AvTalk Episode 253: Time traveling with Taylor Swift and turtles

AVT 253 Transcript
EPISODE 253
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello and welcome to episode 253 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. How's it going, Ian?
[0:00:18] IP: It's going well, Jason. How are you, sir?
[0:00:20] JR: I'm good. You sound to be doing well.
[0:00:24] IP: Yeah, I'm doing okay. If you listened to last week's episode, I talked about my
father's passing. It's been a week, but I do want to say thank you to everyone that listened to the
episode last week and either sent their condolences, or said that they enjoyed listening to what I
said. Most of all, I want to thank the people that wrote in and said that they listen to the podcast
and it brought up memories, either memories of their parents, or things that they as parents
want to accomplish with their children. That to me was – it was very nice to read and helpful in
the moment, so I want to thank everyone who sent those along.
On that note, I think this is just a cool thing to do in general. I want to start this as a new thing
that we do. Here's what I'm going to ask you to do, listener. Email us at podcast@fr24.com.
Either write it, or speak it in a voice memo and email it to us, and send us your stories of how
people have influenced your passion for aviation. Whether they inspired you to pursue a career
in aviation, or just whoever helped you become an avgeek. I think that's a really cool story that a
lot of people have, especially people listening to this podcast. We'd love to hear it. We'll share
some of those answers in the next few episodes. Email us, podcast@fr24.com.
[0:01:53] JR:  We love getting positive emails and voice memos, or whatever of that sort.
Because every now and then, we get some emails that are not positive and basically, just tell us
to go take a hike, and me specifically, usually, if we're being honest.
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AVT 253 Transcript
[0:02:05] IP: Usually, you specifically. Yes.
[0:02:06] JR: Usually me, specifically. But this would be a nice change. Please, we do read
every email, eventually, that comes to us.
[0:02:13] IP: Yes. Absolutely. Even if we don't respond, it does get read. I’m trying to respond to
–
[0:02:17] JR: Even if Ian screws up the email inbox and we don't see any of them for six
months, we will get to know eventually.
[0:02:22] IP: Yeah. Well, it's working now. I promise. It's working now. Hey, speaking of fan mail,
this is a thing that I wasn't going to talk about, we weren't going to address, because I didn't
really have anything to add. Then I got curious. I started thinking about it and it became a much
more interesting story. I am referring, of course, to Taylor Swift.
[0:02:43] JR: But of course. There is no industry not impacted by Taylor Swift.
[0:02:49] IP: You cannot escape the orbit of Taylor Swift. The reason we're talking about Taylor
Swift is because she is currently in a relationship with one of the players on the Kansas City
Chiefs, in case you didn't know. If you're listening to this podcast, it's probably a 50/50 shot that
you know who Taylor Swift is, let alone who she's dating. I'll give that to you. I have been
keeping up on that information, thanks to my wife and daughter, but this relates more to the
airplanes.
Here's the deal. We'll get through this part really quick, because this is not the most interesting
part. She's dating someone in the Kansas City Chiefs. They're playing in the Super Bowl. The
Super Bowl is in Las Vegas on February 11th. Kickoff. Is it 3.30 Pacific time, on the 11th of
February. Taylor Swift is performing a concert in Tokyo, Japan on February 10th. The concert
starts in the evening. Just for the sake of argument and timing and everything, will say that she's
done with everything at the concert. Concerts over. She's gotten dressed in street clothes, all
that good, fun stuff by midnight in Tokyo on the beginning of the 11th. That's 8 a.m. in Las Vegas,
still on the 10th of February. She's got plenty of time.
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[0:04:06] JR: She’s going to have to time travel.
[0:04:06] IP: Multiple news articles. So many, and she will. There are so many news articles
that have been written, “Can Taylor Swift make it from Tokyo to Las Vegas?” Yes.
[0:04:14] JR: It's literally how time works.
[0:04:15] IP: Easily done. That's just how time works. She will cross the international date line.
It'll be just like we talk about on the 1st of January every year, where people depart one day and
arrive back in the next day. It's not a problem.
[0:04:28] JR: You don't even need to be Taylor Swift to have time travel technology.
[0:04:31] IP: No. Anybody could get on a commercial flight to Tokyo if there were nonstop
commercial flights from Tokyo to Las Vegas, you could do this. But that's not where the
interesting things comes in. Because the more I thought about this, the more interesting it
became to me. Not from a, will she be able to make it there? But how will she make it there,
from an aviation perspective? Because the flying part is easy. She's got multiple private aircraft
under disposal. She's got enough money. She could rent a fleet of private aircraft. That's not the
hard part. The hard part comes in what money can't buy. Here's the thing about Vegas. It's got
two airports with customs and border protections. That becomes something that is a limiting
factor. It’s a constraint.
[0:05:18] JR: Yeah. What's the other one? You have Harry Reid, the airport. That’s another one.
[0:05:20] IP: You have Harry Reid. And you have Henderson. Henderson Executive has a
customs and border protection processing facility. You can land internationally from there.
[0:05:30] JR: The Teterboro of Vegas.
[0:05:32] IP: The Teterboro of Vegas, yes. I believe, that's actually what – they have a flower
sign in the site of the Teterboro. That's a niche joke. But here's the thing, talking to folks who
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work in aviation in Vegas, who know about these things, there are no slots and there are no
parking spaces.
[0:05:51] JR: Even for Taylor Swift, they're going to say that there's no parking, you got to go
elsewhere?
[0:05:56] IP: I mean, anybody who is everybody, or everybody who is anybody. Pick the
direction you want to go with that one, wants to go to the Super Bowl every year. They have
policies, procedures, and from the people that I've talked to, it doesn't really matter. I mean,
there are billionaires coming from all over the world. It seems like that's a varied limiting factor.
There are roughly 700 spots for private aircraft between Las Vegas and Henderson and they're
all full.
[0:06:22] JR: Who wants to be the hero? Who could be the hero into the headlines to say, “I
gave up my private jet parking spot in Vegas for Taylor Swift. You're welcome.” That would be
just a coup of a PR win for anyone. The most evil, sadistic person in the world can do that. Well,
we'd all be like, “Yeah. All right, maybe this person's not so bad.”
[0:06:45] IP: I mean, that's an option. Here's what I think will happen, and I'm saying this just to
put this out there, in case I'm right, and also, in case I'm wrong and we can talk about one way
or the other. I think what will happen is, I think, she'll fly to Los Angeles.
[0:06:58] JR: Okay. And then?
[0:06:59] IP: Because she's got plenty of time. Then it's an easy hop on any manner of mode of
transportation from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
[0:07:10] JR: Even one of the many dozens of commercial flights a day. Wouldn't that be
something?
[0:07:14] IP: I mean, can you imagine Taylor Swift being on Southwest?
[0:07:17] JR: No, I can't. I honestly cannot.
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[0:07:21] IP: From [inaudible 0:07:21] to Vegas. Southwest does those like, they have a
musician on the plane and they play it during the flight. That would be fun.
[0:07:32] JR: Sure. I mean, maybe they're not able to get space on one of those commercial
flights. I mean, it is a flight going to the Super Bowl on that day, so maybe there isn't any
availability. I don't know.
[0:07:42] IP: I don't know. But I'm sure they'll work it out.
[0:07:45] JR: They'll scrounge up a basic economy ticket.
[0:07:48] IP: I'm sure that Taylor Swift will be there. I thought the most ridiculous thing was the
breathless, “Will she be able to make it in time?” Yes, of course. That's how time works.
[0:07:56] JR: If she were going the other way, no.
[0:07:59] IP: Then we would have an issue.
[0:08:00] JR: Not an option. Yes. Unless, she really does have time travel technology. But if
anyone has it –
[0:08:06] IP: It's Taylor Swift. This and the follow-up to see whether or not, to figure out how this
actually went down, I hope those are the only two times that we ever talk about Taylor Swift on
this podcast. I'm going to leave it there. I got so excited about Taylor Swift that I forgot to
mention that we have Jon Ostrower around the show this week.
[0:08:25] JR: We will be talking about Boeing.
[0:08:27] IP: No, Jon's just going to – it's more Taylor Swift.
[0:08:30] JR: Oh, okay.
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AVT 253 Transcript
[0:08:32] IP: We're going to go deep into Boeing's culture. We're going to go deep into what the
future at Boeing might look like. It's Wednesday, January 31st. We spoke with Jon yesterday on
Tuesday, before Boeing issued its earnings today, this morning, we talked with Jon and he gave
us a little bit of a look into the crystal ball, but he also gave us some questions to look out for in
the earnings today.
After we talk with Jon, after we put that into the podcast, we'll come back and we'll talk about the
answers to those questions in just a little bit as well. That's a little bit later in the show. But
there's other than Boeing news this week. For that, I turn it over to Jason, who has been
combing through the recently released docket by the NTSB, regarding the American Airlines and
Delta Airlines runway incursion that happened at the beginning of 2023. I didn't expect to be
talking about turtles, but we've already covered Taylor Swift, so let's get to it.
[0:09:33] JR: Why not? Yeah, this was the docket being released by the NTSB for the incident
that occurred January 13th, 2023. A little over a year ago. Seems like a lot longer ago than that.
[0:09:44] IP: January 1st, 2024 was six months ago.
[0:09:48] JR: I think so. Time is weird this year. This was the American 777 versus Delta 737
900 incident at JFK, where the Delta 73 was on its takeoff roll on runway 4 left. The Wayward
American triple seven crossed the runway in front of them after confusing the route that they
were supposed to take. They were headed to the wrong runway.
Very interesting transcripts released by the NTSB. They talked to everyone, the pilots onboard,
the American flight, the Delta flight and the air traffic controllers, which we'll talk about in a
minute. This incident was noteworthy, because it was really the bubbling over of the
acknowledgement that something is not right post-COVID, or during COVID that there are a lot
of very close calls, a runway incursions, things not going the way they're supposed to on the
ground and in the air around airports, and the NTSB launched a very full investigation into this
incident.
What has been revealed is that the pilots of the American 777 were very distracted by
everything going on pre-departure. Obviously, they have a lot of procedures, policies that they
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have to take care of before they're able to get to the runway and depart. In this case, there was
a bit of an extra addition in that they needed their cargo close out, that which hadn't come in by
the time they were already taxiing out to the runway, so it was even more distracting than usual
onboard the aircraft.
Unfortunately, the pilots operating the aircraft taxiing on the ground at JFK, which is admittedly,
a very confusing airport, especially in the area around where the incident occurred, which is
called a hotspot. There's a lot of converging taxi ways, a lot of runways intersecting all in one
place, and they made a wrong turn. They thought they were taxiing out to runway 31 left, but
really, they needed to be turning right to go to runway 4 left.
A lot of procedures that are in place to prevent this incident. They were working and they were
there and they were operating as intended. It was just the timing of it turned out to be exactly so
that it was almost a disaster. A few airports in the US, not a lot. I think it's less than two dozen,
have a runway protection system, where there's some algorithm that detects if there is an
aircraft approaching the runway, or on its take off role. It will illuminate lights along the runway.
Red lights, basically, a stoplight saying, “Don't enter this runway. It's active. Something else is
going on.” It turns out that just the moment that the American 777 nosed over the hold short line,
those lights activated. By the time those lights activated, they were already over the viewpoint of
the first two, possibly three illuminated lights on the runway. By the time they actually saw it,
they were already well over the hold short line and inching towards the runway.
The ASDEX system, which is basically, the monitoring system for the aircraft on the ground that
uses GPS locations and possibly MLAT, though that has been apparently, broken at JFK for a
long time as of the time of this incident, that we'll get to that in some of the transcripts from the
air traffic controllers. What happened was that the ground monitoring system alerted the air
traffic controllers that, “Hey, this Delta aircraft is on the move and there's something else on the
runway.”
Thankfully, air traffic controllers in the control cab got that warning, issued the alert to Delta to
cancel take off, and so they did. They came to a stop, and American continued its rollout, or
taxiing across the runway. Thankfully, nobody was injured. The American flight continued on to
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London, as we know, because the flight data recorder was intact at the cockpit voice recorder,
which only records two hours of audio was overwritten.
At the time, they didn't know they did anything wrong. They had communicated with the air
traffic controllers in JFK Tower, and it wasn't really clear what happened, and they continued on.
If you have the time, I'd recommend reading through the many, many pages of transcripts and
human interactions and technology reports and all that, because there's a lot to learn from that.
Especially, one of the air traffic controllers, the transcript is a bit spicy.
[0:14:13] IP: It's colorful.
[0:14:14] JR: He had a lot of things to say. There's no audio recording. They're very clear to say
that although the interviews are recorded for audio, those recordings are strictly for the NTSB
and the transcription. Once it is transcripted, those audio recordings are destroyed. It is only a
transcript of it. There's some interesting bits from what they call the event scenario, getting into
the ASDEX system and the runway safety lights, there's some algorithms at play that it will not
trigger a warning, until the aircraft on the move has a velocity of 29.9 knots, coupled with an
acceleration of 1.20 meters per second, or the aircraft reaches a velocity of 49.9 knots.
The Delta 73 was operating at quite a bit higher speeds than that. I think they got up to over 94,
crossing into 97 knots. There's some interesting technological aspects to look at is should this
be tuned? Should those thresholds be a little bit lower to provide more of a warning for any
aircraft that finds its way onto the runway? Getting back to that one air traffic controller, he had a
lot to say. I think a lot of it was warranted that there's some deferred maintenance going on, that
this doesn't work, that doesn't work. He hadn't had enough sleep. Not assigning plane, the
NTSB doesn't do that. But at some point, he called pilots ‘donkeys’ that there's been, in his
opinion, since COVID, there's been –
[0:15:44] IP: Not dunkis as in the nickname for Dunkin Donuts. Donkeys as in the animal. I just
want to make that one clear.
[0:15:51] JR: At JFK, since COVID, cannot be trusted with more complex clearances than
would have been norm in the past. Instead of exit the ramp, turn left kilo, right kilo, echo, cross
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31 left, etc., etc., etc., he's only able to provide them with three clearances at a time. Because
beyond that, pilots these days, apparently, are forgetting instructions and making wrong
movements, just like we had with this American 777, or jumping frequencies before they're
given the authorization to jump from the ground radio frequency to the tower frequency.
He had a lot to say. At some point, they started talking about, if you've been around a while in
New York, in the avgeek scene here, you know about the turtles on the runway. Every spring on
31 left, 13 right, the turtles come out, because this is – JFK is a wildlife preserve. Around it is a
wildlife preserve, and sometimes turtles end up on the runway. It is nice to know he's an
environmentalist, and he has no issues with the turtles.
[0:16:53] IP: No. He likes the turtles, I believe, is how we end up in this particular place. Yeah, I
thought the transcripts of the interviews with the air traffic controller, as well as with the pilots,
because we don't have the cockpit voice recorder, unfortunately. This is something that we
talked about in the mid-February episode from last year, how having the cockpit voice recorder
on this and other recent high-profile incidents and accidents would be super helpful. Good to
see that that seems to be moving in the right direction.
The transcripts are really interesting. I think setting aside the controller's colorful commentary, it
seems to me that he was waiting for someone to come and talk to him. It's just very like, “I'm
making a mental note of all of the things that I would like to discuss as part of this investigation.
When the NTSB calls me, I'm going to be ready.” The pilots, the transcripts of their interviews
with the NTSB were also interesting, in that there was a lot of insight into that hurry up and wait,
and then hurry up again, atmosphere of an international departure.
I've witnessed this firsthand, where everybody's ready to go, and then there's one thing that's
missing, or they need to offload bags, or they need to load bags, or they're holding the plane –
everyone's ready to go on the plane, but then, the airline decides to hold the plane because
there's another connecting flight and a dozen passengers off that connecting flight need to make
this flight. There's all of those things, and then we need to go, “Okay, we need to go, because
we're going to run out of hours, or we're going to lose our slot time, or this or that.”
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That came across, I mean, you don't get to hear their voices, but it came across in their words. I
thought, that was very interesting. They didn't really touch on that generally. It was more of this
specific context. But I think that was one thing with an eye to what they were saying, providing a
little bit of context there.
[0:18:57] JR: Yeah. They were also very candid. Remember, the context here is important,
because this is after they initially did not want, or had objections to the NTSB investigation and
that they did not want it to be audio recorded, so they initially did not have an interview, or took a
few days longer than the NTSB probably would have liked to get those interviews with the crew.
But reading the transcripts, they were very honest, very accepting that, yeah, somebody in the
incident at the time, I knew somebody screwed up, but I didn't know it was me. It was just a
really interesting read. I'm glad everything worked out and they were able to get those
interviews, because it's important.
[0:19:36] IP: Yeah, absolutely. I think the structure of the NTSB investigation, I didn't know I'd
be going this direction today, but the thing that bothers me about the movie, Sully, is that –
[0:19:47] JR: Ah, yes.
[0:19:48] IP: Like, the second half of the movie, or second two-thirds of the movie is a made-up
adversarial process. Because it makes for good film, where you have the good guy and then
you have the big, bad government agency trying to make them out to be the bad guys. The
NTSB process is not that. Of course, if you're listening to this podcast regularly, you know that
we talk about this anytime something happens. But the NTSB process is only designed and is
specifically designed to understand what happened and why it happened and how can it be
prevented from ever happening again.
[0:20:33] JR: Yup. That's a great point. They make very clear when they start these interviews
that that's exactly what they're there to do. I don't have the text in front of me right now, but they
very clearly say, “I am a member of the NTSB investigative body. We are not a prosecutory
body. We don't have any authority to do anything like that. We are just here to make flying
safer.”
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[0:20:57] IP: That is what they're doing. On the NTSB front, we are expecting the preliminary
report into Alaska 1282 later this week, or early next. Preliminary reports are issued roughly 30
days post-accident. We're coming up on 30 days, so we should be expecting that later this
week, or early next. I'm sure that we will be talking about that on next week's episode.
As we transition from the NTSB and their investigations into Alaska and what has happened
there, we're going to pause and come back with Jon Ostrower in just a moment, talk a little bit
about what's happening with Boeing, at Boeing, outside of Boeing that is influencing Boeing,
what's going on at the FAA, and then where's Boeing headed? We'll be back in just a moment
with Jon Ostrower. Stay with us.
[CONVERSATION WITH JON]
[0:21:57] IP: Welcome back. We are now joined by The Air Current’s Jon Ostrower, who we
often call on when we need to gaze into the crystal ball of Boeing. There's been no shortage of
Boeing events and news in the past 25 days. We've done our best to cover those.
[0:22:17] JR: Non-Boeing news.
[0:22:18] IP: And non-Boeing news. We've done our best to cover that. Jon, thank you so much
for joining us once again.
[0:22:22] JO: Always, always, always a pleasure to be with you, guys. Thanks.
[0:22:26] IP: We started the month and it was this month – it'll be last month by the time the
podcast comes out on Friday, but we're recording on Tuesday, January 30th. That's going to be
important for those that are listening this week and we'll get to that in a moment. We started this
month with Boeing on the upswing. We had previewed the first delivery of the 737 MAX to a
Chinese airline in almost four years. 2019 was the last time. China Southern had taken
contractual delivery. They were waiting to bring the airplane home and that finally happened
near the end of this month.
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But in the intervening 30 days, an Alaska Airline 737-9 MAX lost a mid-cabin exit door plug. The
737-9 was grounded for those with the same configuration as Boeing, and the FAA worked on
an inspection process. That still, to me, seems to boil down to are the bolts there and are they
as tight as they should be? Jon, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. We sit today with the aircraft
returned to service by all five airlines that operate the aircraft with the mid-cabin exit door plug.
But again, getting the particular aircraft that are affected by this inspection regime seems to be
the beginning, not the end of the uphill climb once again for Boeing.
They are facing drastically increased regulatory scrutiny, even beyond what they were already
facing following the 2018 and 2019 crashes of the 737 MAX and the subsequent 21-month
grounding. We turn now to Jon to help fill us in on what is a simply phrased question, with no
simple answer, whatsoever. Jon Ostrower, what does Boeing's future look like?
[0:24:22] JO: Well, I think you hit the nail in the head, which is that 2023 ended on a high note. I
think, one of the things that the universe of those that have a stake in Boeing success and those
that follow them closely have reached the conclusion at this point that there's an important
difference between the weather and the climate. The weather at Boeing was really good at the
end of 2023. They have record orders, 787 that’s like, 300 new orders. That's incredible 20
years since launch. It's a record number that they, for a one-year period. China was getting
back, going again on the MAX 8s. By all accounts, that MAX 7 was wrapping up and getting
ready to go to Southwest.
I think the thing that this whole situation has caused everyone to do rightly is step back from
what is the day-to-day, or a week-to-week improvement in the news coming out of Boeing, and
look at the larger span of history of the company. I think that's something that we've always
done at The Air Current, something that I've had the benefit of being on the front lines of since I
started reporting on Boeing in 2007, which has allowed me to look at where we are today and
say, the situation in the factory that has apparently, evidently led to what happened on Alaska
1282 was fundamentally not just the discrete, single one-off problem, but the culmination of a lot
of years of compounding strategic missteps that have ultimately frayed Boeing's ability to
consistently deliver airplanes to the much of the chagrin of their customers, their regulators, and
the flying public. That's what we find ourselves today. Where we go from here is a five-hour, 75-
part answer. But I'll keep it tight.
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[0:26:28] IP: You've got 30 minutes. Go.
[0:26:31] JO: Go. This is a company that needs to return to itself. Understanding that Boeing is
one of those incredible companies in the world that has really only one peer fundamentally in
Airbus. But in the US, there's no one equal to it. It's the company that creates its own gravity.
What I mean by that is that there is literally an orbit of stakeholders that surround them, whether
it's financial markets, whether it's suppliers, whether it's the US government, whether it's the
airline customers, whether it's labor organizations, all of these different pieces surrounding
Boeing that when Boeing makes a decision, changes the nature of the orbit and the relationship
it has with the stakeholders, the planets that surround it.
Those relationships have become increasingly distant and frayed over time. At a very high level,
pulling that back in and seeking to effectively reintegrate the company. I mean, again, the
relationships that Boeing has are so damaged over time and the moments of mistrust that have
been created require a very different type of leadership and strategy than the one that they've
had for the last 25 years. Ultimately, what we have now is a strategy that is not producing the
results that Boeing wants. We have ample evidence to point to the fact that they're not getting
what they need as a company and where they ultimately want to go.
[0:28:09] IP: We've had a similar discussion, though I don't think it's ever quite been as acute
as this. In the past, we've talked about the financialization of Boeing, where the culture of a
great engineering company that built great things became a manufacturing company that
focused on financial incentives as much as possible, as a way of producing shareholder value.
Certainly, a worthy goal for a company that is driven by stockholders and stakeholders. But
along the way, became too focused on financial incentives. Then, instead of being an
engineering company that is financially performing well, became a financial company that isn't
engineering well.
The problems are not just the 737-9 MAX. We've got the Max 7 and the Max 10 that aren't yet
certified. We also have the 777X that is not yet certified. All three aircraft are years behind
schedule. Never mind them trying to build a new aircraft. What type of cultural change are we
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looking at here? I mean, is there appetite within Boeing for that? Or is leadership still not quite
there yet?
[0:29:28] JO: I think that's going to be the key thing going forward, right? It's not just the
acknowledgement of a problem in the factory and working on quality. It's a problem of working
on culture. I mean, who would have thunked it? When you're sitting in July 2011 – by the way,
when the MAX was launched and the MAX 7 came along with the overall launch of the MAX
later that same summer. I mean, 15 years from launch to potential entry into service for the MAX
7. It's an amazing thing, given the gestation for that airplane.
The Max 10 came along in 2017, and that will, by some estimates, may actually be close to a
decade-long development. What we're seeing is, again, the Boeing strategy, which again, as
you rightly pointed out, has been one geared toward becoming a financially performing
company, but not performing in terms of just healthy, but performing and optimizing for free cash
flow and the return of those free cash flows to investors.
Certainly, at a time when, in the mid-2010s, Boeing was building at incredibly high rates, and the
supply chain was, by all accounts, outwardly doing well because of those volumes. The amount
of free cash flow that Boeing generated was tens and tens of billions of dollars, and they gave
the vast, overwhelming majority of it back to investors. I remember writing an article when I was
at the journal. This is probably 2015, or 2016. One analyst came out and said, “Well, maybe
they should hold on to some of it for a rainy day, just in case they might need it. Also, maybe to
develop a new airplane.” They were like, “Oh, no. It'll be fine, because we have all these free
cash flows. We're really consistently going to have that going forward. We'll use that in the
future.” Well, we saw how that went. Obviously, the MAX happened, COVID happened.
There absolutely has been an over-optimization for that, and for meeting the investor metrics,
because that's executives and the executives who report to the top executives, and so on down
the executive line are judged on and what they're measured against. Fundamentally, I think,
Gus Kelly, who is the CEO of Aercap, which is the world's largest aircraft lessor. He buys
airplanes from Boeing and Airbus. He then rents them out to airlines. He is a person with an
enormous stake in the success of both companies.
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His view is you just got to put the financial stuff in the backseat for a while. That's going to
require a different type of leader and a different type of leadership, given how it's already been –
it being Boeing's leaders have conducted themselves in the last 20 years at the highest levels,
in terms of working with suppliers and trying to take margin for cost cuts, and so on and so forth.
Whether it's new labor contracts. I mean, there are innumerable examples of trying to extract
little pieces here and there from all the different stakeholders in the ecosystem.
All that needs to take a backseat. I think that that's the first thing that has to happen. How you
actually implement that is far more challenging. But there are absolutely demonstrable things
that you have to do to begin to steer things back toward a more cohesive structure, where
you've got at least an emotional, spiritual connection, so to speak, cultural connection between
what's going on at the very top of the company and what's going on in the factory floor.
[0:33:12] IP: I want to take a walk across the road from Boeing's current headquarters in
Virginia to Washington DC and to talk about the FAA's refound, renewed sense of regulatory –
[0:33:26] JR: Teeth.
[0:33:27] IP: - prowess, teeth? I mean, they grew teeth, seemingly starting with 2018, 2019 and
really seemingly culminating within the past month in what feels like a need to be seen doing
something. Those some things seem good. But from your reporting and from your sense, is this
– I mean, Boeing statements have been, we welcome this. This is a good thing. We're very
happy with all of these things. We agree with the FAA. Have you gotten the sense that that's a
genuine feeling, or is this just one of those things where we have to say this, we have to knuckle
down, we have to deal with this right now, but?
[0:34:10] JO: I, too, enjoy when my dentist gives me a root canal, because I need one, right?
You can't disagree with it at that point, but it's the thing that has to happen. I think one of the
things that the FAA has struggled with demonstrably – I mean, it's an absolutely measurable
thing. It's two really important functions here. Number one, a lack of consistent leadership in the
last five years. I mean, we had acting administrator after acting administrator after acting
administrator after Steve Dickinson left. That definitely shaped the policy-making regulatory
apparatus. It was not clear who was going to be making decisions, who was setting policy, and
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you saw these conflicts. You saw them manifesting in things like, eVTOL policies and also, just
the overall posture toward Boeing in terms of also, in the midst of this lack of permanent
leadership, new mandates from Congress on reforming the certification apparatus, as they were
trying to figure out how to make all of this work.
That makes it all squishy, right? You want a regulator that's bedrock, and this was not.
Combined with that, you also have an FAA that has for years and years and years, predating
this situation, has been a political football around funding and priorities. When members of
Congress get up and say, “Well, the FAA needs to be doing its job.” It's like, “Well, Congress,
have you been doing your job? Have you given this organization consistent, steady funding to
be an actual regulator in providing the oversight that's necessary?” The answer is a resounding
no.
I mean, again, the news clips are ample to suggest that the FAA has been abused by Congress
over a decade, or longer. Where are we now? We're at a point where we finally have a
permanent FAA administrator in Mike Whitaker. He is not screwing around, nor should he. Look,
I think what you see here is when the bigger the fracture gets between Boeing and either the
flying public, or the airlines, or the suppliers, or regulators, or government, the more the urge
from the FAA is to reach deep inside of Boeing's chest and grab its heart. I mean, it's graphic.
Now, kind of my colleague Ma, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. But literally, they have
to pull them closer than they have done before.
That embrace is going to hurt like hell, because this is a company that has largely wanted to do
the opposite. Now, we talked about the delegated authority, which is inherently trust-based, by
the way. Talk about the streamlining of the original 737 MAX development, all of that, because
that's where Boeing wanted things to go. They wanted it to move faster. Safety was assumed.
Obviously, after two MAX crashes, and now the situation with Alaska, yes, safety is not
assumed.
What you have is a regulator that is literally grabbing them, saying, “You cannot do this
anymore.” I mean, too big to fail became a cliche after the global financial crisis, and whether it
was the automakers, the banks, and bailouts, and all that, and it's really important. This is not a
financial problem for Boeing. Boeing has a lot of debt that they need to get off their balance
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sheet. They need to get their house sorted, a bunch of things financially. Fundamentally, they
have orders, and it's not a demand question. They have orders for years and years and years.
It's a question of Boeing, are you too big to fail? The overwhelming answer is absolutely, they're
too big to fail. I mean, you talk about it from a US perspective, they're too big to fail, in terms of
the number of jobs that it guarantees for its employees, but also, the suppliers who feed it, the
airlines who count on it. We think of it as a US problem, but it's not. I mean, it is a global,
economic institution that if it were to be significantly diminished, or literally fail as a business, it
would cause incalculable damage to the way this planet operates, whether it's moving of goods
and services, whether it's moving of people, tourism, industry, all of these things that we have in
our modern world and have accounted on for the last 70 years in the jet age. Failure is not an
option. I mean, how many aerospace metaphors can I throw in here? But like –
[0:38:38] IP: More. I want more.
[0:38:39] JO: More, more, more, right? This is a huge, huge, huge crisis for the company. But
also, for the type of industry this country wants to have and what it's going to mean for the
world. Airbus cannot build all of the airplanes for everybody. That's not a realistic outcome here.
You need a second, hopefully balanced, healthy duopoly, but it's going to take a long, long time
to get there.
[0:39:10] JR: Let's take a look at the actions that the FAA did take in the last week, or the
actions that Boeing itself took within the last week. First up, I think we have to discuss the new
oversight at Boeing directed by the FAA, the most prominent of which I think is the strict cutting
down of the production rate increase at Boeing and the not going to approve an additional line
for the 73. We know that Boeing was ramping up to open an additional line for the 737 outside
of Renton for the first time ever up in Everett, where they manufactured 747s for decades. What
does the future of production of the 73 look like? Do we think this is a temporary thing, or is this
going to last for years? How does Boeing once again prove we are trustworthy, we can ramp up
production once again? Well, how do you get to that answer?
[0:40:00] JO: Well, that's the hard part. When the trust has been violated, proving that you are
worthy of trust again is incredibly challenging. It takes time. No one knows how long that's going
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to take. I think, one of the things that, to step back from not just the FAA's essential role of
ensuring air safety, but I think what we see here is the FAA and the US government cannot say
to a publicly traded company, “You need to have different leadership, or you need to have a
different strategy.” This is always the tension with Boeing. It is a public company that's not
owned in any portion by the United States government, aside from the fact that they are their
biggest customer.
Within that, their options for saying, “You need to change,” are limited. Again, you see this
publicly traded private company that is also an asset, strategic asset of United States of
America. You see this playing out. What does that mean? If you look at the chessboard, what
the FAA is signaling is that number one, “Boeing, you have to get your house in order
operationally.” Also, by saying, “No, you're not going to get your fourth production line in Everett
until we're satisfied,” that they are ultimately shifting the pain, I believe deliberately, from what I
understand my reporting, to the customers and the shareholders, the two groups that Boeing
listens to the most and cares about above all others.
By capping the production rate at 38, 42 a month, I'm not really sure where it's going to land.
Probably closer to 42, because the wing part of Boeing's 737 production was already running at
42 and it was actually pushing going through the pipe at final assembly, which was going at 38.
I'm not sure what the cap is going to be monthly. Effectively, what we're saying is airlines are not
going to get their airplanes as soon as they thought. That's going to create a lot of very angry
customers wanting things to change a Boeing. That's already happening and already happened,
but this will reinforce it globally.
On the other side of it is that Boeing's plan financially was to achieve a 10-billion-dollar free
cash flow for investors. What that means is that that 10-billion-dollars of annual free cash flow
would be returned to investors as a form of dividends, buybacks, ultimately, thank you for your
investment as shareholders. This is the fruits of our labor. We're going to do that by significantly
raising production. Probably, we were going to see between 50 and 60, 737 MAXs per month
rolling out of Renton by 2025, 2026 to achieve that.
That's on hold. That's almost certainly not going to happen, because the production ramp is flat
and the cash is not going to come, at least certainly not when Boeing had promised it. Aside
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from the fact that they were not strategically set up to actually do that based on how they have
been performing. What does that mean? It means you've got angry shareholders and you've got
angry customers. I think, what that ultimately means is that the FAA in its fundamental, strategic
inability to directly call for a leadership change in a new strategy is trying to apply pressure to
those groups within the Boeing ecosystem to effectively do it for them.
[0:43:34] JR: Interesting. It's indirect pressure almost, but everyone knows what they're actually
trying to achieve. There's no illusion here. But, I guess, yeah, the federal government can't
exactly come out and say, “You need a new CEO.” It's not really its place. I want to shift in the
minutes we have left to the MAX 7 and the MAX 10. What is the status of those? Because
there's been some big changes in the last few days.
[0:43:58] JO: Yeah. Let's start with the MAX 7. The MAX 7 is – I call it Southwest Regional chip,
right? They're smaller markets and they can have that airplane to move around its network.
That's probably not fair, because the range is considerably longer. Fundamentally, it's
Southwest's small aircraft that was going to be the future of its next generation fleet. The
Southwest fleet was going to be MAX 7s, MAX 8s, 737-700s, which are increasingly going to be
retired, and newer 737-800s. That was going to be their fleet.
The overwhelming majority of orders for the MAX 7 are from Southwest and to a significant
lesser extent, Allegiant. What this ultimately means is that as the airplane was wrapping up
certification, because it also had to jump through a lot of very necessary required hoops based
on the Certification Reform Act that went through at the end of 2020, that Boeing had to do a lot
of additional documentation about things that changed on the airplane and do design assurance
and all these things that were not initially part of the expected certification.
Over the course of 2023, early 2023, actually, Boeing became increasingly aware that they
found through, initially, through analysis and then through validating flight tests that if you leave
the engine anti-ice, so this is hot air that's bled off of the CFM LEAP-1B engine and then run
through around the Nacelle to prevent ice buildup. If it's run too long under a certain set of
conditions, which from our understanding is if it's run beyond five minutes in dry conditions, that
there is a risk of overheating of the inlet and potential catastrophic damage to the engine, which
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would cause a piece of the airplane potentially to separate, which is incredibly bad. You do not
want that to happen.
Boeing said, “Okay, how are we going to mitigate this, number one, for the existing fleet of MAX
8s and MAX 9s?” In August, when Boeing publicly acknowledged that this was an issue with the
FAA, FAA said, “Okay, the airworthiness directive says, pilots would just flip off the system after
five minutes in dry conditions, just to be sure.” That's the mitigation. Okay. FAA was happy with
that. Fast forward to the end of the year and the MAX 7 was progressing toward final
certification, but it became increasingly clear that Boeing would have to ask for what's called a
TLE, a time limited exemption from the requirement to fix this issue on the MAX 7, because it
was non-conforming to regulations, and that it would have to go ahead and make the fix and it
would have until the end of May of 2026 to do so. It would make the fix for the existing fleet as
well, and the MAX 7s.
On, literally, the morning of January 5th, the Seattle Times published a rather extensive article
detailing the thinking behind asking for this exemption, and talking to aviation experts who said,
this is not a sufficient mitigation in risk between here and when a fix would be available. Boeing
should go ahead and just go and fix it, and the recommendation from these safety experts
among others, including labor unions was that yes, it has to be fixed and it should be fixed for
MAX 7 certification.
Well, later that day, Alaska 1282 happened. Immediately the posture and climate and mood
around Boeing getting a safety-specific exemption on the MAX of any yolk disappeared. In the
days that followed, I spoke to a lot of senior executives at airlines and suppliers who said, it's a
non-starter. It's not going to happen. That FAA cannot approve this. That over a year before at
the end of 22, Boeing got an exemption to not have to do a comprehensive ICAS alerting
system. By the way, the irony of that is that had they gone ahead and done the ICAS alerting
system for the MAX 7 and 10, there would have been an alert in the cockpit to tell pilots to turn
off the anti-ice.
[0:48:26] JR: I was waiting for you to mention that, because this is an exemption on top of an
exemption. Not only do you not have a system that notifies pilots that, “Hey, there's something
wrong here. Turn this off.” There's no notification at all that the anti-icing system is on when it
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probably shouldn't be, and pilots just have to remember, “Hey, five minutes in dry conditions and
I don't know, the engine might explode.” I don't know, maybe do something about that.
[0:48:52] IP: It's the double secret exemption.
[0:48:54] JR: Exactly. Yeah.
[0:48:56] JO: I mean, look, Boeing has spent so much time and so much energy pushing for
exemptions that compound other problems later on down the road, that rather than embracing
the pain of just doing it has ultimately created more problems and more time and more cost for
themselves than it would have solved.
[0:49:19] JR: No one is better to speak to this than you, Jon, because you've been covering this
forever, but did Boeing's customers put Boeing in this position? I mean, we all know that the
American order of the neo spurred Boeing to create the MAX. It was in a time crunch. Is it fair
that we can just blame Boeing completely on this, or is it just circumstances? This is where we
ended up, and the 73 is beyond its useful life as an aircraft, but we are where we are.
[0:49:46] JO: Well, you're talking about episode three of the five-part 75 item documentary
here, right? I mean, going back to the launch of the MAX, fundamentally, was happening at a
time when the 87 wasn't done yet. Incredibly expensive. Incandescently expensive effort. The
47-8 was also not done yet. They needed a production system that got airplanes as quickly as
they possibly could, and they already had one. They had the 737. They said, “Okay. We'll just
keep going with that. We'll make a comparatively limited investment in updating the MAX.”
Look, that the MAX on many levels, it was absolutely the right choice, because of the necessity
for speed, the necessity for continuity, the necessity for every big leap of an airplane is more
expensive than the last one. The technology wasn't ready to deliver that, but it was ready on the
propulsion side. They adapted it, right? I mean, in a lot of levels, it made sense at the time.
Hindsight is 20-20. But ultimately, Boeing has had to spend tens of billions of dollars to get the
MAX to a point of stability, because of that decision.
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I count the penalties relating from the MAX crashes in that, on top of the initial development
costs and all that, and the new penalties that – and compensation that's going to have to go to
compensating United and Alaska for their groundings and the additional penalties that are going
to come from this regulatory break, the regular fallout from the MAX 9 grounding. The bill for
doing the MAX the way they did it is enormous and will probably be on par with at least a few
all-new aircraft programs when it's all said and done, which is an amazing thing.
Fundamentally, is it the airlines who are to blame here in addition to Boeing? Yes, Boeing
responds to its customers. Boeing ultimately has final say in what it does. What we see is a
pattern of deferral that I think is adding up and just creating more and more problems for
Boeing. That deferral makes it harder to all. It's like, “I’ll workout tomorrow,” right? “Too busy. I'll
work out tomorrow and day after.” Then you get a more like, “Oh, that hurts. I should have
worked out today.”
It's that things that keep getting pushed along down the line that make sense in the moment
optimize for the short term. They have missed opportunities again and again to begin to steer
this in a way that begins to layer good decisions on top of each other, rather than decisions that
create bigger disruption from smaller things. That's a really important point here. Go back to
2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 during the 87. You had a wholesale breakdown of the supply
chain and configuration control on 87. It was a mess. It was an unbelievable, unmitigated mess
for three years. They went to the ramp up and it was incredibly expensive and incredibly
challenging.
That was big stuff, right? That was multiple suppliers across all over the world with a global
distributed supply chain, advanced technology, advanced manufacturing, advanced systems,
and caused big disruption. Fast forward 13 years and we're talking about four bolts that causes
the airplane to be grounded. That strategic instability is where we are today, where the smaller
the item, the bigger the disruption. It was a line of code for the MAX crashes in 2018-2019.
You have to look at the arc of where this company is going, not just that there are big,
challenging problems with developing something as amazing and as extraordinary and complex
the new commercial aircraft. But literally, the nuts and bolts of what it means to be a aircraft
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manufacturer in the United States in January 2024. That's where we're at right now, strategically
with Boeing. I think that's what everyone is responding to.
You'll hear from leaders, likely Boeing this week that a problem in the factory and we need to
address and re-emphasize quality every single day and all that. It's not just a quality issue.
Boeing is a systems engineering company. Right now, the system that is Boeing is not operating
in the way that they want it, and the way they have it is producing results that are causing the
machine to throw out some really bad results on safety, on quality, and certainly, on financial
results as a result of all that. That tells you a lot about where things need to go in terms of how
you actually begin to fix it.
Part of that is not continuing to do the same things that you've been doing. I think that's the thing
that we're going to be watching for and seeing how the stakeholders and the rest of the of the
Boeing ecosystem who want it to succeed. It's not like, you're asking the head of Airbus
marketing, “Hey, what should Boeing do to be better?” That's not what we're talking about here.
We're talking about airlines and governments and suppliers who literally need them to be the
best that they can be, because like I said, they are too big to fail.
[0:55:20] IP: On that note, we're going to leave it there in anticipation of what happens
tomorrow, the 31st of January, which is Boeing's earnings report. Jon, we're going to let you go,
so that you can rest up, because I'm sure, tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. We'll cover
that on next week's show. Jon Ostrower is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Air Current, a
publication who covers the industry in a way that I don't think anyone else does, or can. Jon, I
want to thank you for being so gracious with your time and your expertise today and coming
back on the program. John Ostrower,  thanks so much.
[0:55:58] JR: Thank you, Jon.
[0:55:58] JO: Thanks, gentlemen. My pleasure, as always.
[END OF CONVERSATION WITH JON]
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[0:56:06] IP: Welcome back. As always, Jon had extremely insightful commentary on where
Boeing's at. I mean, he's been living and breathing Boeing for almost 20 years now, which
makes me feel old, because we came into the industry at the same time, but it's beside the
point. Some updates on things that we talked about and questions that we had for Jon that we
didn't really have answers for yesterday, but we now have answers for based on Boeing's fourth
quarter of 2023 investor report today, their earnings report.
The question about the rate, because the wings were being produced faster than the airplanes
themselves. The rate will stay at 38 airplanes per month. Boeing wanted to be between 50 and
60 aircraft per month by mid-decade. That will not happen.
[0:56:59] JR: Yeah. Never say never. But it seems unlikely. Given the next piece of news, we
will also –
[0:57:06] IP: Yes. The other thing we talked about with Jon was the anti-ice engine nacelle
issue, where Boeing had previously requested a time-limited exemption for a known issue,
saying that they would certify the 737-7 MAX, and then retrofit a fix for it. They've withdrawn that
TLE request. The FAA wasn't going to grant it, given the circumstances now. Boeing today said,
that it will take between nine and 12 months to have that fix in place. That puts 737-7 MAX
certification into 2025. The MAX 7 needs to be certified before the MAX 10 can be certified, so
we don't know at this point. Aircraft are not going to be delivered on time to the customers, and
that's a refrain that we've heard from Boeing before. On that note, we're going to play, I don't
want to call it a game.
[0:58:16] JR: It's not a game.
[0:58:17] IP: We're going to do trivia here. We're going to pick quotes from Boeing's quarterly
earnings calls, and we're going to decide what year those statements were made. Were they
made today, or were they made in past quarterly earnings calls? Jason, your first statement, if
you please.
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[0:58:37] JR: My first statement, and I quote, “This is a defining moment for Boeing, and we
remain focused on our enduring values of safety, quality, and integrity in all that we do as we
work to safely return the 737 MAX to service.”
[0:58:54] IP: Ooh. I'm going to say, Q3, 2019.
[0:59:01] JR: Oh, so close. Second quarter 2019. That was Dennis Muilenburg in, yeah, second
quarter 2019. Close one. That's impressive.
[0:59:10] IP: All right. All right. We'll try our best.
[0:59:12] JR: Okay. You want another one?
[0:59:12] IP: Yeah. Give me another one.
[0:59:14] JR: All right. We are progressing towards a safe return to service of 737 MAX and we
are driving safety, quality, and operational excellence into all that we do every day.
[0:59:26] IP: I'm going to say, Q4 2020.
[0:59:31] JR: Ooh, right here. Wrong quarter. First quarter of 2020. It's a trip to read this one.
COVID's coming and they're bunkering down for COVID.
[0:59:40] IP: All right.
[0:59:40] JR: Yeah, the 737 MAX, they’re flying at that time, but they're going to do quality
excellence every day, or something.
[0:59:46] IP: I will give you one now.
[0:59:47] JR: Okay.
[0:59:48] IP: “We won't predict timing. We won't get ahead of our regulator.”
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[0:59:53] JR: Oh, not much to go on there. I'm going to say, that's third quarter 2022.
[1:00:00] IP: That was today.
[1:00:01] JR: No.
[1:00:02] IP: That was today.
[1:00:04] JR: Okay. I mean, there’s not much to go on there. That could happen anytime.
[1:00:09] IP: You want to give me one more?
[1:00:10] JR: All right. Here's another one. We've also taken action to further sharpen our
company's focus on product and safety and services safety. We continue to deliver on customer
commitments and capture new opportunities with our values of safety, quality, and integrity
always at the forefront.
[1:00:28] IP: Hmm. That wasn't today.
[1:00:31] JR: That was not today. It was the third quarter of 2019.
[1:00:36] IP: Okay.
[1:00:36] JR: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of these quotes, the common theme here is we did bad and
we're going to make it right by being safe and quality and integrity. A lot of these quotes could be
repeated verbatim today.
[1:00:53] IP: Yeah. And they were. There are multiple sentences in today's earnings call, where
they talk about safety and quality and engineering excellence.
[1:01:04] JR: You made a good point about this before we started recording. What was it?
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[1:01:08] IP: Well, my point was that our previous three minutes of podcast don't make sense if
this had never happened before. Because if this had never happened before and Boeing said
the exact same things, we would be having a very different conversation. We would be saying,
Boeing is doing the right thing. They're taking responsibility. We can trust they are taking this
seriously. We know that this organization is an organization that puts safety above all else and
they're going to do whatever it takes to ensure that this never happens again. Not only does it
never happen again, they come out of this better and they come out of this smarter and they
come out of this in a way that ensures the aircraft they build are the best aircraft in the world.
[1:02:00] JR: Yes. What was the line that was so common after the original grounding of the
MAX, that this will be the safest aircraft ever, to the amount of scrutiny put into it and the amount
of time Boeing has poured into it. That turned out to not be true at all, as we've seen. They're
missing bolts to hold the doors on the aircraft. That's fundamentally not what actually happened.
However, there are some interesting changes in the tone from Boeing today on the earnings call
itself. Boeing CEO, Dave Calhoun said, “I cannot comment on any specific root cause, or
speculate the root cause. As a participant in the process, I do believe the investigation will
narrow quickly.” He then went on to say, “We caused the problem and we understand that.” That
does show a lot of growth, I think, at Boeing, that they're able to say like, not really saying it, but
saying, “Hey, we screwed up. This investigation is really quickly going to show that we did
something bad and we screwed up.” Then they actually said, “We caused the problem and we
understand that.” That is not something Boeing was readily admitting during the MCAS debacle
of 2019 through the early 2020s.
This is a fundamentally different tone. I don't know how much stock I put into it. I don't know if
Boeing's actually learned anything, or if they're just a wounded bear lashing out saying, “Oh,
we've learned our lesson. We caused this problem. We're going to be better.” We've heard it all
before. Now, they actually have to do the hard part and deliver on that.
[1:03:31] IP: Yeah. We'll see what the preliminary report from the NTSB says. We'll see what
Boeing does over the next weeks and months to regain the trust of its workforce, of its regulator,
of the airline customers and of the flying public. The road just keeps getting longer for them. As
we talked about with Jon, short-term decision making has hurt them more than the tough
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decisions about crafting a long-term vision for what the future of Boeing looks like, would have
in the first place.
Let's move on from Boeing and talk about just some other things that have happened this week
and other things that are worth keeping an eye on as the rest of the year unfolds. Because it's
only the end of January. It's been a long year.
[1:04:29] JR: Remember JAL? That was this year. It was this –
[1:04:31] IP: I know. JetBlue is slowing the pace of deliveries, because they don't need the
aircraft yet, because they don't have the airline in place to operate those aircraft. They're
basically pausing their growth in light of everything that has happened to them in the last few
months, including the big, I don't know if it's a nail in a coffin, so much as it's a gut punch that
they can't merge with Spirit. But it seems to me that they're putting a pause on their growth and
a big part of that is deferring aircraft well into the end of the decade.
[1:05:12] JR: What's wild about that to me is that at the same time, they're deferring delivery of
aircraft. They also have a wild number of aircraft grounded, or expect to have aircraft grounded.
In JetBlue's earnings call this week, they have seven parked aircraft due to the Pratt and
Whitney gear turbofan engine issues now. But by the end of the year, they expect to have 13 to
15 aircraft grounded. That's a lot of aircraft that they can't operate. On top of that, they're
deferring aircraft. This is not signs of a healthy airline. I really hope they can turn it around.
[1:05:45] IP: Let's hope so. Ryanair's forecasting capacity is slightly down in Europe this
summer, which is interesting in a microcosm, but makes sense, looking at it from the macro
level. Ryanair's not saying its capacity is going to be down, but it's saying, it's taking advantage
of other airlines having less capacity and fares will be higher.
What they're looking at is basically, the same thing that everyone is looking at, especially
airlines operating Airbus A320neo family aircraft are looking at, and that's planes on the ground.
Between delivery delays and the fact that the Pratt and Whitney engine issues will keep a
sizable chunk of the Airbus A320neo family on the ground, at least for a small period of time, if
not longer. They're saying, their capacity is going to be down this year, and prices are going to
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be higher this summer. If you were planning on flying a low-cost airline in Europe this summer,
you're going to be paying more.
[1:06:48] JR: Yeah. At the same time, Ryanair, just two days ago, said, it expects the 737-10 to
be certified by the end of this year and flying early next year. They might want to rethink their
plan.
[1:07:03] IP: Maybe. Sure. Why not?
[1:07:05] JR: Yeah. Sure, in an alternate universe. I don't know. That is what we have learned in
the last day, shows that Ryanair, like a couple other airlines, specifically United, they're going to
have to rethink their fleet plan for the near term, because that is not going to happen.
[1:07:21] IP: I mean, I don't know if we talked about this, but United's already doing that.
Maybe. Reuters first reported that Scott Kirby hopped a flight over to Toulouse and said, “Can
we have a 321neo slots, please?”
[1:07:37] JR: Then Ryanair said, “We'll take any 73-10s –”
[1:07:40] IP: Then Ryanair said, “We’ll take those if they don’t want.”
[1:07:44] JR: Don't read too much into it. Maybe Scott Kirby just wanted to go to the south of
France in January, because it's nice there.
[1:07:49] IP: Who doesn’t? Who doesn’t?
[1:07:50] JR: I mean, I'd go.
[1:07:52] IP: Now that you mention it, yeah, that sounds like a good idea.
[1:07:54] JR: I don't know where they'd be getting those slots from, but hey, JetBlue just said,
“We don't need as many, so maybe United will take them.”
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[1:08:02] IP: The idea, at least as Reuters was reporting it, was that because of that, Airbus
went to other airlines and said, “You have delivery slots. Are you going to use those? Can we
have that?”
[1:08:15] JR: Are you done with these, or can we have that?
[1:08:18] IP: How much? Can we talk? Can we talk? That'll be fascinating to see if anything
comes of that. Also on the Airbus front, and if you don't want to fly a low-cost carrier to Europe,
or even between the US and Europe, you can now fly on a Beluga, assuming that you want to
ship yourself and go that route. Airbus built the Beluga to carry around Airbus parts similar to the
Dreamlifter. Then they went and said, “We need a bigger plane.” So, they built the Airbus
Beluga XL, which is based on the A330. They still have the Beluga fleet. They said, “Well, why
don't we make some money off of these and turn it into a cargo airline, an outsized cargo
airline?” That outsized cargo airline function of Airbus now has approval to fly between Europe
and the United States. Expect to see, or hopefully, you'll see a Beluga at an airport near you.
[1:09:13] JR: That'd be great. I don't know if those aircraft had ever crossed the Atlantic in their
current form, at least. I don't think we ever thought that would happen. This is great, especially
now that the Antonov fleet, the heavy lifters is a little more difficult to get access to these days.
The Beluga fleet is not as versatile, I don't think. You have to have a lot more –
[1:09:32] IP: Less weight. Yeah, less weight, needs specialized loading equipment and things
like that.
[1:09:39] JR: But it's something.
[1:09:39] IP: Maybe worth it, if you've got some helicopters to move, or something like that.
Speaking of helicopters, we've got some sad news.
[1:09:49] JR: Some news that was inevitable at some point, but it's happy news, I think,
because NASA JPL announced that after 72 flights, three years after its first flight, the Mars
helicopter known as Ingenuity, unfortunately, seems to have some damage to one of its
propellers and has taken its final flight. Keeping in mind, I say this is happy, because this aircraft
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is experimental. It was only slated to operate five test flights over 30 days. In typical NASA
Mars-related nonsense, it lasted for 72 flights over three years, because of course, it did. It
logged more than two hours of total flight time, flew 11 miles. It turns out, there aren't many
airports on Mars, at least not right now.
[1:10:42] IP: Huh.
[1:10:43] JR: Yeah. Weird, right? Where the Mars helicopter initially was based and was
operating up and down from a stationary point was called a Wright Brothers Field, because, of
course. Once they started at NASA to move the aircraft beyond that, it spread its wings, so to
speak, they named more airfields after it and they started with the really creative name of
Airfield B, and then they went to C, D, E, F, G, H, I, all the way to Airfield, X, Y, and Z, and then
they ran out of letters and then they started using phonetic letters, so Airfield Beta and Gamma
and Epsilon. Then they actually went into the Greek alphabet, because they just kept running
out of names for airports.
Where the aircraft lies right now, where it will probably stay forever, until a human comes there
and accidentally steps on it, I don't know, is Airfield Chi, I think. C-H-I. Yeah, that's quite the
story for that little rover. 72 flights, 128.8 flight time minutes. That's pretty impressive.
[1:11:53] IP: There you go. Go Ingenuity.
[1:11:56] JR: Yeah, I think the experiment was successful.
[1:12:00] IP: That's definitely a success. This episode has been a success, too. This has been
episode 253 of AvTalk. Thank you all very, very much for listening. Like we said at the beginning
of the show, email us at podcast@fr24.com with your stories of how you were influenced in
aviation. We would love to hear your stories. We would also love to hear your suggestions for
future episodes, comments, criticisms, what have you, just send us an email.
Wherever you listen to this podcast, whether it's Apple Podcasts, which is most of you, or
Spotify, which is some of you, or wherever else you listen to the show, leave us a rating, or
review. That really helps other people find the show. That can be their story about how they
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became avgeeks. They read a review of the podcast, and they said, “I'm going to listen to it.” It
can be all your fault that they're now stuck listening to us.
[1:12:54] JR: What an origin story.
[1:12:55] IP: This has been episode 253 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always with –
[1:13:02] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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