AvTalk Episode 323: Raccoons on a plane

AVT 323 Transcript
EPISODE 323
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello, and welcome to Episode 323 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik here as always
with –
[0:00:16] JS: Jason Rabinowitz. Hello, Ian. How’s your weekend?
[0:00:20] IP: It's good. It's good. How's yours?
[0:00:22] JR: Fine. Not as good as yours. Apparently, you sound all energetic and happy.
[0:00:27] IP: The alternative is just lackadaisical and tired, and I'm choosing to go the other
direction.
[0:00:34] JR: Good for you.
[0:00:36] IP: Yes. Thanks. We'll see how it works by the end of the week.
[0:00:38] JR: Yes. Let me know.
[0:00:40] IP: Yes. I'll keep you posted. Hey, we kick off the show with my favorite aviation story
in a very, very, very, very long time. Airbus has many problems with its supply chain and has had
numerous delays to aircraft delivery. They're dealing with taking on work from Spirit
AeroSystems, in-house work is delayed, getting airplanes out to customers is a challenge. But
on top of all of that, a raccoon, not just one, but a family of raccoons, broke into the Airbus
factory at Mirabel and took up residence inside of an A220.
[0:01:29] JR: Mr. Porter and family doing some espionage here and ambushing the A220
production line up in Montreal. That is fun. I guess Mr. Porter and Porter itself, maybe, wants to
throw a wrench and its competitors, Air Canada's fleet plans. They're still taking A220s, and
maybe Porter's found a way to slow that delivery system down a little bit. Mr. Porter just has to
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pull it down a few wires and get in some places that he's not supposed to be, and he'll be at the
bar at five o'clock for a drink. If you know Mr. Porter, you know that's the story.
[0:02:06] IP: He's a very well-dressed raccoon.
[0:02:08] JR: For people who probably don't know what we're talking about, this is –
[0:02:11] IP: Yes, we should explain Mr. Porter, shouldn't we?
[0:02:12] JR: This is probably a very strange conversation for like the very few of you, I hope,
that do not know who or what Mr. Porter is, because Mr. Porter is the best airline mascot out
there.
[0:02:26] IP: By far.
[0:02:27] JR: By far. It's not even close. Sir Turtle of Cayman Airways comes in a second, very
close second, but Mr. Porter is Canadian Airline Porter's mascot and they use the imagery and
the likeness of Mr. Porter all over their marketing, in everything they do online and in print and
video and all that. It's kind of, Mr. Porter is the brand ambassador. Did not know he was being
dispatched to sabotage competing airlines. But hey, sometimes you got to do what you got to
do.
[0:02:58] IP: So, the A220 affected, or at least the A220 most affected, is destined for a
European airline, so –
[0:03:08] JR: But it slows the whole production line down.
[0:03:10] IP: Take your pick there, but it does, in fact slow the whole production line down.
Airbus confirmed that a family of raccoons was discovered on one particular aircraft, but trying
to elaborate on how or if production was delayed or how much damage was caused. Needless
to say, it's not a huge issue. This is just one family of raccoons. But anytime we get to talk about
animals crawling inside aircraft, is always a good time.
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[0:03:37] JR: Yes, raccoons have a history of screwing around with aviation. I mean, not too
recently ago, there was a family of raccoons living in the drop ceiling of LaGuardia Terminal A,
because of course there was. And maybe that was also Porter's way of introducing itself to
LaGuardia, since those two occurrences were pretty close together. Very suspicious.
[0:03:57] IP: So, wait a second. You're saying this might lead to a Porter A220? They were just
scoping out the airplane.
[0:04:03] JR: Yeah. Well, remember Porter way back when, I think, were going to order A220s
for jet service to is to Billy Bishop YTC, which never happened. Instead, they ended up being an
Embraer E2 customer. I don't know. Maybe, yes, maybe they're just inspecting the A220s for a
future fleet expansion. I don't think so. But no one really knows what Mr. Porter's up to. He's a
very mysterious brand character.
[0:04:26] IP: Well, let's hope there's no follow-up on this particular story. A story that we are
following up on for the 200th, maybe 300th time, and unfortunately, I don't think it'll be the last
time we talk about it this summer. But –
[0:04:40] JR: What?
[0:04:41] IP: Yes, I know. In good news, the main runway at Newark has reopened and
reopened early.
[0:04:49] JR: Wow.
[0:04:51] IP: So, things are moving in the right direction, maybe.
[0:04:56] JR: Yes. That was really the major cause of the issues over the last few on, far more
so than the air traffic control issues, which were sporadic but impactful. The runway closure was
far more impactful because it limited Newark, essentially, to be one and a half at max runway
operation.
[0:05:13] IP: It was a single runway operation.
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[0:05:16] JR: Practically speaking, yes. Only under the most ideal conditions did they get that
extra half a runway. But the Port Authority was able to pull out all the stops, work extra time, pull
in extra crews, do what it needs to do to open the runway. I believe it is four left to two right, 13
days ahead of schedule on June 2nd. For now, the airport is still operating with a maximum
arrival rate of 28 aircraft per hour, and that is pending FAA doing some finishing flight checks,
and then that will ramp up the maximum arrival rate back up to 34 aircraft an hour.
[0:05:56] IP: Every little bit helps.
[0:05:58] JR: Yes, they expect that on the week of June 9th, so just a couple of days after this
podcast comes out, if all goes well, 34 aircraft an hour still far cry from what the airport can and
should be doing. But we'll take it because at some times, that maximum arrival rate went down
to zero, so 34 is pretty okay.
[0:06:18] IP: It's more than zero, that's for sure.
[0:06:19] JR: It is.
[0:06:20] IP: Well, that's good. And we also have the transcripts of the meetings between airline
representatives and the FAA were released this week. Our good friend Seth Miller, because I
didn't want to read three days' worth of meeting transcripts, he for some reason felt obligated to
do so and I appreciate that about him, but he went through and pulled out some interesting
nuggets and it basically came down to disagreeing over math, and the airlines wanting to retime
flights, and the FAA saying, “No, when we say cut flights we don't mean move them around, we
mean cut flights.”
[0:07:01] JR: Yes. There is some moving around of flights like apparently the FAA was begging
for cuts in the 7 pm hour where things got really particularly hairy, but rearranging deck chairs
on the Titanic really didn't work, and that's kind of what's happening here. Most of the
conversation back and forth is airlines saying, “Oh, I caught a flight, and I think all the other
airlines in the room should cut more flights,” and all those other – you know the Spider-Man
meme where there's a bunch of Spider-Man in the room, they're all pointing at each other.
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That's this. That's what all this is, except actually maybe all of the fingers are pointing at United
since it is 70% of the operations at Newark, so mostly it's just finger pointing at United and
United pointing fingers at everyone else, with a couple fingers being pointed at the cargo
operators like FedEx and UPS, and then the FAA saying, “Leave them alone. They're not
included in this conversation, and they don't have to do anything,” which I thought was a bit of
an interesting thing to point out that they're exempt from the conversation because I believe it's
a hub for at least FedEx. I know UPS has some operations there as well, so why not them too?
Of course, there was also concern from the US Airlines of what's to stop us from taking down
flights and then international airlines just coming in to scoop up those new slots. It really wasn't
much of an answer from the FAA on that. But yes, a lot of finger-pointing. Not much of a
solution, but some fights will be cut here and there, and not much more.
[0:08:28] IP: Yes. So, we'll keep an eye on it and hopefully Newark continues in the right
direction. Let's stay in the New York area because we finally, after months of speculation about
what will happen, will this be a merger? Will this be a partnership? What's going to happen? We
don't know. Well, now we know. United and JetBlue last week announced what they're calling
the Blue-Sky partnership, and it comes down to United getting access to JFK and some cross
loyalty, earn and burn, mileage, redemption opportunities for flyers for both airlines.
[0:09:10] JR: It's the most they can do without getting in trouble with the DOJ, it feels like it. I
believe you pulled a quote, didn't you?
[0:09:18] IP: I certainly did. I certainly did. So, this was Joanna Geraghty speaking at the IATA
AGM in Delhi earlier this week. She said, “Shutting down merger talk.” This was in response to
a journalist's question about whether this particular partnership presages a further integration
between JetBlue and United, and she said, “We've spent a lot of time with the US DOJ over the
past five years, and we're playing it safe.” United, for its part, has basically said the same thing.
They said, “Nope, we're not buying JetBlue, we're not merging with JetBlue, there's none of
that's going on here. This is the partnership, this is what we're getting out of it. There's nothing
more than that.” Which makes sense given how reluctant the DOJ has been to approve mergers
of late, though JetBlue is still a little salty about the fact that all of these major mergers were
approved and then they struck out twice.
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[0:10:15] JR: Yes, so they're going as far as they can without really getting too deep into
possibly triggering DOJ or who knows in this administration, but it does seem like a win for both
United and JetBlue passengers. There's reciprocal frequent flyer status benefits on both,
including checked bags, priority boarding, preferred seats, extra leg room, changes, standby, all
that good stuff. You'll be able to book United flights on jetblue.com and JetBlue flights on
united.com. So, it's really a decent partnership.
However, they are exceedingly clear that this is not a code share. It is simply selling each
other's flights on each other's sites and apps. There is no price schedule or routing
collaboration. It's just each airline is going to keep doing its own thing, and there's no
collaboration. So, the DOJ will not get involved, almost certainly, which is probably exactly the
point of this. And there's some other interesting backend stuff like United will use JetBlue's in-
house holiday and travel booking thing called Paisly. JetBlue will use United's marketing kinetic,
I think it's called marketing platform, for in-flight screen. It's a little more than just for
passengers. Some interesting back-of-house stuff as well, but it seems like a good fit after
American outright said, “We're not interested in you anymore.” So, JetBlue found somewhere
else to call home.
[0:11:43] IP: They sure did. And the colors match. So, that's good.
[0:11:47] JR: Most crucially, probably to United has been the long-standing desire to get back
into JFK. This will allow them to do that, but not until 2027. But it's an interesting twist.
Apparently, United's free to do that at any point moving forward now. JetBlue will hand over, I
believe it is seven slots to United to operate at JFK, but United said we're not going to do that
until 2027 because we don't have good enough airplanes to send to JFK. Its Transcon fleet right
now is some elderly 757s that don't have the best product on board. Those were supposed to
have been replaced already by the 737 10 MAX. Well, we know the story with that. There are
nowhere to be seen so far. So United, I guess, thinks that not until 2027 will it have enough
aircraft to be worthy of gracing JFK with its presence.
[0:12:43] IP: We can't retrofit some PS 757s.
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[0:12:46] JR: Those are gone. Those were an actual COVID retirement or COVID victim, even
though United said, “Hey, we didn't retire aircraft during COVID.” Well, they did. It was the very
old United PS fleet. So, hey, but even those aren't really good enough. But when United came in
during COVID, when they had the slot waivers to operate the JFK, they used 767s. But I guess
at this point, they don't want to do that, or they have a different thing in mind. But seven slots
just also isn't a ton to mess around with that JFK. Not really a critical mass to operate to both LA
and SFO. So, we'll see what else United has in store.
[0:13:25] IP: That we will, but we'll have to wait until 2027 to find out. Oh, let's get closer to the
ground with JetBlue's last announced or partnership before we're recording partnership thing.
This has been seemingly a long time coming, and it's always good to see some intermodal
cooperation.
[0:13:44] JR: Yes. Finally, Brightline, the private South Florida rail operator, has been hinting
and hinting and hinting for months and even years now that it's working towards a relationship
with an airline of some sort. Well, now we know that's with JetBlue, and that just makes a whole
bunch of sense given JetBlue's massive presence in South Florida. It's quite a basic
partnership. It's not something like Star Alliance in Deutsche Bahn in Germany, where I believe
Deutsche Bahn is like an actual intermodal Star Alliance partner. JetBlue is just straight up
working with Brightline to connect its passengers onto Brightline, connecting at South Florida
airports. There's no interline, there's no code share, no frequent flier benefits or anything like
that. It's simply, if you fly JetBlue and you want to connect onward, let's say from Orlando to
West Palm Beach or from Miami up to Fort Lauderdale, you can now do that through Brightline
instead of connecting, let's say, through Newark or something like that onward to JetBlue. You
can do that on the ground with Brightline.
That's progress here for the US because before this, we don't have any air-rail partnerships.
The last one we had was United's codeshare with Amtrak, which unfortunately ceased in 2020
and doesn't show any signs of coming back.
[0:14:59] IP: Yes, it'd be nice if they brought that back.
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[0:15:01] JR: It would be nice. That one made a lot of sense, especially could have been helpful
the last couple months with the chaos at Newark if they could have just kicked some of their
passengers over to Amtrak to connect them to many cities in the northeast. But there are other
opportunities for that, maybe out of like Seattle, I don't know, with the Amtrak line out there,
even though I know that's kind of cut back because of Amtrak's fleet issues. So, maybe not, but
there's lots of opportunity, maybe between like Chicago and Milwaukee. I know there's a lot of
Amtrak left between those two cities, but Orlando is uniquely suited for this because it's one of
the few US airports that has the train station at the airport, and it couldn't be any easier.
[0:15:38] IP: We touched on the IATA annual general meeting a bit earlier with Joanna
Geraghty’s comments, but let's talk about some of the news that came out of the AGM this year.
So, this is the gathering of the International Air Transport Association, which is the global airline
trade body. It's currently helmed by Willie Walsh, who is the former chief of IAG Airlines, and no
stranger to controversy, speaking his mind. But nothing too surprising out of his mouth at this
particular general meeting, just the standard, please treat airlines better than you're treating
them, plead to various governments, but nothing we've never heard before.
Interesting announcements coming out of the AGM, though, as far as airlines and kind of
commercial services are concerned. We have Delta, Air France KLM, Virgin Atlantic entering
into codeshare agreements with IndiGo. So, this will be IndiGo placing its code on KLM flights
from Amsterdam to destinations in Europe, Canada, and the US, placing their code on Virgin
flights between Manchester and the US, and on Delta flights from Amsterdam to the US. Delta's
Ed Bastian taking a swipe at the United-JetBlue tie-up, said, “That's all loyalty stuff. This is the
real deal.” Nice. I mean, very different target audience there, sure, but certainly seems like
IndiGo might be getting pushed in the direction of being a Sky Team member, perhaps, in the
near future. That seems like the next logical step, doesn't it?
[0:17:23] IP: I mean, if you're doing codeshares with Delta, Air France, KLM, and Virgin Atlantic,
it seems to me like SkyTeam is in the future.
[0:17:31] JR: SkyTeam there, that pretty much is SkyTeam for all intents and purposes. But yes,
IndiGo is not a member of any major alliance, so this seems like a good replacement from what
was, was Jet Airways, Star SkyTeam back in the day? I think they may have been, maybe. But
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either way, Air India and Star Alliance, and that's a big, big connecting factor in the region. So, if
IndiGo wants to get, I guess, to the next level, SkyTeam seems like the next logical step.
[0:17:57] IP: Yes. To Jason's point, Jet Airways was a member of SkyTeam. So, that would be
the logical step for IndiGo to become a member of SkyTeam. Plus, they have a massive order of
wide-body aircraft all the way. So, that's –
[0:18:14] JR: An interesting region to pay attention to.
[0:18:16] IP: Yes. I mean, if you're interested in one region of aviation in one region only. I think
India is the place to be as far as the most exciting things happening.
[0:18:26] JR: Yes, especially –
[0:18:26] IP: – airlines, networks, and technology.
[0:18:30] JR: Tell me more about airline routes in India.
[0:18:35] IP: Well, I didn't say it was all exciting in a positive way. It's just exciting.
[0:18:39] JR: Specifically around Pakistan. You have some numbers for us to put it in context.
[0:18:44] IP: I do. So, this was also at the AGM, the CEO of Air India was speaking, and his
figures on how much it will cost Air India if they lose access to Pakistani airspace for an entire
year. Jason, how many millions of dollars do you think it could cost them?
[0:19:08] JR: I'm going to go with $600 million per year.
[0:19:11] IP: That's precisely it. So, $600 million per year, if Air India makes no major changes
to its route network. So, if they continue to fly exactly as they're flying now around Pakistan on
the same routes without making any changes, it's going to impact them to the tune of $600
million per year. So, the interesting thing that Campbell Wilson said is that what this is coming
from obviously is having to fly around Pakistan, adds time, which adds fuel cost, and it adds
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stopover costs because a lot of these flights are still making a single stop in Europe before
continuing on to North America. But what they've tried to do is shift as many flights as they can
to nonstop flights, but that induces a payload restriction.
So, you've got a balloon and you're squeezing it in different parts to see which one is more
palatable. Whether you're going to continue with as much payload as you can and stop
somewhere, or go nonstop –
[0:20:13] JR: So, they're getting the full thin air treatment?
[0:20:15] IP: Yes. Yes, they are. Things seem to have calmed down between India and
Pakistan. But both countries have continued to maintain the ban on the other's airlines passing
through their airspace. And certainly, no one wants to be seen as capitulating, so until they can
agree to basically drop the NOTAMs together, I don't see much of this changing. Or Pakistan
decides they want the overflight fees again.
[0:20:46] JR: Hey, that's a lot of money.
[0:20:48] IP: Because this is really a one-sided impact to operational necessity on the part of Air
India and Indian Airlines. Pakistan's much less affected. There's only a couple of flights that
have to fly around India. Granted, they have to fly very far out of their way if they're going
around India. But again, Pakistan's also missing out on a bunch of revenue because of the
overflights not being there.
[0:21:12] JR: Yes. It definitely impacts India more because India's got a massive aviation sector
with multiple national airlines while Pakistan has one very sad, very, very sad national airline. I
hope that changes one day. Certainly, this doesn't help, but India has a lot more to lose here
than Pakistan does. At least only talking about the aviation sector, PIA is a mess compared to –
mixed India look like a well-oiled machine, or at least Air India.
[0:21:43] IP: Yes. No one wants it. I mean, Pakistan has tried to privatize it multiple times. I
think we even put a bid in, maybe three or four rounds ago, on trying to PIA private. Our bid was
not successful. Maybe I didn't tell you that we put in a bid.
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[0:21:59] JR: Oh, yes. We should talk about that. But yes, if you thought privatizing and reviving
Air India was difficult, PIA is – that would have to be the end of the art of this thing. If you can
rescue Alitalia and turn it into ITA. If you can rescue Air India and turn it into the new Air India, I'd
like to see you try with PIA because I'm pretty sure that's impossible.
[0:22:21] IP: Hey, speaking of Alitalia, so Alitalia is truly the cockroach of airlines. It cannot be
killed. As much as ITA has done to rebrand and go with that brilliant blue, Alitalia has started to
seep back into the airline with the inspired by Alitalia branding that has adorned some of the
aircraft. Speaking this week, the Lufthansa-installed new chief of ITA has said that Alitalia may
be coming back even stronger. The thinking here is that Alitalia is more well-known around the
world by travelers. It's not a large enough brand to maintain two distinct brands.
[0:23:20] JR: Well, then don't do that.
[0:23:22] IP: That to me was the follow-up question, because I wasn't in Delhi, I didn't get to
ask. But why bother with the Alitalia business at all? Just build up the ITA Airways thing and slap
a member of Lufthansa Group sticker on it and call it a day. But it sounds like they're going to
increasingly infuse the brand with Alitalia and then eventually, it will just all be Alitalia again.
[0:23:47] JR: That's what it sounds like. Some of the quotes here are interesting. This one that
FlightGlobal pulled, the quote is, “If you have two brands, you have to invest in both of them.” It
goes on to say, “It might be a bit too much for us as an airline with 100 aircraft. A multi-brand
strategy might be difficult, but we are currently exploring options to have a certain merger of
these two brands.” Who's asking for this? Nobody has told you to incrementally reintroduce bit
by bit Alitalia into the ITA brand, like, whose idea was this? Just be one or be the other. No one's
saying you should be both at the same time, either rip the Band-Aid off and go back to Alitalia,
or forget Alitalia and be ITA. Don't do both. That's obvious. It should be obvious to anyone to
knock to do that. But I guess if they really think the Alitalia brand is still that relevant and people
still go to alitalia.com expecting to find Alitalia, not ITA, sure. Switch back. But I don't understand
this middle ground step of inspired by Alitalia. What does that do for anyone? I'm not looking for
answers, because there aren’t any.
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[0:24:54] IP: I don't know. I certainly do not know. Speaking of strange decisions made by
German Airlines. A Condor flight ended up missing its extended curfew by about 10 seconds.
[0:25:12] JR: Okay, but there's more context here. This topic has come up a couple times in
recent weeks. I think one was about Ryanair missing curfew. It was at Frankfurt by a couple
minutes and diverting. This one is about Condor diverting, being 10 seconds away from landing
at Munich, just missing curfew. However, they had already missed their 30-minute added
window that went beyond the midnight curfew, that goes to 12:30 if they were granted that
leniency. And they were, but they missed that too. I guess you get down to the point of how
much extra time. How much extra leeway can you keep affording airlines? And 10 seconds
doesn't sound like much, but it sets a precedent over time in that, “Hey, if Condor can land 10
seconds late, I can land 60 seconds late.” I get it, but also, what are you doing, Condor? If it was
that close, you probably shouldn't have been doing it in the first place.
[0:26:10] IP: Yes. So, this was a flight from Palma to Munich. And the flight left late to begin
with. Then what's interesting to me is this late at night, it seems to me, and I don't have the
specifics here. So, I'm not sure why they chose the particular routing that they did, but it
certainly wasn't the most efficient routing to get to me.
[0:26:33] JR: No, it sure wasn't.
[0:26:34] IP: So, then they are not quite at the threshold of the runway. But they were certainly
within the airport grounds when they were refused landing clearance. So, they did a go around,
performed a missed approach, and landed at Frankfurt Hahn. And then, I think the insult to
injury here is the fact that Condor then put them on buses to Frankfurt proper, then they flew
them back from there. Well, the aircraft made it back to Munich faster than the passengers did,
the original aircraft.
[0:27:13] JR: Oops.
[0:27:12] IP: Yes, I think that's where the insult to injury comes in. But to Jason's point, like,
rules are rules in this case. So, I think the airline, in this particular case, probably should have
said either, “Hey, maybe we could fly a little faster and make sure that we have enough cushion
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to get there or maybe we don't go at all. And I get not wanting to cancel a flight, totally get that.
But it seems to me there was a slight breakdown in what the planning was here.
[0:27:43] JR: Yes. I do wonder if there's a middle ground here that might be more palatable for
the passengers, that instead of being such a stickler and saying, “Hey, you're 10 seconds late,
go away.” Let the flight land and then give the airline an astronomical fine to prevent them from
doing it again. Because at the end of the day, the diversion and the buses and the repositioning
flight, that's going to cost airlines a lot, but at the same time, you also inconvenience the
passengers a whole lot. They were like something like 9, 10 hours late. But if you let the aircraft
land and find the hell out of them, they're not going to want to do that again. They're probably
not going to screw around with coming in 10 seconds late. But at least that way, you don't
inconvenience the passengers to that degree, especially in an area like Germany with EU 261,
where it's very passenger-centric to make sure passengers are taken care of.
In this case, it's the opposite with the government, almost going out of its way to make a bad
day for passengers and ruin days and vacations and all that, blah, blah, blah. But maybe they
should pursue finding airlines instead of shooing them away.
[0:28:51] IP: The one thing that we should note here is that there are also fines for the airport if
aircraft land late.
[0:28:59] JR: So, just make the fine for the airline twice as much as the fine for the airport.
There you go.
[0:29:06] IP: That's interesting. Now, I have to go down a rabbit hole in German no less, to find
out how much airports are fined for this.
[0:29:13] JR: I'm sure there's a German word for the fine levied against an airport for an airline
landing after curfew. There's got to be a German word for that.
[0:29:24] IP: I will do my best to find it. Let's revisit Global Airlines for a minute because they've
sent the A380 that they own off to Dresden, which is home to one of the world's preeminent
A380 outfitters. I don't know what it's doing there for certain. I don't know how long it's going to
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be there or what Global’s plans are for the particular aircraft, but it's at Dresden where A380s,
such as those owned by Qantas, are often outfitted with new cabins.
Global, for its part, put out a statement yesterday, the 3rd of June, that called attention to a
number of things that have been mentioned in the media over the past few weeks since their
four example flights. I'm not sure exactly what we're calling these, but they talked about how
they've received quite a bit of media attention, that they love being talked about, and that over
the coming days and weeks, and I'm quoting here now from their post on LinkedIn, “We will run
a MythBusters series to help everyone get things back on track and provide some transparency
where we think it is needed.”
I think this post is in reaction to some media reporting late last week and early this week that
said, “Global is transitioning from a transatlantic all A380 operation to a much more well-
understood wet lease operation where they'll own the aircraft and then other airlines or tour
operators or what have you will be able to lease the Global A380.” That would be in line with
what Hi Fly tried a few years ago with 9H-MIP and everyone said, “Okay, that makes sense.”
And then Global said, “No, no, no, no, that's not our plan.” They still have “The ultimate goal of
becoming a scheduled airline in the future.”
So, that's not what they're doing. Maybe they'll do some ACMI and wet lease work, but that's not
their ultimate goal. But it'll be interesting to see what their MythBusters series lays out. And it will
also be interesting to hear what their ultimate goal is because we haven't heard it. I mean, they
have, I guess, theoretically, they have multiple aircraft. They own at least two A380s. They've
only got one in service, or they've only had one in service, and I haven't heard anything about
the second one. So, we know how difficult it is to run a transatlantic operation. We know how
difficult it is to run any operation, and especially any operation with one aircraft, let alone one
A380.
I'm very curious to hear much more about this MythBusters series over the coming days and
weeks.
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[0:32:21] JR: I guess we'll just wait and see. Not much else to do because the airline still has
no announced plans of any sort. You know what? I'm not going to say airlines, the company, has
no plans.
[0:32:32] IP: We'll call it a company, and there you go. If you want some interesting reading
across a variety of viewpoints, the comments on Global's LinkedIn post is illuminating. Here is
one that I can't tell if this is overly dramatic and unnecessary, or if I'm very happy that they're
taking the stand. But Turkish aviation regulators –
[0:32:58] JR: I see what you did there.
[0:33:01] IP: I didn't even mean to do that. So, good job, me. Turkish aviation regulators are
strongly encouraging airlines to reemphasize that passengers need to remain seated until the
aircraft has reached the gate and the captain has turned off the fasten seat belt sign. They're
saying that they are going to move towards airlines writing up passengers who don't do that and
issuing administrative penalties, including fines, if people keep standing up before the aircraft
gets to the gate.
[0:33:31] JR: And the seatbelt sign is turned off.
[0:33:34] IP: And the seatbelt sign is turned off.
[0:33:35] JR: Of course, because it is sometimes difficult to tell if you're actually at a gate or
somewhere on a taxiway waiting to be towed into a gate if you're at Newark because, of course,
that's always the case. Maybe it could take a while, and you might not really know the
difference. But ironically, the only airline I've actually ever run into an issue with, not actually
knowing if we were ready or I guess we were, because the seatbelt sign was off, was with
Turkish. When we arrived at Newark, the seatbelt sign came off, everyone stood up, but the jet
bridge didn't move, it didn't move, it didn't move, and suddenly the aircraft was jostled a little bit
and then we started being towed about probably 10 or 12 extra feet because apparently, they
didn't line up with the first day of service for the A350. So, the aircraft wasn't where it was
supposed to be, and everyone was kind of thrown around on that aircraft. But we were
supposed to be standing because the seatbelt sign was off.
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Hey, I'm not going to be written up for that, but this is one of those, like, quality of life things you
hear about with like, “Oh, the police stopped policing quality of life issues.” I feel like this is one
of those things because if you're on an active taxiway and people are standing up, and then
they need to taxi, and then they can't because someone's standing and then you miss your slot.
It's an issue. It's an actual operational and safety issue. If it's apparently more of an issue in
Turkey than it is elsewhere, good to hear they're not just ignoring it. I hope they do, do
something.
[0:34:51] IP: Yes, it'd be interesting to see if that's effective. Let's talk about some of the other
things that are new in the aviation world. Wizz Air has put the A321XLR into service beginning
this week, starting on the London Jetta route. It's a 4,700-kilometer route, and it's taking about
six hours to get there and a little over six hours to get back. This is the third airline to put the
XLR into service, and the first to really start stretching its legs –
[0:35:25] JR: Ever so slightly.
[0:35:28] IP: A little bit, a little bit, a little bit, but nowhere near the XLR’s full range. So, that'll be
interesting to see which airline makes that move first and really goes for it.
[0:35:40] JR: Not the most interesting or longest or special route here, but it's Wizz Air. So, it's
probably like 900 seats on board. So, that's a –
[0:35:46] IP: Twelve thousand, actually. Yes, it’s 12,000 seats.
[0:35:49] JR: I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.
[0:35:51] IP: Four centimeters of pitch. On a much more comfortable plane, Alaska has
announced that it will begin serving Seattle to Rome using Hawaiian 787s. So, that's fun.
[0:36:04] JR: Yes. A couple of years ago, cobbling that sentence together would have landed
through –
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[0:36:09] IP: I'm doing aviation mad libs.
[0:36:11] JR: Aviation mad libs. Alaska using Hawaiian 787s to launch Seattle, Rome. It is not a
sentence I would have strung together just a couple of years ago, but now it seems like, “Oh,
yes. Okay. That makes sense.” Apparently, Rome is the most underserved nonstop destination
from Seattle, so that's what Alaska is going to do. But unlike all of the other long-haul flights that
Alaska is going to sell while Hawaiian operates or whatever, those are going to be operated with
the A330, apparently, possibly maybe that might actually change, but this one is the first they've
announced with the 787, which is the good plane, the A330, while nice in economy and
business is not really a competitive product. But the 787, that's a nice plane.
[0:36:55] IP: Well, then off to Rome we go.
[0:36:56] JR: Okay.
[0:36:57] IP: The FAA has issued an Airworthiness Directive, and these happen all the time.
Some of them are big, some of them are small, and this one caught my eye because I said, “Oh,
come on.” This one targets the Pratt & Whitney 2000 series engine, which powers 757s and US
Air Force C-17s. The Airworthiness Directive indicates that maintenance checks need to be
taken because these aircraft or these engines are affected by the powdered metal fatigue issue
that also affects the Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan 1000 series engines. How has this spread
to infect aircraft that are 30 years old?
So, in the US, this affects nearly 500 aircraft operated by Delta, UPS, FedEx, as well as the
United States Air Force.
[0:38:00] JR: I mean, these aircraft, at least Delta's, they're old enough to have enough
problems without the engines needing an inspection every 15 miles. Oh, that sucks. So, I don't
know if we know at this point how severe this is. Is it going to be as dramatic as the geared
turbofans, where the engine spends more time off the wing than it does on the wing, hopefully
not. I don't know how Delta would survive that because a huge part of its domestic fleet is still a
757, so that could not be too good.
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[0:38:32] IP: Yes. We'll see how long the inspections end up taking and how much time the
aircraft spend on the ground. From my reading of the AD, it doesn't sound like it's as pervasive,
and it sounds like the inspection is not as intrusive. At least, that's my reading, but I could be
wrong. This just came out this week, so we're going to dig into it a little bit more, and I guess
over time, we'll see how badly it affects these particular craft.
[0:39:01] JR: Yes, fingers crossed. Thankfully, finally, for a change, United's on the side. I was
like, we're glad the Pratt & Whitney 75s that we talked about earlier are Rolls-Royce-powered.
[0:39:14] IP: Let's stick with the FAA and talk about the fact that Boeing's organizational
designation authority has been renewed for another three years. This is effective as of the 1st of
June, so a few days ago. The FAA allows Boeing's independent ODA division to perform certain
certification tasks on behalf of the FAA. The FAA, for its part, says that it will continue to “Closely
monitor Boeing's performance throughout its renewal period.” This is not necessarily the FAA
saying, “Okay, back to the way it was before,” but it is the FAA saying, “Okay, you've earned
another three years for this particular status, but we're going to keep a close eye on you.”
[0:40:08] JR: All right. Progress?
[0:40:10] IP: Progress indeed. On the 24th of June at 9:30 Eastern Daylight Time, the NTSB will
host its board meeting to vote on the probable cause of the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 door plug
blowout. I will be watching that one. There will be a live stream. Stay tuned to our social media
and this particular podcast for a live link when that comes around. But I just wanted to put that
on everyone's calendars as they announced the schedule yesterday, because that will certainly
be an interesting one.
[0:40:46] JR: Wouldn't want to forget about that.
[0:40:48] IP: No. We'll remind you at least one more time. And then to close the show, usually
we're talking about this in the context of Iran. But Belarus said, “No, we want in on that too.”
They have used the magic trick of Magic Air, which is a Gambian shell company, to take delivery
of three early 2000s A330s. So, the deliveries kind of went under the radar last August, taking
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place on the 16th and 17th of August 2024. They were flown through Oman and up to Minsk in
Belarus.
These particular aircraft operated for Onur Air, and they operated in an all-economy
configuration. Unclear what's going to happen when they're introduced into service with Belavia.
The first one is scheduled to be introduced later this year. We know all about this now because
they've come out of the paint shop.
[0:41:53] JR: Ah, so not quite as sneaky, sneaky as some of the Iranian aircraft diversion
deliveries, but still –
[0:42:02] IP: No, this was a straight delivery. These aircraft are flying to Tajikistan. Oh, no, all
three of them have had immediate mechanical failures over time.
[0:42:15] JR: An Iranian special here. That one is a long-known trick that no one apparently can
ever do anything about. But in this case, it's just a chain of quasi, mostly legal transfers, I guess,
ish, ish?
[0:42:33] IP: This is also how Cham Wings in Syria got one of their A320s. It was the same
company in Gambia, Magic Air.
[0:42:42] JR: Oh, they did pull some magic.
[0:42:44] IP: They did indeed. So, I guess we'll figure out what their plans are for these. I mean,
they can't really fly too many places given the sanctions imposed on Belarus and Belavia in
particular. So, I guess they're upgauging their service to Russia or Turkey, maybe? We'll see
where these planes end up going. But we'll put a link in the show notes to the registrations so
you can set alerts for those if you want to keep tabs on them as they begin service later this
year.
And with that, Jason's probably going to yell at me for putting his name on a bid for Pakistan
International Airlines and maybe an extra A330. I don't know, but we'll see if we survive another
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weekend, and we'll be back for episode 324 next week. But in the meantime, this has been
episode 323 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik here, as always with –
[0:43:38] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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