AvTalk Episode 208: The FAA says fly better

AVT 208 Transcript
EPISODE 208
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello and welcome to episode 208 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:14] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Good to be back with you, Ian, in a mental state where I am
not 40 seconds off a jet lag nap. I'm here. I'm fully engaged. I've even read the show notes. I'm
ready to go.
[0:00:29] IP: Do you even remember recording last week's episode?
[0:00:32] JR: I don't. I really don't. When I say it was seconds after waking up from a nap, I do
actually mean it was seconds after waking up from a nap.
[0:00:43] IP: We should have put that audio of you coming into the recording space, because I
think that would have been enjoyable.
[0:00:49] JR: I'm sure it was a great episode anyway, right? Mm-hmm.
[0:00:52] IP: Absolutely, it was.
[0:00:52] JR: Yup. Yup.
[0:00:54] IP: But you’re back. You’ve had more than a few minutes after a transpacific flight.
Now we're ready to dive in.
[0:01:01] JR: Yeah. Took a week to knock off that jet lag, but I did it and I'm back to normal.
[0:01:05] IP: I'm proud of you.
[0:01:07] JR: Thank you.
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AVT 208 Transcript
[0:01:08] IP: We begin the show with the United States Federal Aviation Administration. There's
a lot going on here. We'll start with the most obvious news, in which today, the FAA released a
SAFO, which is Safety Alert for Operators. Basically, a memo that the FAA sends out to aircraft
operators. It depends on what the particular memo is about, depending on who gets it. This one
went to pretty much everyone who is operating an aircraft in some sort of commercial capacity
in the U.S. It's a two-page memo. The long and the short of it is pilots, please fly better.
[0:01:58] JR: That's a good ask, I guess. In a more succinct way, the actual text of the safety
alert reads, background, “In recent months a number of notable and high visibility events have
occurred in the national airspace system. While the overall numbers do not reflect an increase
in incidence and occurrences, the potential severity of these events is concerning.” Six serious
runway incursions have occurred since January 2023, including an incident at JFK and New
York involving a taxiing aircraft, blah, blah, blah. We know what happened there. There's also
Austin.
Basically, they're saying a number of incidents has not gone up, but there are a whole lot more
eyeballs on what's going on now, because the number may not have gone up, but the severity
of the potential incidents and accidents seemingly has gone up.
[0:02:43] IP: This tells me two things. It tells me one, the FAA listens to the podcast, because
this is exactly what we said in last week's episode, that Jason doesn't remember. But it was said
by me and agreed to by Jason.
[0:02:56] JR: If you say so.
[0:02:57] IP: Yeah, I do say so. If only there was some record of what we said available,
perhaps to the public somewhere.
[0:03:04] JR: We'll never know.
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[0:03:06] IP: First of all, this is exactly what we said. I can only assume that folks from the FAA
are listening to the podcast. But two, this was a much less succinct way to put this than what I
said earlier. I object to you describing this memo as more succinct than what I said.
[0:03:21] JR: Let's say, more official than –
[0:03:23] IP: Okay, fine.
[0:03:24] JR: It’s definitely not more succinct. That was definitely a lot of words.
[0:03:27] IP: Fine.
[0:03:27] JR: It was the wrong word.
[0:03:29] IP: Yeah. Let's get into some of the recommended actions. There are bullet points.
There are always bullet points. The FAA is requesting and recommending that all of the people
involved in the safety of aviation, from the pilots to folks working in operations, training, safety,
etc., etc., use all available internal communications processes to specifically highlight recent
events and existing issues. Reinforce adherence to published processes and procedures,
including checklists. Air traffic control instructions and internal company procedures. Ensure
pilots and flight attendants have the same understanding of what sterile flight deck means and
the risks associated with extraneous communication during this time. That's an interesting one,
because I haven't seen a ton of reporting that breaches of sterile flight deck procedures have
contributed to some of these safety incidents.
[0:04:26] JR: I guess, it can't hurt to mention it.
[0:04:28] IP: I guess, it's just interesting to me that they chose to call that out specifically. That
one piqued my interest a little bit. Then the rest of them are basically, there are safety resources
that the FAA puts out. Make sure that your crews are working together using crew resource
management to identify things and remove distractions. Then if you see something – Basically, if
you see something, or something happens, say something, use the voluntary reporting systems
that are –
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[0:04:55] JR: Ooh, careful. That's a trademark of the MTA, if you see something, say
something. We can't have the FAA co-opting that, unless they pay.
[0:05:03] IP: No, no. There's nothing new here. This is just a reminder. It's a, hey, make sure
you pay attention to this. That came out. Pilots fly better, I guess. Safety system folks, safety
better, check; airman, check better; directors of training, train better. I mean, I don't see – this all
seems like, the FAA – I'm not against this coming out, but there's nothing groundbreaking here.
There's nothing new here. There's nothing saying, this is what we're doing to ensure that these
things happen.
[0:05:37] JR: I guess, there's not much to say. I mean, what else are you going to say in this
particular set of circumstances? Most of these have been confusion about commands given by
air traffic control to pilots, or pilots have not followed the information, or they've made a wrong
turn. I don't really know what you say to counter these events. They are basically just, hey, listen
carefully, pay attention, turn the right way. I don't see what else there is for the FAA to say other
than what they have said here.
[0:06:10] IP: That is a very fair point. On the same day, the FAA also released, or pre-published
– so that this will be published officially in the next few days in the Federal Register. This is
today coming out, the pre-publication before the official publication in the Federal Register. The
FAA, having told pilots to fly better, is also saying, “We don't have enough air traffic controllers.”
Airlines, if you want to voluntarily give up 10% of your slots at New York airports and at DCA in
Washington, between May 15th and September 15th, you are free to do so without penalty,
because we just don't have enough people to operate those flights in a manner that would not
result in a ton of delays.
[0:07:06] JR:  Yeah, not great. Last year, I mean, I guess it is – it's not great, but it's better than
2021-2022, where, yeah, there were significant cut back in schedules, but we also saw a lot of
slot squatting. This is what the FAA is attempting to prevent from happening again. I guess, it's a
little late at this point, because we're already in late March and the summer seasons kicking in.
But basically, what they're trying to do here is to prevent airlines from having to keep their slots
going by doing what's called slot squatting, which is essentially, airlines running flights that don't
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make any sense to destinations that don't make any sense at times that don't make any sense,
to merely keep the slot from being returned to the FAA and potentially sold, or divvied out to
another airline.
We see things like Delta operating LaGuardia to Dulles, which they already operate out of JFK,
which ironically, I'm actually flying in a few days. But they're removing that from the schedule in
a couple of weeks, because it was slot squatting. We historically saw an astronomical amount of
this from U.S. Airways and the American, LaGuardia to Philly. It's a four-minute flight. Has no
need to exist, but it operated as slot squatting.
I think there were a few from JFK to Baltimore last year, but thankfully, the right thing is
happening here where they'll be able to return temporarily 10% of the flights, but it is not for the
right reason. The FAA goes on to state that while most of the country has been properly stocked
up and staffed with flight controller, or in-route controllers at the air traffic control centers around
the country, N90, which is the New York terminal radar approach control facility. I believe it's
located on Long Island. They are only operating at about 54% of its staffing target, which is
terrible. They say, dedicated training initiatives have been successful in reducing most of the
training backlog with the exception of N90. I would love to know more about why the FAA has
had such a tough time staffing N90.
[0:09:14] IP: Yeah. That particular facility.
[0:09:16] JR: It's a particularly high-stress facility, which it definitely is. It's some of the most
complicated and annoying airspace in the world. Do people not want to work at N90, because of
that stress, or maybe housing cost-cost of living here is very high. Maybe they just can't find
people who are willing to work here. I don't know. But if I were at the FAA, I would definitely be
asking those questions of why won't people work at N90, or why is it not properly staffed at all,
when it is literally the only facility that they can't get – or at least to a level that you would call
acceptable.
[0:09:51] IP: What I thought was really interesting is that they laid all of this out very clearly. I'm
going to quibble with Jason here, because he said that other facilities have been well-staffed.
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[0:10:02] JR: Not well-staffed, but staffed to the point where they don't have to commend the
cut of –
[0:10:06] IP: Better than N90. Sure, sure. Better than N90. The FAA says here that nationwide
certified professional controller staffing averages 81%.
[0:10:16] JR: I mean, that's better than 53.
[0:10:19] IP: Yeah. Okay. In relative terms, it's better. That doesn't sound healthy to me. We had
a listener write in after we talked about some of the pilot issues, in regards to what's happening
in the US and worldwide with incidents in the news lately. They were like, “Well, what about air
traffic control? There's a lot going on post-COVID that really impacted air traffic control.” I think
the FAA's order here about New York and DC lays that out broadly, narrowly for New York, but
also sprinkles in some information about nationwide stuff. I feel like, this is a great conversation
to really start having.
I made a quip on Twitter today, where the problems that we talk about with pilot training and the
FAA saying fly better and things like that, that doesn't involve an act of Congress. Truly
improving the FAA's ability to hire, train, and retain certified controllers would certainly involve
Congress. My hope for any resolution near term is very low. Though, if enough folks from
Congress are impacted by these delays this summer, maybe we'll see movement.
[0:11:33] JR: Yeah. They probably will be, because the FAA is projecting that New York airports
are going to see delays increased by 7% this coming summer, which last summer was already
very bad.
[0:11:45] IP: No. No. Jason, read this closely. I was actually just going to mention this right now.
It's not –
[0:11:51] JR: Oh, that's a much bigger number. Oh, I should read the rest of that sentence.
[0:11:55] IP: The number –
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[0:11:57] JR: No.
[0:11:59] IP: The number of operations is projected to increase by 7%. A 7% increase in the
number of operations, so takeoffs and landings, results in an overall delay increase of 45%.
[0:12:14] JR: That's not great. This document, by the way, it's only a few pages long, but it is
just absolutely peppered with interesting information. I think it's only seven and a half pages, but
there's another sentence here. The FAA is progressing towards a solution to the N90 staffing
issues. Ian, do you think the staffing issues might be increasing training, or increasing the
amount of staffing, or maybe offering more pay? No.
[0:12:40] IP: I mean, those seem like – Those seem like good ideas, writ large.
[0:12:43] JR: No. Let me continue the sentence. The FAA is progressing towards a solution to
the N90 staffing issues, based on moving the responsibility for Newark, New Jersey radar sector
from N90 to the Philadelphia TRACON. Training for this sector move is slated to begin in
September of this year and will take time to complete the cut over of the responsibilities to PHL.
Accordingly, this will not resolve the anticipated operational impacts of the summer 2023
schedule. Basically, that's saying we're going to make New York Philly’s problem, and that's a
strange band-aid.
[0:13:16] IP: I mean, it seems like it's not a band-aid. It seems like it's –
[0:13:20] JR: I get it.
[0:13:20] IP: - that's the cut over.
[0:13:22] JR: I mean, New Yorkers love to make Philly’s problems. There's nothing wrong with
that, but does Philly really have the capacity to absorb all of Newark? I guess so, but –
[0:13:33] IP: They will by next summer. This doesn't help for this summer, because it's going to
take a long time to cut over.
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[0:13:40] JR: That's really interesting, I guess. Admitting defeat at N90 in New York and just
seeding New Jersey to Philly. I'm okay with that. If they could take Staten Island, too, that'd also
be acceptable, but I don't think that's going to happen.
[0:13:55] IP: I don't want to get too far into the weeds on East Coast geography. But this is a
really interesting document that the FAA put together to –
[0:14:04] JR: None of it is good.
[0:14:05] IP: - to explain why they're letting airlines wave 10% of their slots for the summer in
the New York and DCA area. That'll be in the show notes. If you want six and a half pages of
very interesting reading that gets pretty far into the weeds on this thing, that's the link to click.
Third FAA story, and then we'll move on from there. Finally, finally, finally, finally, five years after
the NTSB first asked for it, and I don't know how many years after it was easy to do, because
Europe has already mandated it. The FAA is launching a rulemaking process to extend the
cockpit voice recorder time limit, or loop time from two hours to 25 hours. “We are initiating
rulemaking that will require cockpit voice recorders to capture 25 hours of information,” the FAA
said, on March 16th.
They're also establishing an aviation rulemaking committee to explore how to make greater use
of the data gathered by the airplane and its systems, including expanded flight data monitoring.
They, of course, say, “We welcome any tools, or resources Congress wants to provide and help
us do this expeditiously.” It's going to take money, a whole lot of money, and Congress better
pony up.
[0:15:29] JR: Yeah. I don't remember seeing a timeline for when this will go into effect, or the
mechanisms of how this will work, can existing voice recorders just be upgraded, I guess, or is
this a simple line of code change, because the available capacity is already there to record 25
hours? I don't know. This will be very interesting. Did you happen to see when this will take
effect? Because I'd imagine it's probably still going to be years before this happens.
[0:15:56] IP: Yeah. I mean, it's proposed rulemaking. It's got to go through the entire process.
There's going to at least be a long comment period. I guess, the earliest this could go into effect
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would be maybe next year, sometime next year would be my guess. But I would be surprised if
it happens that quickly.
[0:16:14] JR: Yeah. I wouldn't expect movement anywhere near that quickly. But this is good.
This is one of those cases where you just can't help, but shake your head and say, “Why hasn't
this already happened?” There is no downside to this. Any party that tells you two hours is fine,
25 hours is too much, or bad things about this, tell them to shut up, because they're wrong.
There's just absolutely no legitimate, acceptable argument against this. Hopefully, this gets
implemented as fast as technically possible, which in this industry is never too fast, but better
late than never.
[0:16:50] IP: Yeah. I guess, the best we can hope for. Speaking today, Boeing's chief financial
officer defended Boeing's next decade timeframe for a new – its introduction of a new aircraft.
Speaking at the Bank of America Securities Conference, Brian West went on the defensive
saying, this is going to happen next decade, because, and this is a wonderful phrase that I think
only Boeing could come up with, maybe somewhere in the depths of government. A step
function changing level of efficiency.
[0:17:31] JR: Oh, sure.
[0:17:31] IP: Okay. What he means by that is 20% to 30% more efficient than the latest 737,
basically. Take the 737 MAX and make it 20% to 30% more efficient. They're not going to build
an airplane until they can do that.
[0:17:49] JR: How are they going to do that?
[0:17:51] IP: Well, I mean, this goes back to all of the things that Boeing is working on with
NASA and the truss-braced wing design, things like that. I mean, there are things on the
horizon.
[0:18:05] JR: Doubled down on their questionable position.
[0:18:08] IP: I mean, on the other hand, what else are they going to do?
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[0:18:12] JR: I don't know. I don't know. It's a good question.
[0:18:14] IP: Exactly.
[0:18:15] JR: I think, there’s pretty solid consensus that not doing anything until there's some
radical improvement, even say magical improvement in efficiency aircraft, up to a third better
than today, doing nothing until then is, I don't want to say they're seeding the entire space to
Airbus, but that's what it seems like. I just can't imagine that they're going to do nothing. If in 10
years from now, we're at 5%, or 10%, are they really going to follow through at this and do
nothing? Just keep churning out the 73 MAX forever?
[0:18:50] IP: Maybe.
[0:18:51] JR: Maybe. I hope not.
[0:18:52] IP: I don't have an answer for that.
[0:18:54] JR: I don't know.
[0:18:55] IP: Okay. Well, that's where they're at and that's where we'll see if they stay. Let's
have an update on the big story that we talked about last week, or the most bizarre story that we
talked about last week, which was the seizure of four Flair Airlines seven 373, seven 37-8 MAX
and one 737-800. Last week, the story was really all about, they said, they said between Flair
and the leasing agents for the ownership of the aircraft.
Flair says, “We were a couple days late on a million dollars.” The leasing agents are saying,
“You were very, very late on many millions of dollars.” The story gets even stranger. This is
based on reporting from Dominic Gates in the Seattle Times, as well as some reporting from
Eric Atkins in the Globe and Mail. The lease payments are being – They're still up in the air
about whether or not they were very far behind and how far behind they were and how much
money they owed. The business model of the ownership behind Flair, which is the 777 Partners
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Group. 777 Partners is not 777 Partners, because of 777 aircraft. It's an address that they used
to have when they formed the group, so they're called 777 Partners.
The interesting thing here is that they can't step in too much, because there's already
contentious issue of whether or not Flair, because Canadian airlines have to be Canadian
owned. There's a question about whether or not Flair is a Canadian airline, because 777
Partners is not a Canadian organization. They can only rescue Flair so much without, basically,
taking Flair from a Canadian airline to a non-Canadian airline. It's really interesting to see what's
happening here and how the 777 Partners model is playing out.
It seems like this could spill over into a big leasing order between 777 Partners, which has a few
dozen MAX on order, and Boeing, which is trying to get these aircraft out the door. What began
as a very interesting and quirky kind of, did they pay their bill on time, is expanding into a
business model and multi-airline leasing arrangement issue.
[0:21:41] JR: I had totally forgotten about that rule in Canada, that airlines had to be, at least I
think, majority owned by Canadian entities. That is an interesting quirk in this story that I totally
forgotten about.
[0:21:54] IP: The whole thing just gets even more interesting, because 777 Partners made
lease payments on multiple other aircraft that were in danger of being repossessed as well.
[0:22:11] JR: I'll have to keep our eyes on this one. They don't have many more aircraft to
spare. I think they need these four back as soon as they can. But it doesn't seem like that's
going to be happening anytime soon.
[0:22:21] IP: No. All four of the aircraft have been taken off the Canadian registry. They are no
longer registered in Canada. I haven't been able to find any re-registration for them yet. They
haven't been re-regged in the US as of today, the 22nd of March. The Irish registry comes out at
the end of the month, which is where I might expect them to be, given the leasing agent’s
location and how they have registered aircraft in the past. It would be interesting to see where
these aircraft end up. Do they go back to Flair? I mean, obviously that would be the easiest
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thing for everybody, because they're Flair interior, Flair exterior, they're already in Canada. Who
knows what happens?
[0:23:04] JR: Yeah. I don't think there are many other airlines out there that want the Flair
aircraft in that particular livery, because they may be new aircraft, but they are not pretty looking
airplanes.
[0:23:15] IP: They're unique. They’re unique.
[0:23:15] JR: I still cannot get over that choice of livery. It's just, if you've never seen what a
Flair Air fully painted aircraft looks like, I highly suggest you go look it up.
[0:23:25] IP: We'll put a link to the show notes, just so you don't have to look too hard. Some
interesting things as well, let's go a little bit out of order, Jason, the show notes. I apologize. The
787 deliveries have resumed all of the paperwork and certification issues that needed to be
sorted out have been sorted out. That's great news for Boeing. Norse is making a change. Long
thought to have been by Jason and I and perhaps, anyone else paying attention. Certainly, not
an incarnation of Norwegian 2.0, but not that. They're making a change in following the more
Condor, or Twee model and going where the sun is next winter, rather than keeping their
consistent route network together.
[0:24:17] JR: That's interesting. They'll be taking their 787s to Palma Mallorca, or what's their
plan?
[0:24:23] IP: I haven't seen the route announcements yet, or what specific routes they'll be
plying in their long boats as they call them, or long ships, sorry. But they're going to be heading
south for the winter.
[0:24:39] JR: I hate to make a comparison to Norwegian.
[0:24:42] IP: Go for it.
[0:24:43] JR: As we know, Norse is not Norwegian. Never was. Never will be.
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[0:24:46] IP: No. I just said that.
[0:24:48] JR: Obviously, they're reaffirming that it's not the same. Remember, Norwegian, back
when Norwegian was a much larger airline, they did things in the winter schedule, like they had
all these subsidiaries. They, well, for an hour, they opened up Norwegian, or Argentina. When
there was a low in the winter, they moved some of these – their 737s down to an Argentina
subsidiary.
[0:25:13] IP: They literally operated – I don't want to say literally, because I'm slightly
exaggerating here, but they operated maybe a dozen flights –
[0:25:21] JR: Maybe.
[0:25:21] IP: - before they said, “No, we're done.”
[0:25:22] JR: But then, they also had a little operation out of JFK, where I think there were a
few 737-800s that operated from JFK to some of the French Caribbean islands, because
reasons they were allowed to do that, but it is not especially unique that Norse is going to take
their aircraft and do something different in the winter low season. But Norse only has 787s. I
guess, it's going to be very interesting to see where they put these 78s. It's not like, they can
toss a couple of 73s to do something a little weird out in the US, or Argentina. These are much
larger aircraft, with much larger needs. But it is not that dissimilar from what Norwegian did in
the winter low season.
[0:26:04] IP: Fair enough. Fair enough.
[0:26:07] JR: Okay. Remember, Norse is not Norwegian. This is different. The airplanes are
bigger.
[0:26:12] IP: This is completely different. Yeah. It remains to be seen where they're going to
head next. We shall see. Air India Engineering is going to be privatized. The state-owned,
current state-owned MRO, which is huge and does a ton of work, was one of the big questions.
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We talked about this earlier based on listeners’ email. That was one of the big questions about
what they were going to do. It's official now. It will in fact be privatized. That'll be interesting to
see who picks that up. Is Tata going to bid on that as well, or is it going to be spun off to a
separate company? There are a couple very, very large MROs that might be looking to get in on
that, given the recent very, very large orders for aircraft in India and the growing market. That's
definitely something to keep an eye on to see whether or not there's a proper bidding out for
that business or not.
[0:27:11] JR: Yeah. I can imagine Air India Engineering be snatched up by something like
Lufthansa Technik very quickly. That just makes sense to me. We'll see. As we know with Air
India, nothing is ever certain. We'll just have to wait and see what the actual outcome is. But this
just makes sense.
[0:27:29] IP: Yeah. I think so. A couple route issues, or not issues, announcements, I guess,
that are worth discussing. Real quickly, flydubai and United have filed for a code share. I don't
think this is much of a surprise, given the fact that flydubai is basically Emirates regional airline
and United and Emirates recently announced a code share. This just seems to make sense,
given all of the changes between United and Emirates in the recent past. Lufthansa is bringing
back its A380. We have confirmation that they will start to Boston on June 1st and then back to
New York soon after.
[0:28:04] JR: That's exciting.
[0:28:05] IP: We'll see what else they end up. Then JetBlue finally, finally, finally because
they've been trying and complaining about not being able to, kind of, sort of, has slots at
Amsterdam now. For now.
[0:28:20] JR: Yeah. But it's that situation where you get what you want, but you only got it
because you complained loudly enough, but it turns out it's not really what you wanted. Their
words, JetBlue has secured commercially questionable slots in Amsterdam. These come from
the demise, again, of Flybe. The slots made sense for Flybe if they were operating to the UK.
They're a 3:40 p.m. arrival, or something like that. Basically, this would require JetBlue to leave
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New York at something like 2 a.m., arriving 3 p.m. and departing 4 and arriving back at New
York at midnight, or something.
They would be stupid flight times. I'm sure people would book them if the price is right. There
are other airlines that do this like, hey, Norse. We keep talking about Norse. But there are
airlines that do this. I think SAS, their JFK flight to Copenhagen departs midnight, or something.
People will book this, but just because JetBlue was awarded this temporary slot for the year
doesn't mean it will actually operate these flights. Hopefully, they can secure something better
and break the Delta-KLM duopoly from New York to Amsterdam. That would be exciting, but I
wouldn't. I'm not going to hold my breath that JetBlue is actually going to operate anything that it
would publicly call commercially questionable.
[0:29:44] IP: Yeah. I thought that was a great comment. They’re like, “We got this stuff, but it's a
–”
[0:29:49] JR: We don't really want it anymore. You take it.
[0:29:51] IP: Okay. Now comes the discussion. I saved it for the very end, because I don't really
care. Emirates has a “new livery.” It looks fine.
[0:30:02] JR: I can't tell you how little I care about this. It's such a minor change.
[0:30:04] IP: It looks fine.
[0:30:05] JR: Fine. Okay.
[0:30:07] IP: Yeah. I do like the wing fence. They've painted the wing fence red. I like that. Neat.
But we'll put a link in the show notes. Go check it out.
[0:30:16] JR: Fine. Emirates’ livery has always just historically been in a fence of fine.
[0:30:23] IP: Then another airline that does not yet exist, that I really hope will soon exist,
because their livery on the other hand is really cool.
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[0:30:33] JR: Ah, I see what you did there. The name of the airline is literally really cool. This
comes to us from the former CEO of Nook Air, apparently wants to spin up a new airline out of
Bangkok. It's one of those airline startups where you just look at and go, this is stupid, because
their plans announced are apparently Bangkok to London and Paris and China and Japan and
South Korea and Australia, so pretty much everywhere, with a fleet of 787s, or maybe A350s. I
don't know. They put out renderings of both, but they want to start really, really quickly, like later
this year. We just heard of this today. It's almost April. It's almost the summer.
[0:31:11] IP: This is the launch, the official launch.
[0:31:13] JR: Sure. Why not?
[0:31:14] IP: But they don't have airplanes.
[0:31:15] JR: Nope. Nope. They don't have orders with anyone. There are some renderings, but
the renderings, the livery is really cool as the name suggests. They've got nice pixel art tail
fading off to the middle part of the fuselage. They've got the – I think, where the aircraft is
wearing shades. That's cool. It blends into the A350’s raccoon eyes. It's wearing headphones.
Not the first airplane to wear headphones. Southwest, back when it introduced some
shenanigans with beats, they had red headphones on one of the aircraft. But this is, I like it. I
think the name really cool is stupid. It reminds me of Joon for some reason. But the livery is
definitely one of the more unique, let's say, attempts at something that stands out in a long time.
[0:32:03] IP: I feel like, if you had launched Joon as an Asian, either low-cost, or not full-service
airline, but somewhere in the middle, I feel like, it may have been successful. Had it been
tailored culturally to the market.
[0:32:21] JR: I didn't see getting to this today, but the problem with Joon is that it wasn't an
airline. It was just a segment of Air France that operated to cities like Barcelona, or St. Martin. If
you happen to be going up to one of those cities, you happen to end up on a Joon aircraft. You
didn't choose to fly Joon. Joon chose you. Joon chose you.
© 2023 AvTalk 16
AVT 208 Transcript
[0:32:41] IP: Joon chose you. What Joon was, what Joon really was, was marketing slapped
over a labor dispute. That's all it really was.
[0:32:48] JR: That’s all it was. In this case, it's a new startup, so they can actually do whatever
they want and people will only book this airline if they like the value proposition and the
branding.
[0:33:00] IP: If they’re really cool.
[0:33:01] JR: And if there's a rooftop bar. I don't know. Maybe there is.
[0:33:05] IP: Well, they've got a few million in funding. They've announced that they're planning
to begin operations by December with two aircraft. They want to start with the Airbus widebody.
Obviously, A330s, or A350s, most likely A350s. I don't know where they're going to come from,
because they want to lease them. We'll see where that comes from. If they do start up, I think it
would be really cool to A, spot, but B, check them out, because it sounds like they've got a very
interesting model in line.
[0:33:34] JR: Yes. The typical model of Asian airline that flies anywhere for pennies on the
dollar. Isn't there to from a passenger perspective.
[0:33:42] IP: There you go. Then before we go, Jason, we had a listener write in with a
correction of sorts.
[0:33:50] JR: Oh, that happens sometimes.
[0:33:52] IP: It does happen. Last week, so you were flying Japan Airlines and you were
pronouncing the acronym JAL as JAL.
[0:33:59] JR: Uh-oh.
[0:34:00] IP: Our listener from Japan wrote in and said it's Jal rhyming with Pal. Now you know.
© 2023 AvTalk 17
AVT 208 Transcript
[0:34:07] JR: All right. I mean, he could be lying and just making that up, but I'm going to say it
forever now.
[0:34:12] IP: I feel like the email was with sincere.
[0:34:15] JR: All right.
[0:34:16] IP: If you have any corrections for us, or if there's something you want to hear us talk
about on the podcast, or if you've got a complaint about, well, anything, send those to Jason's
email.
[0:34:26] JR: No.
[0:34:26] IP: Email podcast@fr24.com. We read every single email and I try and reply to as
many as I possibly can. If you would be so kind as to go leave a rating and review, wherever
you listen to this podcast, that is extremely helpful in having other people find the podcast as
well, so that we can continue doing this show and doing more of it.
Thank you, everyone, so very much for listening. This has been episode 208 of AvTalk. I am Ian
Petchenik, here, as always with –
[0:35:00] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
© 2023 AvTalk 18