AvTalk Episode 229: Just kidding about vacation, this is a new episode

AVT 229 Transcript
EPISODE 229
[00:00:08] IP: Hello, and welcome to Episode 229 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik. Here as
always with –
[00:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. And, Ian, I thought you're supposed to be on vacation.
[00:00:19] IP: I am on vacation. This is the miracle of recorded sound allows us to sort of make
liars of ourselves. We were supposed to be off this week. But as is the universe's cruel, cruel
bend, big news came out pretty much right after we hit stop on the last recording.
[00:00:42] JR: None of it bad news. Just –
[00:00:44] IP: No. Not bad news. Just big news.
[00:00:47] JR: We have to clarify. Usually, when we put out a special podcast, it's because
something horrible has happened. But in this case, it's just things.
[00:00:54] IP: It's just things. Big enough to spend a few minutes at the end of the current week.
Episode 228 is out. Hopefully, you're listening to it or have listened to it. And then we're going to
record this one today to talk about some of the things that happened this week. Nothing too
time-sensitive here, but just some interesting stuff that we thought was worth mentioning. And
then we'll really be on vacation. I promise.
[00:01:19] JR: All right.
[00:01:19] IP: All right. Let's get into it. Air India has a brand-new look.
[00:01:26] JR: They got a brand-new everything. Coming up, they'll have hundreds of new
aircraft. And now we know they will have a brand-new brand identity, including livery and
completely new in-flight products, which is very interesting. And there's even a little controversy
over some of the registration numbers they picked for their mocked-up aircraft, which I think is
kind of funny. But we'll get to that.
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[00:01:51] IP: Yeah. Let's talk about – do you want to start from the inside-out or go from the
outside-in?
[00:01:55] JR: Let's go outside-in. I think most people care about what's on the outside.
[00:01:59] IP: Sure. On the outside, we go from the old kind of smaller titles above the
windows. The red tail with the – I guess it's half of the logo type. And then the iconic red window
framings. And the airline says that they have changed the window framings around each
window and expanded on that idea to make – they call it the hero window frame tip tail fin.
Instead of having window frames around each window, the entire tail is now a window frame in a
deeper red aubergine, or eggplant for those in the US, and gold.
It's like they took a window frame around each window and just threw it on the tail and then they
gave the forward fuselage a lovely billboard splash Air India in a font they are calling Air India
Sands. And it wouldn't be a mid-2020s airline rebrand without very large belly titles.
[00:03:11] JR: Yes. Very important context there. I'm a bit split on this. For one, the logo itself
that Air India will be using for its brand I think is pretty uninspired. It's just the words Air India
and kind of the window frame icon tilted 45 degrees. Very bland. But the livery of the aircraft
itself, I think they – not quite a grand slam. But it is certainly better than many of the livery
refreshes we've seen over the past few years.
And I like some of the attention to detail with the red engine cowling with the gold ring around
the inlet it looks like. The wing tips have the same window frame design that we saw in the past.
The word market is nice and large. So, overall, it's a little bit busy, but it's certainly better than
some we've seen years past.
[00:04:05] IP: It's certainly more modern.
[00:04:07] JR: The outgoing livery certainly needed a refresh. Yeah.
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[00:04:11] IP: And I think that the older livery, especially on the newer aircraft, just doesn't work.
But I want to give you what Campbell Wilson, who's CEO and managing director of Air India
said about the new livery. And I want to see if you think that the new livery hits that mark.
He says, "Our transformative new brand reflects an ambition to make Air India a world-class
airline serving guests from around the globe. And that represents a new India proudly on the
global stage."
The new livery to me I think reflects a much more international focus. I mean, with so many new
wide-body aircraft coming into the fleet. I mean, they've got 40 A350s on order, and 20 787s and
10 777X's. That's a lot of wide bodies.
[00:05:04] JR: That is a lot of airplanes.
[00:05:06] IP: That are going to be flying far from India.
[00:05:09] JR: Not to forget. Also, the Vistara fleet that they'll be absorbing too. There's even
more aircraft to take in to account. And it's existing fleet, which we know, now that at least the
777-3000ER fleet will be sticking around, don't quite know about the 200LR fleet it sucked up
after Delta let those go regrettably. But we know the 300ERs will be sticking around and getting
this livery.
[00:05:32] IP: An interesting refresh. I think it certainly fits the bill of what they say they're trying
to do. And there's a photo in the show notes and a link to the blog post that includes a number
of photos and kind of the brand refresh explanation that Air India posted. I mean, it really all
comes down to how does it look on an actual aircraft. And for that, we have to wait until later in
the year.
The first A350 to enter Air India's fleet will begin or is scheduled to begin service in December,
which means they'll have to take the livery before then, which means it'll have to be painted
before then. I would look for the aircraft to be painted sometime late October, early November is
my best guess before it goes to its final flight testing and goes to Air India and then is inducted
into service. Keep an eye on that. And we'll look for the first photos out of Toulouse later this fall.
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[00:06:25] JR: Yeah. Those will be nice to see. A lot of newer airplanes coming pretty quickly to
Air India.
[00:06:32] IP: Jason, we talked about the outside. Let's talk about the inside. What are they
doing inside the aircraft?
[00:06:38] JR: They're doing a lot. This is what's really going to make or break the new Air India
I think regardless of what the paint is, what the brand is. Air India has a tarnished brand image
for the last, let's say, two decades for operating really, really subpar interiors. You don't book Air
India because you think the seats are nice or you like the meal or you like the entertainment.
Because there's a chance that the entertainment probably doesn't work or the seat is four
generations old and is broken in some way. The old Air India really, really let itself go in that
regard.
The new Air India, we've seen what will be coming to the refurbished 777-300ER, which should
start flying the middle of 2024 they said. They're spending $400 million to completely refurbish
its fleet of 43 wide-body aircrafts. I assume that takes into account all of these 787-8s it has in
its fleet as well as the 777s.
They're going big. They are looking to do not just economy, of course, but adding premium
economy, which Air India has not previously had. A new business class. And also reintroducing
first-class, which is an interesting move.
[00:07:57] IP: Hello.
[00:07:58] JR: Yeah. Not your traditional super luxe first-class. It's more of kind of a business+
product in its own little mini-cabin, which is kind of the industry trend right now. It's not
something outrageously nice. But it is a segmented first-class product, which I think Air India
had last on it's 747s and maybe A777-300ER. Not quite sure about that. But it wasn't a popular
product.
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But the trick is, for Air India, it has to roll these products out on time and actually keep them
maintained, which for a lot of airlines is the tricky part. You can't just install the product. Set it
forget it and let it go. You actually have to keep these very complicated, complex products in a
functional state. Otherwise, the first time someone flies the new Air Indian and they get a broken
entertainment screen or a broken seat, they're probably not going to come back if they can
avoid it. It'll be very interesting to watch Air India go from, honestly, in my opinion, one of the
worst Airlines product-wise to what looks like could be one of the nicest out there.
[00:09:04] IP: Yeah. And like you said, it's all in the execution. If they install these things and
then the service doesn't match or the maintenance doesn't match or anything in the soft product
does match, the catering, the entertainment options. I mean, attracting a premium crowd, which
really seems what they're trying to do here.
[00:09:23] JR: It's a premium heavy aircraft. Yeah. It's very different from the current fleet of
high-density economy also featuring some business class. This is an interesting move with a lot
of premium seats on board this aircraft. At least for the 777.
[00:09:40] IP: Right. Right. And I don't think we know the breakdown for the incoming new
aircraft, the A350-900s or 1000s. But with any rebrand, the execution is going to be the real
kicker. And it sounds like they're really committed to this.
[00:09:58] JR: They're giving it a go. And you know what? If Air India and India as a nation
wants to compete with Dubai, and Abu Dhabi and Doha, this is how they're going to have to do
it. They're going to have to roll out these lux products and actually maintain them. Because
that's really what they're going after here. They want to capture back the traffic they've lost to
the Middle Eastern Airlines because Air India proved itself not to be a worthy competitor. They
want to compete again. And I say go for it. Who wouldn't want more competition on the medium
to high-end? People don't fly Air India because it's a nice airline. But maybe that changes.
[00:10:34] IP: Maybe that changes. We shall see.
[00:10:37] JR: And also if the star is there. I don't know.
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[00:10:39] IP: Yeah. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I don't know the next time I'll be able to fly
Air India, but it would be fun to have that option especially on such a nice aircraft.
[00:10:48] JR: Yeah. If you happen to see the renderings of the aircraft that Air India put out,
take a close look at the registration of that aircraft for a little indication at what they might be
going after. Because it's not subtle, I don't think.
[00:11:02] IP: I mean, what it made me question is whether or not this was real rendering.
Because that's the first thing I saw. And then I was like, "Wait, did they really?" That particular
piece of artwork is in the blog post Linked in the show notes. Also, on the Flight Radar 24 blog.
So you can just check out our Air India post to see exactly what we're talking about. We'll leave
it there just to leave some mystery.
And then we'll move on to a mystery solved sort of. The NTSB released its final report on United
flight 1722, which is the United 777 that departed Hawaii last December and made a very steep
dive towards the ocean before recovering and continuing on its flight.
The incident was first reported by John Ostrower's Air Current in February of 2023. And after the
Air Current made their report, the NTSB began its investigation. The NTSB had not been
notified by the airline because it did not meet certain criteria for Airlines reporting an incident to
the NTSB. But the NTSB has discretion when to begin an investigation. And in this case, chose
to do so. By then, the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder were long gone.
[00:12:23] JR: They would have been gone before the flight even arrived anyway.
[00:12:25] IP: Yeah. Yeah. They used radar data and other data as well as interviews with the
flight crew to better understand what happened. What they found, the probable cause as, and I'll
quote the NTSBs final report and then we can kind of dissect that. "The flight crew's failure to
manage the airplane's vertical flight path, air speed and pitch attitude following a
miscommunication about the captain's desired flap setting during the initial climb."
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So here's what happened. The captain who is the pilot flying decided to go with a flaps 20
takeoff and full power because the weather was poor. After takeoff, the captain called for flaps
five. The first officer thought he heard the captain request flaps 15.
[00:13:12] JR: Did you get that right?
[00:13:14] IP: I hope so.
[00:13:15] JR: I think you did.
[00:13:15] IP: I think I did too.
[00:13:16] JR: This stuff is confusing.
[00:13:18] IP: I think we've just proved how this can happen.
[00:13:21] JR: Okay. Investigation concluded.
[00:13:22] IP: There you go. What happened was is the aircraft's pitch altitude decreased and
the airspeed increased as the flaps were then moved up to flaps one because the captain called
for flaps one quickly after calling for flaps five. But the flaps had only been set to flaps 15. Then
they were moved up. The captain then initiated a controlled flight into terrain recovery and the
flight continued on. They got to within 748-feet above the water's surface.
[00:14:00] JR: Not great at all. And in this case, of course, there were ground proximity warning
systems. Or in this case, I guess water proximity warning system alerts going off. The 777 was
chiming pull up, which of course they heard. This could have very well been a controlled fight
into terrain situation. Thankfully, it was not. The crew was able to avert such an incident.
Honestly, I just find it fascinating that the NTSB was able to piece together this definitive report
just on crew statements and "other records as information sources" that the crew was able to
remember what happened, give their account even though the official recordings of the event
were long gone.
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[00:14:43] IP: If I recall correctly, the flight crew filed a report not long after landing. And I'm not
sure if it was one of the FAA's flight safety reports or a report just with the airline. But I believe
there was a record of what happened not long after the flight.
[00:15:01] JR: Yeah. I think it was filed with the airline itself. Yeah.
[00:15:04] IP: Yeah. I don't know if they relied on that to kind of continue the conversation with
the NTSB. It is interesting to see that a small bit of confusion not long after takeoff can lead to a
very tired situation very quickly.
But in this case, it was caught corrected and some of the automated systems that are there to
keep the aircraft and the crew and all of the passengers safe worked as intended. And their
training kicked in and they were able to continue the flight.
Last two weeks ago, we talked about the NASA AEROMMA campaign. And we talked about why
NASA DC-8 was flying low over major cities, including Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. And
we then got an email from someone who works at NASA. And I love when this happens,
because all of the things that I read on the AEROMMA project did not explain what this fine
person who works at NASA. I don't know if they want to be identified. We won't identify them at
this point, but they are a NASA scientist and meteorologist.
And they wrote in to explain why the flight paths are the way they are and kind of what they're
trying to study. I'll read a few excerpts from their fascinating email. The planetary boundary layer
is where most of our air pollution we emit from the surface gets trapped. And that's the stratified
brown layer you see when you take off and eventually rise above it as the aircraft descends.
The ozone or photochemical smog that we're interested in measuring is Ozone that's produced
low in the atmosphere, usually in the boundary layer, from human emissions and is different
from the protective ozone layer in the stratosphere that has been susceptible to
chlorofluorocarbons. In short, ozone down low is produced through a process called
photochemistry. Nitrogen oxides emitted from the combustion processes and volatile organic
compounds such as formaldehyde are basically cooked by UV energy from the sun and ozone
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is produced. Different ozone than the ozone high up in the stratosphere. I feel like that's really
important to know.
[00:17:22] JR: Yes. The DC-8 will not be investigating the stratosphere.
[00:17:27] IP: Yeah. No. They have different planes for that. They continue on that the
Bobjectives for the AEROMMA campaign are very long. A few really important ones. Better
quantify the spatialtemporal and vertical distribution of emission sources in large Coastal urban
areas to better understand the impacts on climate and air quality. That one makes perfect
sense. The over-water component's important here because a lot of the emissions from coastal
cities get transported over water where different types of chemistry happen.
[00:17:55] JR: Science is so cool.
[00:17:56] IP: They have to study what happens over the cities, but also over the water.
Because what happens to the pollution over the water is different than what happens to the
pollution over the land.
[00:18:04] JR: Which would explain why they're over the lake outside of Chicago and why
they're over Long Island Sound outside of New York. There's purpose to what they're doing.
Imagine that.
[00:18:13] IP: There's so many purposes. And the other one I thought was really cool is that
they're taking all these measurements with the aircraft to help validate NASA's first
geostationary air quality satellite called TEMPO, which was launched in April. They're taking
these measurements from the satellite. Then they're taking the measurements from the aircraft
and they're making sure that they match up.
And then here's the cool information about the DC-8 flight plan. The top-level goals are all of
those understandings about the ozone and how chemistry interacts and things like that. To meet
those goals, they have to fly within the planetary boundary layer, which is why they were flying
so low.
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But then those spirals are important because they provide the full profile of the air pollution from
just above the surface within the boundary layer all the way above it. That is the part that really
helps validate how the satellite observes the emissions and how it changes in different levels.
And then the two other aircraft, the G3 and the G5 Gulfstreams have remote sensing equipment
on board that can map all of those emissions with spectrometers and lidars so you get this
entire vertical profile of all this air pollution.
The mission, I mean, from an aviation geek perspective, were awesome because there was a
DC-8 flying low above the city. And that's really cool. From an airborne science perspective, it
just gets so much cooler the more you learn about what they're doing and how they're doing it.
Thank you, NASA meteorologist, who shall remain unnamed at the moment, for writing in with
all this great information.
[00:19:52] JR: Yeah. Very, very good stuff. And now we have reason to know why the aircraft
was making those spirals. It wasn't just for fun. There was an actual reason.
[00:20:00] IP: We knew it wasn't for fun, but now we know exactly why. Yeah.
[00:20:04] JR: And now we know it wasn't just because they wanted to spend a lot of time on
the AEROMMA mission over Aroma Park. Well, maybe they wanted to do that too. But they
spent a lot of time over Aroma Park for science, which is an even better reason. And knocked
out both causes, for science and for fun, in one shot. What could be better?
[00:20:23] IP: I can't think of anything. I cannot think of anything better. Certainly not this next
story, because this is still just bizarre to me. Mexico's government has been trying to bring back
the Mexicana brand for a while now. For at least a couple years.
And the big sticking point had been agreements with the former Mexicana unions because they
had basically all been fired and were still after their compensation that they felt that they were
owed. There had been a lot of ongoing discussions, shall we say? And they finally reached an
agreement. And so, the government of Mexico yesterday in presence of a – I don't even know
what to call this model of a Mexicana aircraft.
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[00:21:13] JR: An attempt was made.
[00:21:14] IP: Yeah. An attempt. What I'm not sure. But in attempt, nonetheless. Anyway, in the
presence of this particular model, they announced that they're bringing the airline back with a
start of 10 737-800s. The airline will be overseen by the defense ministry and led by a Mexican
Air Force general. I guess service is going to be great.
[00:21:35] JR: Sure. It can be punctual.
[00:21:36] IP: I know. One would hope. This whole thing to me is just beyond –
[00:21:42] JR: Look, if there's a way that Mexico's current federal government can screw
around with the aviation sector, they are going to find a way to do it and do it and do it before
[inaudible 00:21:53]. Because every decision they've made, from ceasing construction on the
New Mexico City airport to restarting Mexicana to just everything they've done.
[00:22:04] IP: Moving all of the cargo traffic to the secondary airport forcefully.
[00:22:07] JR: Exactly. Still not resuming their increased FAA safety rating. That's an issue. And
then there's this whole thing with Viva Aerobus and I think – what was it? Allegiance, was it?
Trying to fly to Mexico? That's still not happening. There's just – whatever they do, it just seems
like it's a bad call.
And this – I don't know. I'm reading an article from the AP about this that seems to imply that the
new Mexicana or Mexico's federal government will take not only the 737-800s from Boeing, but
also pilots and cabin crew, which I didn't even know was a thing you could do. Maybe the
wording here is poor. Maybe that's not what's happening. Maybe the military is providing pilots
and cabin crew. But the way it's worded really makes it seem like they're taking almost kind of
like a white lease entirely from Boeing, which is one way to do it.
[00:22:57] IP: Yeah. I don't understand that. If that's written correctly, if that particular bit of
information is just not poorly worded or poorly edited, then I don't understand. If what they are
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saying is that they're going to have military pilots and military cabin crew, that I don't understand
really either.
[00:23:18] JR: I don't know. And then we've got the Defense Secretary promising that tickets
would be 18% to 20% below private competitors. And I quote the AP article, "But was unsure if
the airline would profitable." So it's missing a word there. I'm guessing they're not sure the
airline would be profitable because they're going to artificially decrease the costs of tickets
regardless of profitability by injecting the airline with government subsidies.
This seems like a terrible idea. Every step of this is a bad idea. On one hand, you have
Aeromexico freshly out of bankruptcy trying to get its act together. And it's doing quite well. It's
not going to take kindly to a new domestic government-funded subsidized, wholly unprofitable
competitor that it can't compete with. I don't know why they're doing this. What they think they're
going to get out of it. But it seems like everybody is going to lose except for, I guess, domestic
Mexican air passengers who might be able to snag an air ticket for 20% below what it should
cost.
Until, suddenly, the money runs out in a new administration, the new Mexicana can't operate at
its substantial losses. And, oh, also, Aeromexico's not a thing anymore because they've been
run out of business by a federally-supported monster.
[00:24:37] IP: I do not understand most of what's going on down there. And at this point, it's
very clear that almost none of it has anything to do with the actual aviation aspects of it. And
decisions are not being made in – I guess the word for it is a sound manner, a logical manner. It
doesn't make any sense to me why you would want to do this. But it'll be basically a low-cost
carrier model. Single class 737-800s with 180 seats. "Quality service at an affordable cost".
Sure. We shall see.
[00:25:15] JR: Sure. Sure.
[00:25:16] IP: All right. Let's close this particular episode with some good news. Last week we
talked about the Lego Concorde coming out. And we didn't really know much. And then, of
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course, after we hit record, hit stop on the chord button, Lego released all of the details that you
need to know.
Here's what's happening. Lego is releasing a gigantic Concorde set. This set is going to be 42
inches long, 105 centimeters; 17 inches wide, 43 centimeters; and 6 inches high, 15
centimeters. it is going to include 2083 pieces and it is going to cost not actually as much as I
thought, but still not cheap, $199.99. That will be available on the 7th of September. If you are a
Lego VIP member, which, I mean, who isn't? You can buy the set on the 4th of September.
[00:26:21] JR: Fantastic.
[00:26:22] IP: I'm thoroughly excited about getting my hands on this particular set.
[00:26:23] JR: Clear out some space. You'll need a nice landing area for that aircraft. And that
reminds me, I should go see the actual Concorde that was floated on down to the Brooklyn
Navy Yard a few blocks away from me. I forgot to mention that. But the intrepid –
[00:26:39] IP: Grab a paintbrush and go help them repaint it.
[00:26:40] JR: Yeah, the intrepid Concorde on the West side of Manhattan was barged floated
over from one borough to another here in Brooklyn for I guess some rehab work going on
through I think at least the end of the year. Just a few blocks away from me. I'm going to go
check it out. See what I can see. Can't put it on my coffee table or anything like a Lego model.
[00:26:58] IP: No. Decidedly not.
[00:27:01] JR: No.
[00:27:01] IP: I think we left last episode with you not wanting to get arrested for building the
Lego set in the Navy Yard. Maybe we'll leave it there this episode, too, with you also not getting
arrested, which seems like I think a good idea. But we had enough happen in the last two days
of the week to fill an entire episode. It'll be I guess an abbreviated episode coming out. Well, by
the time you'll have listened to it at the end of the week. But know that we appreciate the
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aviation industry doing its part so that we could record a new episode. And we didn't have to do
a clip show.
Thank you, everyone, for listening to this episode and all the rest. I will say I shared with Jason
a neat little statistic that we ticked over this morning. We've now passed five million downloads
of the podcast. Thanks to each and every one of you who has contributed one or 229 at this
point of those downloads. No matter how many episodes you've listened to, we really
appreciate it.
Oh, I'll also say that we keep saying emails us at podcasts@fr24.com. And then you do, and
you haven't received a response force in a while. And the reason for is that Google was not
sending the podcast email to my email. It was receiving them all and then just decided that it
didn't need to forward them on to the human and was collecting.
If you sent us an email, you will be getting a response. I'm going to work my way through those
as fast as I can so that you can receive the response that you deserve. If you sent us an email, I
am so sorry that we haven't received it in the last few weeks at least. I'll have to see how far it
goes back for sure. But very sorry.
And from now on, we fixed it. So, you can email us at podcast@fr24.com. But until the next
episode, thank you all so very much for listening. I am Ian Petchenik. Here as always with –
[00:29:04] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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