AvTalk Episode 190: Would you like to play a game?

AVT 190 Transcript
EPISODE 190
[EPISODE]
[0:00:08] IP: Hello, and welcome to Episode 190 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. We've got a long episode today.
[0:00:20] IP: We do. We do.
[0:00:21] JR: We're long in content. Don't know about duration just yet.
[0:00:26] IP: Yes. We're backfilling some of the things that happened two weeks ago, during the
week that we recorded the episode with last week's show, with Jon Ostrower, which I hope
you've listened to by now. If you haven't, go do that, because it's a really good one. We've also
got a lot of stuff that happened in the intervening week as well. We're going to talk about all of
that.
Just to mention last week’s show briefly, we talked about the future of Boeing and their future,
specifically in the commercial aviation market. One of the things that we talked about is what are
they going to do next? What airplane are they going to build? We had a number of people
comment that they should just build the 757 again.
[0:01:11] JR: Oh, okay. That's one way to go about it.
[0:01:14] IP: It comes up every time we talk about this, because A, it's a great airplane. People
love it. B, Boeing stopped building it when they probably, perhaps, could have continued
building it for a while. But it's not coming back. The 757 is not coming back. That's done. Please
stop suggesting it as a solution. Please don't email us. Please don't tweet us. Please don't, what
is the new one? Toot us. Don't whatever. It’s done. 757 is not coming back. It's done. It's not
possible. They're not bringing it back. It's done. Done.
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AVT 190 Transcript
[0:01:51] JR: Okay. Now we know how you feel on that topic.
[0:01:54] IP: It's not how I feel. It's not how I feel. I feel like, they should bring it back, but –
[0:01:59] JR: I disagree.
[0:02:01] IP: - in the realm of all, it’s not possible.
[0:02:02] JR: Yeah, it's not going to happen.
[0:02:03] IP: In the realm of all things that are possible, it's just not going to happen. I would
love to see a 757 with GE90 engine strapped to it. Why not?
[0:02:12] JR: Sure.
[0:02:13] IP: Why not? Why not? But these things just not going to happen. Anyway, that’s
done.
[0:02:17] JR: Stop asking.
[0:02:19] IP: We’re going on. This weekend at the Wings over Dallas Air Show, a P-63
Kingcobra collided with a B-17. All six crew members of both aircraft, the single crew member in
the Kingcobra and five crew members in the B-17 were killed. The NTSB is investigating. We
didn't have a good track of either aircraft for that particular flight. There's no ATSB data to go
into any of this discussion today. Suffice it to say that it's a terrible tragedy and the NTSB is on
the scene and has been – they've been collecting physical evidence. They've been interviewing
participants. They've got tons and tons and tons of photos and videos from people who were
there.
Unfortunately, neither of the aircraft had recorders, data recorders, so that makes things a little
bit more difficult. There were some recording devices onboard, at least the B-17. Those have
been sent to the NTSB lab in Washington. Not necessarily a crash-protected recorder, but other
recording devices, GPS devices. Hopefully, all of that will help and aid in the investigation
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AVT 190 Transcript
process. The NTSB has said that between four and six weeks, the preliminary report will come
out. Then obviously, the final report takes much longer, between 12 and 18 months from now.
I thought with everyone who was involved, and the families involved in that crash and hoping for
a very clear report from the NTSB, so we can learn more about it and make sure it never
happens again.
[0:03:58] JR: Yeah. Not much else to say right now, other than that it was tragic. Yeah, that's
really all we have to say right now.
[0:04:05] IP: Yeah. We'll keep a close eye on this one for sure. Because this isn't the first
incident with historic aircraft. There is certainly some discussion, both in the historic aviation
community, as well as the airshow community, and they often overlap very, very closely about
these types of flights. It'll be interesting to see how the conversation develops around these
types of displays, and what if any modifications to air shows and historic flying displays these
groups make in the wake of this crash and possibly, what the report says regarding this
particular crash. We'll wait and see more from the NTSB.
Also, this incident happened two weeks ago, during the week that we recorded last week's
episode, where we focused just on the Boeing and left the week's news where it was, but we'll
talk about this now. A PrecisionAir ATR 42 completed its flight and didn't quite stop where it was
supposed to and ended up in Lake Victoria. This was unfortunately, details are still unclear
exactly what happened. We're still waiting report on that one as well. I'm not sure when we'll
have an interim report on that particular crash.
[0:05:25] JR: Yeah. Another flight, also without any ATSB tracking data to go on to at least get a
clue of what may have happened. Apparently, the weather was not great. They overran. They
ended up in the lake. Unfortunately, there were casualties on this flight. Usually, typically, when
you see runway overruns, or something like that of this nature, there isn't really a question of if
everyone survived. In this case, unfortunately, that was not the outcome this time. Someone did
raise the question to me on Twitter of whether this being a high wing aircraft made any
difference to the survivability, since if it's a low-wing aircraft, like your 737, or a 320, the wings
are mid fuselage and I think they're designed to float, so that you exit the aircraft onto the wings.
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AVT 190 Transcript
On the high-wing aircraft, it looks like, that really wasn't what was going on there, that most of
the aircraft was submerged. I'm very interested to see what the appropriate investigation reports
really return on that topic. I'm interested to see what they say.
[0:06:29] IP: Yeah, that'd be interesting. You know what? I don't know the answer to that
question, but that's an interesting question to raise. Hopefully, the report will address that.
Speaking of reports, the final report issue on the Sriwijaya Air Flight 182, the 737-500, which
crashed in Indonesia a few years ago, that final report is now out. The final report lays the
probable cause of the accident very clearly on the malfunctioning auto throttle system, and the
crew’s inability to properly recognize and react to what was happening. This is what gets me.
This was a known issue on this particular aircraft since 2013.
[0:07:23] JR: Yeah, an issue on this particular aircraft, this captain had experience with a new,
this was an issue, and had dealt with previously.
[0:07:31] IP: I don't mean on this aircraft, as in the type of aircraft.
[0:07:35] JR: This specific 737-500.
[0:07:36] IP: This specific 737-500. They for whatever reason, on this particular flight, and the
report, unfortunately, doesn't really get into as much detail as the investigators wanted to,
because the microphone for the captain's voice recorder wasn't – where it was inoperative for
some reason. There's a one-sided conversation with their first officer, where you only hear half
the conversation. For whatever reason, the crew just didn't recognize what was happening
quickly enough, and then apply the correct procedures to perform the upset recovery. The
aircraft rolled over, basically, and then ended up crashing.
We'll put a link to the full final report in the show notes, if you want to take a look at that, and as
well as ATSB data that we had from the time of the crash. A really unfortunate situation, but also
one where you think they've had nearly 10 years to fix this particular auto – you think that would
have been fixed by now.
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AVT 190 Transcript
[0:08:45] JR: Yeah, it's unfortunate that this mechanical issue had stemmed so long on this
aircraft, but it's not particularly unusual for a specific aircraft at a specific airline to have a
stigma, or be known to have a sticky mechanical issue that just can't get sorted out. It's not
unusual that there'd be a reoccurring issue on a particular airframe. This one just seems
particularly not great that the auto-throttle wouldn't work for so – or wouldn't work properly for so
many years. That's more, I'd say, unusual than the regular things you would see of like, the APU
doesn't work, or is unreliable, or something along those lines. This is just a really long streak to
have something as critical as the auto-throttle be not functional for.
[0:09:31] IP: Yeah. We'll leave it there with a report available to peruse and we'll continue to
work our way through and see if there's anything else that jumps out and revisit it if necessary.
Let's move on to some future news. Because as with all good investment opportunities, this one
may or may not pay off in the future, but United Airlines Ventures, which is the, “Hey, we're
hoping this works,” arm of United Airlines is investing “as much as 37.5 million into Next,” which
is a Houston-based company that is working on developing sustainable aviation fuel.
The strategic investment is in basically, a refinery in Oregon, which is going to produce the
sustainable aviation fuels. The refinery will have the capability of producing – could produce up
to 50,000 barrels per day of sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel and other renewable
fuel. It won't even just be all sustainable aviation fuel for United. An interesting continuance of
cover all the bases and see what shakes out as the technology matures, I think, with the value
of the announcement, and the couched language, because the total investment will only be as,
“as long as the company meets certain milestone targets.” It's like all of the other –
[0:11:06] JR: All this stuff with the eVTOLs, where if it meets these other specified safety and
operational requirements. They're spending up to 37 and a half million dollars. I tonight could
spend up to 37 and a half million dollars on dinner. I'm not. It’s going to be more like $10, but
there's a lot of question marks here. I guess, United is putting their ducks in a row, but I can't
kick it out of my mind at the same time, how much of this potential 35% of United's fuel usage is
going to be consumed all by Boom supersonic aircraft that United may or may not ever operate.
This still just, a lot of questions.
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AVT 190 Transcript
[0:11:43] IP: Yeah. I mean, I think I'm discounting Boom as it exists, which is to say that it
doesn't. We can talk about that ad nauseam. It's great to argue about this and whatever, but I'm
not going to – I'm not going to get upset until they start flying. Then I'll be upset, because I think
it's a dumb idea, but that's besides the point. What I want to talk about here is that they're going
to invest a bunch of money, they are investing a bunch of money up to 37 and a half million
dollars. The refinery will be capable of say, 50,000 barrels a day at full capacity. Great.
At full capacity, it could produce things other than sustainable aviation fuel. Let's say that 50,000
barrels a day of sustainable aviation fuel, and United buys all of it. Using last year's figures,
which are depressed, because of the ongoing recovery from the super depressed figures from
2020 when the pandemic hit and 2021 during the recovery. How many gallons of fuel did United
Airlines use in 2021?
[0:12:51] JR: If I had to guess, I would say 2,185,558,000 gallons of fuel. That's just a rough
back of the napkin estimate, though.
[0:13:01] IP: You did that one in your head.
[0:13:02] JR: I did.
[0:13:04] IP: Okay, so that's the right number. I wrote this down in the show notes, didn’t I?
[0:13:09] JR: You did.
[0:13:10] IP: Okay. There you go. I was seriously trying to figure out how you got that number
so quickly and the exact right number.
[0:13:17] JR: The exact right number. It's right there. What you're leading to here is that that is
only 35% of – the 50,000 barrels a day is about 35% of United's overall fuel usage. Even if this
refinery churns out 100% capacity, only sustainable aviation fuel all day, every day nonstop, it
only scratch – maybe not scratches the surface, but doesn't even cover half.
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AVT 190 Transcript
[0:13:42] IP: It's a full third of their daily usage. Okay, great. That leads us to our next point. The
manager of renewable aviation at Nest, which is also a sustainable aviation fuel producer, said
today, speaking at the Skiff live event, “We need policies to help sustainable aviation fuels
become more economically affordable. We need support to help customers in the industry
understand that we have a solution.”
Two things here. One, I want to separate the first clause that we need policies to help
sustainable aviation fuels become more economically affordable. Basically, we need tax credit to
buy a sustainable aviation –
[0:14:22] JR: We need subsidies. We need government subsidies. Every airline has pretty
much been saying that. We need government support to make this happen. This is not a unique
statement, but it is definitely true.
[0:14:34] IP: Yeah. The second half is what I found even more interesting, because no one is
arguing that government doesn't have role to play here, I don't think. The interesting thing to me
here is we need support to help customers and the industry, understand that we have a solution.
[0:14:49] JR: That’s a lot to unpack, actually.
[0:14:52] IP: I don't know what she's trying to say, because at this point, isn't the industry
onboard? Hasn't the industry said, “Okay, SAF. Everything’s SAF. We’ll do SAF everything.” SAF
is the answer, the end all be all answer of everything at this point. Even though, obviously, it's
not. I'm not sure what she means by this.
[0:15:12] JR: I do understand this one, because this hits home in my day job.
[0:15:14] IP: Okay. Please explain.
[0:15:15] JR: Communication to passengers. When you’re flight shopping, you're on, let's say, a
large online travel agency with a yellow corporate color. You're looking at flights. You're not
seeing that the first five flights are operating on 0% SAF, while the sixth flight on the list is
operating on 30% SAF, or something like that. There's no real transparency to say, book airline
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AVT 190 Transcript
X, because they operate 35% of their fuel usage on SAF, while airline B operates 2% on SAFs,
or something like that. There are some efforts, like Google has their little CO2 emission
calculator in the flight results, which I think is just not great. It is often inaccurate and I don't like
the concept of it, because what the hell is 50,000 pounds of CO2 per flight per passenger? I
don't know. I don't know what to do with that information.
I do understand that there's a need to communicate to flight shoppers and people at large that
sustainable aviation fuel is a thing, and even harder is where can you find that thing? How do
you know how to book a flight that has it and the industry does not have that answer? Because
it's really unknowable at this point, even to people inside the industry who deal with this stuff like
me. Deal with this stuff like myself, you just don't know what flights are using SAF, or what
aren't, because it depends on the airline, the aircraft, the time of day, the route, any number of
things. It's not tenable right now, basically.
I'm not convinced that this is actually a solution. This is a stopgap and I think it should be noted
as such that SAFs is not the end game. This is an interim solution, until there is actually a better
form of propulsion that's more green. I do understand the need to try to help customers
understand what SAFs is and how they can find it, which right now is pretty much they can't.
[0:17:10] IP: Yeah, okay. All right. Then, thank you.
[0:17:13] JR: You're welcome.
[0:17:14] IP: That was very helpful. Moving on. I wasn't prepared for that thorough and –
[0:17:20] JR: I'm not saying and the answers. I'm just saying, it's really impossible to know if a
flight is powered by SAF or not.
[0:17:26] IP: No. That I completely agree with. Let's talk about money. At the beginning of the
pandemic, people had booked a bunch of flights, and then the world shut down. You couldn't go
anywhere. People said, “I want my money back.” A whole bunch airlines said, “No, we're going
to keep it.” Finally, finally, finally, the US Department of Transportation has come down on some
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AVT 190 Transcript
airlines and said, “All right, that's enough of that. You owe these people money. By the way,
we're going to fine you a bunch of money for trying to pull this off.” This is a fun one.
Frontier Airlines, Air India, TAP Air Portugal, Aeromexico, El Al and Avianca, they have to pay a
total of 600 million dollars in refunds, and they have to pay penalties, which are nowhere near
600 million dollars. I mean, the penalties due to the government are in the, let's see, 750,000 to
2.2 million range. The penalties aren't really that large in the grand scheme of things. The
refunds are pretty big. Frontier owes passengers 222 million. Air India owes passengers a 121.5
million. TAP owes a 126.5. Aeromexico owes 13.6 million. El Al owes flyers 61.9 million and
Avianca owes 76.8 million. That's a lot of money, especially as far as some of the customers are
concerned, it's been a long time.
[0:19:21] JR: Yes. I'm happy to see them call out Frontier specifically, because they pulled a lot
of shenanigans, along with Spirit to, I think a lesser degree. Frontier pulled a lot of shenanigans
like, “Oh, your flight’s not canceled. It's just moved to four days from now. You can't get a refund,
because it's not actually canceled.” I think Spirit and Frontier both did this, where if you
cancelled your flight for a credit in March 2020, that credit would have an expiration date of
something ridiculous, like 60 days, which is basically, the airlines telling you to go pound sand,
because you know you can't use that credit in the amount of time it would expire and in most
airlines extended credits for years at this point, but they were very, very steadfast in saying,
“We're not going to extend these credits. You have 60 days to use it, or lose it.” I'm happy to see
Frontier take a large hit on this. They deserve every penny of the fine they're going to have to
pay.
[0:20:10] IP: Yeah, Frontier had in March of 2020, Frontier change their definition of significant
schedule change, which will allow passenger to get their money back. It used to be, if the flight
changed plus or minus three hours –
[0:20:27] JR: Which at the time is fairly typical.
[0:20:30] IP: Yeah. You could get your money back. Then Frontier changed it to, as long as it
left on the same day, they weren't significantly delayed.
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AVT 190 Transcript
[0:20:38] JR: Yeah. No, that's ridiculous. If originally your flight was, let's say, a 10 p.m.
departure and suddenly became a 6 a.m. departure, too bad. Deal with it. Cancel and maybe
take the voucher that's good for 60 days, or walk away from it. That's just wrong.
[0:20:54] IP: Yeah, so over 600 million dollars back in customers’ pockets. Always a fun
experience.
[0:21:02] JR: It's 600 million that they didn't have to spend buying Spirit. They've got the cash.
[0:21:10] IP: Not just from Frontier, but yeah, the cash is there. Then the other side of the DOT
story, last week that we didn't talk about is the Department of Transportation is saying to US
airlines, “Please, please, please, please fly a little bit further over the water. Please.”
[0:21:30] JR: Yes. Specifically, what they mean is the routes between Florida and the –
[0:21:35] IP: What is happening, Jason?
[0:21:36] JR: - and US east coast. We don't really need to talk more about how the air traffic
around Florida has been an absolute nightmare over the last year, between longer than usual
harsh weather, more intense, harsh weather, seemingly endless stream of rocket launches and
the Jacksonville ATC center never having enough staff. At this point, the DOT is asking airlines if
they have the capability to do so, to please route flights over water route. They're not ETOPS
flights, I think. They’re over water routes. The problem with that is airlines have to have the
actual equipment to do that. You can't take any old aircraft and operate it out over the Atlantic,
even if it's not really an ETOPS flight.
These flights need to have life vests and they have to have rafts, and they have to have special
other equipment onboard to be able to do that. It's going to take some work for the airlines to
really prioritize putting those aircraft on the routes that they could be properly utilized. Because I
don't know about you, Ian, but I've been on those overwater aircraft that don't ever fly over any
body of water larger than a puddle many times. I think this is more of an ask that just pretty
please, help us ease the congestion and go out over the Atlantic a little bit.
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[0:22:47] IP: This is definitely a help us, help you situation here.
[0:22:50] JR: Then it makes sense. I respect it.
[0:22:53] IP: Yeah. I mean, the worst they can say is no and still be delayed. There you go.
Yeah, hopefully a few airlines can take advantage of that AND ease everybody's minds a little
bit. Okay, we are going to stop normal podcast recording right now. Jason, we're going to play a
game.
[0:23:10] JR: We've never done that before. What does that mean?
[0:23:12] IP: You’ve never done it before. We're going to play game and it's going to be a
preview of what we do in future episodes. I want to make this a normal thing. I want people to
come on to the podcast and I want them to play for flightradar24 prizes. Might be flightradar24
stuff. Might be stuff that we get from elsewhere that's aviation related. We'll start with some
flightradar24 stuff. If you want to come on starting next week, next week's episode of the
podcast and play a little game with us airline trivia, aviation trivia, airline codes, airport codes,
fun nuggets of airplane history, all that fun stuff, we'll mix and match as we go along and play a
quick game. If you want to play, email us at podcast@fr24.com and say, “I want to play the
game.” We'll do some random assortments to get people to play and you could win a fun price.
Jason, for today, I'm going to give you the airline ICAO callsign.
[0:24:10] JR: Oh, God. Okay.
[0:24:12] IP: The three-letter callsign and you're going to give me the airline name.
[0:24:16] JR: Okay. To my benefit here, we are going into this having not rehearsed this. Not
even told me we're doing this, nor telling me what the game is. This is truly an alpha test. Am I
allowed to cheat?
[0:24:28] IP: I mean, I would prefer if you didn't.
[0:24:31] JR: Okay, okay.
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AVT 190 Transcript
[0:24:32] IP: Okay. All right. I did not pick, I don't think terribly hard ones, and I will give hints,
okay? For instance, if I said, UAL, you would say, United Airlines.
[0:24:43] JR: I would. Wait. Are we doing the call signs, or the ICAO codes?
[0:24:48] IP: The code.
[0:24:51] JR: Okay. I think you said call sign. Okay. I thought you meant Springbok, or
Speedbird, because those are cooler.
[0:24:58] IP: Not for this part of the game. All right. If I gave you the letters GTI, what airline is
that?
[0:25:06] JR: GTI. Is that Atlas?
[0:25:09] IP: That is Atlas.
[0:25:10] JR: Hey, all right.
[0:25:11] IP: Hey, good job.
[0:25:12] JR: One for one. All right, that's the end of the game. I’m a winner. 100%.
[0:25:19] IP: Okay, here's one. BGA.
[0:25:21] JR: BGA. Biman Bangladesh?
[0:25:24] IP: No.
[0:25:25] JR: Oh, BGA. BGA.
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[0:25:27] IP: They're a very small airline. They only operate, I think at this point, seven aircraft
of two different types and they're all very aquatically named.
[0:25:39] JR: Aquatically named. What in the – aquatically named. What airline –
[0:25:46] IP: Very special aircraft. The very special aircraft. BGA.
[0:25:50] JR: BGA. I was thinking Kenn Borek Air for some reason, but they don't have a small
fleet. They have a lot of little planes, I think.
[0:25:59] IP: No. These are just a few very big planes.
[0:26:03] JR: Very big planes and they're aquatic.
[0:26:05] IP: Very big planes. Aquatically named .
[0:26:08] JR: Aquatically named, very big planes. I got nothing. I don't know an airline – There
are very few airlines that actually name their aircraft, but I don't know of ones that name them
after aquatic things.
[0:26:20] IP: No, they're not named – It's the Beluga fleet. It's Airbus Transport International.
[0:26:24] JR: Oh, dang. Yeah. That's a good one.
[0:26:28] IP: OCN.
[0:26:30] JR: OCN. OCN. I feel like that's what? South American Airline. Am I in the right
continent?
[0:26:36] IP: Not even close.
[0:26:37] JR: Ah. OCN.
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[0:26:38] IP: It's a newish airline, begun by a not new airline at all.
[0:26:44] JR: Norse?
[0:26:46] IP: Not Norse.
[0:26:48] JR: Oh, am I in the right continent now?
[0:26:49] IP: You might be. You're on the right continent, you might have to try and discover this
airline.
[0:26:55] JR: Eurowings Discover.
[0:26:57] IP: There it is.
[0:26:58] JR: You might have gotten that one a little too far in the hint.
[0:27:02] IP: I'll take what I can get.
[0:27:04] JR: By the way, I'm much better with the two letter codes. I rarely if ever deal with the
three-letter codes. The two-letter codes are right up my alley, though, but let’s go on.
[0:27:13] IP: I knew that, which is why I went with the three-letter ones. Okay, we're going to
switch codes now. We're going to go on to the airports. This could be either IATA, or ICAO.
We're going to mix and match airport codes. You're going to tell me the city the airport serves.
Not necessarily the city in which the airport is located, because sometimes suburbs and all that
good fun stuff. For instance say –
[0:27:32] JR: If you give me WR, I’d say Newark.
[0:27:34] IP: You would say that now.
[0:27:36] JR: New York is incorrect.
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AVT 190 Transcript
[0:27:38] IP: Exactly. Here we go. All right, SCL.
[0:27:43] JR: SCL. That’s Santiago Chile, right?
[0:27:46] IP: You are correct, sir. All right, VHHH.
[0:27:51] JR: VHHH. Is that Hong Kong?
[0:27:53] IP: It is.
[0:27:55] JR: I know that one, because I only just played the Hong Kong Kai Tak landing
challenge in flight sim anniversary update, so that's fresh in my mind.
[0:28:04] IP: All right. NBO.
[0:28:06] JR: NBO. That's Nairobi, Kenya.
[0:28:09] IP: Yes, it is. YSSY.
[0:28:12] JR: YSSY. Is that somewhere in the Oceania region, like Australia?
[0:28:19] IP: Yes.
[0:28:21] JR: YSSY.
[0:28:23] IP: YSSY.
[0:28:24] JR: YSSY. Is it Fiji? No.
[0:28:28] IP: It is not. Sydney.
[0:28:31] JR: Sydney. Okay. Did not know that one.
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[0:28:35] IP: This one, GOH.
[0:28:37] JR: GOH. Go India.
[0:28:39] IP: No.
[0:28:40] JR: No? Okay. Hint?
[0:28:44] IP: We've gone about as far from Sydney as we can possibly go.
[0:28:49] JR: Newark?
[0:28:51] IP: Oh, God. No, it’s not Newark. But you're close with the name. It's Nuuk.
[0:28:58] JR: Nuuk. Oh, Greenland.
[0:29:01] IP: Yes.
[0:29:01] JR: Yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
[0:29:05] IP: We're going to work on this. Podcast listeners, thank you for being our alpha
testers. We're going to work on some more codes, some more trivia, some more things. We'll
have a game starting next week. Email us, podcast@fr24.com, if you want to play our new
game for fun –
[0:29:21] JR: Do we have music, like intro music for this game? We need music or something.
[0:29:24] IP: We're going to have to get music, aren't we? Yeah. Okay. All right.
[0:29:28] JR: Well, not too bad not knowing I was going into this, right and do my homework or
anything. Not too terrible.
© 2022 AvTalk 16
AVT 190 Transcript
[0:29:35] IP: I had to get you in cold. I had to get you in cold. I was smart and didn't put all of
these in the show notes for you to read.
[0:29:39] JR: No, you did not.
[0:29:44] IP: I was like, “How does he know that fuel number?” It all worked out. Okay, let's take
a quick break. When we come back, we will do orders on orders and fleet changes. Then we will
be done with the show. Stick around, we'll be right back after this.
[BREAK]
[0:30:06] IP: Welcome back. It is now time for the portion of the podcast where we run through
a long list of things that airlines and manufacturers and lessors have done with airplanes over
the past week. We begin, well, I should say –
[0:30:21] JR: Two weeks.
[0:30:22] IP: - two weeks, because this goes back a little ways. Chinese lessors bought 300
C919s and 30 ARJ21s, which I think tells us all we need to know about the ARJ21.
[0:30:35] JR: Yeah. To clarify, these orders did not just happen on a random Tuesday. This
happened during China's big – now again, I guess, again, an international aviation show, so
that's good. I don't remember the actual name of the air show. Do you remember what it's
called?
[0:30:52] IP: Zhuhai, I think.
[0:30:55] JR: Yeah. 300 C919s and also, appearing the ARJ21. For some reason, they're still
producing that aircraft.
[0:31:05] IP: Yeah, so they are. China also certified. On the heels of the airshow, China also
certify the ATR42-600, which it had been holding off on for a while, and the E190-E2 is also
certified. Two aircraft that compete with now, with domestic Chinese aircraft. Conspicuously
© 2022 AvTalk 17
AVT 190 Transcript
absent, of course, is the 737 MAX. However, the E190-E2 is Embraer is marketing it as the
answer to China's hot and high problem. China has a number of airports that are either very
high in elevation, or very hot, or a combination of both. Embraer is saying that the E190-E2 is
the obvious solution, and perfect for those smaller, essential air service markets.
Positioning, the Embraer marketing is very interesting in the context of China, because it
positions the E190-E2 directly in the middle of the ARJ21 and the C919 as far as capacity goes,
which good marketing, but we'll see how many orders they eventually pick up there.
[0:32:12] JR: Yeah. Looking at Wikipedia, which is not the definitive source of truth, there is an
order for 10 E195-E2 placed way back in July 2014 for ICBC, which is the Industrial and
Commercial Bank of China. Those are apparently still on the books. We'll see if any airline
actually picks those up. Apparently, Tianjin Airlines had an order for 20 E190-E2s also way back
in 2014. This day, actually. I wonder if those are related. It's not like there are a lot of airlines, or
a lot of outstanding orders for this particular aircraft in China, but maybe this changes that.
[0:32:46] IP: Yeah. We'll have to see what happens. Then, of course, we continue to await at
some point in the future, probably, we think the 737 MAX’s eventual, possible certification.
[0:33:01] JR: There’s a lot of ifs there.
[0:33:01] IP: Maybe. China Southern Airlines retired its A380 fleet. It conducted its last flight
from Los Angeles to Guangzhou two weeks ago now, or a week and a half ago now. They're
done with their commercial service. The only Chinese airline to operate the A380, they’re now
no longer operating that particular aircraft. Sticking in the region, Malaysia Airlines has begun
sending its A380 fleet into long-term storage. The first of six flew off to Tarbes a few days ago. I
think beginning of the week, Sunday or Monday is when it went. We see the beginning of the
end for certain A380 fleets. But a380 fleets elsewhere still going quite strong. An interesting
thing that Thai Airways is considering bringing at least a pair of their A380s back.
[0:33:57] JR: Yeah, sure. Why not?
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AVT 190 Transcript
[0:34:00] IP: Though, given the storage conditions that their A380s have seen, I question how
much work that would take.
[0:34:08] JR: Yeah. That's an airline that is notorious for being questioned about their fleet
decisions of like, why do you have A340-500s? Or, why do you have A380s? You do not need
these aircrafts. I'd be very surprised if they bring the A380s back, of all the random aircraft that
never belonged in their fleet.
[0:34:27] IP: To round out our A380 coverage, Singapore Airlines is going to wait out the 777-9
orders that it has the delays with those orders that it has, not with the A380, but with the
777-300ER. They will not either bring spare capacity from their A380 fleet back in. They will not
readd anything. They will use the 777-300ER and not the A380, until the 777-9 can eventually
be delivered from Boeing.
[0:35:00] JR: One day.
[0:35:02] IP: There you go. New flights that I did not have on my radar, include British Airways
flying to Cincinnati.
[0:35:13] JR: Okay, that's an interesting one. Didn't see that one coming. I believe that joins –
No, Delta flying to Paris, I think from Cincinnati. That's an interesting one. What I picked up on
here is that BA clarified, or touted the number of US cities that they operate to. This is BA’s 27th
US destination, which is pretty crazy. Really? 2.7 I could ramble them all off, but it would take
too long. It's the 27th destination in the US, not even North America. Just the US alone.
[0:35:50] IP: I'm counting in my head. What are some of the lesser cities?
[0:35:55] JR: Austin, Nashville, Baltimore, Orlando, New Orleans, Phoenix? Phoenix is an odd
one. Pittsburgh. San Diego.
[0:36:07] IP: Phoenix is not an odd one.
[0:36:08] JR: For international airlines flying there, yeah it is.
© 2022 AvTalk 19
AVT 190 Transcript
[0:36:12] IP: It’s a huge American –
[0:36:14] JR: But they have next to no international flights that are not American.
[0:36:18] IP: Which is why I'm saying, I don't think it's that unusual. So really, what it is, is it's
like 787-8 fleet.
[0:36:25] JR: That's exactly what is operating this new flight as well. I did the math on a select
number of airlines. BA is the most right now with 27. Lufthansa, if you just look at Lufthansa,
they serve 20 US destinations. The second appearance for Eurowings Discover, if you count
Eurowings Discover which is for why, by the way, Lufthansa group bounces up to 26 US
destinations. So they are right behind them.
[0:36:55] IP: Okay. Interesting.
[0:36:56] JR: Isn't it?
[0:36:59] IP: I mean, yeah. That's why I said it. All right, let's talk about JetBlue now. Because
for a long time, basically, from the time we started this podcast up until what? Six, seven months
ago when they actually started service, you refuse to talk about JetBlue flying internationally.
Now that they're finally doing it, can we talk about a future route announcement?
[0:37:21] JR: Yeah. I mean, they're doing what they said they would do. They're doing exactly
what they said they would do. In this case, they have announced that they will operate from JFK
to Paris de Gaulle, not the other one. That's exciting. With the A321neo LR, if Airbus can
actually deliver them. They've had delays with those aircraft deliveries. Over this past summer,
JetBlue had to operate some of their, I think Gatwick flights with the non-LR, which is not great,
not terrible. Then, they will evaluate this, I guess. At some point, do as they said they would do
and launch flights from Paris – to Paris from Boston as well, which is I think they're a bigger hub
for them than JFK at this point.
[0:38:05] IP: Well, good on them for doing what they said they were going to do.
© 2022 AvTalk 20
AVT 190 Transcript
[0:38:08] JR: Yeah, both of these routes are bottomless pits of demand at this point, so it can't
hurt to have another fight. I would like to see JetBlue utilize the 321neo LR to do some more
bespoke routes, I guess. Like, what a company does, where a route that you might – you're
going to be able to fill the plane, but there isn't 40 flights on the route a day. Air France Delta
literally calls JFK to Paris a shuttle at this point. They market it as a shuttle, even though it's not
hourly, or anything like that. This is just a bottomless pit of demand.
[0:38:41] IP: You have multiple options. I think, Seth Miller pulled it and it was what? 15 flights a
day, or something like that?
[0:38:46] JR: It’s a lot. Yeah. It's a bottomless pit of demand. If JetBlue wants to take a 2%
chunk of that, so be it.
[0:38:55] IP: Good for them.
[0:38:56] JR: Yeah, why not?
[0:38:56] IP: Yeah. I mean, let's talk about some cargo stuff. We've got Emirates Skycargo with
a handful of 777Fs on order. These are punt.
[0:39:06] JR: In this regard, you can you can put five 777Fs in your hand, I guess. If a handful
of 777Fs is what we're talking about, it's five.
[0:39:13] IP: Yes. All right then. These are current 777Fs. These are not the dash 8Fs that are
coming later. These are current build for Emirates. Silk Way West on the other hand, wants a
pair or two 777-8Fs, the up-gauged 777X-based freighter that will be available in a few years.
Then Jason, you flagged this one, and I had honestly forgotten they were an airline, but
Skymark placed an order for some 737 MAX.
[0:39:45] JR: Yeah, remember Skymark?
[0:39:48] IP: I don’t. I honestly don't.
© 2022 AvTalk 21
AVT 190 Transcript
[0:39:49] JR: They are the Japanese low-cost airline that partnered with Delta originally. Delta's
whole grand vision for Japan did not go well, but they had A330s that had green interiors. They
were only premium economy. They didn't even have economy, but that didn't work. They right-
sized their fleet. They only have 737s, but now they have placed a rather complex order for up
to 12 MAX, a mix of the Dash 8 and Dash 10. I think, only part of that is for a firm and then they
will take a following six Dash 8s from a lessor, so not directly from Boeing. At least that's nice.
Some modest growth from an airline that flew a little too close to the sun, then got right-sized
rather quickly.
[0:40:33] IP: Then we've got Azul ordering three A330-900neos. Then Republic is cutting its
order book by 31. They’re taking –
[0:40:47] JR: Typically talk about order cancellations like this all too often. It's all order, order,
order, but not cancellations.
[0:40:55] IP: It's an interesting number. 31 E175s coming out of the Republic order book.
[0:41:01] JR: Yeah, there's no question to why they're doing this. Of course, they don't have the
people to fly these planes, so why would you take them in the first place?
[0:41:07] IP: Yeah. I mean, I guess we can talk about that for just a second, and the fact that I
think it was Ned Russell talking about this a little bit this weekend. I'll have to go back and find it
for the show notes. Talking about how the pilot shortage is really now just a captain shortage,
who narrowed it down from pilot shortage to captain shortage. There's been some significant
financial incentives this week, especially at some of the regional carriers to encourage captains
to come work for them. Six figure salary inducements. It sounds like, the money thing is
working. If you pay them, they will come. It sounds like the money is working.
[0:41:50] JR: Yes, but only to the requisite amount of training can you backfill whoever you took
them from, or whatever seat – the right seat you've removed them from. Yeah, it's a bit
problematic, but it's a lot easier, I guess, for them to cancel these orders and add them back in
© 2022 AvTalk 22
AVT 190 Transcript
the future, than unsustainably taking delivery of them and then just immediately parking them in
Mojave.
[0:42:11] IP: Yeah. I mean, I'd rather they not do that. Okay, so this isn't really an order. Well, I
guess they're ordering a whole bunch of stuff. Ryanair, this one is one of the things that I wanted
to talk about last week, but we left it on the wayside. Ryanair is adding its split scimitar winglets.
Ryanair is adding split scimitar winglets to all of its 737-800s. That's 200 million dollars, it's
going to be spent on just over 400 aircraft. 800 split scimitar winglets being installed across the
Ryanair 737-800 fleet, increased fuel efficiency all the way around.
[0:42:49] JR: Yeah. If you did the math on top your head right now, that's half a million dollars in
aircraft, or a quarter of a million dollar a winglet. That's an expensive accessory.
[0:43:02] IP: If you're spending 200 million, obviously, the fuel burn improvement will save you
more. It's interesting –
[0:43:10] JR: I’d hope. Yeah. I mean, I hope that’s the case. This is not something that is
[inaudible 0:43:16].
[0:43:16] IP: Ryanair is famously known for wasting money.
[0:43:18] JR: Yes, no. This is not something that is an unknown. There are many airlines
around the world, from Delta and United. Copa, I think, has these on their 73-800s. Plenty of
airlines have this particular winglet type. I'm sure the case is more than proven at this point.
Coming up with a 200 million dollars to just buy the equipment. I'm sure there is additional cost
to actually take an aircraft offline and install it. That’s a big investment for an airline that doesn't
really do that all that often.
[0:43:47] IP: Yeah. I thought it was interesting. Obviously, they've done the math to ensure that
it's all going to work out. It's interesting to see the airline saying, “Okay, this is worth it at this
point to do this for all the –” They didn't even say like, “We're going to do it for a portion of the
fleet, study it. They said, “We’re going to do. We've seen the numbers, we're going to do all
things.” Good for them to produce their –
© 2022 AvTalk 23
AVT 190 Transcript
[0:44:09] JR: If you're wondering, of course, this is only on the 800s, the NGs, because the
MAXs have a very similar type of winglet already included from the factory. Any aircraft they're
taking does not need this accessory.
[0:44:22] IP: Then quickly before we go, Korean Air is doing a rolling grounding of all of its
A330s to inspect them, following both the runway overrun and an air return that it experienced
the following week where it had an engine shutdown in flight. They're taking all of the A330s out
of service, not at the same time, but as they complete inspections, returning them back into
service. They've said that we're not even going to bother with some of our oldest A330s. We're
just going to go ahead and retire those. That's an ongoing process that Korean Air is
completing, or perhaps, even has completed by now.
[0:45:06] JR: That's one way to handle the situation.
[0:45:09] IP: I mean, they recognize that there was an issue and are working to ensure that it's
not a fleet-wide issue, so good for them.
[0:45:17] JR: Okay.
[0:45:19] IP: Wow. That was a lot of stuff.
[0:45:22] JR: Yet, not all that abnormally long an episode.
[0:45:26] IP: No. We must have talked very fast, or it was just a lot of little things to get through,
because we had to get caught up. I felt like we left a lot of stuff at the wayside last week, but it
was an important episode and it needed to be recorded. I'm very thankful that Jon Ostrower
joined us. If you haven't listened to that episode, please go back and check out last week's
episode on the future of Boeing. If you want to play the game, that we should probably come up
with a name for.
[0:45:53] JR: The game. You just said it. The game.
© 2022 AvTalk 24
AVT 190 Transcript
[0:45:55] IP: Okay. If you want to play the game, email us, podcast@fr24.com. Let us know and
you could play on the show for some fun flightradar24, or other aviation related prices. I have to
dig into my bag of prizes that I've been collecting over the years.
[0:46:12] JR: How about a Korean Air A330? I hear there's some of that full now.
[0:46:17] IP: The bag is not that big. Or, just email us with whatever you want to talk about,
questions about the show –
[0:46:21] JR: But not bringing back the 757. Stop it.
[0:46:25] IP: I swear, if anyone emails us this week that says, “We want to bring back the 757,”
I'm holding Jason personally responsible. But, what are you going to do? This has been episode
190 of AvTalk. Thank you all very so much – so very much for listening. I am Ian Petchenik,
here, as always with –
[0:46:46] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
© 2022 AvTalk 25