AvTalk Episode 264: Stolen gold and expensive eels

AVT 264 Transcript
EPISODE 264
[EPISODE]
[0:00:08] IP: Hello and welcome to episode 264 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Hello, Ian. How's it going?
[0:00:19] IP: Hello, Jason. It's going well. How are you, sir?
[0:00:21] JR: It's good. You sound in better spirits than usual. I think, I know why, but you sound
happy and that's good.
[0:00:30] IP: It's been a good week so far, at least since the start of the business week. The
weekend was a little bit busy for all the wrong reasons, but we'll get into that in just a minute.
Yeah, things are going well. We're getting into the figuring out what everyone's doing for the
summer routine, so we've got some camps and things squared away, but now we can start
looking at, are we going to travel and where are we going to go? I'm excited about that.
[0:00:53] JR: I will be here all summer, you know?
[0:00:56] IP: Well, then maybe it's a trip from you.
[0:00:57] JR: It’s a lot easier for me. Yeah, I’ll just be here at my desk doing work.
[0:01:01] IP: Yeah. Well, there is that. This weekend, I had big plans for the yard, making
everything look nice.
[0:01:09] JR: You got to take care of the yard.
[0:01:11] IP: But that didn't really happen, because Iran retaliated against Israel for a strike on
its consulate compound in Syria that took place at the beginning of April. Over the weekend,
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Iran sent hundreds of cruise missiles, one-way drones, and various other aerial assault vehicles
from Iranian airspace to, ostensibly, to try and hit Israel. Nearly all of those were intercepted
either by Israeli defenses, Jordanian defenses, U.S. defenses, and they may have been others,
I'm not sure, given all of the military equipment that is operating in the region. But as far as
commercial aircraft are concerned, it was a giant, giant security issue and giant, giant
headache. I almost said a word that is not family-oriented and podcast appropriate.
[0:02:16] JR: Did it begin with a C?
[0:02:18] IP: It began with a C and it ended with a K.
[0:02:20] JR: I think I know the one.
[0:02:22] IP: Yeah. I think everyone can probably guess. But what happened was Jordan closed
its airspace. They were the first to close aerospace. Iraq also closed its airspace. Lebanon
closed its airspace. Then obviously, Israel closed its airspace. Syria is already mostly no go for
nearly all aircraft, except those operating by the regional airlines operating either to Syria itself,
or through Syria to Lebanon.
Most airlines earlier in the week had already stopped flying through Iran, and Iran didn't close its
airspace entirely. They activated a protocol that removes traffic from the western half of Iran.
Basically, from the border with Iraq, all the way a few hundred kilometers east of Tehran, turns
that into, basically, what's a no-go area for commercial traffic and then routes things upwards to
the north. This didn't cancel a ton of flights, but what it did do is put tremendous pressure on the
routes that remained available. This is just a continuing story in the compression of so much of
the traffic going between Europe and Asia.
There's really the northern route now, which is through Turkey, through Georgia, Azerbaijan, and
further on to the east until you can basically cut down through Afghanistan now, or you can go
south and route through Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Depending on where you're going and where
you're coming from, either option might make sense for you. This is just another step in the
continued compression of traffic. That lasted for a few days. Then things have slowly gotten
back to normal as airlines begin routing through Iraq again. Airlines still mostly avoiding Iran,
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except a few, Jazeera, Emirates, Wizz is still using Iranian airspace, Turkish obviously still using
Iranian airspace. A few big airlines still using it, but a lot of the international carriers that are just
using it as a gateway between Europe and Asia, not. Not a great situation, especially since
Israel says that it is going to retaliate once again, which could lead to, again, the closure of more
airspace.
[0:04:47] JR: Okay, retaliation for a retaliation. Seems like escalation.
[0:04:53] IP: We don't talk politics specifically. We talk a lot of geopolitics on this podcast,
because aviation is a huge factor in geopolitics. I think it's worth mentioning that Iran tweeted
out, I think it was the deputy foreign minister, or foreign minister of Iran.
[0:05:06] JR: But they said, the matter is concluded.
[0:05:08] IP: We consider this matter concluded, before ending a meeting. I mean, good for
them. But it doesn't seem like the Israelis consider the matter concluded and they have vowed
to retaliate once again. Further affecting all of this, as far as the commercial aviation component
goes, is that GPS jamming and spoofing have been intense in the region.
[0:05:31] JR: It's bad. It's really bad.
[0:05:34] IP: It got, I don't want to put a number on it and be wrong, but it got a lot, a lot worse.
We saw, basically, jamming as wide and as far as the eye could see, as well as an increase in
spoofing. You had the random flights landing in Beirut that were clearly not landing in Beirut. It's
become even more of an issue. OPS Group this week, which we've talked to Mark Zee, who is
one of the founders of OPS Group, but also, we talk about them on a general basis because
they're an excellent resource for operators. They are at odds, basically, with the Israeli
government and with EASA, the European Union Aviation Safety Administration, saying those
organizations are saying, there's minimal impact. You can continue to operate in areas that are
not NOTAM closed without issue.
OPS Group is coming back and saying, “No, we're experiencing significant problems, especially
with GPS jamming. We're dealing with very, very clear uncertainty about the safety of the
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airspace at any given moment.” They're telling their members to be extremely careful, which I
think is good, solid advice.
[0:06:46] JR: Yeah. I was thinking the other day, we've heard a lot from the pilot perspective
and the operational perspective. I was thinking, what is it like for the passengers on these
flights? Everyone's obviously, the moving map channel is one of the most popular things for
passengers to look at. What are they seeing when GPS is jammed, or spoofed? Is the system
just going to not show anything? Or is it showing the aircraft where it is definitely not? Do people
panic and say, “Oh, my God. Why are we not where we're supposed to be?” I haven't heard of
any passenger saying anything in that regard. I'm wondering what happens.
[0:07:24] IP: Yeah. I mean, if you've been on one of those flights, email us, podcast@fr24.com.
Let us know what you've seen. We also had our colleague Gabriel on an SAS flight that
experienced significant GPS jamming. They didn't experience any spoofing to my knowledge,
but they did experience significant GPS jamming. But he was in the flight deck, s I'm not sure if
he got a glimpse at the moving map, but it's a really interesting question. If anyone out there
knows, or has seen it, or if you're going to be at a flight where you're flying through some of
these regions, snap a picture and let us know what happens.
[0:07:54] JR: Or, if Ian, you want to buy me a nice ticket to somewhere that may have some
GPS jamming, or spoofing, I can go find out myself. You can even come with me.
[0:08:03] IP: I think the obvious choice here is to put you on one of the Singapore flights, just –
[0:08:07] JR: Obviously.
[0:08:07] IP: Fine. Of course.
[0:08:08] JR: I am willing to take on this mission.
[0:08:11] IP: That is so gracious of you, Jason. Absolutely gracious of you.
[0:08:14] JR: You can come, too. It'll be a great time.
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[0:08:17] IP: Just to close this part of the conversation, we come around to Malaysia, which
through its aviation administration has put out a conflict zone notice. I think, rightfully so, given
Malaysia's history flying through conflict zones. They say, “Hey, this is in fact a conflict zone.”
There are long-range surface to air missiles, coordination irregularities and a risk of
miscalculation, or misidentification by air defense systems. This is not hypothetical. This has
happened to Malaysia Airlines in 2014. It happened to Ukraine international airlines in Iran in
2020. These are not hypothetical questions. I think it's really interesting to me that Malaysia is
doing this, but I don't think they're on a line at all.
[0:09:07] JR: No, no. There is really no other airline in a better position to be making such a
statement. I don't think anyone would refute that.
[0:09:16] IP: We'll continue to keep watch on this. I think the interesting thing here overall is that
if something were to happen that results in a wider regional conflict on a longer-term basis,
there's very few places that all of this traffic can go, because there's just so much of it and
there's only so much airspace if we start to see larger closures. We're going to keep a very
close eye on this. Unfortunately, I'm sure we'll be talking about this again.
[0:09:50] JR: Yeah, not great. But hey, maybe things improve. Who knows?
[0:09:54] IP: Maybe. We can only hope.
[0:09:56] JR: Probably not, but fingers crossed.
[0:09:58] IP: Probably not. Yeah. Leaving that on a hopeful note, I guess. Now, we go to
Washington, D.C., where there was a congressional hearing today that told us, I don't know
what it told us. Did it tell us anything? I’m not –
[0:10:11] JR: Words were said. I don't think anything new was said, but people have things to
say. That's always nice. I think that's the point of these hearings, or sessions, or whatever.
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[0:10:21] IP: What this was is it was a Senate hearing on Boeing whistleblowers and how
Boeing's safety culture has failed, basically. They had a few whistleblowers and they had a
professor from the Ohio State University that spoke to what is safety culture? How does it
operate and things like that, which I thought was a good introduction. I think Jon Ostrower had
the summation here. He said, “The hardest part of this hearing is that it's being held by senators
asking questions who have very little idea of what's actually going on, or how any of this works,
and it's obscuring thoughtful commentary and information from being provided by the panelists.”
I mean, that could honestly, that could describe 95% of congressional hearings. I think in this
particular case, you always want to hear from people who are experts in the field and people
who have firsthand experience. Their expertise and experience is often lost in these hearings.
This hearing itself, I don't know if it really moved the needle. The reporting that comes after this
hearing, perhaps follow-up hearings maybe could be of use, but it doesn't seem to me that we
really learned anything.
Boeing for its part released a statement after the hearing that just said, because the hearing
focused on possible, or alleged deficiencies with how Boeing manufactures the 787. Boeing
says that the 787 fleet is fine. They say that the aircraft can safely operate for at least 30 years
before needing expanded airframe maintenance routines. They say that the testing of the
fuselage and heavy maintenance checks have found zero evidence of airframe fatigue. The
whistleblower was saying, “Yes, all of those tests are well and good, but you haven't tested all of
these things on fuselages that we know were jammed together.”
[0:12:24] JR: Oh, jammed together. This is the one we're talking about with the guy is jumping
on the fuselage to get the pieces to it, right?
[0:12:30] IP: The jumping was the chosen one. Okay.
[0:12:33] JR: I'm getting a fuselage joining, jamming, jigging thing things confused.
[0:12:38] IP: This particular reference was that the 787s, when you put the carbon fiber
fuselages together, they don't fit together exactly right, so you have to have shims involved. The
way that you're supposed to do that is you put the fuselage pieces together without joining
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them, determine the tolerances and add shims as necessary. What this person is alleging, who
is a quality manager at Boeing, he's saying that Boeing would shove the two fuselage sections
together too hard. Then because they used too much force to push them together, they didn't
need to shim them, because when they went to measure for the shims, they said, “Oh, we don't
need shims.”
[0:13:19] JR: Oh, okay. Sure.
[0:13:21] IP: Boeing says that they found no evidence of any issues, thus far.
[0:13:25] JR: Yeah, it's very interesting to see the stance Boeing is taking on this one, as
opposed to the 73, which is very apologetic admitting mistakes were made. Safety lapses
happened and things will change and things will get better. The tone is very, very different
coming from Boeing. It's an all-out defensive stance here from Boeing. They've put out
statements, which I guess I can read here. Ian, why don’t I just read this?
[0:13:54] IP: Go for it.
[0:13:55] JR: They tweeted out today, or posted. I quote, “In 13 years of service, the global 787
fleet has safely transported more than 850 million passengers on more than 4.2 million flights. A
787 can safely operate for at least 30 years before needing expanded airframe maintenance
routines, extensive and rigorous testing of the fuselage and heavy maintenance checks of
nearly 700 in service airplanes to date have found zero evidence of airframe fatigue. Under FAA
oversight, we have painstakingly inspected and reworked airplanes and improved production
quality to meet exacting standards. We are fully confident in safety and durability of the 787
Dreamliner.”
There are some pretty heavy-handed words there; extensive, rigorous, painstakingly, exacting.
These are not words that should be used lightly. Boeing is being very clear, very defensively
saying, the 787 is fine. Curiously, it doesn't mention the 777, though I guess, that doesn't matter
at this point, but they are very defensive that the 787 is not the 73 MAX there. It’s something
distinctly different here. They link to a microsite called Boeing.com/787qualityinfo. It's not just a
post. It's a whole microsite describing, you could watch the 787 fatigue testing and the static
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testing and all the manufacturing stuff and the certification process. Boeing has come out
swinging on the defense here.
I think that's smart. You don't want the flying public to think everything you produce is a piece of
crap. Yeah, the 787 has had its issues in the past, but it really seems like Boeing is trying extra
hard to prevent the flying public from thinking everything is a problem, that it is confident in the
787 and that's what's being echoed by, I think, every airline that has mentioned the topic as well.
[0:15:54] IP: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting to me how they've come out in such a manner, as
well as the fact that that was really – I think it was Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin who
was like, “We don't want to give the impression that none of these planes are safe.” I don't know
exactly who on that, the panel looked at and he was like, “Oh, yeah. Know what they are.” It was
one of those things where, I think everybody's trying to get to the point where they're saying,
“Look, there is a problem, culturally speaking, but we're not saying each airplane is unsafe.”
Which is a weird position to be in. Because we've gotten to the point where, I mean, continuing
airworthiness directives and airworthiness directives for problems and issues are not new. They
happen across all airplanes. They're issued all the time. I think the FAA issued seven or eight of
them today alone.
There are things where there is a discovered problem with an extremely complex machine. It
needs to be addressed to make things safer and to blow each and everything out of proportion, I
think is a danger, given the hyper-focus. We talked about this a couple of episodes ago, where
everyone's focusing on these things, perhaps to the detriment of a wider picture and saying,
“Hey, what do we do about the culture in order to ensure that these things happen as
infrequently, as humanly possible, and that we don't make easy mistakes, like forgetting to put
bolts back in when we replace the door?”
[0:17:34] JR: That's a good plan.
[0:17:36] IP: Let's go over to United, which reported its earnings this week. They say, “Hey.”
[0:17:41] JR: Good earnings, maybe.
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[0:17:44] IP: Well, they had lots of earnings.
[0:17:45] JR: They had earnings. Not enough to get them in the zero mark. Yeah. We know
whose fault it is.
[0:17:51] IP: Well, exactly. United lays this squarely at Boeing's feet. United generated 12.5
billion dollars of revenue in the first three months of the year.
[0:18:04] JR: That's a lot of –
[0:18:04] IP: 10%. That's a lot of – and snack boxes. Up 10% over the first quarter in 2023.
However, they took a charge of 200 million for the 737 MAX 9 grounding and ended up losing
124 million dollars in the first quarter. Didn't swing a profit in the first quarter.
[0:18:30] JR: Not great, but it was better than apparently expected. United’s stock went up,
which is fun.
[0:18:37] IP: I mean, if you like to invest in airlines, first of all, why? Second of all, if you
invested in United this week, I guess you're up. But it's interesting, less so the earnings because
there was expected that things would go the way they did. But as part of their earnings release,
we also got some very interesting information. Jason, where are the planes coming from now?
[0:19:03] JR: United is scrambling. We know that. Its major domestic fleet expansion was
centered around the 737 MAX 10. That is now a giant question mark. They will be delivered
eventually someday, probably, but not today, not tomorrow, probably not even this year, or next.
United has not been quiet and saying, “We need more Airbus narrow bodies.” It has found 35 of
them. 35 A321neos from lessors that will be delivered, I think, in 2026-2027 range, so it's not
immediate. It's still going to be a few years, unfortunately.
The interesting thing is that they will be CFM LEAP-1A-powered A321neos. As any regular
listener of this podcast would know, the 321neo, any of those powered by the Pratt & Whitney
engine is been problematic, including United aircraft, along with JetBlue, being pressed into
service and almost immediately suffering from an engine failure, sidelining the aircraft and
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multiple engines. United defecting – it's a double defection. It's United defecting from Boeing to
Airbus and defecting from Pratt & Whitney to CFM, which is just, I'm not going to say it's
unprecedented, but for an airline to split up the fleet commonality and the engine types it's
taking on, that is not something you typically see. That is complicated, and that is a whole host
of issues will be introduced by them. Apparently at United, they think it will be worth the trouble
to get engines on airplanes that do not fail virtually immediately after being put into service.
[0:20:46] IP: I wonder how complicated it will be, because United has hundreds of LEAP-1B
sitting around.
[0:20:55] JR: Yes, it does. Which makes you think, why didn't they just take the CFM on the
321neos from the onset? I don't know. That may have been –
[0:21:03] IP: Jason, that's a great question.
[0:21:05] JR: That is a great question. Thank you for leading me right into it. It is very
interesting. Unfortunately, these are not coming anytime soon. I had a piece of information that I
pulled out from United's earnings call. They converted a whole bunch of 737 MAX 10 to the
MAX 9 from 2025 through 2027 with the right to increase. I think this is over a hundred aircraft.
It's a sizable chunk of its order, but there's still a sizable chunk left, because United ordered an
absolute ton of these things.
In 2024, United expects to take delivery of just 61 narrowbody aircraft and just five widebody
aircraft. When you read the before and after, it's staggering where we're at now. United was very
aggressive. It was going to be a huge fleet expansion and fleet replacement for United. We
knew, they knew that manufacturing delays, defects, issues were starting to pile up. United said,
they had contractual aircraft commitments for 183 narrowbody deliveries in 2024. But at the
beginning of this year, only 101 were to be expected. That's a dramatic decrease, by 82.
However, due to Boeing's latest issues, that number drops to the now 61 figure. A reduction of a
122 aircraft down to just 61. That is crazy how many aircraft United thought it was going to get
and is now actually getting. It's basically rewriting its entire fleet, its entire expansion, its entire
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network planning at this point. It's going to be a completely different operation, because aircraft
manufacturers and engine manufacturers take their act together.
[0:23:00] IP: I mean, my mind is still boggled by how many aircraft they were planning to take in
the first place.
[0:23:05] JR: They were in that phase where they were going to take multiple aircraft a week.
That was their big marketing line with the whole United Next program to totally refurbish their
fleet. We were going to take more than at least one aircraft a week in 2024. Now that's down to
not a whole lot.
[0:23:24] IP: Are we officially rebranding United Next to United Soon?
[0:23:28] JR: United eventually.
[0:23:30] IP: United eventually. Oh, God. That's the worst marketing tagline ever. Well, good
luck to them. I think the thing that impresses me here is the airline's ability and not just United's
ability, but multiple airlines’ ability to navigate these aircraft, either because of airframes in the
case of United, or engine issues like Wizz, where they're really doing their darn just to navigate
these issues as they come up. The plans that they have in place aren't necessarily coming to
fruition, but they're doing their best, I think, to not impact passengers as much as possible. I'm
seeing that come through.
[0:24:14] JR: Yeah. But then there's the icing and the cherry on top of the cake of the FAA
issues, where they're taking delivery of these aircraft and they can't even put them into service
right now. They also can't start operating routes they want to announce, or they have
announced and they have to delay by months, or even a year. If you are a network, or a route,
or fleet planner at United, let us know and we'll buy you a drink, because you're probably having
a rough couple months.
[0:24:44] IP: We apologize for all of this.
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[0:24:46] JR: I didn't even think of that until now, that not only are Boeing and Airbus not able to
deliver anything what they were promised, but then when they get the few aircraft they are
getting, they can't even put them into service.
[0:24:58] IP: They can’t put them into service.
[0:25:01] JR: That's not great.
[0:25:03] IP: Hey, let's go to China.
[0:25:04] JR: All right.
[0:25:06] IP: All right. You can't see a face palm through the podcast, but you can feel it.
[0:25:11] JR: I heard it actually.
[0:25:12] IP: There you go. The Civil Aviation Administration of China has released its first
quarter statistics and things are going very well.
[0:25:22] JR: Finally.
[0:25:22] IP: 38% increase in traffic, up to 180 million passengers. Domestic traffic is well, well
above pre-pandemic levels. 10% higher compared to the first quarter of 2019 and the entirety of
Chinese traffic grew 46%.
[0:25:44] JR: Wow.
[0:25:45] IP: Things have really, really come back. Domestic traffic in China continues to lead
by far. This is really interesting breakdown, because Chinese domestic traffic, a 160 million
passengers. They reported a total traffic of 180 million, and 160 of that was domestic. I mean,
which, I think, is really indicative of how many people and how much demand there is for
domestic air travel in China, but how limited the international growth really has been, especially
since the pandemic.
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[0:26:22] JR: Yeah. Since COVID, the massive amount of international travel from Chinese
tourists has not bounced back, but also the capacity from Chinese airlines, especially to the US
is nowhere near at the levels it used to be. I'm not going to say, that capacity dumped to the US.
But if you wanted to fly from the US to Southeast Asia, or really anywhere in Asia, there's a
good chance there was a Chinese airline ready, willing, and able to undercut everyone else by
hundreds of dollars.
To that effect, this week, the US hairlines via their lobbying groups asked the Biden
administration to not approve additional flights between the US and China, since this is still a
strict, there's no open skies agreement. I don't believe there is still a very strict number of flights.
It was recently increased that Chinese airlines could upgrade from 35 to 50 flights per week,
starting March 31st, so a couple of weeks ago. But the Chinese aviation authority wanted more.
Of course, they do to get capacity back to where it was.
The US airline lobbying groups are saying, “No. Absolutely not.” Due to a couple of factors,
because there are some of the Chinese airlines are state backed. They are still taking Russian
airspace shortcuts that the US airlines cannot take in some cases. To me, it has very interesting
overtones of what the US airlines were bickering about years ago with the Middle Eastern
airlines that seem to just disappear as an issue one day. That focus has seemed to shift from
the Middle Eastern three are evil and they're going to put everyone out of business to, the
Chinese airlines are evil and they're going to put us all out of business. They've made that jump
without really acknowledging that they've made that jump, but here we are.
[0:28:04] IP: There are some legitimate issues here, but I think there's certainly a risk of falling
into that trap, where you have US airlines arguing against Chinese traffic writ large, rather than
saying, “Okay, we need to make sure that this is equitable based on what we can get for both
sets of carriers.”
[0:28:25] JR: Yeah. It's not like back in the spat with the Middle Eastern three, where the US
airlines were calling out airlines by name and saying, “Qatar is bad and they're state-backed,
and here's the documents to prove that they get all this government funding.” It's much more
low-key in saying, hey, there's advantages, like shorter routes and I don't know. Maybe they get,
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and I'm quoting here, “Certain protections from Chinese governments,” because they're state-
owned. Yeah, there are some legitimate arguments there. Lower key argument, but definitely
the same vibes coming out of the lobbying groups in the US.
[0:29:00] IP: Yeah, we call it same vibes. Where do we want to go? Do we want to go to
Greece, or Australia next?
[0:29:07] JR: Ah, I'd love to go to Greece.
[0:29:09] IP: All right, we'll go to Greece then. Aegean Air is going to extend their A321 orders.
It's unclear as yet whether or not these will be specially configured regular old a 321neos,
whether they’ll be A321 LRs, or whether there'll be a 321 XLRs. But they want to go further
afield. They're looking at Gulf States. They're looking at Africa and they're looking at Central
Asia, which is, I think, just a fascinating expansion of things that you wouldn't think Aegean
would be looking at without the ability to have a bit more range from the A321.
[0:29:56] JR: Yeah, and we're not sure if this is the 321 LR, or the XLR at this point, since these
plans are still a couple years off, but it's very –
[0:30:05] IP: Or a mystical A321 ER.
[0:30:08] JR: Ooh. We don't know. Maybe there's room for that.
[0:30:10] IP: We don’t know.
[0:30:12] JR: It's definitely interesting that what is I would say, a premium low-cost airline, I
guess, maybe just regular airline. Do those still exist at this point?
[0:30:21] IP: Sure. Why not?
[0:30:23] JR: Sure. But they'll be going all in on the long-haul experience with an actual
business, lie-flat business class product, Wi-Fi and CPAC screen. It'll be a very different version
of the Aegean Airlines we know today. Unfortunately, these aircraft will not be able to make the
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hop to North America, which I think would be wildly successful if they were able to get that
range. Maybe that, maybe some hypothetical 321neo ER in the future could do that. As it is
today –
[0:30:53] IP: An XLR-ER?
[0:30:55] JR: Yeah. The current fleet's just not going to get it done.
[0:30:57] IP: Just buy the A330.
[0:30:59] JR: No. No. We've talked about this before. That's the pitfall airlines fall into. They go
too big. They can't make it work, then the whole airline evaporates. You don't want that.
[0:31:08] IP: That's fair.
[0:31:08] JR: You never want to go full [inaudible 0:31:09].
[0:31:13] IP: All right, do we want to do Australia, or Russia, or Dubai? I mean, really, these are
all a grab bag of stories.
[0:31:21] JR: I don't want to keep kicking Australia down the road. They'll think we're not giving
them their due time here. Let's go to Australia.
[0:31:27] IP: All right, fair enough. We go now to Australia, where the ATSB released a report
this week that addressed a crew incapacitation event for a Boeing 717 operated by National Jet
Systems for Qantas, under the QantasLink branding. The cabin crew reported a strong chlorine
odor, dizziness, mild discomfort, metallic taste. The flight crew was told of the same. As they
were approaching, this is the beginning of the flight, they were told that, “Hey, it smells really
bad back here.” The flight crew said, “Hey, we don't smell anything.” They continued the climb,
flew for a little over an hour, and then the flight crew noticed that it started to smell really bad,
and that they weren't feeling well.
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The captain noticed, “Hypoxia-like symptoms.” The captain said, “I can't fly.” Handed flying over
to the first officer, because the first officer was fine. But just before landing, the first officer said,
“You know what? I'm not feeling good. The aircraft is deviating from the approach path, and I'm
having issues keeping my mental faculties about me.” Landed the aircraft, then they taxi to the
terminal, park at the gate, and they all have ongoing symptoms of headaches, lethargy, and had
to go to the hospital. ATSB investigation discusses how the cabin air quality system works and
doesn't really get into exactly what specifically may have happened to cause this odor. They
also discuss how the use of supplemental oxygen and declaring a pan would have addressed
the issue much more effectively than saying, “I feel okay right now.”
[0:33:36] JR: Yeah, I don't know what declaring pan would accomplish other than getting air
traffic control’s attention and maybe priority, but certainly, supplemental oxygen –
[0:33:43] IP: That’s what it would accomplish.
[0:33:45] JR: - would have been prudent here, probably. Of course, hindsight is 20/20. If your
cognitive facilities are impaired, maybe you're not thinking about that. Maybe that's why they
didn't do that. But yeah, it certainly seems like oxygen would have helped in this situation if
there's a weird smell, and suddenly, you're not thinking straight. Yeah, that would probably be a
good decision. If you're not thinking straight, maybe that's why they didn't do it. A lot to consider
there and lots of checklists and guidelines and airline manuals that need to be updated. I think
they mentioned that to reflect that. In any case, where something doesn't smell right, maybe put
the mask on.
[0:34:23] IP: The interesting thing here is that the report mentions that the first officer said that
instead of donning the oxygen mask and conducting a go around, he thought it would be safer
to conduct a landing and just not deal with the oxygen mask. I thought that was an interesting
comment about what the pilots were thinking, and then in reflection of that, National Jet
Systems has reiterated their handbook and revised their handbook to include, okay, put the
oxygen mask on in the event of any fume event, and then make a decision based on what do
you need to do now? Nothing bad happened. They were fine. They went to the hospital. They
were checked out. Their blood was slightly elevated with CO2 levels, but the test proved
inconclusive about exactly when it happened.
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It's interesting to note how these reports can lead to safety improvements and should lead to
safety improvements. I think that's a good takeaway from this particular episode. You know
what's not being taken away, at least in one piece?
[0:35:31] JR: A certain Ural A320 in a field?
[0:35:34] IP: Definitely, definitely not.
[0:35:37] JR: Ah, so sad. Apparently, the Ural A320 that was poorly piloted and ended up in a
field in Russia will not be flown out, because it's too expensive, the dirt's not right, it costs too
much to keep the site secure, and hey, it'll just become a part's cowl at that point. I hope –
[0:35:56] IP: I hate it when it's not right.
[0:35:58] JR: Yeah, it would have been high hopes to see that thing fly out. But if they can't
make it work, no one can.
[0:36:04] IP: Yeah. I really thought that they were going to do it. I thought that was going to be a
really, really exciting thing to watch. There would be a dash cam live stream with a huge
watermark over it and terrible music. I was really looking forward to that.
[0:36:20] JR: Yup. Now you can look forward to individual parts being slowly trucked out, until
there's nothing left.
[0:36:27] IP: All right. This week in Dubai, there was a massive, massive storm. Enough rain fell
in such a short period of time that the Dubai International Airport was turned into the Dubai
International Seaport.
[0:36:42] JR: All right. A new variant of the 737 MAX, the amphibious version, apparently, at
flydubai was developed.
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[0:36:49] IP: Yes. Yes. The video from the airport showed considerable amount of water, just
enough to not have the bottom of the engine cowl in the water.
[0:37:00] JR: Seems like a bad idea. Really shouldn’t be doing that.
[0:37:04] IP: I was surprised by that.
[0:37:06] JR: You shouldn't be doing that. I had this conversation on the social medias and,
sure, the plane could do it, but when the airport's flooded, there's going to be all sorts of crap
floating around in there. You can't see it. It is, I think, merely luck that they did not ingest
anything into an engine, or damage the aircraft in any dramatic way. Who knows what other
damage may occur, but anytime there's a flash flood or anything, the National Weather Service
here in the US is always very intended saying, “Turn around, don't drown. Don't drive into water,
because you can't see the bottom. You don't know what's in there.” I don't think taxing a 737 into
flood waters is really a wise decision.
[0:37:43] IP: Not the best move. Certainly not the best move.
[0:37:47] JR: No. But they're still dealing with it. Emirates for the second day in a row is
basically, a shell of its regular operation to the fact where – to the point where it's not even
letting passengers check in, originating at Dubai. They're only focusing on transit passengers. If
you're trying to leave Dubai, tough, deal with it. You're going to have to take your turn and wait.
I thought it was really interesting to watch, as the airport was struggling and flights couldn't land,
the amount of airborne holding for a place that already has a pretty significant amount of –
[0:38:21] IP: A ton of airborne holding.
[0:38:23] JR: - airborne holding on a good day, some of these flights added hours onto their
route. I think yesterday, a flydubai flight from, I think, it was Kazakhstan to Dubai. Typical flight
time was three and a half hours. This flight lasted five hours and 45 minutes. They added more
than two hours of flight time, just in holding time, which is pretty remarkable. That's a lot of
holding for not a very long flight.
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[0:38:51] IP: It's terrible to be a passenger in that respect. But thinking of being one of the
pilots, or being the pilots up there, because it's not a situation where you can relax, like it's
normal cruise situation, because you're always on edge for, okay, we're leaving the holding, or
we're expecting, we need to change altitude because there's another aircraft coming in, or so on
and so forth. But it's also super boring, because you're just flying in a racetrack pattern.
[0:39:18] JR: But here's the thing in Dubai, I think London is a bit like this to a certain degree.
It's not like New York where often, they put you in a holding pattern, they stack flights over a
1,000 feet over each other and they just do a cycle track over and over and over and over in the
same spot. This flydubai flight was going everywhere. Was all over the country. Was all over the
place. I think this is pretty common for the UAE, where they're not just circling over a fixed point.
They're going over a fixed point for a little bit and then moving 10 miles to the west. Then they're
doing a big loop over here over the water and they're doing another little squiggly thing and
they're all over the place.
I don't know how the UAE air traffic controllers do this, but they are very good at what they do in
keeping these aircraft separated. Just some of the flight patterns are remarkable. It just looks
like a toddler drew crayon scratches all over the map.
[0:40:11] IP: Do you remember when iOS apps were new, do you remember the game Flight
Control?
[0:40:16] JR: I still have that game, because it's built into the United app.
[0:40:20] IP: It is built into the United app. That's true. It always reminds me of that.
[0:40:24] JR: More or less, yeah.
[0:40:26] IP: Where you're just dragging the path of the aircraft to try and land and not have any
of them hit anywhere. Obviously, a little bit more involved than that.
[0:40:35] JR: A little bit more complicated.
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[0:40:38] IP: But same principle applies. Hey, Jason.
[0:40:41] JR: Yes.
[0:40:42] IP: Did you hear the one about the missing gold bars?
[0:40:47] JR: I didn't, even know what happened last year. I love a good airport heist. I don't
love participating in them. I love reading about a good airport heist, whether it's watching the
movie Goodfellas, or reading the actual news about an Air Canada heist.
[0:41:07] IP: Yeah. This story was flagged by a listener, a very helpful listener. Thank you so
much for flagging this particular story. This was published today, the 17th of April, on the one-
year anniversary of the theft. I actually hadn't noticed this for an entire year. But they've
identified nine individuals that they believe were involved in the theft and have arrested five of
them and issued warrants for three others. I'm interested to know about the ninth guy, like,
what's his deal?
[0:41:41] JR: Yeah, you don't got to worry about the ninth guy.
[0:41:44] IP: But they are accused of participating in the theft of 6,600 gold bars, along with
other gold items and various currencies. The golden currencies were on their way from a Swiss
bank in Zurich to Toronto. Brinks was hired to move the items and contracted with Air Canada to
fly them. They were taken off the plane, the gold and the currency was taken off the plane and
brought to an Air Canada facility in Toronto. Here's the absolute best part of the story. The
thieves used a duplicate airway bill for a seafood shipment for the –
[0:42:29] JR: Close enough.
[0:42:30] IP: - previous day in order to remove the gold and currency from the cargo facility.
[0:42:38] JR: Man, you'd like to think there's a bit more security baked into things like this.
Maybe a phone call, or some sort of, I don't know, something more than just looking at a paper
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that's clearly for a different thing, for a different date would raise an alarm. My favorite part is
that they only realized all the gold and the money and all the financial nonsense was missing
after Brinks showed up three hours later to collect it and found it was gone. I feel like, if I was
anticipating a delivery of 20 million dollars with the gold, I'd show up on time. I would not be late
for that delivery and not be three hours late.
[0:43:15] IP: If only Brinks had used flightradar24 to track the aircraft.
[0:43:19] JR: They could have known. I mean, I know I've seen pictures and videos of a Brinks
truck rolling up to an aircraft to take it directly off the aircraft. I guess, it's a little more
complicated. This was an international flight. It probably had to go through customs, or
something. But if a thief can come in and collect it three hours before the globally based
armored courier company can manage, maybe they should look inward and not outward.
[0:43:47] IP: Well, to address that, Brinks has actually sued Air Canada saying, that Air Canada
was negligent. Air Canada says, “No, you should have come picked up your gold.”
[0:43:57] JR: I mean, maybe they're both right.
[0:43:59] IP: I don't know the particulars of the – particularities of the lawsuit. But just an
interesting story flagged by a listener. Thank you very much for this interesting story. Hopefully,
they catch everybody involved, which gives them enough material to turn this into a new heist
movie.
[0:44:14] JR: I hope they get away with it. If it was this easy, they deserve it.
[0:44:18] IP: Nah, they already know who they are. They're not going to wait with it.
[0:44:21] JR: Except that ninth guy?
[0:44:23] IP: Maybe.
[0:44:23] JR: Yeah.
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[0:44:24] IP: Wait. Are you the ninth guy?
[0:44:26] JR: Shh.
[0:44:28] IP: Hey, let's talk about eels.
[0:44:30] JR: What? That's a transition.
[0:44:32] IP: Yeah. There's nothing transitory about that. Okay, so here's the thing. I have
learned more than I ever wanted to learn about eels within the past week. Here's the thing that
caught our attention. There was an aircraft transiting from the – it's a UK-registered aircraft
that's transiting from a Danish island to Kaliningrad.
[0:44:51] JR: Okay.
[0:44:53] IP: First of all, that's incredibly strange, given all of the situations. But the aircraft
registration is GEELS, G-E-E-L-S. Being interested in why this aircraft has made this flight
multiple times in the past month, I googled GEELS. As it turns out, they have a website. “We are
based at Gloucestershire Airport. During the winter months, our aircraft is used to transport
valuable live baby eels, glass eels all over Europe for restocking and farming, either from our
base in the UK, or our agriculture holding in France. Over the summer months, you can rent out
our aircraft for whatever you want.” I'm paraphrasing that last sentence there. Apparently, the
eel trade is a big business. Then some helpful folks on the social media filled us in that those
eels can go for more than $5,000 a piece.
[0:45:50] JR: Man. I bet whoever was picking those up from the airport was on time.
[0:45:57] IP: It all comes back together. If you're interested in following what I assume are eel
drops into Kaliningrad, GEELS is the aircraft you want to be tracking.
[0:46:08] JR: I just love that there's a whole website that is telling you about this. They seem
very proud of their eel aircraft. I mean, who wouldn't be?
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[0:46:15] IP: They’re very into their eels.
[0:46:18] JR: Good for them.
[0:46:19] IP: There's a niche for everything.
[0:46:21] JR: There's something to be said about doing something so specific that you register
the aircraft exactly what it is you're doing.
[0:46:27] IP: I can't argue with that. Jason, we close the show this week with a bit of a
competition. Tell us more about that.
[0:46:34] JR: Okay. This one comes to us from the Wall Street Journal. I don't think I knew this
was a thing, or I forgot it was a thing, because I read about it before. But there was a aircraft
mechanic competition held recently, wherever the McCormick Place Convention Center is. I'm
not actually sure of that.
[0:46:53] IP: That’s Chicago.
[0:46:54] JR: Chicago? Chicago. Oh, how?
[0:46:57] IP: I wish they –
[0:46:57] JR: Why did you not attend?
[0:46:58] IP: I would have gone.
[0:46:59] JR: You should attend next year.
[0:46:59] IP: I didn’t know about it.
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[0:47:01] JR: Apparently, there's an annual or at least I think it is an annual aircraft mechanics
competition, where groups of mechanics from various airlines are in competition with each other
to do things the fastest, the safest, the most complete in 15 minutes, or less. Apparently, FedEx
Express has been the two-time reigning champion. But this time, Team Herb from Southwest
Airlines took home the victory, which is, apparently, a four-foot trophy with the bust of the
mechanic who worked with the Wright Brothers. This story is great. They did various things like,
replacing a fan blade on an engine of a 767, all sorts of other things. Some airlines,
unfortunately, were at a little disadvantage, because they don't work on 767s. If you're from
Spirit Airlines who had a lovely quote who said, “We did our best. We did what we can.” Or just
Spirit, all right? The exact quote is, “We're out here doing our best.”
Yeah. I'd say that's true, that that's generally the case for everything Spirit Airlines does, right?
They're just having fun out there doing the best they can. It's just really interesting that there's
this competition for aircraft mechanics, because of course, there is a competition for everything.
I am just disappointed that we did not know it and we did not attend to see this in person,
because apparently, United chopped off the front end of a 767 and donated to this to actually be
in the competition, which is pretty great.
[0:48:32] IP: Oh, all right. Cool.
[0:48:34] JR: Yeah.
[0:48:34] IP: Yeah. For those that are interested, the next competition is April 8th through the
10th, next year 2025 in Atlanta. Book your tickets now and get ready to go. I think it would be
fun.
[0:48:47] JR: I’m excited. I actually want to attend this.
[0:48:50] IP: No, I actually want to go as well. I'm genuinely disappointed that I didn't know that
that was happening and did not come.
[0:48:57] JR: In your own town.
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AVT 264 Transcript
[0:48:59] IP: In my own town. Well, there's always next year and there's always Atlanta. I think
we call that an episode. This has been episode 264 of AvTalk. Thank you all so very much for
listening. We appreciate each and every one of you. We appreciate that you have taken to
various podcast listening platforms to leave ratings and reviews. But if you haven't done that
yet, and you're feeling so inclined, we would love for you to do that. It helps other people find
the podcast, which we like. It helps us keep doing what we're doing. Go on and do that, if you'd
like. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always with –
[0:49:41] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
© 2024 AvTalk 25