AvTalk Episode 302: Blowout, one year later

AVT 302 Transcript
EPISODE 302
[EPISODE]
[0:00:08] IP: Hello and welcome to episode 302 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Ian, welcome to the first regularly scheduled podcast of 2025.
[0:00:23] IP: Indeed. There's a lot. We were going to take last week off and then didn't in the
face of two horrific crashes, one with an Azerbaijan Airlines in Kazakhstan and one with a Jeju
Air 737 in South Korea. This week, we've got some updates on those, some updates on the
crash that began 2024 in Japan, as well as a year on from the Alaska Airlines mid-cabin exit
door plug blowout.
[0:01:00] JR: Also, we've just got some regular news that's fun.
[0:01:03] IP: We just have some regular news.
[0:01:04] JR: And harmless. Just you read it and you go, “Huh. Okay. That was news.” We like
that stuff.
[0:01:10] IP: Yeah. Yeah, helpful stuff to know about the industry. Some of it's annoying, but
somewhat amusing. Then towards the end of the show, we'll go, huh?
[0:01:19] JR: Hmm?
[0:01:20] IP: Exactly. Let's get into it. We have updates on the investigations into the twin
crashes that we reported extensively on last week. First of all, thank you so much to everyone
who watched the special video episode that we put together and all of the kind words that you
had to say about the work that went into that. We appreciate that so very much. Lots of you
suggested that that be the new format for the regular show. Unfortunately, we just don't have the
time budget to make that an every week thing, but rest assured that we do find it a useful and
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worthwhile endeavor for that specific type of content. We will look into when a visual
representation is necessary will be there.
[0:02:06] JR: We didn't even tell you about the first time we recorded that episode and the
audio vanished. Video has some complications to it, but that was the actual second take –
[0:02:15] IP: Yeah, that was take two.
[0:02:16] JR: - of that particular episode.
[0:02:18] IP: Oh, boy. Okay. Speaking of audio and video, or really just audio here, the cockpit
voice recorder from the Jeju 737 has been recovered. It has been downloaded, and
investigators were able to extract all two hours of audio from those recorders. That has been a
successful download of the audio from that aircraft. The flight data recorder was damaged in the
crash, and that particular recorder has been sent as of Monday the 6th of January to the
National Transportation Safety Board Laboratory in Washington, D.C., in the U.S., where the
NTSB will hopefully work its magic in order to extract whatever data is available on the flight
data recorder. As we talked about last week, that's a hopeful effort, given the NTSB's history of
being able to get data out of, well, pretty much near anything.
[0:03:25] JR: Yeah. We've seen the magic they can do on pulling the data from that. We don't
know what two hours the cockpit voice recorder recorded, because we don't know when the
recorder stopped recording. Hopefully, it kept recording up until the very last moments, but there
is a chance that at some point prior to the end of the flight, let's say it stopped recording due to
a loss of electrical power, or any other number of issues. But the mere fact that it recorded the
maximum two hours of something leading up to that crash is exceptionally good news that they
were able to download it. There are few flights in the past recently that I can recall that the CVR
data would have been probably so illuminating as it's going to be as opposed to the FDR. I think
this is really absolutely critical data that we're going to get off the voice recorder here. I don't
know how much the FDR is going to be of use. Certainly, there's going to be some information,
but the voice recorder here is going to be absolutely key to figuring out what happened on that
airplane.
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[0:04:29] IP: Yeah, exactly. I think Jason's right. The CVR is going to be much more
illuminating. But hopefully, we'll get as much data from –
[0:04:34] JR: We got them both, so that’s good.
[0:04:36] IP: - both of them as much as possible, and we'll await a preliminary report somewhat
soon. Then obviously, the final report is going to be one that we read with great interest. In
Kazakhstan, the updates on the crash there, both of the recorders, the cockpit voice recorder
and the flight data recorder, have been read out by the Brazilian authorities in Brazil, so that has
happened. We're not sure what they were able to glean, or how much data was available, but
usually, no news is good news on that front. When they say they were able to read the
recorders, that usually means that the data is there. They generally say that the data wasn't
there if the data wasn't there, so no news being good news.
The President of Azerbaijan also gave an interesting update on something that we had talked
about last week, where his office confirmed and he confirmed that the Azerbaijan Airlines flight
that returned to Baku did so because of airspace warnings at that time that the aircraft received,
and they were able to turn around and return to Baku. His office is questioning why the accident
aircraft wasn't made aware of any dangers, if in fact there were dangers at the time.
[0:06:00] JR: Yeah. I'm assuming timing was everything. Something as small as a 30-minute
delay can change everything that by the time that particular flight got to the region, there was no
hard out and they turned around, but maybe the accident flight, they didn't have that advanced
notice. These are all things that, I guess, the investigation is going to be looking into. I would
assume so.
[0:06:21] IP: As best it can, perhaps?
[0:06:23] JR: Yeah. As best it can. A difficult one you're working under these conditions in an
active conflict zone like this. But really looking forward, I guess, to the voice recorder on this one
as well, because I'm sure the conversations had up in the flight deck are going to answer a lot of
questions. Not that we'll be hearing it, but just seeing the readout of what that crew was doing to
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keep the aircraft in the air is going to be quite the stressful read, I fear. We're not getting that for
quite some time.
[0:06:54] IP: No, no. Probably not, and at least until the final report. Let's go back to the
beginning of last year and we'll start with an update on Boeing from Boeing itself, from Alaska
Airlines and from the FAA. Boeing, for its part, says that one year on from the Alaska Airlines
door plug blowout, things are improving. Boeing recently unveiled further, what they're calling
enhancements to its safety and quality plan, which is focused on a wholesale change of the
corporate culture, which, as we all know, is a very easy thing to do.
[0:07:38] JR: Sure. Especially when you don't do it until you're forced to do it.
[0:07:44] IP: The report that they put out, touting their past year of changes and what they're
calling success and what they're seeing for the future falls into four categories. We have safety
and quality culture, product safety and quality training, simplifying processes, and eliminating
defects. The first one, the safety and quality culture has focused on a few different things. One
was the quality stand downs that Boeing has enacted throughout the past year. Stopping work
so that they can make sure that they're doing it in a quality way. Ensuring that Boeing
employees as part of the speak up system, which is a confidential reporting of any safety issues
that any employee might see. They've beefed that system up to make it more actionable, I
guess, rather than what some employees had termed as toothless previously.
Product safety and quality training. All employees are now going through additional product
safety and quality training. They are enhancing specific trainings for people who are assembling
the airplanes, as well as the people who are inspecting the assembly of the airplanes who are
working for Boeing. They've also brought in additional training courses and schedules for
Boeing employees to improve their skills as they choose. They can choose from a variety of
trainings to take. Simplifying manufacturing processes has been a big priority for Boeing,
because things got way too complicated as their auditing has found out. Now they have new
compliance protocols. They have redefined how they do installations, especially within the 737
line. They are also making sure that the people that perform the work are saying they performed
the work, so that they know who performed the work. Jason, that's important because why?
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[0:10:05] JR: Documentation is good to know when someone didn't do the right work. Is that
the answer you're looking for? Bolts were removed, by who? Who removed them?
[0:10:14] IP: I was thinking specifically, exactly, in the context of the door, where it took us
what? Six months. And the NTSB going scorched earth to figure out, okay, what was the
timeline of removing these bolts? Who did the work? Why was the work done?
[0:10:32] JR: We still don't have that answer. We still don't know.
[0:10:35] IP: We don't know specifically who, but we've narrowed it down seemingly as much as
we can.
[0:10:40] JR: Yes. That is not great.
[0:10:41] IP: It would be good to know.
[0:10:42] JR: No. That is definitely a sign of a completely failed process.
[0:10:47] IP: Finally, eliminating defects, which seems to me to be a fantastic thing. A big way
that they are trying to eliminate defects is by purchasing their main fuselage supplier.
[0:10:58] JR: Not willingly.
[0:10:58] IP: Bringing Spirit AeroSystems in-house, increasing inspection points across the
entire production process from the very beginning to the final assembly, looking at ensuring
compliance is met all the way through each step of the process, as well as coming up with, and I
have to believe this is an improvement of the process, not a brand new one, ensuring that
foreign object debris is not left in critical work areas.
[0:11:32] JR: Yes. That is definitely not something new. If you've ever been on any Boeing
factory floor, there's all sorts of markings for FOD awareness and FOD critical zone. That's
definitely not new, but it doesn't really matter if people aren't obeying it and actually checking,
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where'd my wrench go? That's probably fine. That's not new, but it's probably good to have
some renewed interest in it.
[0:11:54] IP: All of this sounds great. That's Boeing saying how good it's doing. What are the
other folks here?
[0:12:00] JR: There's a couple other involved parties here. The FAA is one. They took two
medium to pen a piece, specifically Mike Whittaker, the FAA administrator, right after it was
announced that he'd be resigning from the position, put out this piece, looking back, basically
saying, “Man, hell. That was a hell of a year, wasn't it?” Mostly about Boeing in this regard, but
there were some parts where I don't quite remember it the way the FAA does about the
immediate moments in after the accident happened, where I'll quote here, “I spoke with our
safety experts in transportation, Secretary Pete Buttigieg to get all the facts and inputs before
making the decision to issue an emergency airworthiness directive, grounding all MAX aircraft
built this type of door plug.”
I mean, do you quite remember it that way, where I guess they did ground those particular
aircraft, but then they were quickly ungrounded after a very quick inspection and then all MAX
9s were grounded? It was a bit fuzzier than they're laying out here, wasn't it?
[0:13:02] IP: Yeah. I think that this misses a few of the key confusions that happened to
understand what was the role of the FAA here? What was the role of the airlines? What
authority were they operating under? What airworthiness directives were they operating with
regard to? Because, as Jason mentioned, there was an initial Alaska saying, “We're grounding
our fleet. Pending inspections.” Then they did some very cursory inspection.
[0:13:32] JR: Real quick inspections.
[0:13:35] IP: Those flights were back in the air.
[0:13:35] JR: Those were overnight time.
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[0:13:37] IP: Right. Which, as we now know, were sufficient, because they looked and they
said, “Yeah, there are bolts there, the plane can fly now.”
[0:13:45] JR: Yes, they did not know that they were immediately looking for bolts. As we recall,
there were a number of aircraft, more than there should be, where the bolts were loose, or some
other bolts were loose. There were other issues uncovered by this. I don't think it happened as
cleanly as the FAA would like us to remember, but I digress. The FAA goes on to saying that,
“Yeah, in addition to multiple meetings we had with Boeing's leadership at the FAA's office.” He
personally visited Boeing facility several times in 2024. They are pleased with the progress at
Boeing specifically about the voluntary reporting from employees at Boeing. I quote here,
“Because of our work, we received a surge in employee safety reports during the past year, and
that's encouraging. An increase in reports, whether at a manufacturer, an airline, or at the FAA
can be one sign of a healthy safety culture.” Yeah, I agree. That's good news. It's not great that
there are so many reports coming from employees, but the important bit is that there are reports
coming from employees that in the past, they may have not wanted to speak up for whatever
reason.
[0:14:59] IP: Yeah. I mean, it's tempting to say, look how many safety reports there are. That
can't be good. Certainly, that is to be considered. I think Jason's right. I think the important thing
here is that they feel comfortable. They feel secure enough to report these, where previously
there was certainly a fear. This has been well documented. There was a fear that if you said
something bad about the safety, there were going to be repercussions.
[0:15:36] JR: Yes. That is hopefully something of the past. The FAA went on to say that more
inspectors on the factory floors. They kept production levels of the 737 MAX, which still is in
effect today. I don't believe there's been any relevant recent news about lifting the cap on 737
MAX production. It goes on to say, we conducted an in-depth audit of the production line and
more significantly, required Boeing to develop a comprehensive plan to fix its systematic
production and quality problems, which would be in the report you just read off about the
production quality problems and the comprehensive plan to address it. Mission accomplished in
that regard.
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[0:16:14] IP: Yeah. I think we are certainly moving in the right direction. All signs are pointing to
us moving in the right direction.
[0:16:24] JR: That's good news.
[0:16:26] IP: Let's talk about how Alaska feels about all of this.
[0:16:29] JR: Alaska also put out its own 2024 retrospective, having had a not great year since
almost the start. I think it was Friday, January 4th. It, too, has inspectors on the ground at Boeing
facilities who were actually there during, I found this to be interesting, during the machinist
strike, they were there still inspecting aircraft, doing work, which is nice to see. Alaska goes to
say, “To further enhance our oversight at Boeing Renton, we've augmented our team with three
M and E employees.” What is M and E?
[0:17:03] IP: I mean, it's an engineering.
[0:17:05] JR: Sure. They don't actually say. They just say M and E, whatever. Employees who
possess expertise in aircraft maintenance and inspection are three aircraft acquisition
representatives are on site at Boeing five days a week covering different shifts and remaining on
call to conduct inspections as defined by our standards. They too say they have seen
improvements in Boeing's mechanic training program, which I think is a pretty key aspect that
you're not just fixing what's broken now, but you're also improving training processes for the
next generation of mechanics coming onboard. Alaska says, there's been a focus on
communicating the importance of safety and compliance with a strong emphasis on voluntary
reporting.
That's another party saying here that the voluntary reporting of issues at Boeing, they've seen
positive changes. It's not just the FAA saying that, but it's also an airline saying that we're seeing
more reports of things, but that is actually a good thing.
[0:18:03] IP: Yeah. I mean, when an important customer that's spending hundreds of millions of
dollars is saying, “Okay, we're feeling more comfortable about doing this,” that's a good thing.
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[0:18:14] JR: Yes. That's it from an airline perspective. You're not going to have many other
airlines chiming in here about what's going on on the Boeing factory floor, but Alaska was
obviously, pretty acutely impacted by this. But things are looking good. They say they're
encouraged to see Boeing's leadership focus on safety and their commitment to cultural
change.
[0:18:33] IP: Excellent. Let's leave it there.
[0:18:35] JR: But now it also has to worry about the 787, since you know. That's a thing, too.
They do actually mention, Alaska says it will extend its efforts to the 787 line in Charleston as
we prepare for future deliveries. I did find that part a little interesting. The Charleston production
facility for the 787 is always, has its issues, but now we're seeing airlines, even Alaska here put
its own people on the 787 factory floor, even if there hasn't been an issue that has directly
impacted it. That was an interesting parting note, I think.
[0:19:10] IP: They're prepared.
[0:19:11] JR: Yeah, prepared to hopefully find nothing.
[0:19:14] IP: Exactly. Yes. Okay. That was January 5th, 2024. Let's go back to January 1st, 2024
and discuss the ground collision between a Japan Airlines A350 and a Japan Coast Guard Dash
8. This happened in Tokyo where the Japan Airlines A350 was landing on runway 34 right. The
Japan Coast Guard Dash 8 had taxied into position on to runway 34 right. The A350 touchdown
and then collided with the Dash 8. The Japanese Transportation Safety Board has released an
extensive preliminary report, 166 pages. It's all in Japanese. There's no English version that
Jason and I have been able to find. However, thanks to the magic of the Internet and a bit of
large language modeling, we've been able to translate the bits that are helpful and new to
understand.
What's interesting is not necessarily the sequence of events, because that's generally known.
What's interesting in the preliminary report so far is the modeling that Japanese investigators
have done about what the pilots on the A350 were able to see and saw as they approached the
runway and why they might not have done anything about a Dash 8 sitting on the runway. We
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know that it was nighttime. We now know that the moon had not risen and that the pilot flying
was the first officer, who was flying as part of a training flight on the A350. There were three
pilots on the A350 flight deck. There was a training captain in the left seat. There was a first
officer who was being trained in the right seat and then in the jump seat, there was a
supervisory training captain.
Both pilots, the captain in the left seat and the pilot flying first officer in the right seat, were using
the HUD in the A350. In combination with that and the fact that simulation modeling by the
Japanese investigators show that what the pilots would have seen is basically no airplane on
the runway. Because of how the Dash 8 is built, it appears that all of the lighting on the Dash 8
blends in with all of the lighting on the runway. This was one of the big questions that we had
about, didn't they see that there was an airplane? Because there was no attempt to go around.
The aircraft touched down and then saw that there was an aircraft in front of it. This is going a
long way to answering that particular question.
The other thing that has been stuck in my mind and Jason, you and I talked about this a little
before we started recording is that this airport, Haneda, has a system that alerts air traffic
controllers to runway conflicts. Was that system not working? Was that system compromised in
some way? The investigators look into that in detail. Because this is a preliminary report, we
don't quite have all the answers. But one of the things that the report notes so far is that this
particular system is often a nuisance to air traffic control. Because of its sensitivity, you often get
false positives. Or if the system says there's a conflict, it's still well within the margin of safety for
the separation of those aircraft. Air traffic controllers often pay no mind or little mind to it.
There's also in the report the information that there is no audio warning for this system in the
control tower. It would rely on the air traffic controllers looking down at a screen and noticing
that the colors on the screen had changed and being able to interpret what had happened
promptly and effectively.
[0:23:49] JR: Not a great system, especially with how busy and sometimes overburdened air
traffic controllers are. Having to notice that a color has changed is probably not the best way to
go about doing things. We have heard this before and we have seen this before. Most notably, I
think back to the American 777-300ER at JFK, where that was one of the first, I think, big
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newsworthy, near runway incursion things. What was that? Was that last year, or 2023, or even
2022 at this rate? I feel like, it's been a while.
[0:24:23] IP: Three, but we'll double check.
[0:24:25] JR: Maybe. One of those years in the past. We saw this in the extensive interviews
with air traffic controllers that nuisance alerts from systems like this degrades operational
awareness that controllers and pilots end up ignoring alerts, because they are so often faulty
alerts. Whether this is something that dates back decades and decades and decades from the
flight deck of an aircraft where you may get faulty ground proximity warning alerts, so a pilot
pulls a circuit breaker to shut that system off. When in the future, that warning probably would
have been really helpful in certain crashes. In this case, you have an alert that's probably going
off too often, so it's just ignored when every now and then maybe it shouldn't be ignored. If it's
going off so often and it's disrupting workflows, that's, yeah, you're going to lead to this exact
situation.
I find it particularly interesting when we talked about how the A350 pilots didn't see it. Anyone
who's been at an airport at night and looked out at the taxiways and runways and warning lights
and all these beacons, it's not hard to imagine that the flight crew wasn't able to pick out, “Oh,
those particular lights must be an aircraft on the runway that shouldn't be there.” Would they
even be thinking that? Especially when you're looking at it from above and everything's on a 2D
plane. It's, man, I can't imagine having to pick out the three lights that happen to be an aircraft.
[0:25:51] IP: Right. Right. I think when this happened, or maybe when we were discussing it
another time, I shared the photo that I have of, I think it's an Atlas Air 747 departing, and we
were taxiing behind it, and I snapped a picture out the window. I knew it was there, because we
had held for it to get into position and begin its takeoff roll. But if I hadn't known it was there and
taken that photo, I'm not sure I would have known.
[0:26:17] JR: Yeah. In cases like this, and even though the pilots were using the HUD, which is
the heads-up display, which is a glass transparent screen that the pilots can choose to look
through, which overlays information that they may have seen on the primary flight display, like
airspeed, and autopilot status, and altitude, I don't believe any really commercial aircraft have
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thermal imaging. Even though they were looking through a HUD, Ian, do you happen to know if
any A350s actually have thermal imagery? I don't think so.
[0:26:49] IP: I don’t think the A350 do. The only commercial aircraft I can think of would be the
FedEx fleet.
[0:26:54] JR: Yup, exactly. The FedEx, but I think UPS too, even way back on the MD-11s,
those aircraft have a little thing that sticks out the nose that is actually an infrared sensor, which
can overlay basically – it’s basically night vision goggles for an airplane, and this is the thing
civilian commercial airliners just do not have. I think it would be a very interesting discussion to
see, would that have prevented possibly this particular accident? Maybe. We could certainly talk
to UPS, or FedEx to see how helpful that has been to their pilots over the years.
[0:27:26] IP: We can talk about that in the context of Austin, Texas, where we had a FedEx flight
coming in over a Southwest 737. One of the things I wanted to mention that is not discussed in
the report, because we just don't know the answer yet, is why the Japan Coast Guard aircraft
taxied onto the runway in the first place? They were instructed to hold short of the runway. They
were not told to enter the runway. A lot of the final report is going to have to go away to answer
why that aircraft was on the runway to begin with. They do talk about the controller's plan. This
is interesting, the coordination between the controllers, where you have a plan for this aircraft to
depart. You have two arriving aircraft that are traveling at a much higher rate of speed, because
they're both commercial turbofan powered aircraft. Then you have this dash 8, which is going to
be traveling much slower.
The plan was to land the Japan Airlines A350, then depart this Dash 8, then let that other aircraft
land. The controllers trying to coordinate between the two tried to negotiate, “Well, let me get
these two landings in. Then you can depart the Dash 8.” One of the controllers said, “No, no, no.
This is the plan. This is the one we're going to go with, because we've got departure backups.
We need to keep things moving.” It's interesting to read about that coordination between the
multiple ground controllers and tower controllers and all the folks involved in that. We still don't
know why that Dash 8 was on the runway when it should not have been.
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[0:29:07] JR: Just a sad story all around. Thankfully, again, there weren't any serious injuries on
board the A350, but the damage to the Dash 8 was pretty devastating.
[0:29:18] IP: Yeah, complete and total destruction. Only the captain, one of six people, onboard,
survived that crash. We now turn our attention to Switzerland, where a Swiss A220 diverted,
was in route from Bucharest to Zurich, diverted to Gross, where because the aircraft suffered a
engine failure, and there was smoke in the cabin. At the time, we knew that members of the
crew and about a dozen passengers had received medical attention. Unfortunately, at the end of
2024, on the 30th of December, one of the flight attendants died as a result of the injuries that
they sustained during that flight.
A internal Swiss memo viewed by aeroTELEGRAPH, the German aviation publication, says that
the investigation thus far has flagged a quote, “Previously unknown fault pattern with the Pratt &
Whitney 1500G geared turbofan engine.” Not a phrase that you want to be reading when it
comes to engines. That is something that we will be following very closely. The engine itself,
after a few days inspection in Switzerland, is now being sent to the Pratt & Whitney facility in,
I'm not exactly sure which facility it's being sent to, but the Pratt & Whitney facility in the US for
further examination to see what happened, and to better understand what this previously
unknown fault pattern might be.
[0:31:00] JR: Yeah. A really sad story for Swiss to end the year. It's hard to believe that a flight
attendant could have died due to possibly, just because of the smoke condition on board. That's
crazy. It's really, really tragic stuff. Not to pivot to more Pratt & Whitney stuff from a tragic death
onboard, but yet another thing that we have to worry about with Pratt & Whitney GTF engines,
because this one, what was the terminology? Previously unknown fault pattern? Did we need
that with these engines at this point? It's just the engine that keeps on giving.
[0:31:35] IP: Yeah. Looking closely at this one. Let's stick with Pratt & Whitney issues, and we'll
talk about the fact that airBaltic is trimming its summer schedule, yet again, because of engine
maintenance delays with the 820 engines, yet again.
[0:31:54] JR: Yet again. Again, another story that just keeps happening over and over and over,
where you have airBaltic saying, “Hey, that we're not being taken care of like Pratt & Whitney
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said we would be taken care of, and they're telling us basically to pound sand, is a risk of doing
business, and we're not being made whole.” But really, not great stuff for an airline that is 100%
wholly dependent on this engine. Remember, airBaltic only operates the A220-300, which they
have chosen the Pratt & Whitney engines, so they don't really have a choice, but really seems
like airBaltic just continually gets this short stick here with this engine. Yet, again, won't be able
to fulfill its schedule on top of having to fill all of the charter operations that I'm sure it was
already contracted to do for this coming summer.
[0:32:44] IP: Yeah. I mean, certainly that's become part of their business model, where you
have an airBaltic A220 operating for Lufthansa on behalf of Discover.
[0:32:55] JR: Sure. Why not?
[0:32:56] IP: Why not? This is the first time, I think, the FAA has ever issued, or DOT has ever
issued one of these types of fines.
[0:33:07] JR: Yes. It is in fact the first time the DOT has ever issued what they call an
enforcement action against an airline for operating chronically delayed flights. Every month, the
FAA puts out, or the DOT, I guess on behalf of the FAA, puts out statistics about all sorts of
operational things from airlines on time performance, complaints from the general public, the
amount of diversions, the amount of operations and airports, and one of the things they keep
track of beyond just delayed flights are chronically delayed flights, which is defined as any
domestic flight that is operated at least 10 times per month and arrives more than 30 minutes
late, more than 50% of the time during a single month. Did you get all that?
[0:33:57] IP: That's baseball statistics right there.
[0:33:59] JR: Basically. It's just saying, this flight sucks and it's delayed all the time. That's what
that means.
[0:34:06] IP: I mean, I'm all for straightforward notation here.
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[0:34:09] JR: Great forward information. You all know these flights. Back in my growing up
days, going from family from in Florida to New York, that for me was always JetBlue flight 70.
The 8.30 p.m. departure from Palm Beach to New York historically. Always late. Always late. But
I knew that, so whatever. Doesn't matter. The DOT apparently decided it wants to start enforcing
stuff and hit JetBlue with a 2-million-dollar penalty for using what they said, “a prohibited,
unrealistic scheduling practice.” They're basically saying, JetBlue scheduled these flights
knowing there was no realistic way they were going to be on time, or at least not chronically
delayed. It goes on to say, JetBlue operated for chronically delayed flights at least 145 times
between June 2022 and November 2023, and that the airline itself was responsible for the delay
70% of the time.
There's no scapegoating, FAA air traffic delay programs, or the weather. Now, these flights were
delayed at least 70% of the time due to JetBlue's own scheduling practices. I believe 1 million
dollars will be paid to the DOT and another million will be held to pay out future victims of
chronically delayed flights.
[0:35:29] IP: Future victims. All right.
[0:35:33] JR: Of chronically delayed flights during this time period. I'm not why it's future
looking, but very interesting to see the DOT come out of nowhere and issue a fine about
chronically delayed flights, because they're not all that common. If you look in the DOT monthly
statistics, there are always a couple of chronically delayed flights. I think they have to be
delayed that certain amount for multiple months, I think three months in a row at minimum
before they're called chronically delayed. I think it's three, maybe four months. Yeah, JetBlue
certainly operated a number of flights very delayed and the DOT said, “Enough.” Okay, nice.
[0:36:14] IP: All right. Condor is an airline that has built itself into a premium leisure carrier.
They've over the past few years completely revamped their brand with the love them, or hate
them beach towel themed livery and a premium product that Jason has enjoyed.
[0:36:40] JR: I did. I flew it summer of last year to get to Hamburg, and the A330 product that
both in business and economy was let's say, better than the competition in Germany.
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[0:36:51] IP: But as it turns out, that competition was propping up Condor and that agreement
that was propping up Condor has been struck down by the courts. Here's the deal. Competition
authorities in Germany had forced Lufthansa to agree to an inner line agreement to carry
Condor passengers once they got to Frankfurt. Condor brings all of these international leisure
folk into Germany. Then they can fly onward on Lufthansa without any friction, as far as the
ticket buying is concerned, at a better rate than Condor otherwise would have gotten.
[0:37:43] JR: I can attest to the fact that the integration between Condor and Lufthansa was
better than Delta and KLM and better than a couple other airlines that are actually partners in a
JV. It was actually frictionless. I really was impressed by it. That's going to change, isn't it, Ian?
[0:38:02] IP: Yeah. The German court ruled that the forced interline agreement no longer
applies.
[0:38:10] JR: Or the forced beneficial pricing.
[0:38:13] IP: Yes, yes. I mean, they can have an interline agreement if they want.
[0:38:16] JR: but they're not going to get that discounted rate.
[0:38:19] IP: Right. As a result, Condor has completely revamped its schedule for the coming
summer, removing flights from Frankfurt to Canadian cities of Edmonton, Calgary, and US cities
of Baltimore, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Phoenix, and San Antonio, which I believe, San Antonio, the
Condor flight from San Antonio was the only –
[0:38:47] JR: The only transatlantic.
[0:38:49] IP: - transatlantic flight from San Antonio.
[0:38:52] JR: Edmonton is in there as well, I believe. I don't think you said Edmonton, but
Baltimore, Edmonton, Halifax, MSP, Phoenix, and San Antonio. That last one, that one's got –
[0:39:01] IP: Oh, I missed Halifax.
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[0:39:02] JR: Halifax.
[0:39:03] IP: Given that they had spent so much money, the city itself had spent so much
money to entice Condor to come.
[0:39:10] JR: Yes. There are some oddities here that this blog post from Cranky Flyer points out
that there are some cities that had so much connecting traffic over Frankfurt, like Toronto, but
that flight's not getting canned. Maybe they think they can still drum up enough connecting
traffic. Man, this is, in turn, Condor has spun up some domestic flights within Germany to try to
feed its own long-haul flights, but those aren't going to cut it. They're like, one a day to Hamburg
to replace Lufthansa's hourly shuttle, basically. I don't know about you, but I don't really want an
eight-hour layover in Frankfurt, on my way to Hamburg.
[0:39:47] IP: You might make your connection.
[0:39:48] JR: You might have a better chance at making your connection. That’s true.
[0:39:51] IP: Eight-hour layover in Frankfurt.
[0:39:53] JR: But you're not going to like it, because you're going to spend eight hours on a line.
In turn, on the long-haul side, Condor is now trying other destinations. 5X weekly to Bangkok,
3X weekly to Johannesburg, and 2X weekly to Panama City, which is interesting. Yeah, this is
not often you see an airline having to change its entire business model basically overnight. But
they knew this was coming. This was a court battle that had been going on for years. I'm sure
they had this Plan B in their back pocket, but it is not great, because Condor was actually, had a
nice successful little operation. It's very different than what we see with Southwest, where you
had this activist investor come in overnight and demand changes, which they were not at all
prepared to make. Or as Condor, the writing was on the wall. It was just, I'm sure they were
hoping they didn't have to do this.
[0:40:46] IP: Exactly. Speaking of reconfiguring your fleet, but this one's by choice, Maldivian
has added an A330-200 to its fleet. Joining the twin otters on floats, among other really small
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aircraft. Though, they do have an A320, I believe. They are adding an A330 in the hopes that
they will soon be operating flights to China, possibly Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu, but also,
to Africa and Europe upcoming. That'll be interesting to see how that works out.
[0:41:22] JR: We've seen this movie before and it doesn't always have a happy ending.
Hopefully, they know what they're doing and they have the money to back this up and it doesn't
end up killing the entire operation, as we've seen time and time again. Good luck.
[0:41:38] IP: They're starting with one plane. I think that's a smart move.
[0:41:42] JR: Yeah. That's a smart move. But even just having one widebody when you don't
have really any other aircraft of that class, that's very draining resource-wise.
[0:41:53] IP: Hopefully, people want to go to the Maldives, I guess.
[0:41:55] JR: I mean, I do.
[0:41:57] IP: Yeah, we should chest this out, just to be sure they should –
[0:42:00] JR: Sure. Let's go.
[0:42:02] IP: We should double check on that. This is an interesting one. This is one of those
things that makes perfect sense, because airlines are always chasing efficiency.  easyJet's
going to use lighter paint.
[0:42:17] JR: Okay. It's not lighter paint. It's a lower weight paint method, which apparently
saves 27 kilograms per plane.
[0:42:27] IP: It ain’t nothing.
[0:42:28] JR: It's not nothing. 27 kilograms per plane, per flight, per day, per year. That adds up
with a fleet the size of easyJet's, which apparently, this method has been used on 38 aircraft
already, which is, hey, that's a nice little chunk of the fleet.
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[0:42:44] IP: Yeah. 1,300 tons of fuel saved each year.
[0:42:48] JR: That's a lot. They will complete it by 2030 for the whole fleet, because aircraft
paint cycles, they take a while. Ask United how its new paint job rollout is going. It might be a
minute. Hey, that's just one way an airline can reduce its carbon footprint, because they have
struggled so mightily in doing it in any other way, SAFs included that if you can use less paint,
why not?
[0:43:14] IP: Hey, go for it. Okay, so we'll take that fuel saved and we'll give it to Air Greenland.
[0:43:21] JR: Oh, they need every drop.
[0:43:23] IP: Because they need more of it.
[0:43:25] JR: What is going on in Greenland with their one widebody airplane?
[0:43:30] IP: Yeah. Their one A330-800. A few months ago, Greenland inaugurated its newest
expanded airport in the capital city of Nuuk. That particular airport had long had a 900-meter
runway. The runway over many years was expanded to 2,200 meters, which allowed the landing
and operation of the A330, which had previously only been able to fly into Kangerlussuaq.
[0:44:02] JR: Which is not where people typically want to go.
[0:44:05] IP: No, but it is where they had a really long runway and very good weather all year,
because it was much more sheltered area that was not subject to wind and snow in the winter
nearly as much as Nuuk is. But people really want to go to Nuuk, because that's the capital of
Greenland. And so, they expanded the runway, they expanded the airport, built a whole new
terminal. As it turns out, you can build all you want. You can't make the runway not slippery
when it snows. Of the, let's see, it's the 8th of January. Eight days the aircraft has diverted three
times. It's gone back to Copenhagen once and it's diverted to Keflavik twice, and then gone
back to Copenhagen.
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At least one time, and I will go back and check the data and put a link in the show notes for this
one. At least one time, they contracted Wamos to come in and operate a follow-on flight, so that
they could move all the passengers from Copenhagen that they needed to. Looking at the flight
paths from Copenhagen to Nuuk, there is not a single instance this year so far that did not
involve, at least I take that back. The 6th of January, did not involve a long bit of holding because
– No, sorry. The 7th of January.
[0:45:34] JR: No, the 6th, they went to Reykjavik.
[0:45:36] IP: Yes, they went to Reykjavik. On the 7th of January, it did not involve a lot of
holding. I was trying to set myself up for a big reveal, but that didn't work. The 7th of January,
they did not have to hold anywhere, because they went directly to Kangerlussuaq.
[0:45:49] JR: Oh, well, I guess, it's good to admit defeat and just go to plan B. For those asking,
why would they, and we actually didn't really mention this, but the diversions back to
Copenhagen, those are, how long are these flights? They're 10-hour flights round trip.
[0:46:10] IP: Yeah.
[0:46:10] JR: They're about 8 to 10, depending on how long they hold. 8 to 10 hours from
Copenhagen to Copenhagen. They have an interesting explainer on their own website, on why
they do this, instead of holding longer, or diverting to Reykjavik, or diverting back to where they
typically operated the flight in the past. There are reasons for everything. It comes down to
typically, well, we don't want to land elsewhere in Greenland because that's not where people
want to go. That's not their ultimate destination. Then we strand the aircraft there and then the
crew times out and then the plane's stuck there. The same goes for Reykjavik. If they divert to
Reykjavik, well, then the crew times out and everyone's stuck there.
It's easier operationally speaking, at least, to go all the way back to Copenhagen, where they
have another crew ready to go for them to try again the next day. There is method to the
madness, and apparently, enough people ask this question that they have an FAQ all about this
on their own website, which we will leave a link to in the show notes. It's a well thought out plan.
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[0:47:11] IP: It is a well thought out plan, but I think they've thought even more about this after
the fact, because they have started diverting to Keflavik, where I think, I'm not certain, but I think
they're picking up a positioned crew and then flying back to Copenhagen.
[0:47:27] JR: That would seem like a prudent decision at least now when conditions apparently
might not be good in Nuuk, they can have another crew out there, which is expensive for a small
airline. But it's probably cheaper than having to pay all that compensation and hotel nights and
all that for all those passengers back in Copenhagen. Best laid plans don't always work out that
way.
[0:47:51] IP: I glossed over this, but I think it's worth mentioning why the aircraft can't land. It's
not because the winds, it's not because of necessarily because of it’s raining or snowing at the
moment. What it is is the calculations of the runway friction and braking action are not good
enough for the aircraft to safely stop on the runway, which goes to the question of how come
other aircraft don't have any problem landing? Smaller aircraft were able to make it in to Nuuk
on days when the Air Greenland A330 was not. The issue is really it's still only a 2,200 meter
runway, which isn't that long. Long enough, but not that long. It's the calculations of here's the
report of the runway conditions. We put it into the computer and the computer says, “Nope, you
can't do that.”
[0:48:45] JR: Yup, not great. I hope the conditions improve in summer when a couple of other
airlines, most notably United, will stop operating from –
[0:48:54] IP: It does not seem like this will be a problem in the summer.
[0:48:57] JR: No. I hope not, at least. But if they do have to divert, I look forward to seeing a
Newark to Newark eight-hour 737 flight. I don't know. If there's any airport in the world you don't
want to divert back to after an eight-hour flight, it has got to be Newark.
[0:49:13] IP: It's Newark. Okay, we told you at the beginning of the show, we would make you
say, huh? This is the story for that. There was a fire in the window of an ERJ-175.
[0:49:29] JR: Huh?
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[0:49:30] IP: Somehow? There's video of it. It's not like somebody said there was fire.
[0:49:36] JR: If they had said it, I wouldn't have believed them.
[0:49:39] IP: No. There is video. There's a flame flickering –
[0:49:43] IP: Something on the window.
[0:49:46] IP: The window. Whatever it is, if you're familiar enough with the Embraer E175 and
what is in the sidewall that might have been a light, email us, podcast@fr24.com and let us
know what is going on. Because thoroughly confused are Jason and I.
[0:50:05] JR: It's something that you would typically associate with the flight deck windows,
because there are electronics in those windows, from heating elements to radios, I guess, other
stuff. Yeah, it's totally possible to have some electrical arc in there. But on a passenger window,
huh?
[0:50:21] IP: I don't know.
[0:50:21] JR: I wish there was some information aside from just the video here. We got nothing.
If you got something, please let us know.
[0:50:30] IP: Let us know, please. Let's close the first regularly scheduled episode of AvTalk
with the last regularly scheduled statistical wrap up from the FAA for the year 2024.
[0:50:45] JR: Everyone loves a good year-end wrap, including government agencies and Ian,
can I quiz you, or did you already look at the results?
[0:50:53] IP: You can quiz me. Sure.
[0:50:54] JR: Okay. Number one busiest airport in 2024 in the US as measured by tower
operations?
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[0:51:01] IP: By tower operation. How many times the control tower performed surgery?
[0:51:06] JR: Sure. Why not?
[0:51:08] IP: All right. Excellent.
[0:51:09] JR: How many aircraft came and left?
[0:51:12] IP: Let's say, busiest by operations, we're going to go with Atlanta.
[0:51:17] JR: You would be correct, with 802,423 tower operations. Number two?
[0:51:24] IP: Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
[0:51:27] JR: You would be correct with 776,854. And number three is?
[0:51:32] IP: Ooh, that one's tough.
[0:51:33] JR: That one's tougher. It's a close race between all three of these, actually.
[0:51:37] IP: It's either LAX, or DFW.
[0:51:40] JR: What are you going to go with?
[0:51:42] IP: I'm going to say, DFW.
[0:51:43] JR: You are correct. 760,167 tower operations for the year. Do you want to double
down and go for the next question?
[0:51:53] IP: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. This is fun.
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[0:51:55] JR: Top travel day overall for all of 2024. Let's start with the month. What month do
you think it was in?
[0:52:05] IP: July.
[0:52:06] JR: You are correct. What day of the week was the busiest travel in July?
[0:52:09] IP: Thursday.
[0:52:10] JR: You are also – Are you cheating?
[0:52:13] IP: No. That's just the day that we tracked the most flights, the third Thursday in July.
[0:52:17] JR: The FAA data, the top travel day of the week was Thursday with 2.58 million
overall movements with the second busiest day being Friday with 2.54 million. Saturday is the
least busy day. I can't tell you how many operations, because the chart only says –
[0:52:36] IP: They didn't give you any of that.
[0:52:38] JR: They didn’t give us that data. Numbers are trending overall. Back up 2024 was
busier than 2023, busier than the year before. We are still not at 2019 levels, which was 17.01
million. We're a couple hundred thousand flights short still.
[0:52:59] IP: This is all flights.
[0:53:01] JR: This is everything. This is IFR flights. Every single flight under IFR. Interestingly,
though, cancellation rates hovering at 1.2% for both 2024 and 2023, despite there being more
flights this year than last year, and we had that whole crowd strike thing in there. If not for that, it
would have been probably the best year for cancellations dating back to at least 2016.
[0:53:31] IP: How about that? The IFR flights is interesting, because a report by Air Insight
based on our data shows that domestic service in the US by commercial airlines was higher for
the first time than 2019 in 2024.
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[0:53:48] JR: I guess, there's a lot of a lot less GA movement problem.
[0:53:51] IP: Well, no, because the GA wouldn't necessarily be IFR flights, but it would include
international aircraft, or international flights. I wonder how much international traffic is still down
compared to – What was the difference again? There was 17 million.
[0:54:07] JR: 17.01 million in 2019 compared to 16.86 million in 2024.
[0:54:12] IP: Okay, so we're almost there. 2025 is the year that will top back over 2019.
Interesting.
[0:54:18] JR: Yeah. Everyone loves a good year-end review, and the FAA bringing some
powerful numbers.
[0:54:24] IP: There you go. That was fun. That was a good way to end the episode.
[0:54:27] JR: I can't believe you got all that right.
[0:54:29] IP: I mean, thankfully, not much has changed and I cheated by knowing our own
statistics, I guess.
[0:54:34] JR: It's beneficial that you know. You are smart. So, you know, actually, the end of
your holidays aren't all that busy compared to the summer peak of madness.
[0:54:43] IP: The least busy day of the year over across the entire world for travel is Christmas
day. If you ever need to really, really go somewhere, book a flight on Christmas.
[0:54:52] JR: If you want that upgrade, fly on Christmas.
[0:54:55] IP: Yeah. Fly on Christmas. All right, that was a fun way to end the episode and end
the episode we shall. This has been episode 302 of AvTalk. Thank you to everyone who tuned in
last week for our special episode. If you're a new listener to the podcast, we hope you've
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enjoyed this episode. If we can impose upon you to leave us a rating, or a review wherever you
do listen to the podcast, whether that's on YouTube, on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify or wherever,
we would be ever so grateful, Jason and I. It's like a kibble that they feed us and they give us
more of it if we get more ratings and reviews. Please, do that. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as
always with –
[0:55:42] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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