AvTalk Episode 268: Not-so-deferred prosecution?

AVT 268 Transcript
EPISODE 268
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello, and welcome to episode 268 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Hello, Ian. How are you today?
[0:00:19] IP: I'm well, Jason. How are you, sir?
[0:00:21] JR: I'm good. Thank you. We've got a long list of interesting things this week. Some
expected. Some unexpected. Some just things.
[0:00:31] IP: Some just things. Yeah, it's a big week. We finally reached the culmination of
months, years maybe, of trying to get this across the line. The bill to reauthorize the FAA has
passed, so we'll talk about that in just a minute. We've got some good order news to report,
some interesting operational changes. But we get to, once again, start with bad news for
Boeing.
[0:00:59] JR: Yes, bad news that we probably knew was coming, but it may not have been
coming, but now we know something's coming for Boeing. That would be in the form of the DOJ
saying that Boeing did indeed breach its deferred prosecution agreement after the two crashes
of the 737 MAX years ago. As we remember, calling back a few episodes now, that the deferred
prosecution agreement expired mere days after the Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 door plug
blowout, and that triggered some very not good things for Boeing possibly. Ian, what did the
DOJ have to say?
[0:01:40] IP: The DOJ sent a letter to the judge in the case that supervised the original deferred
prosecution agreement. It also sent a letter to people that have been termed crime victims
based on the charging documents in the case. Both of those documents say that the
Department of Justice has determined that Boeing breached its obligations under the deferred
prosecution agreement. It lists the specific paragraphs and subsections of what they say Boeing
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had to live up to. They say that they did that by, “Failing to design, implement, and enforce a
compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violation of the U.S. fraud laws throughout
its operations.”
[0:02:28] JR: Hmm. We don't know the details of exactly what the DOJ thinks triggers this. Was
it the missing bolts in the door plug? Was it the non-compliance of how they were assembling
787 parts by jumping on them, or whatever? Probably not that one. But was it Boeing
employees lying about doing inspections required on the 787? I think we talked about that last
week, or the week before. We don't know the details. We just know that the DOJ says, Boeing
has done something or multiple things that violate its deferred prosecution agreement. We
should know sometime next month what this actually means, and what the actions the DOJ will
take, because right now, I don't think we know much of anything, or what's even on the table.
[0:03:15] IP: We don't yet know what the Department of Justice is saying Boeing did specifically
to violate the deferred prosecution agreement. We also don't know what the Department of
Justice is going to do about it. Because the DOJ is saying they failed to live up to their end of
the DPA, Boeing can now be prosecuted by the US for any violation which the US can find. As
we've talked about over the past few weeks, it sounds like, there's more than one. It remains to
be seen whether they go back and talk about the original charging documents for this case, or
whether they just move on to additional after the fact violations of the DPA.
For its part, Boeing said this; “We can confirm that we received a communication today from the
Justice Department, stating that the Department has made a determination that we have not
met our obligations under our 2021 deferred prosecution agreement and requesting the
company's response.” I'll stop here from the quote to say that Boeing has 30 days to respond to
the DOJ's accusation that it failed to live up to, or determination that it failed to live up to its end
of the DPA. Boeing gets a month to respond to that.
Boeing continues, “We believe that we have honored the terms of that agreement and look
forward to the opportunity to respond to the Department on this issue. As we do so, we will
engage with the Department with the utmost transparency, as we have throughout the entire
term of the agreement, including in response to their questions following the Alaska Airlines
1282 accident.” Boeing for its part says, “Hey, we did what we were supposed to do. We've
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been doing what we were supposed to be doing and we're going to clear our name.” We'll see
what happens. Boeing's response is due to the DOJ by the middle of June. Sometime next
month, we'll have a better understanding about where we stand and what the DOJ sees as its
options. That'll be the most interesting part.
[0:05:30] JR: Yeah. Of course, Boeing is going to defend itself and say, “We don't believe we
violated anything.” But I think it's pretty clear that there are violations left and right here. To what
degree those might violate the DPA, that's up to the DOJ to – man, a lot of three-letter
abbreviations here, but –
[0:05:49] IP: You have to have the abbreviations.
[0:05:50] JR: Yeah. The DOJ has to tell everyone what they think Boeing did to violate it and
who violated it and what the possible repercussions of that might be their prosecutors will
basically decide, what are we going to move forward with? What are we going to charge Boeing
with, basically? I do think it's interesting that there are those who, back in 2021 said, I think with
hindsight accurately, said that a deferred prosecution agreement let's Boeing off the hook. That
if no one will have to suffer any consequences here, no one has to go to jail, or whatever, take
personal responsibility for their actions, nothing will change at Boeing, no matter how much they
say it will change.
Lo and behold, here we are three years later, we're right back to where we were. Things have
not meaningfully changed. If anything, they've got meaningfully worse since then. But I don't
really think anyone at Boeing in 2021 would have thought this deferred prosecution agreement
would have come back full circle to bite them once again. That's pretty much unthinkable that
that would have happened. The whole point of these is basically, you're let off the hook. Just be
on your best behavior and they couldn't even do that.
[0:07:00] IP: Just promise not to do it again.
[0:07:02] JR: Oh, and pay 2. whatever billion dollars. There was also that.
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[0:07:06] IP: Yeah. In a way, because that was, they got to roll in the compensation that they
were going to pay to the airlines anyway as part of this.
[0:07:15] JR: Yeah. Boeing was let off the hook, but that hook has been put right back into
Boeing, and we'll see what happens, but it should be within the next month or so.
[0:07:25] IP: Let's stick with Boeing. We've got some delivery numbers for April. It was the
lowest amount of deliveries in two years from Boeing. That's mainly due to the slowed rate of
737 deliveries and 737 production, as they attempt to minimize traveled work. That's work
performed out of sequence. Boeing has had a lot of problems with that, which has led to quality
issues, so they're trying to get in on that and we talked pretty extensively about that last episode
when we talked about Spirit and their new inspection regime. On the bright side of the delivery
calendar, the 1,500 737 MAX was delivered to Ryanair on the 24th of April.
[0:08:11] JR: Surprise, surprise.
[0:08:13] IP: When we say this, I always try and find the best language, because you would be
forgiven if you thought I meant that 1,500 737 MAX has been delivered to Ryanair.
[0:08:23] JR: You'd be forgiven for thinking that.
[0:08:24] IP: That doesn't seem out of the question. But not yet. This is just the 1500th overall.
[0:08:30] JR: It's a big number and it deserves celebration. It's crazy that the 73 is still around
for 1,500 and probably 2,000. But it's something to celebrate, regardless of everything else
that's happening in Boeing. That's pretty amazing.
[0:08:43] IP: I mean, at the current backlog, we'll go well over 5,000.
[0:08:48] JR: That's absurd, I think. But yeah, it’s a lot of airplanes. A lot of airplanes in that
backlog with nothing to replace it.
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[0:08:57] IP: Yeah. There's more than 4,000 737 MAX in the backlog, and nearly, or just over
700 787s. That's a number to keep an eye on as well. Okay, let us go to Washington, D.C.
Soon, we'll be able to do that from a few new airports. Jason, do you want to do FAA and safety
stuff, or do you want to get into the DCA slots first?
[0:09:24] JR: Let's do the big FAA, the meaty stuff first. But let me get the DCA.
[0:09:30] IP: Sure. This is the bill that we didn't know if it was going to get through, both houses
of Congress, if they were going to agree enough to get it on to the president's desk. Alas, they
did. The House passed the FAA Reauthorization Act. Today, it will go to the president's desk.
The president said that he is going to sign it. Thus, the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 will
become law. All 1,000-plus pages of it.
[0:10:03] JR: Whatever other junk they managed to cram into that bill.
[0:10:06] IP: I mean, having read most, I'm not proud of this, but I've read most of the bill.
There's some interesting things in here that definitely seem like pet projects that somebody
wanted to sneak in. For the most part, there's some pretty straightforward stuff.
[0:10:23] JR: Five years is a big deal. No more one-month extensions, or one year.
[0:10:27] IP: Exactly.
[0:10:28] JR: Five years is the real deal, folks.
[0:10:31] IP: Exactly. A lot of the reauthorization deals with safety, providing funds for increased
safety on runways, on taxiways, in the air, anywhere on the airport where you can study a way
to make it safer, whether that's runway incursions, airprox incidents, FOD on various taxiways,
and how to safely deal with that, including even possibly automating how FOD is detected. FOD
for those listening that are going, “What is he talking about?” Foreign object debris. Stuff that's
there that's not supposed to be there. They're even investigating automated detection of that.
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Lots of stuff that is designed to either increase safety through just adding more technology, or
increase safety eventually by creating study and working groups and committees that will
recommend best practices to eventually increase safety. A lot of funding, a lot of funding for
those things. Also, funding for additional air traffic controllers. Also, funding for modernization of
technology in the air traffic control network. All sorts of additional funding. It's all about money,
Jason.
[0:11:58] JR: That's good news. You know who along with the NTSB also got reauthorized, our
good friends at the NTSB.
[0:12:07] IP: Yeah. FAA reauthorization. NTSB reauthorization. Chair Jennifer Homendy has
been reconfirmed for another term, which is –
[0:12:14] JR: All right. Good for her.
[0:12:15] IP: Always good to have fully confirmed heads of major agencies, which is something
that we've sorely been lacking for the last few years in a lot of places, including before Mike
Whitaker at the FAA. This is generally all good news. Some interesting stuff related to increasing
safety through studying things like, how to increase the use of weather cameras, so that pilots
can be more aware of the weather conditions, crash resistant fuel systems, reducing turbulence,
how does radiation impact passengers and crew. A big one are lithium batteries, continued
research on how to increase safety based around those. All sorts of really good, fun things.
Thousands and thousands of pages of important and some less important items, but good to
see that this passed.
[0:13:19] JR: Yeah. Speaking of less important items, somehow, everyone's favorite DC
adjacent airport, DCA, became a really big factor in the whole FAA reauthorization bill, because
of course, they can't be anything in DC without the federal authorities controlling it for no real
reason. DCA is one of those few airports in the US that is strictly slots controlled, like
LaGuardia, JFK. If you do not have a slot, you cannot typically operate to DCA. Somehow in the
reauthorization bill, became this whole push and pull of does an increase of the number of slots
for DCA get increased or not. Ian, what is the number we ended up with?
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[0:14:04] IP: You get 10 slots divided to eight and two.
[0:14:08] JR: That's exciting.
[0:14:10] IP: Yeah. This is an interesting thing that has happened. The bill grants 10
exemptions. Jason, can you explain the perimeter rule for those that might not know?
[0:14:22] JR: The perimeter rule is a longstanding rule, which I think you really only find at DCA
and LaGuardia. LaGuardia in New York, it's a locally imposed thing by the airport authority, no
big deal. But at DCA, it is a federally mandated thing that flights passed a certain perimeter. I
think it's 850 miles, something along those lines.
[0:14:44] IP: 1,250.
[0:14:45] JR: So close. 1,250. Wasn't close at all. Beyond that, there are, at least there used to
be no flights beyond that perimeter. You could fly anywhere up to and including that line. More
recently in recent years, there have been some exemptions. You do get flights outside of DCA of
that perimeter, two places, like Los Angeles, there are some very small handful of flights. All 10
of these new slots, I believe, or was it eight, or all 10? I'm not clear on that. At least eight, if not
all 10, will be slot exemption flights, which is actually pretty exciting.
[0:15:22] IP: Yeah. All 10 are slot exemption flights. Eight are –
[0:15:27] JR: This is where it gets confusing.
[0:15:28] IP: Yeah. This is where gets confusing. They couldn't just say, here's 10 new slots.
Eight slot exemptions are made available to incumbent air carriers qualifying as non-limited
incumbent carriers at DCA. Two slot exemptions are to be made available to incumbent air
carriers qualifying as limited incumbent carriers. This is one of those –
[0:15:50] JR: Sure.
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[0:15:53] IP: This is one of those where we couldn't make it as simple as possible. We had to
make it as complicated as possible. It's, I guess, good news for those airlines that want the
slots. But there was a lot of pushback from DC area congresspeople and DC area people in
general.
[0:16:14] JR: A lot of them groups and all sorts of things. Well, this is always a highly
contentious topic, because as you may know, DC is the seat of the federal government here in
the US. Those in federal government like to go home on Friday afternoon, or Thursday
afternoon and get there as quickly and easily as possible, preferably without connecting flights.
At a DCA, if you're going beyond 1,250 miles, apparently, thank you, Ian, you can't do that
nonstop out of DCA. There's this really big push and pull between federal lawmakers who want
more flights beyond the perimeter and federal lawmakers who do not want that to happen,
because they are afraid they might lose their flights within the perimeter to gain flights outside of
the perimeter.
I mean, there's even a lobbying group called The Coalition to Protect America's Regional
Airports. If we can add an echo effect in the background there, that would be good. The CPARA,
as they call themselves, was very adamant and sent me many, many, many, many dozens of
emails over the past few weeks about this topic. They are very, very upset that these 10
additional DCA flights in the final bill and I quote, “Will undoubtedly lead to further delays,
cancellations, and congestion on America's busiest runways.” Thanks to their efforts, though,
that outcome was not worse. It could have been worse. At some point, I think the number was a
lot higher than 10.
I'm sure if you looked at who is behind the funding for The Coalition to Protect America's
Regional Airports, I'm sure you might find some airlines that might actually be hubbed there at
DCA. Speaking of which, almost immediately after this bill was put onto the president's desk to
sign, we already have airlines and airports putting out press releases saying, “We want to be
first.” That would be, at least first, would be American Airlines and San Antonio International
Airport saying, they want to be the first airport and airline to put forward an application to the US
Department of Transportation to initiate service between San Antonio and DCA. Not terribly
surprising. I think there are some prominent Texan lawmakers who are pushing for this one in
particular. But that did not take long.
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[0:18:35] IP: As soon as it passed, they were ready to go. I applaud their efforts, honestly.
[0:18:39] JR: Yeah, sure. Now it's up to the Department of Transportation to divvy out these
precious, precious new slots and figure out who incumbent, or what were the terms?
[0:18:51] IP: Limited incumbent and non-limited. It basically talks about how many slots you
have. There's that. What was it? The chairman's –
[0:18:59] JR: The chairman flight. That was out of Newark where, tit for tat, there was this
whole bribery scheme. I don't know how we ended up talking about this, but the CEO of United
at one point was promised a, I believe it was a new hanger at Newark and a rail extension of the
path train to Newark airport, which I still think is badly needed, in exchange for United operating
an incredibly unnecessary flight on Thursday afternoons and Sunday afternoon, only to the
resort, or the beach home regional airport of one of the port authorities, directors or something
like that. You operate me this needless flight once a week to my house and I'll give you what
you want in return. Not quite like that in this case.
[0:19:44] IP: No, no. It just came to mind, the –
[0:19:46] JR: That one predates the podcast even.
[0:19:49] IP: Yeah. They're just the thing that can happen when slots are involved. Okay. Let's
leave the US and head to India, where The Economic Times of India is reporting that Indigo
could add up to 100 small regional-sized aircraft to its fleet. Most likely, the ATR 72, because it
already operates a vast majority, or not vast majority, a large number of ATR 72s and sticking
with the same aircraft seems likely. Though, the A220 and Embraer jets are ostensibly in the
running. This comes, well, very soon after Indigo said, “You know what? Let's take up to 100
A350.” Really, really continuing to expand. Then not long after in contract terms of them saying,
“We're going to order 500 A320neo family aircraft.”
[0:20:44] JR: Big expansion.
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[0:20:47] IP: So many planes. So many planes.
[0:20:49] JR: Yeah. We don’t talk about ATR all that often. I mean, it's really like a mini-Airbus,
or whatever right now. But yeah, we don't talk about ATR. You don't hear much about their
manufacturing issues if any exist. I really don't know even what their production rate is, but it
sounds like, they might need to crank it up a little bit.
[0:21:08] IP: Yeah. I mean, that could be possible. We’ll keep an eye on that to see if Indigo
does in fact make that order. We're keeping an eye on the calendar, because [inaudible
0:21:16] is coming up in the next few months. Jason, you flagged this one the other day and
your take on it, I thought was worth bringing back up in the podcast, because it's rare that an
airline says, “We know what we're about and that's what we're going to keep doing.”
[0:21:34] JR: Yeah, that is rare. We've seen it lead – the lack of this awareness led to the
demise of many airlines in the past, most notably, Norwegian, I think we all know. Here we have
an article from Fight Global about Cebu Pacific, an airline you don't hear all that much about
these days. But an interview, or I think this was a part of their investor day, or something along
those lines. But Cebu Pacific does have some limited long-haul operations. But in the face of
seeing success of other airlines operating long haul from the Philippines to North America and
further into Europe, Cebu Pacific's current CEO said, “Nah, we're good. We're good. We don't
need to do that.” Actually, the quote is, “It's not what we do. It's not in our DNA.”
That is really interesting to see a potential short-term source of profit money. Other airlines are
doing it. Why not you, too? Apparently, no. Cebu Pacific, they're really focused on their four-hour
ring around the country, but also, they do have some long-haul fights out to, I think, Dubai and
Australia, but those are ancillary on the side, not really their focus. It's just nice to see an airline
that knows what it does, is good at it, is making money, and has the willpower to not fall into the
trap of over-expanding into long-haul and then just ceasing to exist.
[0:23:04] IP: Can you imagine taking a Cebu flight for 10 hours?
[0:23:12] JR: I mean, yeah. Because you could do that today. If you wanted, you could fly them
to Dubai. I think, it's over nine hours. That is for a very specific set of airline passengers. That's
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not really a leisure route or anything. That's for workers to get back and forth. Do I want to fly
Cebu Pacific from, let's say, New York, or LA to the Philippines? Absolutely not. That would be
awful, I think, in the current configuration of its aircraft, but that's not what they're doing, so I
don't have to worry about it.
[0:23:45] IP: I mean, for those that don't know, Cebu Pacific, I think, seats, nine trillion people
on an A330neo.
[0:23:53] JR: That sounds right.
[0:23:54] IP: 459 seats.
[0:23:57] JR: That is a lot.
[0:23:58] IP: An A330-900.
[0:24:01] JR: That's a lot.
[0:24:03] IP: That’s a lot of people in a single-class configuration.
[0:24:07] JR: 459. Yeah, that is more than Lion Air on the A330-300 at 440. Top to its own fleet,
Cebu Pacific, the A330-300 at 436, the next airline that comes anywhere close is Batik Air at
392. It's like a whole other class of its own. It's impressive how many people they have on that
flight.
[0:24:28] IP: To put into context, a three-class configuration A380 is roughly 535 passengers.
[0:24:35] JR: Yeah. But if you're Singapore, it's 200-something.
[0:24:40] IP: It's actually just one guy. One guy in this A380. Sad news to report, Air Vanuatu
has ceased operations.
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[0:24:49] JR: Oh. Their one airplane, or one 737, apparently, has been repossessed. The airline
is being liquidated. Rather short notice, unfortunately. As of May 9th, the airline has ceased
operations with immediate effect. They are pleading with customers to not travel to the airport,
unless you've rearranged travel, and that's really unfortunate.
[0:25:13] IP: Yeah. We've seen this before with single-aircraft airlines. That's not necessarily
going to work out.
[0:25:22] JR: Well, that single aircraft has also not moved since January, I think. It's been in
Melbourne in Australia since then, so I guess, they've been wet-leasing other aircraft to fill in.
The one aircraft that isn't even in Vanuatu right now has been repossessed, which is pretty
much the end of the airline, which is not great. That's the second airline in that region of the
world we've talked about in the last two weeks to go belly up.
[0:25:45] IP: Yeah. Coming back closer to home for us, we could have a Breeze Airways copy
in the next few months, year? We’ll see.
[0:26:00] JR: Sure. Sure.
[0:26:02] IP: Zoom Airlines is basically, a Breeze copy. Same business model. We want A220s,
but we'll settle for Embraer e-jets before we get the A220s. We'll fly to secondary markets and
then do other stuff.
[0:26:23] JR: I mean, sure. We see that there's money to be made there. I think this quarter,
Breeze made its first profit, or turned its first profit, so that's good. It has proven the model. But
that model might not work if someone else copies them and does the same thing in the same
markets with the same exact airplanes, although Breeze will be phasing out its E190s. Man,
would it be ironic if this new startup may or may not happen, takes those E190s and operates its
own fleet with the same aircraft.
[0:26:54] IP: Oh, that would be hilarious.
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[0:26:57] JR: There are a lot of E190s available now between Breeze retiring most of them, and
also, Jet Blue retiring its entire E190 fleet within the next year or two. They're out there. They
are expensive aircraft to operate. But if you got nothing else, why not name yourself after a
defunct Canadian airline and give it a shot?
[0:27:16] IP: I'm a huge fan of naming myself after defunct Canadian airlines.
[0:27:21] JR: Yeah, they had a Zoom Airlines of Canada between 2002 and 2008. Not a long
run. Had a wider range network than I thought, flying all the way to multiple destinations in
Europe, South America, Caribbean, even Thailand at one point. I don't think the new Zoom
Airlines will be doing quite the same thing with the fleet of E190s, unless they stop about 17
times. Yeah, renaming yourself after a not that long gone Canadian airline is an interesting
decision.
[0:27:55] IP: I'm looking at the old Zoom fleet. It looks very colorful.
[0:28:01] JR: Very similar, too.
[0:28:02] IP: Lots of blue. They could pull those old 767s out.
[0:28:06] JR: I am 100% in favor of that.
[0:28:10] IP: Sadly, I think most of them have been converted to cargo. Alas.
[0:28:13] JR: Of course, they have. Find a 763 that hasn't been converted to cargo. Actually, it
is operating right now with cargo jet in Canada still, so that checks out.
[0:28:26] IP: This is one that is interesting, because we didn't think it would happen, but now
SkyWest is going to operate CRJ-550s on behalf of Delta.
[0:28:42] JR: If you are anywhere outside of the US, you're probably saying, “What the heck is
a CRJ-550? That's not real. That's not a real thing.” Ian, what's a CRJ-550?
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[0:28:52] IP: A CRJ-550 is a CRJ-700 that's had a bunch of seats removed, to remove density
and bring it and under, or at, in at a 50-seat regional jet.
[0:29:07] JR: It's just a 700 with like a mask on saying, “Hah, I'm actually a CRJ-200. Fooled
you.”
[0:29:15] IP: Exactly. Why they did this was basically, we needed, we being United, needed to
cut down on the number of seats in order to operate them as 50-seat jets, but they wanted to
have a more premium-heavy configuration. Then they went from the 700 down to what they call
the 550. Now SkyWest is going to operate them for Delta. This is interesting, because didn't
United own the intellectual property on the 550?
[0:29:49] JR: It is interesting. United CRJ-550s are actually operated by GoJet Airlines. Not a
very large regional operator. SkyWest, much larger regional operator in the US there. I think
they're the largest regional operator, probably anywhere.
[0:30:03] IP: They are the largest. Yes.
[0:30:04] JR: By a wide margin. At the time, United, this comes to us from Seth Miller over at
PaxEx.Aero back in 2019, when this was a big deal right before COVID, interviewed, or got a
quote from United saying, “Could others try? Murphy acknowledges that it's possible They'll
point out the regulatory and certification challenges were a significant hurdle to overcome.”
Basically says, “Again, I'm not planning on us doing anything for anyone. I'm pretty competitive
and I don't want to let this one go. Someone might try to replicate it, but it isn't easy.”
Well, it took five years, but somebody did it. SkyWest will be putting, I think, when it was? 17 of
them in service for Delta, which is interesting, because Delta hasn't really acknowledged this.
They put a seat map, interestingly, on its fleet page, but it hasn't said anything else about this
aircraft, about where it's going to go, when it's going to start operating. There's a seat map, so it
must be coming. It's a win for passengers. The CRJ-550 is the luxury liner of regional jets. They
are fantastic, questionable in the face of eco concerns, taking a aircraft that can hold 76
passengers and then loading it up only with 50 is a bit questionable. I'm surprised the US
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airlines aren't getting a little bit more pushback about that. Having flown on it on United a
number of times, it's a fantastic experience.
[0:31:27] IP: Yeah. I mean, it works for what it is. I think that I've never heard anyone say
anything bad about it.
[0:31:34] JR: Because you can't.
[0:31:36] IP: As far as the experience goes.
[0:31:37] JR: I mean, it would be better if it was – let's take an E175 and call it an E150, or
something like that and only have 50 people on in the e-jet. That would be even better, because
everybody prefers an e-jet to a CRJ. There is not a single person out there that would say, “I'd
prefer a CRJ-900 over an E175.” You could fight me on that. It's not a thing. It doesn't exist.
[0:32:01] IP: Email us at podcast@fr24.com.
[0:32:06] JR: Even if you do, you're wrong. I’m sorry, but you're wrong. But the 550 is a nice,
nice way to fly.
[0:32:12] IP: All right, Jason. This next story, I'm just going to get out of your way.
[0:32:16] JR: Okay. Well, we're going back to Canada to find a missing link. That's it. That's all
I'm going to say, because that's all you wanted me to say.
[0:32:24] IP: Boo.
[0:32:26] JR: Okay. Well, I'll continue.
[0:32:28] IP: Keep going.
[0:32:30] JR: WestJet in its quest to consolidate all of the things it split out from itself will be
transitioning WestJet Link into WestJet Encore. You're following me? There's WestJet Link and
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there’s WestJet Encore. Link is actually operated not by Encore and not even by WestJet
aircraft at all, but by Pacific Coastal? Pacific Coastal Airlines out in the west coast of Canada on
pretty small aircraft. I think they were Saab 340s, only 30 something seats on board those
aircraft. Now those routes will be moved over to WestJet Encore, who operates the Dash 8
Q400. That's a sizable increase in the number of seats on –
[0:33:15] IP: That’s a lot of seats.
[0:33:16] JR: That goes from 30 something to 70 something. I'm sure there will be frequency
reductions in light of that, which actually could not be great for some of these airports. If you go
from three flights a day down to one, that could be quite problematic. Yeah, there's a missing
link at WestJet now. That's all you wanted me to say. I know all.
[0:33:37] IP: I wanted you to say.
[0:33:38] JR: Well, I said it.
[0:33:39] IP: This is a story that I thought we had talked about weeks ago.
[0:33:43] JR: We forgot.
[0:33:44] IP: We had an astute Irish listener write in with an article that was picked up long
before it broke into the aviation press. It was in the Irish Labor Union Press. The story about IAG
shifting the first A321 XLR to Iberia. Pilots at Aer Lingus are currently in not so gentile
negotiations with the airline over pay and benefits. Because of this continued negotiations, Aer
Lingus has said, “We're not in a position to accept the A321 XLR.” IAG says, “Not a problem.
Iberia, here you go.”
[0:34:33] JR: Man, that’s rough.
[0:34:34] IP: It seems now that the first A321 XLR later this year will be delivered to Iberia,
instead of Aer Lingus.
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[0:34:44] JR: That's one way to do it, I guess. It seems like, Aer Lingus never gets the benefit of
new airplanes. Or once upon a time, they were supposed to operate A350s, never happened.
Here you go with the 321 XLR, not going to happen. Even though they are already aircraft that
have been produced and in Aer Lingus' livery out at the Airbus facilities. I think there are two
already. I guess, they're going to have to put a couple of new coats of paint on that, or whatever.
[0:35:11] IP: Just leave the shamrock and slap an Iberia. It's all year-old white. It doesn't matter.
[0:35:15] JR: Yeah, no big deal. Aer Lingus would have been well suited to operate the 321
XLR, complementing its existing 321 LR. Don't know what Iberia is going to do with it. Hopefully,
they do something more interesting than ITA operating that 321 LR from Rome to London, or
other nonsense like that. I guess, they're going to have to scramble to find a plan for these
aircraft in Madrid.
[0:35:41] IP: Madrid to Miami, or –
[0:35:43] JR: Why not Barcelona?
[0:35:46] IP: I'm sure those will be the first routes. Madrid-Barcelona, Madrid-London. I mean,
because remember, I was at – BA was operating its A380s London-Madrid when they were first
bringing them back into service.
[0:35:58] JR: It was also common up until COVID for Iberia to operate the, whatever they had,
up to the A340-600, even between Madrid and London daily. That could be fun.
[0:36:10] IP: Lots and lots of flying to do. We'll keep an eye on this one. We'll see if it actually
happens. If this is a negotiating tactic, what's going on here? Nothing seems to be set in stone
just quite yet, but it's definitely something we're keeping an eye on. Last week, two weeks ago, I
think, the United States government announced a contract to Sierra Nevada Corporation for the
procurement of the replacement for the E4B Nightwatch aircraft. These are currently modified
747-200s that act as command and control aircraft in the event, well, in the event of nuclear war,
among other things.
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[0:36:54] JR: Come on, call them by their nickname. That's not what we call them.
[0:36:58] IP: You want me to call them the Doomsday planes?
[0:36:59] JR: You need to call them the Doomsday plane. Come on.
[0:37:01] IP: Okay, fine. The Doomsday planes.
[0:37:05] JR: There we go. Continue. Thank you.
[0:37:06] IP: We didn't know where the aircraft were going to come from. There are currently a
handful of 747-200s that are in need of replacement. Looking around, we didn't know where the
airframes would come from. Now we know, because Korean Airlines is selling five of its 747-8is
to Sierra Nevada Corporation. I mean, I assume they could use them for something else. To me,
this seems –
[0:37:35] JR: Seems unlikely.
[0:37:37] IP: When you see hoofprints, think horses, kind of thing.
[0:37:39] JR: Yeah, Sierra Nevada says, it has not done modifications on aircraft of this size
before. It would be very surprising if they turned around and did anything else with these.
[0:37:49] IP: These aircraft are scheduled to come into service in a few years’ time. They are
going to be completely stripped of everything and made new. Then they will be the new
Doomsday aircraft.
[0:38:02] JR: Yeah. It is just very funny to me that now both the Air Force One replacements
and the Doomsday plane replacements will both be not purpose-built aircraft, but really just
refurbishing, gently used aircraft. Or in this case, not even gently used, the Air Force One
replacements, those were not taken up aircraft. They never entered commercial service. But
these probably have a couple of million miles on them, which is good for them.
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[0:38:30] IP: I mean, it'll work. As Korean Air winds down its four-engine passenger fleet.
Speaking of winding down four-engine fleets, NASA today retired the DC8. The DC8 flying
laboratory, which has been around for 37 years.
[0:38:48] JR: Wow.
[0:38:49] IP: Operated by and for NASA over the course of four decades, it has been at the
forefront of such famous films As Sniffing the Exhaust from a Variety of Aircraft.
[0:39:02] JR: Is that the title of that film?
[0:39:03] IP: Yes, that was the title of the film.
[0:39:04] JR: Okay, got you.
[0:39:05] IP: Following other aircraft around to practice precision landing approaches in a multi-
aircraft configuration, most recently, folks in the US, South Korea and other parts of Asia were
delighted, and some folks dismayed, by the DC8 flying extremely low over major US cities,
sampling air pollution and particulate matter. This aircraft has been very busy up until
retirement. It is now going to continue to be busy at Idaho State University, where it will be used
by their aviation maintenance programs as a trainer aircraft.
Fret not, there is a replacement on the way. An ex-Japan Airlines 777-200 ER, which flew for
Japan Airlines under the registration JA704J is currently at NASA's facility in Langley,
undergoing what I can only assume is complete and utter tear down, as they add sensors and
fresh window ports and all sorts of things to the aircraft to prepare it for its first operational
mission sometime in fiscal year 2026. At least that's what the schedule says now. We'll see how
we can keep to that.
[0:40:25] JR: Yeah. The DC8 after it took off from Edwards Air Force Base, I believe, did a little
fly over in a couple of places, actually. Actually, it took off from north of Palmdale, what was this?
Palmdale US Air Force Base and then it went over to Edwards. Then it actually went west,
instead of north, over to San Jose. Did either, not sure if it was a touch and go, or a low-level fly
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by over San Jose, which is pretty cool. Finally, before making its trip east and landing out in
Idaho, again, doing a nice circuit of the local area before finally touching down one last time. Not
a phrase you will say many times moving forward, retiring its final DC8. There are more out
there, but I think we might only get to say that one more time. Is that Samaritan's first DC8? I
think that's probably it.
[0:41:19] IP: There's aero cargo bus, aero something. I think they have two and I think one is
operational at any one time. Yeah, it's a dwindling number for sure. We're less than a handful of
DC8s for sure.
[0:41:35] JR: I look forward to having the same conversation in 40 years when we say that
NASA's 777-200 ER is the last operating and it's about to retire. I feel like, this one's going to be
around a very long time.
[0:41:49] IP: A very, very long time. Yeah.
[0:41:51] JR: It's not even a particularly spry aircraft right now. It's pretty, I mean, any 777-200
ER is going to be quite old at this point. This particular frame is, do we know how old this one
is?
[0:42:04] IP: Probably.
[0:42:04] JR: Somebody must know.
[0:42:05] IP: I assume, I could look this information up. It was delivered in 2003.
[0:42:11] JR: Okay, so it's up there already.
[0:42:13] IP: Yeah. Not young. But it's getting a full facelift.
[0:42:18] JR: Good for it.
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[0:42:19] IP: It'll be ready to go. This is a story that we would talk about much higher up in the
show if we knew more and if it had ended differently. We'll just leave this here near the bottom
of the show and come back to it, I'm sure when we have more information. United Flight 28 from
Singapore to San Francisco experienced what we now believe to be an uncontained engine
failure of its left engine, not long after departing Singapore on 14th of May. The aircraft returned
safely back to Singapore for an uneventful landing, where a puncture hole was found in the
engine case and engine casing. That's really all we know at this point. The NTSB to my
knowledge as of the 15th of May has not said it's investigating. Singapore hasn't said much and
the FAA hasn't said anything as far as I know. I'm sure that'll change as soon as we hit stop on
the recording, but we'll have more to say about this likely next week when we know more about
what happened.
Then to close out the show, we've got a recap of the iconic aircraft. We asked everyone to email
us what their most iconic aircraft was, what they thought their most – the most iconic aircraft
was. We kept it commercial. As I assumed what happened, and I'm happy that it did, the 747
came out on top. A wise and well-cultured listenership. There were a good number of votes and
a second runner up was the Concorde. Then I'm not surprised necessarily, but it got more
mentions than I thought it would, the DC3. The votes there were – it ushered in the ability of
folks to fly commercially.
[0:44:14] JR: Man, that's tough. The DC3 ushered in commercial air travel. The 747 introduced
long-haul travel, basically to the world. The Concorde introduced ultra-expensive, really fast
travel to a very select number of people. Each one of those is in its own right, quite iconic. I
can't tell you which one is right or wrong, but the right answer is the 747.
[0:44:36] IP: There you go. speaking of DC3s, this is a good bit of information that if you are, in
fact, a fan of the DC3, or C-47s, some of the remaining operational DC3 are off to Europe over
the next few days. They're going to leave Oxford, Waterton on the 18th of May, taking the Blue
Spruce route, so up through Presque Isle, over to Greenland, Iceland, Scotland, and then down
into mainland Europe, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-day, and the 75th anniversary
of the Berlin Airlift. The aircraft obviously playing hugely important roles in both of those events.
We're going to be following that over the next few days as they begin their journey. But you can
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follow along with those aircraft. Stay tuned to social media, so we can post those flights as they
happened.
[0:45:33] JR: Yeah. A whole bunch of transatlantic DC3 flights. That's something to keep your
eye on.
[0:45:39] IP: They'll be coming back towards the middle of June, so that'll be something to
follow. If you are in Europe, you'll be able to see those, basically, throughout the month of June.
[0:45:46] JR: And don't think those will make the North Atlantic track.
[0:45:50] IP: No. Then finally, this is now your last week to enter the drawing to a signed copy of
Scott Bateman's book, Hercules. We talked with Scott back in episode 265. If you haven't
listened to that episode with our interview about Scott's book that's coming out, about the C130,
by all means, go do that and then come back and email us at podcast@fr24.com and say, “Hey,
I want to win the book.” That's really all you have to do. We'll take it from there. We'll be in touch
soon with how to get the book to you if you win.
[0:46:27] JR: Might even deliver it by DC3. Who knows?
[0:46:29] IP: We might. That would be fun.
[0:46:31] JR: That would be fun.
[0:46:32] IP: That would be a lot of fun.
[0:46:33] JR: I would apply to win the book myself if that were the case.
[0:46:38] IP: We could just drop something else out of a DC3 onto your apartment. Not a
problem. But yeah, this is your last week to enter. Email us, podcast@fr24.com if you want a
chance to win a copy of the book. Also, email us if you just want to say, “Hey, you're doing a
good job, or you're not doing a great job and here's what I want to see different.” We love
hearing from everybody. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who, in their emails,
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entering the contest to win Scott's book, have also said very, very nice things about the show.
Thank you all for that. We're glad that you're enjoying listening to the podcast and we enjoy
putting it together. This has been episode 268 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:47:25] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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