AvTalk Episode 263: Another whistle blows

AVT 263 Transcript
EPISODE 263
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello, and welcome to episode 263 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. How's it going, Ian? How are you?
[0:00:19] IP: It's going well, Jason. It's going well. It's a week. Things have happened, and
we've cobbled enough together to get another episode of the podcast. How are you, sir?
[0:00:29] JR: I'm good. I'm in DC for work this week. But I'm happy to be able to have this
weekly therapy session with you.
[0:00:36] IP: Absolutely, absolutely. Let's dive in, because I know you are in between meetings
for your real job.
[0:00:44] JR: Yes. I am somewhere between lunch, a meeting, and a meeting. But this means a
lot to me, so here I am, holed up in my hotel room with some Wi-Fi to try to knock this out before
anyone notices I've snuck away.
[0:00:56] IP: We'll make it work. We begin with, let's start with the eclipse. Did you see it?
[0:01:04] JR: I was on an Amtrak Acela train headed south, which is the wrong direction from
New York to DC at the moment, so not the most optimal way to see the eclipse for sure. I did
see it by sticking my phone at the window, cranking the exposure all the way to the bottom, and
you could make out the moon. I think it was an 85% eclipse, which was pretty cool. It got dark,
but it was also pretty cloudy, so it didn't really put on much of a show for me. But I'll check back
in what is it, 2076 or something? I'll plan ahead a little better.
[0:01:40] IP: Well, I mean, we can make plans now for, I think, 2026. We can head to Iceland,
or Spain.
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[0:01:45] JR: That sounds fantastic. That sounds great. Better than being on a long past its
expected lifespan Amtrak Acela train, 45 minutes late, heading to DC. Let's go to Iceland,
please. That sounds good.
[0:01:58] IP: Sure. Let's do that. There were lots of people who saw the eclipse from the air, or
from on the ground at an airport, because they flew to an airport that was in the path of totality.
From about the middle of Texas, all the way up through Maine, making an arc through southern
Illinois, Arkansas, Ohio, and parts of New York, that was the path of totality. What was
interesting is that a bunch of airlines made special flights, or said they were making special
flights, a few of them took off way too early to actually see the eclipse.
[0:02:36] JR: Yeah. I think, wasn't Air Canada one of them? They took off too early and then
they got to Toronto before anything happened.
[0:02:44] IP: Yeah. So, all well and good there. It sounds like, people who booked these eclipse
flights had, I don't want to call it a lackluster experience, but maybe not the experience that they
were expecting.
[0:02:55] JR: Yeah. I think I read Jack Honig of The Points Guy was on one of these Delta
flights, I think, on the A220. He and some people he spoke to said, “Yeah. Next time, I'll just do
this from the ground.” Since the experience wasn't all that great for one thing, obviously, there is
only one window seat per side of the aircraft in every row. Anyone who's in the middle seats, or
hopefully not an aisle seat, they're going to really strain their neck to have to see out that
window, or switch positions with people.
Also, in a lot of cases, the sun was directly above the aircraft and I don't know of any airplanes
with moon roofs, so you're not going to get that great a view. But it seems like, flight crews did
their best to do some 360 turns and bank the aircraft to get the passengers to see as much as
they possibly could, but it was more about the atmosphere, seemingly, that Delta and I haven't
heard of any of the other US airlines doing this, but Delta seems to have put on a really big
show in the, I think it was DFW and maybe Houston for the departure of these flights. It was
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definitely more about the atmosphere, but the actual viewing of the eclipse was pretty lackluster
from all accounts, or at least that I have seen.
[0:03:59] IP: Yeah. The flip side of that is all of the people who took private aircraft and either
flew to an airport in the path of totality, or just flew during the eclipse –
[0:04:12] JR: Kind of wherever they wanted to.
[0:04:14] IP: And looked out their window. Yeah. We put together a graphic, because I was
following along with this and basically, starting from the premise of Delta doing these flights, Air
Canada's doing these flights. That'll be interesting to look at. Then I noticed that there was so
much general aviation traffic, because the FAA had talked about how they were going to have
delays and we're going to need to be rerouting and things like that. It sounded like the FAA was
being a bit dramatic in that respect, but more part of them for preparing people for that. Then I
looked and the amount of general aviation traffic was more than double the usual amount of
traffic. I mean, it was just incredible. Thousands and thousands of aircraft.
[0:04:56] JR: I would definitely say, the FAA did the right thing by over-preparing, rather than –
[0:05:00] IP: Oh, absolutely.
[0:05:00] JR: - under-preparing, because that's not really the moment you want to not take into
account the doubling of general aviation traffic, which is going to be concentrated during a very
specific time of day, where conditions are getting really weird, getting rapidly dark and then
rapidly bright. If there's any time you really want to probably over-staff and over-compensate it,
it's good pick.
[0:05:22] IP: Yeah. We put together a little graphic that we'll put a link in the show notes,
showing all the general aviation aircraft converging on the path of totality, whether just flying, or
landing at an airport there, and then scattering again, because it was such a quick event. The
eclipse wasn't even the weirdest thing to have happened and have an aviation angle this week.
That, of course, at least, I think, the week, I guess, still isn't quite over yet. But there was an
earthquake in New York.
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[0:05:53] JR: Yeah. I mean, officially, I think the earthquake belongs to –
[0:05:57] IP: To New Jersey.
[0:05:58] JR: New Jersey.
[0:05:58] IP: Yes. We'll let them have it.
[0:06:00] JR: Like any good thing, we claim it our own. It was the New York earthquake. Yes,
Friday, last week, there was a 4.8 magnitude earthquake in White House Station, New Jersey, I
think. If you're from the West Coast, or any earthquake-prone region, shut up. I know, 4.8 is not
a not a big deal to you, but it's a big deal to us. Just look at LA when it rains. We laugh at you
when it rains as well, so it's fine. 4.8, it was definitely the largest earthquake in the New York
City region in centuries, I think. Maybe not centuries. It's a little dramatic, but many, many, many,
many decades, I believe. Something like a 125 years.
But like all things, our good friend, Jon Ostrower says, there's always an aviation angle. Of
course, an earthquake in a region that is not prone to earthquakes and isn't really at all ready for
it, there were impacts to the aviation system. JFK and LaGuardia really didn't have that much of
an effect. They paused departures and arrivals for a very brief period. But like all other natural,
man-made metaphysical things, Newark handled it so well.
[0:07:08] IP: Oh, Newark.
[0:07:09] JR: Yeah, Newark. They seemingly handled it pretty well for a while. The Port
Authority did a pretty quick inspection of the runways, found no issues and air traffic actually
resumed quite quickly after the earthquake. Then don't exactly know why, but they aired on the
side of caution and evacuated the tower, which I guess is fine if there's any suspected damage,
or they need to do an inspection of something to the FAA air traffic control tower at Newark, fine,
do it. Better to be safe than sorry. They evacuated the tower and they have plans for this. They
run drills and they have preparedness opportunities and they're supposed to be ready for this.
But when they did transition over from the actual air traffic control center to the backup air traffic
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control center on the facility, which I think is in United's ground, or ramp control tower, which is
just another tower that typically handles the movements on United's own ramp, whatever radio
setup the FAA was using there was horrible.
At first, it didn't work at all. Then the signal was really, really, really, really weak. Aircraft on
approach had no radio reception until they were on like very short final aircraft on the ground, on
the far side of the field, couldn't hear the tower at all. In my non-professional air traffic controller
opinion, it was actually quite dangerous situation. They probably should have halted all
movements. It would probably would have been better to be safe than sorry. Like, they
evacuated the tower to be safe, rather than sorry, but they seem to have been pushing aircraft
movement when they probably shouldn't have been.
You had the controller giving a landing clearance to an aircraft and that aircraft couldn't hear
them, so you had other aircraft on the ground having the pilots relay that clearance to the
arriving, or departing aircraft, which just strikes me as not a particularly good idea, especially at
such a busy airport like Newark. That went on for maybe about 30 minutes. They figured their
situation out and got back in the tower and Newark is back to being Newark.
[0:09:04] IP: Newark is back to being Newark's. Yeah, it was interesting to me, because they
had one of the controllers in the tower. Well, he was saying, “Oh, they're going to set stuff up in
the other location.” I was like, well, obviously it seems fine. If you're leaving a guy there, why not
just leave him there?
[0:09:21] JR: The whole transition was very odd. Clearly, there's some lessons to be learned
from what happened at Newark. The backup facility they have there is not up to snuff. It is not
sufficient to run that airport –
[0:09:31] IP: Need more hands.
[0:09:33] JR: Yeah, it should not happen again. It's good that they got some lessons out of this.
I hope, I'm assuming, there have been some meetings held about the situation there. Yeah, the
whole thing was just odd that they – I guess, it is possible that the earthquake was more violent
at Newark, because it is in New Jersey, closer to the actual epicenter of the earthquake, which
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seemed quite violent there. Yeah, lesson learned about something very unexpected for New
York. But we get it all.
[0:10:00] IP: That was a bit of fun. Now on to the rest of the show. We, of course, turn now to
the latest Boeing whistleblower allegations. This was first reported by the New York Times and
subsequently reported more widely throughout the aviation and popular press, and it will also be
part of a Senate hearing next week. Senator Richard Blumenthal is hosting a hearing called
Examining Boeing's Broken Safety Culture, Firsthand Accounts. It'll be a collection of
whistleblowers discussing their allegations.
The most recent allegation, and I say this on the middle of Wednesday, April 10th, who knows
what happens by the time the podcast comes out? But as of today, the most recent allegations
are by Sam Salehpour, who is a Boeing engineer, and a Boeing quality engineer. He has
alleged that almost 1,000 787s and approximately 400 777s currently flying could be at risk for
premature fatigue on the fuselage structure. As he puts it, catastrophic failure.
The FAA says, that it is investigating his claims. Obviously, the prudent thing to do anytime you
have an engineer coming forward, so good to see that they're taking this seriously. What are the
actual claims here? What he's saying is that when Boeing assembled the 787 fuselage,
because they come from different manufacturers and are brought to, well, formerly Washington
and South Carolina, now just South Carolina. But when they are brought to the assembly line,
they are put together. If there are gaps where the fuselage joints go, they require shimming.
The shimming is what stopped all of Boeing's 787 deliveries for almost two years at one point,
because of the necessity to get that shimming right and make sure that the fuselage sections
were shimmed as needed, adding the necessary spacers. What he's claiming is that Boeing, in
assembling the 787 fuselages, some of them used enough force, an excessive amount of force
that it artificially shrunk the gaps between the fuselage sections, negating the use of shimming
in those joints. Because when they would measure it, it would say, “Okay, it's small enough. We
don't need shims here.” The problem is that those unfilled gaps can over time lead to excessive
wear and stress on the fuselage joints, which is why he's saying that those aircraft are at risk for
premature fatigue damage. Because where fuselage joint shims should have been placed, they
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did not place them there, because of the excessive amount of force that they pushed the
fuselage sections together, made it artificially small, and they didn't put shims in.
Boeing says, that this is not a safety of flight risk. Any problems that could possibly arise from
this are outside the life of the airplane. They're pointing to the tests that they performed on one
of the early built 787s, where they placed it through 165,000 pressurization cycles, which is
nearly four times the number of pressurization cycles that a 787 will expect to go through in its
lifetime. A normal 787 will be pressurized and depressurized 44,000 times.
Boeing says, “This isn't a safety of flight problem. We've tested these well beyond where any
airline is going to be flying them, as far as the fuselage pressurization cycles goes. And so, we
don't think that this is an accurate way to look at things.” That's Boeing's take on the 787 there.
[0:13:59] JR: There's an interesting series of quotes here from The New York Times, where
they're quoting Boeing and things change from quote to quote. The first one they say, “Our
engineers are completing complex analysis to determine if there may be a long-term fatigue
concern for the fleet in any area of the airplane,” Mr. Lewis said, Mr. Lewis being one of the
spokespeople for Boeing. Then goes on to say, “This would not become an issue for the in-
service fleet for many years to come, if ever, and we are not rushing the team, so that we can
ensure that analysis is comprehensive.”
In the very next statement, they say, in a subsequent statement, Boeing said that it was, “Fully
confident in the 787 Dreamliner.” Adding that, “These claims about the structural integrity of the
787 are inaccurate and do not represent the comprehensive work Boeing is done to ensure the
quality and long-term safety of the aircraft.” Which is it? Is there an acknowledged problem that
they're analyzing now to figure out if this will become a problem in the future? Or does this issue
not exist and good job, everyone. We believe we built safe, long-term aircraft? Maybe I'm
misreading it, but I feel like, those two statements are actually opposing each other pretty
severely.
[0:15:15] IP: Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure what they're trying to say, honestly. I think part of the
problem is that you have multiple statements and it's unclear exactly what questions those
statements are responding to, because there are –
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[0:15:32] JR: Our point.
[0:15:33] IP: I mean, there are multiple – and this part doesn't really reflect while at Boeing.
There are multiple issues over the past few years with the 787 program. There are multiple
claims of problems with the 787’s assembly. It's one of those things where you need to be more
specific, I think, about which problems you're talking about.
[0:15:56] JR: Oh. So, when you when you call Boeing court comes, you get a phone tree that
says, if you're calling about the battery thermal runaway, press one. If you're calling about the
shims, press two.
[0:16:04] IP: Please, listen carefully as our menu options have changed.
[0:16:08] JR: Oh, ouch. Yeah. Maybe this can help Boeing. I don’t know.
[0:16:13] IP: That's the 787. Salehpour is also talking about the 777.
[0:16:20] JR: Oh, no. But the 777 is supposed to be Boeing's rock. It's all they've got left that
works.
[0:16:27] IP: This is a really interesting thing, because we often look at the 777 as the last
Boeing-built airplane, which celebrated its 30th anniversary roll out yesterday on the 9th of April.
On April 9th, 1994, the 777 rolled out for the first time. Everyone lost their minds and rightfully so,
because it's an awesome airplane. But in 2014, as part of Boeing's push to cut costs and allow
suppliers to control more of how it built its aircraft, Boeing created what they called the fuselage
upright built system.
[0:17:16] JR: I had completely forgotten about this.
[0:17:18] IP: It worked so well that it was implemented in 2015, and abandoned mostly by 2019.
[0:17:25] JR: Maybe that's why I forgot about it.
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[0:17:28] IP: What Salehpour’s claims are related to the 777 program are that the system didn't
work, and so assembling the aircraft fell back to a lot of manual work. The fuselage operate
build system included a lot of robotics and automatic machinering and things like that and it just
didn't work for Boeing for a variety of reasons. It fell back to a lot of manual work, and so you
were ending up with misaligned fuselage sections on the 777. I think, the biggest eye-opening
claim here is that he witnessed Boeing assembly workers jumping on panels to get them to
align.
[0:18:11] JR: Huh. Probably not in any procedure, or guideline they have on assembly on there.
[0:18:15] IP: To the best of my knowledge, that is not how you're supposed to assemble aircraft.
[0:18:20] JR: Can't say I ever saw that doing a tour of the Everett facility. That would have been
surprising. I would probably would have questioned that myself.
[0:18:27] IP: We pointed that one out. Raise a hand. The FAA is investigating this and investing
in the claims. I don't think they've said, they've opened an investigation of Boeing. They're
investigating the claims. They will be part of a Senate hearing next week. All of this to say is
that, I mean, it's one after the other, and whoever becomes the next CEO of Boeing is going to
have a lot on their plate and a very, very long road ahead, rebuilding trust in the organization.
[0:19:01] JR: I don't know who would want this job, but good luck.
[0:19:05] IP: Yeah. I mean, we'll certainly talk about that when the time comes. Let's move on
from this and we'll revisit it next week after the Senate hearing. Let's head down to Houston,
shall we, and talk about the NTSB's preliminary report on the United 737 that suffered a runway
and taxiway excursion about a month ago. That was the one where the United 737 made a right
turn off the runway and then skidded into the grass and ended with the nose high in the air and
the tail well down on the ground. The preliminary report explains exactly why the aircraft ended
up like that, and I learned a few new things.
[0:19:50] JR: What did you learn?
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[0:19:51] IP: Well, I learned that the main landing gear on the 737 is designed to shear off in
certain circumstances when stressed in certain ways. It makes perfect sense. We've talked
about shear pins and different parts of aircraft that are supposed to come off when stressed in a
variety of ways. But the main landing gear on the 737 is designed to shear off in specific
circumstances, especially when a extreme lateral load is placed on the landing gear. In this
case, that was because the 737 drove into a concrete bunker.
[0:19:51] JR: Huh, okay. Not supposed to happen, but that certainly explains why the gear
sheared off. We had a lot of debate about whether or not the gear collapsed, or broke away in
the immediate aftermath, because the pictures were very unclear. It looked fine, but I don't think
anyone knew, although anyone who would have been standing there at the aircraft would have
saw that, oh, there's a concrete bunker here. I think it was for the runway electrical system for
the lighting.
[0:20:58] IP: It was a utilities access vault.
[0:21:01] JR: Yes. Because no aircraft is supposed to be there, so it shouldn't be a problem.
Props to Boeing on this one, I guess, for designing an airplane that can be driven into a bunker
and it's barely looks broken.
[0:21:14] IP: It was fine enough that they raised the airplane up, reattached the landing gear
and towed away. Yeah. Good for them. The reason for the excessive speed from the interview
with the captain sounds like, the aircraft, and this was part of the air traffic control audio, initially
after the incident, where we knew about this, where they had been asked to keep up their
speed. The captain said, “Well, we wanted to keep up our speed to get off at the end of the
runway,” and the aircraft didn't break the way the captain was expecting it to, and the runway
conditions seemed to have been poorer than the captain believed. That will all, of course,
become part of the final report. The interview with the captain is an interesting one, that's
included there in the preliminary report.
[0:21:58] JR: Yeah. That seems like just a set of bad circumstances. I did want to point out that
I saw some questioning of the air traffic control, or giving that command of keep your speed up,
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and that is not at all an unusual, or unwarranted thing. In this case, I believe the captain, or
whoever was on the radio of the United fight asked to take a specific taxiway, turn off the
runway. In that case, air traffic control said, “Yes, so long as you keep your speed up.” Which
basically means, please do not come to a crawl on the runway. Do not stop on the runway,
because there are other arrivals behind you. You can do it at your discretion. Just please don't
slow down to the point where it impacts the aircraft behind you.
Not unusual, not strange in any way, but taking out a context from people who may not really
know the ins and outs of what's going on there, could sound a little odd. Like, oh, well, air traffic
control told them to keep their speed up. That's why it happened. Well, no, that's not how that
works.
[0:22:55] IP: That's a good point. Part of that incident played into the FAA's review of United's
operations. It seems that we're seeing the first impact of these, where United's had to delay
round expansions, because of the ongoing increased oversight.
[0:23:17] JR: Yeah, this is nonsensical, I would say. At least, that's my personal opinion.
United's no longer able to launch this coming summer, Newark, Farrow, and Tokyo to Cebu,
which would have been a revival of one of its Tokyo hub, or formerly hub routes in the 737. The
former will launch the following year and Tokyo-Cebu will launch, I believe, in October of this
year, something along those lines. Any passenger who had already possibly booked those
routes, they are now out of luck. They'll need to figure something else out. I don't like this. I don't
think it accomplishes anything. I think there was still, and we talked about this, I think there was
undue focus on United. One of the world's largest airlines, if not the largest, by some metrics,
stuff happens.
The media caught in on this and sunk their teeth into it and really made it seem like there was
more going on at United than there was. Yeah, there were some incidents. But to take the step
of removing the authority for United to launch new routes is not going to be called
unprecedented. But as a reaction to something like this, it is certainly not with any precedent I
cannot right now.
[0:24:31] IP: It certainly is not proportionate.
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[0:24:32] JR: Yeah, it does seem out of proportion. Brett Snyder, Cranky Flier, has a good
breakdown of what's going on in his blog and could chalk it up to, well, maybe United's not
playing ball with the FAA. Maybe they're being stubborn, or not cooperative in some
investigation, and this is their way of saying, “Cooperate, or else.” I don't know, but I just don't
see how this is possibly helpful, or beneficial. If there is a safety culture issue, or a maintenance
culture issue at United, I don't see how this helps to rectify that situation at all.
[0:25:04] IP: Hopefully, they get things squared away between United and the FAA rather
quickly, because it seems like this – if this goes on, it could really negatively impact a lot of
customers for the airline. Then you end up with people mad at the airline when the FAA is
saying, “No, you can't. You can't do certain things.”
[0:25:23] JR: There are probably some people down in Mexico saying, “Ah. Now you know how
it feels.” I hope this does not go on as long as the FAA is lowering of the safety rating for Mexico
went on, because that went on for years, longer than anyone expected. I cannot imagine that
would be the case here with United, but we'll see.
[0:25:42] IP: I remember, we first talked about the downgrade of Mexico's status by the FAA
and we were like, “Ah, six weeks.”
[0:25:48] JR: Yeah, no big deal.
[0:25:49] IP: Yeah, it’ll be fine.
[0:25:50] JR: It was a big deal.
[0:25:51] IP: It was a big deal. Where are we going next? Well, we're not going anywhere.
[0:25:56] JR: Wow. I mean, if you've got a fleet powered by the Pratt & Whitney GTF engine,
there is a 33% chance you're not going anywhere, is there?
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[0:26:06] JR: Cirium came out with a look at the number of Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan
engine powered aircraft that are currently grounded, and it measures about a third. I crunch the
numbers based on our own data at flightradar24 and it's roughly equal. I mean, obviously,
there's both databases don't say exactly why an aircraft hasn't flown. Cirium tags their flights as
parked technical reason. It could be the engine. It could be something else. Obviously, there's
probably a slight mix. But the number of aircraft that have not flown in some time that are
powered by Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engines is creeping up.
As of today, Wizz Air has 73 geared turbofan powered aircraft parked that haven't flown in April.
I'm using in April as a benchmark here. Indigo has 64. Go First has all of theirs, because they
don't exist anymore. Here's where it gets interesting, Air China 28, Volaris 26, Viva Aerobus 23,
Szechuan 21, ANA 20. Some names that we haven't really discussed before. We haven't talked
about ANA so much in this context. Air China, we really haven't talked about in this context.
Again, this is not to say that necessarily all of these are grounded specifically for engine issues.
They could be down for other maintenance. They could be just not needed in the fleet at the
moment, but there are multiple airlines not operating large chunks of their A320neo family fleets,
or A220 fleets, or a very small collection of E2 jets. It's a lot of planes.
[0:28:00] JR: It's a lot. I was going to say, we almost always talk about this in the context of the
320 and 220 family aircraft. Then every now and then someone says, “Yeah, what about the
E2s?” I'm like, yeah, what about them? Finally, Cirium put the numbers together and out, there
are 101 E2s in service, 17 of them are out of service. That is a large percentage of that fleet. I
don't want to call it a rounding error, but it is in the grand scheme of things, because there just
aren't that many E2s out there. We would be remiss to not mention that, yeah, Embraer is also
impacted by this.
[0:28:39] IP: I don't know about you, Jason, but I'm just learning about La Salinas Arias. I've
never heard of them before, but they're a Brazilian airline and they have an E190-E2.
[0:28:52] JR: That's Azul.
[0:28:53] IP: And it’s grounded.
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[0:28:56] JR: That's Azul. That’s the business leader, Azul, I believe.
[0:29:00] IP: I learn something new every day.
[0:29:01] JR: Today you learned. I don't know what article would put that full name, but yeah.
[0:29:04] IP: This is why I keep you around.
[0:29:06] JR: That would be Azul.
[0:29:07] IP: That's the registered owner of the aircraft.
[0:29:10] JR: Yes. I think there's a pretty good quote here from a Flight Global article citing the
Cirium data. This quote comes from Swiss's chief executive and the quote is, “The problem of
our aircraft being unproductive is the fact that we are paying twice. We have aircraft investments
unproductive on the ground and we have to rent wet lease aircraft from another company to
produce the capacity in the market.” Yeah, not only are they paying for the aircraft and the
engines that they can't use, but then they have to pay again to have somebody else on another
airline come in and operate flights for them, which in turn, turns out to be airBaltic and Helvetic
Airways, though both also use GTF-powered aircraft. It's a nice circle. The circle of the GTF life
here is just strange.
[0:30:03] IP: Ooh. One airline that is dealing with GTF issues and a 320 family issues is Spirit
Airlines. As part of that now, they are deferring aircraft deliveries and furloughing some pilots,
both as a reaction to some of the engine issues, but also, just general business malaise.
[0:30:28] JR: Yeah. Furloughing pilots, not great. That's a move of last resort. You wouldn't
have thought something like that would happen, given the last couple of years of not being able
to hire pilots fast enough, being a severe pilot drought. Now this airline has an excess of pilots
due to situations that they just can't control. Not only is it furloughing pilots, but they're also
deferring precious, precious Airbus narrowbody delivery slots that I'm sure there are other airline
CEOs out there furloughing at the mouth at the thought of 17 delivery slots opening up in the
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AVT 263 Transcript
next two years for aircraft that are sold out through the end of the decade. Someone at Airbus
might be doing a little dance of happiness. Although it is at the expense of Spirit, unfortunately.
[0:31:17] IP: It's such a turn, because Spirit’s retiring A319 fleet, they're deferring deliveries of
new Airbus aircraft now, because of business issues. Now, they have to contend with those two
things, the grounding of the aircraft, and then they end up with more pilots than they need,
which is not true. It's one of those things where it's the realities have made it true, but it's not
actually true, if that makes – it shouldn't be true, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
[0:31:48] JR: Well, yeah. The situation shouldn't exist. It's not that they hire too many pilots, it’s
just that they don't have enough aircraft for those pilots, which is a problem.
[0:31:56] IP: Hopefully, the furloughs are not going to start until the beginning of September.
Hopefully, Spirit can turn things around. Hopefully, the pilots that are impacted are not impacted
very long. We've got some stuff on the backend of the show to just get through news and notes.
SAS has finally committed to joining Sky Team at the end of August. I feel a certain way about
that, but we'll see how things go.
[0:32:27] JR: Yeah, it's fine. I'd prefer them stay in Star Alliance, but Sky Team, sure, whatever.
At least, maybe the integration will be a little bit better than it is with SAS, with Star Alliance, and
they weren't even really a part of the transatlantic JV, or no code shares. Maybe this one will be
a little more useful.
[0:32:44] IP: Yes, yes. This should be a bit more useful. We've got some delivery round up for
both Q1 and March of 2024. Just double check in what year it is. Jason, why don't you give me
the Boeing numbers to start?
[0:33:02] JR: Well, Boeing numbers, you have to squint, because they're small, but they
manage to deliver 67 737s, three 767s. I believe those are even commercial aircraft. Those
might be military, maybe the tankers, I'm not sure. Nobody's taking 767s anymore. But they
managed to also deliver 13 787s for a total of 83 aircraft, which of course is well below the
target. 83 is better than some other quarters we've seen, where the number’s damn near zero.
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AVT 263 Transcript
[0:33:33] IP: Yeah. I mean, not nothing. It is quite down from last quarter, but Q4 is usually a big
quarter no matter what, because if everyone wanting their aircraft by the end of the year.
[0:33:45] JR: Push, push, push.
[0:33:47] IP: Airbus on the other hand delivered 142 aircraft. A big jump for them from last
quarter, which is interesting to my mind.
[0:33:58] JR: We know of one aircraft that is now practically been undelivered, I think. I think it's
safe to say, this one ain't coming back anytime soon. It wasn't even a year old, the poor thing.
What happened?
[0:34:11] IP: Oh, that's a great question. Based on what we know so far, it sounds like, this
particular aircraft was being towed from a remote stand to a gate, and the Austrian Airlines
A320neo was not chocked and it was not braked and it decided that it was going to go back,
back, back into a pole. That ripped off the right horizontal stabilizer. Not damaged it.
[0:34:44] JR: Ripped it clean.
[0:34:45] IP: Not bent it off. Ripped it right off of the airplane.
[0:34:50] JR: I have never seen damage like this. It is not super uncommon to see the wing tip,
or the horizontal stabilizer of an aircraft be dented by hitting a pole, or another aircraft, or the jet
bridge, or any one of the thing, many, many things to hit.
[0:35:07] IP: Like happened earlier this week at Heathrow.
[0:35:11] JR: Yeah. Let's not talk about that one. But this one's cleanly sheared off the
stabilizer, which is observed, that is not supposed to happen. I don't want to say I'll be surprised
if this aircraft reenters service, because we have seen aircraft far more gone than this one.
There also was damage to the wing, because not just the horizontal stabilizer being knocked off,
but for completeness sake, the right-hand wing also was backed into a light pole, because of
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AVT 263 Transcript
course, it was. We have seen charbroiled aircraft brought back from the brink of death. I think
that aircraft is still flying today.
Not great when this aircraft is less than a year old. Might even still be under warranty. I don't
know. We're going to keep an eye on this one. This would be OELZQ, an Airbus A321neo for
Austrian that looks like Austrian is not just going to have to worry about GTF problems, but
they're going to have to worry about back filling this aircraft this summer.
[0:36:19] IP: I mean, at least this summer, if not –
[0:36:22] JR: Several summers.
[0:36:23] IP: If not several summers. I mean, I have to believe it'll fly again.
[0:36:29] JR: I hope so.
[0:36:30] IP: The Airbus OAG team's going, “Yes, we can fix it.”
[0:36:32] JR: Yeah. There's probably also someone from the AOG team staring under this thing,
scratching their head, going, “What? How? Where do we begin?”
[0:36:41] IP: How did you manage to screw this up so badly?
[0:36:44] JR: How do we begin with this?
[0:36:46] IP: That's a patlin. In much more fixable news, a Southwest 737 on departure out of
Denver went engine-cowling go Flappy Bird, and the engine-cowling was ripped off in the
slipstream. This is not new. This is not unusual. Well, I should say it's unusual, but it's not
unheard of.
[0:37:11] JR: Yes. But there's video.
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AVT 263 Transcript
[0:37:15] IP: But there's video, exactly. Southwest 737, the engine-cowling, so the housing that
goes around the actual engine, the painted pieces that go around the actual engine that are
open for maintenance access and things of that nature, those were likely not properly latched
before takeoff, and they unlatched entirely on the takeoff roll, and then, by the time the aircraft
circled back to the airport, both cowling sides had departed the aircraft.
[0:37:46] JR: Yeah, definitely interesting that it was both in this circumstance. It wasn't just one
side of the aircraft, that I think is more what we typically see. This was both sides of the, not
aircraft, of the engine itself, the right-hand engine. Maybe the right-hand side caused damage to
the left side, but also, both of them not being properly latched. I feel like, maybe a walk-around
should have potentially caught that. I feel like, that's probably something to take a look at. But I
have also heard, this is – I probably shouldn't even say this, but I have been told that
unconfirmed that –
[0:38:19] IP: Now you have to say it.
[0:38:20] JR: Yeah. Now, I have to say it, that Southwest pilots typically conduct a walk-around
of the aircraft at the start of their day with that aircraft, because Southwest is commonly known
for operating multiple segments with the same crew along the day of the aircraft, and that they
don't actually do a walk-around after every flight along that path. I really don't know if there's any
truth to that, but it could explain why possibly, this wasn't seen in this case. Maybe they did a
little engine top-off mid-route.
[0:38:49] IP: Podcast@fr24.com. Let us know.
[0:38:55] JR: Confirm or deny. I –
[0:38:56] IP: I guarantee somebody knows that there.
[0:38:59] JR: Yes.
[0:39:02] IP: Then we close the show by bidding farewell to Jason.
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AVT 263 Transcript
[0:39:05] JR: Get back to the Southwest thing so quickly? I've been fired?
[0:39:09] IP: Jason is leaving the podcast and the United States to go be the next chief
executive of South African Airways. Congratulations, Jason.
[0:39:17] JR: Nope. Nope. Don't want that. Don't want that. I mean, it's a better position than
CEO of Boeing, for sure. But South African Airways is not now, nor has been in a very long time
a stable airline. That is a tough question.
[0:39:36] IP: It's even less stable now.
[0:39:39] JR: I think they did just recently reintroduce long-haul flights using A340-300s that
they found in the garbage somewhere. I don't know. But that's a start.
[0:39:50] IP: Well, if you don't want to be the chief executive officer of South African Airways,
you can apply it to be the chief commercial officer, the South African Airways technical arm. You
can be the chief human capital officer, or, and here's the best job you can apply for, the chief of
air chefs.
[0:40:07] JR: Ooh, that sounds nice.
[0:40:10] IP: If anybody out there wants to apply for one of these positions, email us at
podcast@fr24.com and tell us why you would want to do this.
[0:40:19] JR: What's your plan for turning around –
[0:40:21] IP: What’s going on?
[0:40:21] JR: South African Airways? Because they could use one.
[0:40:24] IP: But good luck. This has been episode 263 of AvTalk. I want to thank everyone who
made it to the end of the show for listening. Very much appreciated. We would just like to lean
on you slightly more and ask for a rating, or review, wherever you get your podcasts. It helps
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AVT 263 Transcript
other people find the podcast, if you're enjoying it, and it helps other people, like Jason and I,
improve the podcast if you have some comments, or criticism. By all means, let us know that.
We've just given you the email address, but we'll do it again. If you have questions, comments,
podcast@fr24.com. We're always happy to learn from our listeners. Often, our best content
comes from suggestions from you fine people, so keep them coming.
I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always with –
[0:41:14] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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