AvTalk Episode 335: the Plovdiv mystery

AVT 335 Transcript
EPISODE 335
[EPISODE]
[0:00:08] IP:  Hello, and welcome to episode 335 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Hello, Ian. What's up?
[0:00:19] IP: Oh, man. What a week already.
[0:00:22] JR: Yeah. Wait till I tell you, it's only Wednesday.
[0:00:26] IP: Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. What else could happen before the podcast comes
out? Well, there's enough to talk about already midway through the week, and it's been an
interesting one, and let's talk about the big story, I guess, this week, as far as aviation and
navigation is concerned. The GPS jamming, or something that affected Ursula von der Leyen's
aircraft, or the aircraft that she was on. The story, I think, has morphed from something
happened to, based on some of the reporting that we've seen, that they were about to fall out of
the sky at any moment to, it was fine.
[0:01:14] JR: That's a wide range of things and emotions.
[0:01:19] IP: It's all sorts of all over. Here's what happened, not in a technical sense, but just in
a story line sense.
[0:01:28] JR: Remind me first, who is this and where did this happen?
[0:01:32] IP: Sure. This happened in the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv. Ursula von der Leyen is the
president of the European Commission. I guess, technically head of state. She was traveling to
various areas that are part of the European Union's effort to assist Ukraine in its war effort
against Russia. They were flying from Warsaw to Plovdiv, which is in central Bulgaria, to make a
visit there. They were approaching the airport, and something happened.
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[0:02:19] JR: Something.
[0:02:20] IP: Yes. That affected the aircraft's ability to use a GPS-based approach to the airport.
[0:02:31] JR: Okay. Entirely, I'm not going to say, not out of the ordinary, because I don't
actually know if GPS jamming/spoofing is common in Bulgaria, but at least as a thing that exists
in the world, this is not uncommon as we know.
[0:02:46] IP: Unfortunately, totally normal now. GPS jamming would be not entirely unusual in
that particular region.
[0:02:54] JR: Okay, so end of story. What do we got next?
[0:03:00] IP: But the narrative that began circulating not long after the aircraft landed safely,
mind you, was that the GPS went out, the pilots were panicking and pulling paper charts. The
aircraft circled for an hour and then they were finally able to land.
[0:03:23] JR: Wait, like actual paper, like crinkly dead trees?
[0:03:28] IP: Crinkly slices of dead trees pressed and then printed upon.
[0:03:34] JR: You know what? To me, forget the GPS jamming. That's the story is that pilots
were using dead tree navigational charts and not an electronic flight bag with every known
approach played in the universe. Paper, that's the story to me.
[0:03:50] IP: That's what I said. The fact is the aircraft did not circle for an hour. That led me to
question, what else as part of this particular story might not pass the sniff test? The flight itself
was scheduled to take a normal amount of time, between Warsaw and Plovdiv, was scheduled
to take an hour and 48 minutes. The aircraft was in the air for an hour and 57 minutes and a few
seconds.
[0:04:23] JR: We're not talking exactly a huge difference here, are we?
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[0:04:28] IP: There was no circling for an hour. What else is going on here? There is ATC audio
between the flight crew and the Bulgarian air traffic controls. The flight crew reports an issue
with GPS. They don't share specifics. They don't say they are subject to GPS jamming, or
anything that would give us any more of a clue than they are having an issue with GPS, and
they are offered and accept an ILS approach instead.
[0:04:58] JR: All right. great. It's not like that Finnish airport. I think it was in Finland that didn't
have ILS. They had other options. That's great.
[0:05:08] IP: The Finnair flight to not Finland. It was a Finnair flight to somewhere. I think it was
Tartu in Estonia, that only had the GPS-based approach. So, they couldn't land until they
developed a non-GPS-based approach. That's not the case here. There is an ILS approach
available. They used it and landed just fine. If you look at the flight path, it's clear to me, at least,
and we will post the flight path here in the show notes, that they were performing an initial
approach. That didn't work for whatever reason. So, they went into the published ILS approach
and landed just fine.
[0:05:51] JR: Okay. End of the story, I assume, right?
[0:05:54] IP: One would think. But after the flight, journalists ran with it and European
Commission officials started confirming that the aircraft was subject to GPS jamming and it was
the Russians.
[0:06:07] JR: Okay. Again, nothing new. Welcome to 2025.
[0:06:11] IP: Sure. But the data from the aircraft does not indicate any of the hallmarks of
standard GPS jamming.
[0:06:20] JR: Okay. What are the standard hallmarks of GPS jamming? Airplane thinking it's
elsewhere, airplane not knowing it's anywhere. There's a big Russian flag come up on the
primary flight display. What happens?
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[0:06:32] IP: Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. GPS interference is – We're using GPS here as a
shorthand for actual global positioning system, the European Galileo, Chinese Baidu, any global
navigation satellite system, which is just a mouthful to say. GPS gets the shorthand.
Interference there usually falls into two types, jamming, or spoofing. Spoofing's very easy to
see, because the aircraft goes from here to there in an impossible way. You're thinking of seeing
multiple aircraft floating at 30,000 feet above the runway at Cairo, which was a common GPS
spoofing, I don't want to say technique, but spoof location as aircraft are flying around the
Eastern Mediterranean. Israel, Lebanon, Syria in that area. That's spoofing and it's fairly easy.
Jamming is when the signal is just degraded and the aircraft can't tell you where it is. In that
case, we end up with some values in the ADS-B data that tells us the aircraft is less sure of the
position that it is receiving from the satellites. A good value is eight. That's what we want, at
least eight on the navigation integrity category values. That's the value that this particular
aircraft sent the entire flight.
[0:08:02] JR: It never detected that it was being jammed, basically. It just thought the whole
time, all is well.
[0:08:09] IP: All is well, as far as the ADS-B data that we receive from the aircraft is concerned.
That leads to the question of what actually affected this aircraft. The leap to we were being
jammed by the Russians is one that our data and the data that we've received from the aircraft
and just looking at the flight path doesn't necessarily support without additional investigation.
[0:08:36] JR: Okay. It could have just been run of the mill instrumentation failure.
[0:08:41] IP: Instrumentation problem, avionics issue, a blip, anything. That said, the Bulgarians
have said, there is no need for further investigation.
[0:08:50] JR: Oh, okay. Again, end of the story.
[0:08:53] IP: Yeah. I mean, this basically becomes the end of the story, but it's continued on,
because to me, is much more interesting to understand what actually happened. If it was an
issue with the aircraft, because this does happen where aircraft experience momentary
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connectivity issues, experience avionics issues, that make them unable to perform those
precision approaches. That just happened sometimes and they deal with it and it was dealt with
very easily in this instance. It really seems that, and this is where I am a little miffed, I guess, is
a polite way of putting it, there were some reporters onboard who, I think, did a very big
disservice with the initial reporting.
[0:09:42] JR: Were they immediately jumping from something wrong with plane to Russian
jamming?
[0:09:47] IP: Yes. Yes. We went from zero to Russian in no time at all.
[0:09:53] JR: All right. Not great.
[0:09:54] IP: I feel like, we're never going to figure out what actually happened, because what
actually happened isn't normal jamming, at least in any – you've looked at it.
[0:10:02] JR: Can we blame it on 5G again? Remember when we used to blame everything on
5G?
[0:10:05] IP: Oh, that was so great. Let's do that.
[0:10:07] JR: Remember that? Those days were great. Anything that was wrong, flight delayed,
5G. Lightning at the airport, oh, that's 5G. Deflated tire, that's 5G's fault. Let's go back to that.
It’s so simple.
[0:10:19] IP: Let's do that. All right. See, we didn't need the Bulgarians to investigate. We did it
ourselves.
[0:10:25] JR: Case closed.
[0:10:26] IP: All right. Well, thankfully, looking at actual threats that we know about, that are real
– I mean, and the bigger problem here is that there is a lot of satellite navigation interference
going on all over the world, especially in that area.
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[0:10:46] JR: Someone should build a map for that.
[0:10:49] IP: Yes. If only someone had built a map for that. Funny, you should mention that,
Jason. We can talk about that in just a second. The ICAO council is set to address some of
these issues at its assembly later this month. There are a number of proposal to deal with how
interference is leading to a lack of safety and a breakdown in surveillance capability, because of
ADS-B gaps. What they're proposing, a more consistent warning system, so that people are
more aware of these things. They also want to work on ensuring that non-satellite-based
navigation services and assistance are not gotten rid of, so to speak, artificially soon, because
we still need these things.
[0:11:52] JR: Yeah. Really makes me wonder if we went a little too fast decommissioning
things, not so much ILS, but VORs and primary or secondary radar, like ADS-B doesn't seem
the end all be all for air traffic control, that we maybe 10 years ago thought it would be, or
thought it should be. It seems far more susceptible at this period of time to mucking around with
than just radar, which you can jam, I guess, but not as easily as GPS.
[0:12:25] IP: Yeah. Some of the longer term solutions are independent systems that are not part
of satellite-based navigation aids that provide better resilience. Some of them are authentication
capability. Galileo is moving towards that. But these things are 2027, 2029, 2030 and beyond.
It's a big hassle right now. It's good to see that that ICAO is taking the lead on this. I'm not sure
who else could realistically take the lead on it, but it's good to see that these things are being
worked on. We've talked about this before a little bit, but it's just, this particular example that
we're talking about this week with von der Leyen’s aircraft is just, if they wanted to call attention
to it, they could have just pointed to the entire Black Sea and said, “See, look over there,” but
they did this instead. I'm not really sure what the whole point is, or what actually happened,
which to me is again, much more interesting than run in the mill, it was the Russians. Also, at
the ICAO assembly, IATA, which is the trade organization made up of airlines, they're coming in
with a proposal to raise the pilot retirement age from 65 to 67. Jason –
[0:13:44] JR: Two whole years.
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[0:13:45] IP: You have no idea who's against that.
[0:13:47] JR: Everyone? Well, I mean, I guess, everyone.
[0:13:53] IP: You could guess everyone. The airlines are pretty onboard. Everyone else, not so
much.
[0:13:59] JR: Yeah. Like the mumblings to increase the retirement age of air traffic controllers.
Nobody directly involved in being an air traffic controller wants anything to do with that. This
seems like a last-ditch solution to a problem. I guess, it's still a problem, but why propose this at
this point? I don't know.
[0:14:25] IP: Because they're trying to figure out ways to keep people around. We'll see how it's
received at the ICAO assembly, and report back later this month.
[0:14:37] JR: Okay. Didn't know we were still pursuing this, that there was such a pilot shortage,
that even now we would be proposing increasing the retirement age from 65 to 67. It wasn't
really top of mind, at least for me right now.
[0:14:50] IP: Same. But, I guess, these things take a while to put into place.
[0:14:54] JR: Ah, transition.
[0:14:56] IP: Yes. Speaking of taking a while to put things into place, after the attacks of
September 11th, 2001, a number of security measures were considered by the FAA and
regulators worldwide, including the installation of secondary barriers in front of the cockpit.
These would, in addition to strengthening the door, these would be barriers that would be put
into place generally whenever that door needed to be opened in flight. If a pilot needs to go use
the lavatory, that door would be open. If the flight attendant is bringing the pilot a meal, that
barrier would come down, or be opened, or put into place.
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That was an idea that came about not long after 2001. This is something that pilots’ unions have
been saying, “Sure. Let's do this right away.” The actual implementation of the rules and
regulations for this was passed in 2023. They didn't seem to be in a hurry.
[0:16:08] JR: No. Not so much a hurry. We loved our interim decades-long solution of take the
flight attendant galley cart and just jam it in the aisle and stand in front of it. That's it. Problem
solved. That was how they've done it for –
[0:16:24] JR: Decades. Literally decades.
[0:16:27] IP: But Southwest Airlines has finally started installing the secondary barrier that
blocks access to the flight deck, whenever the flight deck door is open in flight. Southwest is
installing these. They're going to have a few dozen installed by the end of the year, and then the
–
[0:16:49] JR: New deliveries. These are not retrofits. They are not mandated to be on retrofits.
They are only mandated in the near future and next year on new deliveries. Southwest says,
reporting from Runway Girl Networks is 26 737s will be delivered before the end –
[0:17:06] IP: There you go.
[0:17:07] JR: - of this year with this. All 737 MAX 8s because, well, what else is Southwest
taking delivery if it doesn't have an option? Yeah, Southwest getting ahead of it. Not mandated
to do that this year. It was originally required to start August 2025, but that was pushed back
until August 2026. I have a feeling this will become the new real ID of the aviation industry.
Much yet another thing that was passed after the events of 9/11. Here we are decades later,
only finally starting to see security measures put in place that at this point, we're just like, why
are we still bothering with this? Here we are.
[0:17:45] IP: There we go. We'll see when other airlines begin to implement this, if they wait
until they absolutely have to, or if they follow Southwest lead and start getting in front of the
deadline.
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[0:17:58] JR: Yeah. Now they've got an armored cockpit door and a secondary barrier, and
some grumpy looking flight attendants with a drink cart staring you down. There’s no getting by
that.
[0:18:10] IP: No. No, there's definitely no getting by that. Last week, we talked about Frontier’s
sense of things, that Spirit might not be all that healthy. Well, it didn't take long for Spirit to say,
“We are very not healthy. We are declaring bankruptcy again.”
[0:18:33] JR: Again, for the second time in a year. Less than a year, less than a year declaring
bankruptcy twice than nine months. This is some real Michael Scott walk out into the office and
just yell, “I declare bankruptcy action.” Shouldn't be doing that this often, but everyone was
pretty convinced that it's first go at bankruptcy. It just didn't go far enough. Didn't make enough
changes very clear that it wasn't traumatic enough. Apparently, there were some very specific
reasons that Spirit went ahead and declared bankruptcy, again, for the second time this year
and it has to do with aircraft leases. Ian, what happened?
[0:19:17] IP: Spirit has a large contingent of aircraft, both on order and already leased from
AerCap. AerCaps, not happy AerCap came to Spirit at the end of July, or they entered into the
lease transaction at the end of July in 2024 for 36 aircraft. At the end of August 2025, AerCap
said, “Hey, all of the aircraft that haven't been delivered to you yet are in default, and you owe
us 2.1 million dollars for each of these 36 aircraft.”
[0:20:03] JR: Yes. AerCap said, and I quote, “Certain events under the undelivered aircraft
releases has occurred. Or maybe that's not AerCap saying that. No, it is AerCap saying that.
Spirit did not elaborate on what events, because I don't think Spirit knows what events
happened.
[0:20:19] IP:  Well, for its part, Spirit says, “No. We didn’t default on anything.”
[0:20:21] JR: Spirit disagrees, which is part of the reason why it's going through bankruptcy
again here is to figure out what's happening. I guess, maybe renegotiate, or figure out what to
do with the debt here. But 2.1 million dollars a pop over 36 aircraft, that’s not chump change,
and spirit doesn't have that liquid cash lying around. What was that? 75 million dollars? That's a
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lot of money. That's on top of the aircraft it already has, which AerCap also says, “Gimme,
gimme, gimme.”
[0:20:52] IP: Yeah. It gave a notice of termination for the aircraft Spirit ordered. Then, it gave a
notice of default for the aircraft that Spirit already has. What Spirit did was they went and said,
“If people find out about this, they're going to think we're not in good shape and they’re going to
want their money back to. So, they went and immediately filed another chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection in less than six months, about six months. Not great. For its part, Spirit says, “Hey,
we've got a plan this time.”
[0:21:30] JR: Sure.
[0:21:32] IP: Unfortunately, their plan is basically, to shrink their way to profitability, which in the
–
[0:21:41] JR: When did that worked?
[0:21:41] IP: - history of airlines, I don't think –
[0:21:45] JR: Ever.
[0:21:46] IP: - has ever worked.
[0:21:46] JR: Ever works. They've got a four-point plan, literally four bullet points. Redesign its
network, optimize its fleet size. I feel like, that bullet point's not voluntary. Address its cost
structures. Why didn't you do that the first time? Then lastly, effectively compete in evolving
consumer preferences with its three travel options, Spirit first premium economy and value. Two
of those, they already did, or already should have done and it ain't working. One of them, I don't
see getting back to profitability by your leasing company taking away all your airplanes. Lastly,
is redesigning its network, which is redesign is just a euphemism for shrinking its network. Not
too hopeful about this plan.
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I had a conversation, I think with my dad, or somebody recently about, well, this wouldn't have
happened if the JetBlue merger went through them. Like, well, no. I'm pretty sure if the merger
went through everything we've seen up until now, Spirit would have just dragged JetBlue down
into depths of hell along with it. I think JetBlue and Frontier really dodged a bullet, and
whoever's left is really going to get some good pickings on Spirit, because I just don't see it.
[0:23:01] IP: Yeah. This looks dire at this point.
[0:23:03] JR: It does. It does. On that, do not stop flying Spirit. Don't think they're going to
disappear tomorrow, because that's not how bankruptcy works. That will only hasten a potential
demise. If you have Spirit booked, fly. If you are looking to book Spirit, maybe do it sooner rather
than later, because the route network that's here today may not be here six months from now.
Man, it's really hard to –
[0:23:24] IP: Won’t even be here a month from now.
[0:23:26] JR: Yeah. It's really hard to say, on the one hand, don't stop flying Spirit, because
you'll make things worse. On the other hand, they're dramatically shrinking their network. It's
going to be really hard to book them, because you don't know if what you booked will actually
exist in a month.
[0:23:40] IP: Exactly.
[0:23:41] JR: Yikes. None of this is any good.
[0:23:44] IP: The week of October 2nd, a month from now, Spirit’s pulling out of Albuquerque,
Birmingham, Alabama, Boise, Idaho, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Columbia, South Carolina,
Oakland, California, Portland, Oregon, Sacramento, California, Salt Lake City, San Diego and
San Jose, California.
[0:24:00] JR: Oh, was that it?
[0:24:02] IP: That's it.
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[0:24:02] JR: They're going to refocus on their hubs, which are presumably, Detroit, Fort
Lauderdale and what other –
[0:24:09] IP: Atlantic City, maybe?
[0:24:11] JR: Atlantic City. Yeah, I don't know what other hubs does Spirit even have.
[0:24:15] IP: I couldn't tell you at this point. I don't know what they're considering their hubs. I
mean, I guess, is the –
[0:24:21] JR: Well, Wikipedia considers operating bases in Atlanta, Chicago, O’Hare, DFW,
Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Vegas, Miami, Newark, whirl in that. I can't be right. These
aren’t hubs.
[0:24:31] IP: Operating bases.
[0:24:32] JR: Bases. Yeah, the bases, but they're not hubs. No one really knows. Somebody at
Spirit probably knows, but yikes.
[0:24:42] IP: In similar loss-making news, this is an interesting story, because I think this is the
first time I've ever seen an airline hire a bunch of consultants and the consultants say, “Sell all
the aircraft you currently have.”
[0:24:56] JR: Well, it can't be Spirit, because Spirit can't sell airplanes it doesn't own.
[0:25:00] IP: To be fair, they did say, buy new ones.
[0:25:02] JR: Oh, is that it?
[0:25:04] IP: Yeah. Air Tahiti Nui hired the consulting firm Arthur D. Little to come in and look at
their route structure and their profitability. They did that, and the report that they put together
says, “Sell all of your airplanes and fly to other places.”
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[0:25:24] JR: Is that it?
[0:25:25] IP: That's it. I mean, they didn’t have some specifics. Currently, the only profitable
route that the airline is operating is between Papeete and Los Angeles.
[0:25:37] JR: That's interesting, because they're not alone on that route, are they? Or at least
from in Southern California, I think United also operates?
[0:25:47] IP: At least seasonally. I'm not sure if it operates all year round. They're making
money on that route, and quite a bit. The Paris route is about breakeven. Auckland is about
breakeven. But the company also flies to Seattle and Tokyo, and they lose a lot of money.
Those, the Seattle route accounts for 86% of the losses in 2024.
[0:26:13] JR: Wow.
[0:26:15] IP: Wow. They needed consultants to say, maybe don't do that.
[0:26:20] JR: You know what? At least they're doing it. That’s something. That is not something
you could take for granted, because there are a lot of airlines out there that will operate in the
red for eternity, until it's too late and then that airline doesn't exist anymore. Looking at you,
South African Airways.
[0:26:38] IP: The consultant's proposal was sell the four 787-9s that you have. Buy or somehow
acquire some A330neos, three or four of them, and a pair of A321XLRs.
[0:26:56] JR: That's very different. I would have expected recommendation to do a sale and
lease back, because that's a very popular thing to raise funds real quick and use at least your
own airplanes back. But to completely shift, that's easier said than done.
[0:27:09] IP: What they're saying is that there's an issue with capacity on these routes, that they
have way too much airplane for the routes that they're operating and the routes that they can
operate profitably. They said, “Stop flying to Tokyo. Stop flying to Seattle. What are you doing?”
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Then they said, “Maybe. Just maybe, find cities that might make you money, like Sydney, or San
Francisco.”
[0:27:35] JR: Yeah. Well, maybe not San Francisco, because there's already a ton of
competition there. Those routes that I mentioned before, I'm pretty sure French B and United
both operate SFO to Tahiti. Maybe don't do that. Yeah, not sure I like that recommendation.
They are in fact the only airline – Nope, actually, Air France also competes on LAX to Tahiti. I'm
not sure what else is left for them. Try San Diego. California is a big state.
[0:28:02] IP: There you go. Let's go from French Polynesia all the way to Spain, where Ryanair
and the Spanish airport operator are very, very mad at each other.
[0:28:16] JR: I love when Ryanair gets mad at a government, or an airport agency, or a
competitor, because they don't pull any punches. If Ryanair wants to say something, they say it.
If they want to do something, well, maybe next year there will be a million fewer seats in the
region.
[0:28:32] IP: Yeah. Ryanair is saying that it will cut one million seats to Spain in the coming
winter season.
[0:28:38] JR: A 41% reduction in capacity. That's like, Boeing has grounded in entire aircraft
type impactful to Ryanair, but voluntary.
[0:28:49] IP: 400,000 seats to the Canary Islands and 600,000 seats elsewhere in Spain,
mostly at smaller regional airports. Ryanair says, it's going to continue to grow at large airports
like Barcelona and Madrid. This whole thing stems from the fact that AENA, the airport's
authority, is hiking the fees that it charges to airlines by 6.6% in the coming year.
[0:29:15] JR: Well, that doesn't sound all that high. That's like inflation.
[0:29:18] IP: Well, Ryanair is very, very upset that they're hiking those fees. It'll be the largest
hike in more than 10 years. The airport operator saw record profits over the previous year.
Ryanair seems very, very upset about all this and they say, “We're just going to fly elsewhere.”
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[0:29:42] JR: Okay. Where are they going with those million extra seats?
[0:29:46] IP: Yeah. They're going to go, instead, Italy, Morocco, Croatia, Sweden and Hungary.
They're going to shift capacity to those countries, instead of flying into Spain. Unfortunately, this
has the biggest effect on regional airports outside of major cities in Spain, or I guess, outside of
tier one cities in Spain. We'll see if they can come to some agreement if the airport authority
backs off the hike, or if Ryanair says, “Hey, we said what we're going to do and we're going to
do it.”
[0:30:18] JR: Yeah. Ryanair's got definitely the ability to gain the public's momentum behind
them, I guess, to rally their loyal passengers to fight what they see as injustice, and we'll see
what happens here. This is a big cut. Big, big cut to airports that probably can't afford that.
[0:30:38] IP: Yeah. We'll have to see how that plays out, whether some of these airports can
entice other operators to come in, or if this starts a – well, if Ryanair's not going to pay, then
neither are we.
[0:30:52] JR: Yeah. Well, Air Europa is Turkish Airlines' problem now. I don't know. Maybe
Turkish will just pay it.
[0:31:01] IP: Maybe. We'll see. We talked about this early last month, but the FAA has now
released its fully proposed part 108 rule for beyond visual line of sight for drone operations. The
rule would apply to drones that are less than about 1,300 pounds and operating no higher than
400 feet. It also includes ways for the operators to apply for permitting. That's smaller scale stuff
that involves one-offs, including agricultural work, surveying, learning how to fly a drone. Then,
you would need a more detailed certificate to perform higher risk flights that the FAA says are
things like, larger aircrafts flying over more dense population areas, as well as how big the
drone is.
What's also interesting is they're not going to issue airworthiness certifications. The operator is
going to need to comply with requirements and then make a declaration to the FAA that their
aircraft is meeting all of the standards.
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[0:32:28] JR: Okay. Self-certification, basically?
[0:32:31] IP: Basically, yeah. Where you're going to have a set of criteria that you're going to
have to design to and then certify that we meet these things.
[0:32:42] JR: Okay. Whatever.
[0:32:43] IP: It's a long read, but we'll put a link to it in the show notes. The FAA is also looking
for the prime integrator for the brand-new air traffic control system. This is designed to meet
their goal of implementing an entirely brand-new system.
[0:33:02] JR: Self-stated as such. Their words. Not ours. Ambitious goal.
[0:33:07] IP: The prime integrator will manage the building of the brand-new air traffic control
system. They want the system online within three to four years.
[0:33:16] JR: I want a lot of things in three to four years. Not going to happen, most of them.
But hey, maybe the FAA can pull a rabbit out of its hat.
[0:33:25] IP: I will be flabbergasted if any of this is remotely accomplished. The request for
solutions is due by the 21st of September. You've got about three weeks to put your package
together and submit it to the FAA. Jason, I wish you the best of luck.
[0:33:46] JR: Thank you. Thank you. I will be sub-contracting all of the work out to, I don't know,
whoever wants. I don't care. It's sub-contracting. I feel like, that's just going to happen.
[0:33:57] IP: Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. We missed this anniversary on the day of said
anniversary, but we're still within the year. Jason flagged it and I think it's worth mentioning.
Jason, what are we celebrating?
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[0:34:13] JR: Worth a mention, 40 years of ETOPS flying, which is no small thing. Apparently,
TWA operated the first transatlantic flight using ETOPS, which, Ian, remind me what ETOPS
stands for.
[0:34:28] IP: ETOPS was initially the performance requirement that denoted extended range
twin engine operation performance standards. Now, we've moved on to, now it's just extended,
it's EDTO, extended decision time operations. Because it applies to aircraft that have more than
two engines. It applies in other circumstances based on the number of qualifications.
[0:34:57] JR: It’s just the default terminology that makes plane go far over water.
[0:35:02] IP: Yes. We can also reference the more colloquial acronym of engines turnover, or
passenger swim.
[0:35:10] JR: That's true. There you go. Well, 40 years of ETOPS flying. There's a thread on the
airliners.net, which we'll link to, which honestly, I agree with some of these people that ETOPS
is probably one of the most impactful changes to commercial aviation ever. To go down from
quad, or three-engine aircraft down to twin engine, which is really what we're going to be,
probably until the end of time, presumably, it had a massive impact on commercial aviation
being able to use smaller aircraft to go farther, opening a whole lot of new routes, which the 787
and the A350 are still doing, both on the shorter end of the spectrum and the much, much,
much, much longer end of the spectrum. ETOPS is definitely one of, if not the most impactful
changes in commercial aviation. Just so much more opportunity unlocked, because you don't
always need four engines for long haul, or three.
[0:36:13] IP: No, you don't. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the fascinating thing is that modern turbofan
engine can run without a failure, hundreds of thousands of hours.
[0:36:24] JR: Or, if it's a geared turbofan, hundreds of thousands minutes? No, seconds?
[0:36:36] IP: Yeah. I mean, I think there's something to be said for the fact that it is an
incredible, incredible testament to engineering that these machines have been developed to be
so incredibly resilient.
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[0:36:53] JR: Yes, with such minimal downtime and maintenance, I mean, the fact that you
could fly an aircraft nonstop between Singapore and New York and then quick turn it, a 90-
minute stay on the ground, fire it back up and do it all over again, that's crazy, but it's just
completely ordinary at the same time.
[0:37:10] IP: They like to be in the air. It's their natural environment.
[0:37:12] JR: That's true.
[0:37:14] IP: Last week, we talked about some of the issues surrounding Nuuk's airport with
international passenger traffic being halted, United having to turn around, SAS having to cancel
its final flight of the summer season. They're back up and running now, whatever security issues
they had have been solved by bringing in Danish airport operator security people from
somewhere in Denmark. That wasn't specified where, and they seem to be getting all the
training that they need. Good for them.
[0:37:46] JR: That's good news. That was resolved a lot quicker than we thought, to the point
where, hey, United's flight from Newark, it even landed early today. That's a whole lot better than
not existing at all.
[0:37:58] IP: They just grabbed a couple of people from a couple airports. Does an email go
out? Does anyone want to go to Greenland for a little bit and check some bags?
[0:38:08] JR: Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. But after all this, United had one flight that diverted back
to Newark, and then they had another one that, I guess, had a 23-hour delay. Then, yesterday's
flight operated early. That saga was over a lot quicker than we thought it would be.
[0:38:28] IP: Excellent. I like when those things happen.
[0:38:31] JR: That's good.
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AVT 335 Transcript
[0:38:32] IP: Let's talk about some orders and delivery, shall we? Let's go to Canada, where
WestJet has just placed the largest single Canadian order with Boeing in history, for a total of 67
aircraft.
[0:38:47] JR: Yes. Not just 67 aircraft, but also a whole lot of options on top of that. 60 737-10
hypothetical unicorn aircraft that may or may never be real, plus 25 options, and seven firm
orders, plus four options for the 787-9. Real interested where WestJet's going to end up putting
those airplanes, since they drew back a lot of their long-haul flying, sent it all, where was it?
Calgary. Just did that for a while. I'm not sure what they're going to do with up to 11, 12 more
787. Are they going to re-expand out to the east coast of Canada? I don't know what the plan is
here. Presumably, somebody does. I do not.
[0:39:32] IP: We don't know what the plan is, but they've got a little bit of time to take delivery of
those aircraft. When they start putting them into service, we will find out where they're going.
[0:39:42] JR: They will presumably operate somewhere.
[0:39:45] IP: That's the hard-hitting analysis that you get from this podcast.
[0:39:49] JR: You can only find that here.
[0:39:50] IP: They will fly those planes to an airport.
[0:39:53] JR: I mean, that's not a guarantee. I mean, they could just put them at the storage, or
leased them out. I don't know. We don't know anything. That's why you listen.
[0:40:03] IP: Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Put that one on a T-shirt. Qantas has ordered more A321XLRs.
This is ahead of the first scheduled service. They're going from 28 to 48 total A321XLR orders,
and this is just after they've gotten the first two into the fleet and before they've even flown the
first passengers with them. They've decided that they really like these airplanes and they want
more of them.
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[0:40:30] JR: They really loved those delivery flights. They really improved themselves. Before
even entry into service, yeah, we'll take a bunch more of those.
[0:40:38] IP: Here's one that makes very little sense. When you think Qatar Airways, and when
you think what type of aircraft configuration Qatar Airways operates, usually, it's premium heavy
and some economy seating, but not these airplanes.
[0:40:58] JR: I think of the 777-300ER with Q-suite and the reluctantly thrust back into service
A380 with whatever that thing has onboard. What I don't think of is taking a couple A321neo
from AirAsia, doing nothing to them, and pressing them in service with all 236 seats onboard.
[0:41:23] IP: That is a very different experience compared to a normal Qatar Airways aircraft.
[0:41:30] JR: Yeah. I mean, these are not operating on the most premier routes in the Qatar
Airways network, but still –
[0:41:36] IP: That makes sense.
[0:41:37] JR: - AirAsia and Qatar Airways are polar opposite airlines. One doesn't do what the
other does, but Qatar just putting into service 236 seat A321neos. Probably still with the original
AirAsia seats onboard, so they're not going to be comfortable. Wow, Akbar Al Baker, he is
spinning in his grave that he is not yet in, because the man's not dead. But wherever he is –
[0:42:08] IP: He's spinning. Wherever he is right now, he is spinning.
[0:42:09] JR: It’s real hard. This would never have happened under the reign of Akbar Al Baker.
This is crazy. Even their short-lived never actually happened Saudi Arabian subsidiary, Al Maha,
even that had a business class cabin. This pressing at the surface, AirAsia A321neos, as is.
Watch out for those if you happen to be flying Qatar Airways to destinations that aren't New
York, London, Paris, Tokyo, etc.
[0:42:41] IP: Yeah. Shorter haul stuff. Keep an eye on your aircraft assignment. American
Airlines has taken delivery of its 1,000th mainline aircraft. It took delivery last week of Boeing
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AVT 335 Transcript
787-9, N849AN. Congratulations to American Air on that one. That's one of the new premium
heavy 787s.
[0:43:03] JR: Yeah. Hopefully, this one works and this is all good to go. American plans on
hitting 1,014 aircraft by the end of the year. What is that? Two aircraft per month seems doable
at this rate.
[0:43:17] IP: Yeah. Cool.
[0:43:18] JR: That’s a lot of airplanes. Plus –
[0:43:19] IP: It is a lot of airplanes.
[0:43:20] JR: - it's entire regional fleet, which –
[0:43:22] IP: Which takes it over 1,600. Nearly 1,700.
[0:43:25] JR: A lot of airplanes. A lot of paint.
[0:43:28] IP: Virgin Australia is taking its first, so I think they've taken contractual delivery, but
they have not flown the airplane home yet. The first E195 E2 for the airline, and for an
Australian airline. That is cool. We’ll see that –
[0:43:42] JR: Yeah. Those ones replacing the Fokker F100, but not going into passenger
service, only doing charter stuff, I think.
[0:43:51] IP: That is a good question.
[0:43:55] JR: Something along those lines.
[0:43:56] IP: Yeah, because they do a lot of the mining outfits and things like that.
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AVT 335 Transcript
[0:43:59] JR: Yeah. Out in the west. Speaking of Embraer, we don't talk much about Embraer,
they have secured South African certification for the E190 E2 and E195 E2, because I had to be
reminded myself that Airlink ordered those aircraft. I mean, only 10 of them for E195 E2s, only
as recently as last month. I would assume that Embraer had been working on this for a while.
But good for them. I love a win for Embraer.
[0:44:32] IP: Who doesn't?
[0:44:33] JR: Boeing? Airbus?
[0:44:36] IP: Fair, fair. This story is one that you flagged, where I thought we were talking about
something different.
[0:44:43] JR: What did you think you were talking about? Oh, you talking something about a
ferry flight.
[0:44:49] IP: Yes.
[0:44:50] JR: No. We were talking about a ferry boat, like a –
[0:44:54] IP: This is very different.
[0:44:55] JR: - thing that goes on water. We've talked a number of times how flights have had
some trouble going down to the Greek islands, I think, specifically, where we've seen flights that
have gone up to 36 hours trying and trying again and just not making it, and giving it up and
going back to Germany, or wherever they came from. In this case, this comes to us through one
mile at a time, which comes to us from Arrow Telegraph. Apparently, on Sunday, August 31st, a
Eurowings fight from Dusseldorf to Santorini just couldn’t make it. The winds were too high, or
the – It's always winds there. It's always winds in that region. But they had a go around and they
ended up diverting.
Instead of trying again and again and again, giving up and bringing all those poor passengers
back to Dusseldorf, Eurowings said, “Why don't we put people on a ferry the rest of the way and
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call it a day?” That is apparently exactly what happened. That's shocking. This is not something
you hear of airlines, or really any transportation company doing often. Usually, it's like, they will
land at their diversion point, they will call buses are available, but you can't drive a bus between
islands. There's a lot of water in the way. Booking people on a ferry that's already operating on
the route, that's thinking in your toes. I am like, I'm going to give a round of applause to the
operations people involved in making that decision and booking all of those tickets. That's pretty
amazing.
[0:46:23] IP: Yeah. I think that's a great idea and a great way to get people where they want to
go, without having to go all the way back to the airport of origin, and have crews that are
spending so much time out of position. I think that's a win for everybody.
[0:46:38] JR: It's a pretty great idea. I'd love to see the email exchange back and forth of
someone going, “Wait, hear me out. A boat.”
[0:46:46] IP: Can you imagine the ACARS message that the pilots are –
[0:46:50] JR: I mean, ACARS are logged and they're out there. We should see if we could go
back and dig one up.
[0:46:56] IP: All right. Jason, I'll leave that to you for next week. On that note, while Jason goes
and looks up the ACARS messages to see if we can find any of those, we'll call this episode 335
of AvTalk. Thank you all so very much for listening. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always with –
[0:47:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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