
pays for half the cost of sustainable aviation fuel. Is that right?
[0:34:44] JN: It's not exactly my area, so I might not be – know exactly the details around that.
Swedavia, first of all, we replaced all the fuel we use for travels with the company with
sustainable aviation fuel one a one-to-one basis. Then, we also have incentive programs for
airlines when they're refueling on our airports, to refuel with sustainable aviation fuel if they
wanted to. I’m not sure exactly the proportion, but we do pay a part of the price difference,
compared to fossil fuel to help them on the way.
[0:35:18] GL: Can you tell me about what you mentioned about how you see the airport as an
energy hub for the future?
[0:35:23] JN: Yeah, absolutely. We see in the future that energy, when it comes to producing
energy more locally, will be very interesting in the future, both for the airport for running our own
operations. Takes a lot of electricity to run an airport. But also, for the aircrafts on the airport,
especially if we have electric aircraft in the airport, we would love to be able to provide sufficient
electricity on the airport. Also, to provide maybe locally produced hydrogen on our airports. We
are looking into the possibilities of producing electricity on airports.
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There's airports already around Europe that are producing electricity with solar panels. This is a
path Swedavia, also would love to go and see if there’s possibilities with the areas that we have
on airports that are pretty big. Just think about all the parking areas, all building, roofs that we
have. Also, green areas around the runways and the taxiways, firing off on equipment,
obviously. We could use that for solar panels and produce a lot electricity on the airports that we
can then use to either recharge powerbanks, or battery banks, so we can peak shave, like we
say, if we have peak energy demand in the morning, or in the evening, when we have most of
our traffic, we can peak shave out with energy that is stored in big battery packs. Or we can split
water into hydrogen and use the hydrogen to run either fuel cells on the airport, where we can
take the excess heat that they generate to a warm a building and electricity back into the
system. Or to produce hydrogen that can be used by the aircrafts also in the future. It's a vision
we have. We're still in the starting phase, or trying to figure out that vision, but it's something
that we think will be the future of the airports.
[0:37:08] GL: Great. Would you say that you have an exciting job?
[0:37:12] JN: I have a fantastic job. I wouldn't even call it a job. It's a hobby for me. I love
airplanes. I love aircrafts. I love transport planning. For me, coming to work and working with the
future every day, I can't say I'm working. I'm just doing what I want to do, basically. It’s fantastic.
[0:37:27] GL: All right. Nice. Well, thanks very much for chatting. It's fascinating to see and I
wish you the best of luck. I want to see all this stuff come to fruition.
[0:37:32] JN: Thank you. Well, come back in a couple of years, and we'll be able to show you in
real life what the infrastructure is about.
[BREAK]
[0:37:45] IP: Welcome back. I thought that was an interesting introduction into what airports are
going to have to do to support all of these possibly different types of powered aircraft. I mean,
we've talked about SAF and dealing with that as fueling aircraft. But thinking even further than
that, where do you get all the electricity for electric aircraft? Where do you get all of the
hydrogen for hydrogen-powered aircraft? I think, that's going to be a really interesting,
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interesting conversation moving forward, especially as we move beyond single airport managers
into airports that are just on their own, rather than have a national management.
[0:38:21] JR: Yeah, we were actually talking about this a bit privately today, about the charging
of electric aircraft. If it's complicated for an airport the size of Stockholm, or with the support of
corporate backing and major airlines, how in the world little airports, little privately run airports
that may end up on the receiving end to some of these electric aircraft, how in the world are
they going to end up building out the infrastructure to support any of this? I guess, be it
hydrogen or electric? That is such a big question I have, that I don't really think has any answers
right now. It is very interesting to hear about what an airport, like Stockholm Arlanda is planning,
or at least thinking.
[0:39:00] IP: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think that's definitely a big consideration, especially where
state support isn't necessarily as forthcoming. Speaking of state support, NASA today awarded
Boeing the contract to the partnership for the transonic truss-braced wing demonstrator, or
concept. NASA is going to contribute 425 million and 725 million of the expected cost will come
from industry, including Boeing and its partners. The goal is to build two demonstrator aircraft.
One is roughly a slightly 737-ish-sized aircraft, slightly smaller. Then on the back of that
demonstrator aircraft, a slightly larger 757-sized aircraft will be developed after validation.
They're going to be VS1 and VS2.
The idea here is that they're looking for roughly 30% increased efficiency in fuel consumption
and emissions reductions, relative to what they say is today's most efficient single aisle aircraft.
Think your 737 MAX, your A320neo. This particular wing, it's longer, it's thinner, it's more swept
and then it's braced by a diagonal truss. Think normal aircraft, longer wings, thinner wings and
then a truss that comes out to about the center point of the wings supporting it. Then in this
particular instance, they have a T-tail for the aircraft, which will be interesting to see. I cannot
wait to see this thing fly in the late 2020s.
[0:40:49] JR: Yes. This is exactly the outcome that Jon Ostrower had discussed with us several
episodes ago, where why should Boeing go out on its own, develop a middle of the market
aircraft, or the next version of the 737, when they could get the US government, the NASA to
pay for two-thirds of it, or a third of it without having to do it on their own? I mean, it makes
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sense. The renderings that they put out today don't make any sense, because there's no way
that one of these aircraft is 737 size comparable and holds a 100 people and then the second
aircraft is more 757 and holds 200 passengers, because the renderings, they look, you know
that meme, that office meme where Pam's holding up two pictures and they say, corporate
ones, couldn’t tell the difference? And there is no difference. They’re the same thing. They go,
“Well, no. They’re the same.”
[0:41:38] IP: Jason, one of them says VS1 one of them clearly says, VS2.
[0:41:45] JR: It looks like, these renderings were tossed together by an intern at the 11th hour,
or something like that. Very strange for a program that's going to be donating nearly half a billion
dollars to the effort. Very, very early days. Very exciting to see where this goes. I wish Boeing
and NASA and whoever else is vested in this as well. Very interesting, again, to see the
difference between where Boeing is heading and where Airbus is heading, where Airbus is
spearheading much of this development on its own, and is looking towards alternate propulsion
methods, such as electric or hydrogen really more so these days, whereas Airbus or Boeing, on
the other hand is really, let's let the government help us out with some of this, well, a lot of this
money to make efficiency gains on existing propulsion systems. Because I didn't see anything
here. Maybe I missed it about this being an electric, or hydrogen-powered aircraft or anything.
It's really more about aerodynamically improving existing propulsion systems, which is certainly
a way to go about doing it, because Boeing has certainly been in a sustainable aviation fuel
camp moving forward, which I hope is not the permanent answer moving forward. It shouldn't
be. If it is, Boeing seems to be on the right path.
[0:43:02] IP: I mean, I think this is a case of why not both? Why not, if you can improve the
aerodynamics of the aircraft and increase efficiency by 30%. You can also use that design in a
green hydrogen-powered aircraft. That seems great to me. I mean, hopefully, all of these things
start to really pick up speed, or not necessarily pick up speed, but pick up, roll up into larger
projects, so that you end up with an aircraft that can fly sustainably. Not just less – I mean,
because when we talk about sustainable aviation fuel, most of it is not sustainable. I mean, it
really all depends on the feedstocks. The question becomes, yes, it's less bad. Still, it's not
sustainable.
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Really getting to that, where sustainable means sustainable, and not just a fancy word for, it's
less bad than what we were doing before, or what we're doing now. I think this is good.
Hopefully, we see more of it.
[0:44:09] JR: In 10 years, maybe we can merge whatever Boeing comes up with whatever
Airbus comes up with and make one combined aircraft and synergies and whatnot. No, no.
That's not going to work. I don't think those two will work together anytime soon. Sorry.
[0:44:26] IP: For all of the manner of reasons. Yeah, an interesting first step, an interesting word
today, and certainly looking forward to seeing where it takes us and where things go. Looking to
see these fly by the late 2020s, for inclusion in the 2030s for the next generation of aircraft that
Boeing produces.
To close the show, we've got I feel like, bits and bobs, but worth mentioning. No surprise here,
Delta exercising options for 12 A220-300s. It's a great aircraft for Delta and for, I think, most
airlines that are operating it, they've been very pleased, so why not pick up some more? This
one, I think, deserves a little discussion because Airlines for America, which is the trade
organization that represents US-based airlines, is petitioning for an extension of the slot waivers
into China and Japan. China recently reopened to flights, but those are not quite going yet.
Japan also recently reopened flights. Those are not going as much as we would have expected
them to, mostly because of the getting things going phase, where people are still, I think, a little
apprehensive about booking and navigating what they need to do –
[0:45:41] JR: Not me. Let's go. More flights. Let's go.
[0:45:41] IP: - and everything is just reopening. Jason's already in Japan.
[0:45:46] JR: I need more award availability, specifically. Let's go with that.
[0:45:50] IP: I mean, don't we all? It'll be interesting to see whether or not this particular waiver
is extended. Or they say, “No, you need to start operating these flights.” Because the airlines
are arguing, “We can't make money on these flights yet. There just isn't enough demand, given
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the situation to meet all of the slot requirements that we have.” It'll be interesting to see what the
authorities then say about continuing on with the slot waiver. We'll keep an eye on that and see
how things go. That brings us to the end of the episode, episode 199. Jason, episode 200
coming up, it's going to be a fantastic episode. It’s going to be a huge episode.
[0:46:30] JR: Yea. Honestly, we've got nothing planned. Let's hope, there's a lot of good,
interesting, wholesome, friendly, happy news that happens in the next seven days, because
we've got nothing planned.
[0:46:44] IP: We don't necessarily have anything planned yet. If all goes according to plan, it will
be a very good episode. It really depends on –
[0:46:51] JR: They're all very good episodes, Ian. They’re all very good episodes.
[0:46:53] IP: Yes. It really depends on a particular schedule being kept, that we can discuss
next week, and we hope to have a great show for you next Friday. In the meantime, I hope you
enjoyed this show, this particular episode. If you did, or if you didn't, leave us a rating, review, or
send us an email, podcast@fr24.com. Last week, we got some interesting notes about my love,
or lack thereof for the 787-8. But if you do have a comment about anything that happened in the
show, if you want us to talk about something, please email us, podcast@fr24.com.
In the meantime, we hope you have a great week and thank you so much for listening. I am Ian
Petchenik, here, as always with –
[0:47:36] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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