AvTalk Episode 373: Eight hours to nowhere

AVT 373 Transcript
EPISODE 373
[EPISODE]
[0:00:08] IP: Hello, and welcome to episode 373 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here once
again, as always with –
[0:00:18] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Last week must have been a week off, right? You wouldn't
record without me, would you?
[0:00:25] IP: Completely alone in a room. I did nothing last week.
[0:00:29] JR: Just heavy breathing into a microphone, haah. Didn't know what to do.
[0:00:35] IP: I was so beside myself. If you listened to the show last week, you know that we
had a lot of fun last week, and we alluded to Jason having a lot of fun last week. Jason, tell us. I
mentioned on the podcast last week that you saw a glider from a mountain.
[0:00:54] JR: That's accurate. Believe it or not, I did listen to some, or most of that episode, so I
did hear that.
[0:01:02] IP: You're four for 373.
[0:01:03] JR: Once we record this one and hit done, yes.
[0:01:06] IP: Well, I know you're not going to listen to this one.
[0:01:07] JR: Well, no. Why would I do that? But yes, I was in Switzerland up in the mountains
for about a week, touring the entire country. I will never financially recover from this trip. Doing it
once. Never going to go back. But it was a lot of fun and on multiple mountains and with
airplanes. I think the first time we saw it was aptly on Pilatus, the namesake of the airplane
manufacturer. There were gliders, both directly above and below where we were on the, I
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guess, the observation area of the mountain. One was actually still being towed by some little
Cessna, I think, below us, several thousand feet below us, which was pretty damn cool.
When we were on one of the viewpoints for the Matterhorn, I think we were way up top on the
glacier, like 12,000 feet. I swear, I saw some sort of red airplane do a very low pass around the
mountain. But I barely saw it, and it wasn't tracking on ADS-B, but I swear it was there. I know I
saw something.
[0:02:09] IP: I mean, the Patois Swiss show up every once in a while, and all of a sudden,
there's a bunch of Swiss military aircraft flying past you at some thousand feet, but eye level.
[0:02:23] JR: I'm pretty sure that's what I saw, and it was fantastic seeing it through the glass
on one of the gondolas or something. But that was a lot of fun.
[0:02:31] IP: Actually, how did everything go otherwise, getting home, all that good fun stuff?
[0:02:36] JR: Great. Fantastic. Everything was on time, or ahead of schedule, which, these
days, I will take that win. Air Serbia was delightfully weird, as expected and hoped for. Would
recommend it if the price is right. Lucked out with the flights in and out of JFK. We're on their ex-
Etihad A330, so the cabin interior was as it was delivered in, I think, 2011, or 2015. Unchain, so
it was basically like flying Etihad, just with weird service.
[0:03:08] IP: Weird service.
[0:03:09] JR: At the end of the day, it's still Air Serbia. It's not a five-star, four-star airline.
Everything's just well-intentioned, but a little bit weird to keep you on your toes and interested.
Like taking the meal order, there were three options in business class out of Serbia, out of
Belgrade. I was in the middle of the cabin, and the flight attendant asked me, “What can I get
you for dinner?” I said, “Well, I'll have the steak.” They go, “Oh, well, unfortunately, we only have
the salmon.” I'm thinking, well, there are three options on the menu, and if there's only one, why
are you asking me what I want? How are you out of all of the options already? This cabin is only
half full. Just things like that that keep you on your toes. That remind you, you're still flying Air
Serbia, even if the seat's really nice. But I would absolutely book it again. It was a really well-
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timed flight out of New York. Everything was on time. There's something to be said about
connecting in Europe at a tiny little airport, like Belgrade, rather than Paris, or Frankfurt, or even
Heathrow. It was just so easy. It was great.
[0:04:05] IP: Yeah. I mean, it is having had a less-than-stellar connection experience in
Copenhagen?
[0:04:12] JR: Oh, yes. We need to talk about that.
[0:04:14] IP: For all intents and purposes, a smaller airport. I would not mind having that
experience at Belgrade. My experience at Copenhagen was one of EES implementation, which
has ranged from –
[0:04:30] JR: Common story these days.
[0:04:32] IP: - fine to on the way in. I came through – We didn't talk about this much last week
because I wanted to wait until this week to have the discussion, having returned, because I
didn't want to say great things and somehow miss part of the plot.
[0:04:47] JR: Good foreshadowing there.
[0:04:48] IP: That was, I think, a wise decision on my part. Because coming into Schengen was
fine. Made it off the airplane, walked to passport control, took my picture, gave my fingerprints,
and was through in 30 seconds.
[0:05:05] JR: And then?
[0:05:07] IP: Once I got through that line built. But it sort of wrote it off, because that Sunday,
the 24th, was a national holiday in Denmark. I didn't want to make any judgments or anything like
that. I was just glad I didn't have to go through that line. Just in case, I had an hour and 45-
minute connection in Copenhagen on Saturday on the way back, so on the 30th. I got off the
plane from Stockholm at the A-gates, which I had never flown out of before, and somehow flown
out of them twice this trip. I walked from the A-gates, and I needed to go to the E-gate. Basically,
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from one side of the airport to the other, and I just walked. I may have stopped to use the
restroom. Other than that, I didn't dilly-dally. I didn't do anything else besides walk from the gate
to the passport control line, which started in the D-gates.
[0:06:06] JR: Ooh. That's not good.
[0:06:08] IP: Not even the right concourse. Not where you want to be. I felt really bad, because
there were a lot of – not a lot of people, but there were a bunch of people who breezed past that
line thinking, that couldn't possibly be the line that –
[0:06:22] JR: That must be for the other concourse. That's not ours.
[0:06:24] IP: Right, right. Then had to walk back to the end of the line. That was a little bit
disappointing. The line, 36 minutes in total. It was a long line, but it moved well. I will say that
the airport staff, not the customs folks themselves, but the airport staff, did a really good job of
making sure that if your flight was getting ready to leave, they pulled you up to the front of the
line. They were doing a good job directing traffic. It was fantastic to watch them move folks
around, so that they could see the E-gates, that they were there, that they were installed, that
they were available, that they were not using them.
[0:07:05] JR: There were E-gates, but they were just not in service.
[0:07:08] IP: Correct. Then you get into the passport control line and the room, and they do
that. It's so bizarre because I think the system itself is slower.
[0:07:19] JR: It's slow. It's so slow.
[0:07:22] IP: The actual time it takes to run this is very slow.
[0:07:27] JR: There seems to be a lot of typing involved, too, by the agent. I'm just perplexed,
like, what are you doing?
[0:07:32] IP: I think they're playing a game, or something like that, on the side.
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[0:07:34] JR: Ah, solitaire. Mini-space Pinball. I knew it.
[0:07:37] IP: Yeah, they're waiting for the system to spit something out. Because I had an entire
conversation about architecture, of all things, with the passport control officer. She asked me if I
liked the Scandinavian architecture. I was like, “Yeah, buildings are cool.” It was clear that she
was just running through stuff to talk about.
[0:07:57] JR: Got a checklist there. Well, I already talked about the weather. I already talked
about what'd you do here. I guess we'll talk about the architecture.
[0:08:03] IP: We had an entire conversation, which I've never had before.
[0:08:07] JR: Similar but different experience for me. Seemingly, I've only done this a couple of
times now, the EES for the EU. Schengen zone, I've run the gamut from extremely efficient in
Spain, of all places, where you do the kiosk and then you go through E-gates. That's that. You
don't see a human, you just keep walking to the complete opposite end of the spectrum,
Hamburg, Germany, where we waited over an hour for the one customs agent to process an
entire airport worth of passengers. That sucked. At Zurich, it was strange in which they had you
do the, well, you could choose your own adventure, basically. Did you want to go to the old
school waiting line and process at a booth? Or did you want to, for some reason, voluntarily go
to a kiosk and then take a shortcut to the front of the line to then be processed manually?
I, of course, took the shortcut, but confused why that was even an option. I thought everyone
had to go through the automated kiosk and then see a real-life person if there wasn't an E-gate.
But of all places, Zurich, I wasn't expecting the staff to be hostile or confrontational, but the
signage was non-existent, the process was confusing, and the staff made me feel like I was
right back home at LaGuardia, which is not a compliment and not a good thing. It was fast, at
least. It only took about 10 minutes, but I don't think it was particularly busy. Then, on exit, my
flight was the only flight in the entire concourse, which is a bit lonely, but for whatever reason,
that Sunday morning, Air Serbia was the only flight out of the de-concourse at Zurich. The two
people they had working the booths were more than enough, but they did question us on saying
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– they said, “Where are you going?” I said, “New York via Belgrade.” She goes, “Why are you
going through Belgrade?” I said, “It was cheap. What do you want from me?” I was on my way.
[0:09:52] IP: I'm glad they let you leave.
[0:09:53] JR: You can't argue with a good deal.
[0:09:55] IP: You cannot argue with a good deal. That's a perfect segue, Jason, because as we
mentioned last week, we are partnering with ILA Berlin for this year's show to offer you a good
deal on trade tickets.
[0:10:07] JR: We'll have a good deal.
[0:10:09] IP: 10% off trade tickets for this year's ILA show, using code ILA26_flightradar. Let me
get that one right, so that you guys can get your 10% off your trade tickets. This year's show is
going to be great. There's so much good stuff in the flying display. There's a few things that
have never been shown before, including Leonardo's new aircraft. Airbus's racer will be there
doing a demonstration flight. That's going to be cool.
[0:10:35] JR: And Lufthansa bringing wide bodies back to Berlin, again, for the second time in a
year.
[0:10:40] IP: Yes.
[0:10:40] JR: You should go and see that.
[0:10:42] IP: This will never happen again. But if you want to go, you can use our code
ILA26_flightradar. No 24 at the end. Just FlightRadar, to get 10% off. Our colleague, Sophia, will
be at the show. If you spot her or track her down through social media, what you can do is
probably snag yourself a FlightRadar24 key tag. If you're going to be in Berlin, or you say, after
all of this discussion about customs and border issues and the EES system, “I want to try that
for myself,” you can do that and head to Berlin next week. The show runs the 10th through the
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14th. Good luck. Jason, we talked about Copenhagen pretty extensively, so let's start there
today.
[0:11:30] JR: Okay.
[0:11:31] IP: Because after 17 years, SAS restarted flights to India.
[0:11:39] JR: Did it though?
[0:11:41] IP: Well, it restarted sightseeing flights to Copenhagen, sort of.
[0:11:45] JR: Ouch. Apparently, whatever went wrong, well, it's going to take a while to fix,
because looking at this FlightRadar24 site, the flight for tomorrow is also canceled. What
happened?
[0:11:58] IP: We don't know exactly what happened, because, of course, SAS doesn't want to
point fingers if it wasn't their fault, and they don't want to point fingers if it was their fault. But
final approval for the flight was not granted by Indian authorities. The flight took a four-hour
departure delay and then was in the air. SAS says they believed that the final clearances for the
flight to Mumbai would be granted while the aircraft was in the air.
[0:12:35] JR: Ooh, that's a – anyone who's ever had to get a visa, or anything to go to India, or
get your paperwork in order, you know that's a risky gamble.
[0:12:44] IP: That gamble did not pay off, and the aircraft turned over, or turned around over
Azerbaijan, and returned to Copenhagen for a round trip of eight hours door-to-door,
Copenhagen to Copenhagen.
[0:13:01] JR: Ouch.
[0:13:02] IP: Not great.
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[0:13:03] JR: Not great. Yeah, apparently, whatever the issue was is still not resolved since, as I
mentioned, that flight on the fourth is also canceled.
[0:13:10] IP: Yeah. Looks the fifth will be the first to go, assuming all goes well from here.
[0:13:15] JR: These things happen. Paperwork, not fully shuffled, not fully signed. Usually, you
might see the first flight canceled outright or something, but it doesn't usually go beyond that
first day. Here it is, and it might go on for two or three flights.
[0:13:31] IP: I wonder if it's less of a paperwork issue now than an aircraft rotation issue.
[0:13:35] JR: Yeah. Somebody is going to get called into the principal's office. That's things. A
lot of compensation.
[0:13:40] IP: Yeah. Hopefully, everything works out shortly, so that they can begin those flights.
That's a great new route to have, or a great route to have back.
[0:13:49] JR: To want to have back.
[0:13:50] IP: To want to have back. Yeah, that's a good phrase. Sticking with new things, this is
an actual new thing. Never been done before. The Airbus A350-1000ULR, purposefully built for
Qantas' Project Sunrise, has made its first flight this week. This is, of course, the project by
Qantas to operate nonstop flights from Australia's East Coast to London and New York. These
flights will be the longest in the world and will be operated by these special A350-1000ULRs that
have fancy pants cabins and relaxation areas, and all these special things.
[0:14:39] JR: Like you said last week, though, as the years go on, I am progressively less
excited about this. Sure, I would like to join one time, like you said. Yeah, it's only slightly
incrementally longer than the already existing longest flights in the world. It's still nice that
Qantas wants to do something a little special, different, but I have lost a lot of interest in this, but
recognize it's still something important for the Australian region to be able to get all the way to
New York nonstop. I guess that would let them stop doing that tag route, New Zealand to New
York, I think, and give that route back exclusively to their neighbors.
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[0:15:18] IP: Or not.
[0:15:19] JR: Maybe not, yeah.
[0:15:20] IP: That's what interests me is will we still see these “we don't have the aircraft to fly
nonstop routes?”
[0:15:28] JR: Well, do a lot of Qantas's flights still go through Dubai? Or did they shift back to
Singapore?
[0:15:34] IP: Yeah, they shifted back because of reasons.
[0:15:37] JR: I see.
[0:15:37] IP: That we'll talk about actually in a couple of minutes. Let's stick with Airbus for a
moment, because Bloomberg is reporting that Airbus is sitting on about 5 billion dollars’ worth of
aircraft, because China is slow-rolling paperwork in a bid to pressure the European Union
Aviation Safety Administration to approve the Comac C919.
[0:16:02] JR: That's playing hardball, especially since the C919 hasn't exactly taken off even
domestically in China. Still a very niche aircraft, so what's the endgame there?
[0:16:16] IP: I think it's just a mark of approval. I mean, I think it's to say that the C919 it's good
enough for EASA.
[0:16:22] JR: Yeah. A little weird to hold your own airplanes hostage, your own Airbus airplanes
hostage, because I don't know. Your airlines need those airplanes, and the C919 ain't going to
cut it to fill in all those gaps. I know we've been talking about the 919 getting EASA certification
seemingly forever at this rate. I really don't ever expect it to get FAA certified. I guess it's more
of just a rite of passage, maybe for it to get EASA certification. I don't see any European airlines
actually ordering it or putting it into service. But you never know, history could repeat itself. If the
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Sukhoi Superjet can get certified in Europe, an actual airline order, and fly the thing for a little
bit, why not the 919?
[0:17:04] IP: Why not? Maybe it'll happen. I just –
[0:17:07] JR: It doesn't seem likely?
[0:17:10] IP: Yeah.
[0:17:11] JR: I mean, airlines around the world haven't been exactly too pleased with Boeing or
Airbus recently, whether it's talking about delivery delays, delivery quality, or the engines simply
not working. Maybe this is finally Ryanair's chance to make good on their decades-long
standing threat to the industry to order a non-Boeing, non-Airbus aircraft. Almost certainly not,
because then you actually have to act on your threat, and that's a lot more difficult than making
the threat. But got to love the opportunity.
[0:17:41] IP: That would be incredible.
[0:17:42] JR: That would be something, wouldn't it? Michael O'Leary's been going on about that
for decades at this point.
[0:17:47] IP: “I'm going to order Airbus. I dare, I'm going to order –” No, you're not.
[0:17:51] JR: Forget Airbus. He's been talking about Comac specifically for decades. Not going
to happen. I can't imagine Ryanair doing anything other than taking an endless supply of 737
back stash 8200, or whatever. Just the mere threat of it has been enough to keep Boeing on its
toes.
[0:18:10] IP: Is it, though? We'll never get this unless somebody writes a book after O'Leary's
long retired, or something like that, and somebody writes a book. I would love to be on the
Boeing side of that negotiation, because you know there are conversations inside Boeing for the
sales team, where they're like, “Okay. How serious a face do we need to put on today?”
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[0:18:35] JR: It depends what product they're talking about.
[0:18:37] IP: Because, I mean, you would know that these threats, yeah, I get it. Yeah, you have
to take it seriously. But is he really going to turn around? You would have to really, really screw
up the negotiation, like really bad.
[0:18:51] JR: Yeah. There are other options. If they do end up one day, maybe stretching the
A220, yeah, maybe that could finally be the aircraft for Ryanair. I didn't expect this podcast to go
into a theoretical discussion about Ryanair's fleet replacement in 737, but here we are.
[0:19:07] IP: That's the beauty of this podcast.
[0:19:08] JR: At some point, the 737 will not be a thing that gets produced anymore. Deed
willing, hopefully, that's sooner rather than later. But at some point, they will have to make a
decision to move on to something else, because Boeing will not produce the 737. I think I may
have said 787 before. That'd be interesting. But it will come to a point where Ryanair cannot
order the 737 anymore, because Boeing will not be making the 737 anymore. That, I think, is
the pivotal moment where Michael O'Leary has got to put up, or shut up. But that might be post-
retirement.
[0:19:40] IP: Yeah, I think he's going to be retired, if not deceased, by the time Boeing stops
making the 737.
[0:19:49] JR: Yeah. Hopefully, not for us, too. But at this rate.
[0:19:52] IP: We might. Honestly, at this rate, I mean, let's actually, that's a really good
transition, Jason. Let's talk about what Boeing's doing with the 737. Because Boeing says, it's in
the final stages of MAX 7 and MAX 10 certification.
[0:20:06] JR: Heard that before.
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[0:20:07] IP: The 7 will come first. Well, no. Hold on. You haven't heard this yet. The 7 will come
first, followed closely by the 10. This is a quote from Kelly Ortberg, CEO of Boeing, who last
week said that there's “Clearly light at the end of the tunnel.”
[0:20:26] JR: Yeah, but for 10 years, the light at the end of the tunnel has been a freight train
heading in the opposite direction, directly at them. What kind of light is it here?
[0:20:35] IP: That's fair. I mean, the light seems brighter and less smashy this time.
[0:20:39] JR: Oh.
[0:20:40] IP: Boeing is moving 737 MAX production rates to 47 per month. They were
previously capped by the FAA at 38. That cap is being lifted, because of the review conducted
by the FAA of Boeing's work and how they've progressed, so things are looking up there. Boeing
says that stability at rate 47 will not occur for a few months, as they figure out how to do all of
that. Then eventually, they will move in five aircraft per month, stepped increments for a target of
eventually building 63 737 MAX aircraft per month.
[0:21:22] JR: I see. Do we know the status of the Everett production line for the 73? Or is that
still just a thing?
[0:21:30] IP: I think it's still a thing. But I don't know if we know exactly when Boeing is going to
implement that fully.
[0:21:40] JR: I see. All right. Well, things are going well for Boeing, seemingly. I saw they also
delivered their first increased max takeoff weight 787 to United the other day. Yeah, that project
also took six years. Things seem to be going – Every time we say this, I don't want to finish that
sentence, because every time we say things seem to be going well for Boeing, something
terrible happens to Boeing, but things seem to be going well for Boeing.
[0:22:05] IP: I want to turn that phrase just a little bit. Yes, things seem to be going well for
Boeing. But, but, but, but, or and, it also seems Boeing's doing the right things.
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[0:22:17] JR: Okay, that's half the battle.
[0:22:20] IP: I think that makes a big difference in the fate and future of Boeing. Because
maybe a year ago, 18 months ago, 24 months ago, especially, we could have said, things
seemed to be going well for Boeing. What we were really saying is that Boeing hasn't screwed
up lately.
[0:22:37] JR: That's a big difference.
[0:22:39] IP: Yeah. I feel like, that's not at all what we're saying now. I think what we're saying
now is that whatever Boeing did, whatever Kelly Ortberg came in and has done and is doing,
seems to be righting the ship. I'm really, really excited to see that. Because, and I don't think
that we ever explicitly made this clear, or I explicitly made this clear in how we talked about
Boeing, but I feel like, we were really hard on Boeing, not because we dislike Boeing, but
because we want to see, or at least I want to see Boeing get to the point where it has its house
in order enough to say, “Okay. It's time to build airplanes again. It's time to design a new
airplane and build a new airplane again.”
[0:23:24] JR: Yeah. We don't root against Boeing, or the industry. Competition is good. If
Boeing stopped existing, and it was just the Airbus out there making widebody aircraft, we would
be in terrible shape.
[0:23:35] IP: Then Ryanair would order the Comac C919.
[0:23:37] JR: Right. Nobody wants that, and it's not really going to happen. But Boeing being a
well-oiled machine, I don't know if it will ever get back to that status of a well-oiled machine, but
that benefits everyone in the industry. There are a few things I think we'd all like to see finally
happen. Chief among them, I think, would be to get the damn Air Force One replacements
outdoor. Haven't heard anything about those in a long time. But, yeah.
[0:24:02] IP: Just to be done with it.
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[0:24:04] JR: I don't want to hear about it anymore. But things seem to be improving. Didn't
mean to have this conversation again. Yeah, we'll see how things go, at least with employee
morale and employee relations, which has really been one of the biggest issues for Boeing.
Things have been quiet. Good quiet for change.
[0:24:25] IP: Yeah. No news is good news in this regard. Let's hope things continue on this
trend. Trends we don't like are renewed actual hostilities in the Middle East. Overnight, June 2nd
to June 3rd, Kuwait Airport took a direct strike from an Iranian missile, or drone, or a combination
thereof. That significantly damaged the terminal building in Kuwait. Halted flights for some time.
By the middle of the day, flights were once again operating out of the airport.
[0:25:03] JR: That was what? Two days after the airport reopened for the first time in a while, I
think?
[0:25:08] IP: The airport had been open for a while, but it fully reopened and they had
announced that they were going to completely resume flights by the end of the second quarter. I
don't know if they're going to be held to that now. Because Kuwait airspace has now been
restricted to only Kuwait Airways and Jazeera Airways flights. No other airlines are currently
able to operate into and out of Kuwait.
[0:25:35] JR: Yeah, that's rough.
[0:25:36] IP: Not good news.
[0:25:38] JR: No. I mean, we've seen other airports in the region hit by whatever, specifically
DXB, but that's always been the apron, or the tarmac, or the fuel farm that one time, but never
actually any passenger, or public facility of the airport. This is quite a bit different. I believe,
someone did actually die in the terminal and many people were injured, which it sucks.
[0:26:03] IP: One person died and dozens were injured. Looks like more than five dozen people
were injured.
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[0:26:09] JR: Yeah. That's obviously terrible. I hope this ends immediately, but it doesn't seem
likely. I wish it would stop already. But if any of the Middle Eastern airlines, this is really, really
tough, because how do you convince passengers to come back and say, “It's safe. Book with
us. Your connection will be fine,” or whatever. Getting harder and harder every day that this
goes on for these airlines to put that message through, because if an airport, even as far away
as Kuwait, not that Kuwait is not close to Iran, but it hasn't really been as impacted as, let's say,
Doha, or Dubai specifically, even the smaller airports are just, to me, a complete no-go for the
foreseeable future, and that's a damn shame.
[0:26:54] IP: Yeah. Other countries, other airlines, other air navigation service providers are
dealing with the continued uncertainty in different ways. I don't know if this is necessarily good
news. It's not good news why it's happening, but it's interesting that it is, because we think about
airspace restrictions, we think about where planes can fly, where they can't, and then we think
about how much it costs an airline to overfly a certain country. For, well, the better part of two
decades, overflights have been avoiding Syria.
[0:27:33] JR: Completely. I don't think they were avoiding. I think it was strictly forbidden, right?
[0:27:38] IP: Well, yes. Yeah. Avoiding, because they wanted to, or avoiding because they had
to. They were. Now, because Syria, for the first time in a long time, is safer airspace than
elsewhere in the region, more than 10,000 flights have overflown Syria, more than doubling the
pre-war figures. Reuters reporting that overflights in May were about 375% higher than in the
same month last year.
[0:28:12] JR: Yeah. Apparently, they get a flat fee of $499 per flight. That was a fee introduced
by the Syria's new government. Really strange number, 499. It's not like you're pitching this to
consumers where you don't want to quite say 500. You're going to say 499.99. Okay, whatever.
Apparently, that could have generated as much as nearly 6 million dollars in overflight revenue,
which for a country like the US, or any EU country, that's who cares. But for a country like Syria,
that's a big freaking deal. Almost 6 million dollars. This is after, apparently last year, Turkey
poured a whole bunch of money in there, put in some modern infrastructure for flight tracking
and other airport infrastructure. This is good news for a country that I don't think in our lifetime
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has really had any good news. Not exactly a good reason to have the good news, but you got to
take it where you can get it.
[0:29:04] IP: This is true. They seem to be doing exactly that. We've talked about this in the
past, where we've looked at the shifting traffic when it was June 2025, where there were strikes
in Iran and strikes by Iran, and so airlines decided, “Okay, we're going to fly through
Afghanistan.” Then looking at how much Afghanistan was making, but who were they paying,
which was a big question, or did they need to pay at all? Because it was mostly just a, you're on
your own. This is an ongoing story of who benefits from the changing landscape of overflights.
[0:29:42] JR: Yup. There's always a winner. There's always a loser.
[0:29:45] IP: Well, and okay, let's talk about losers now, because India has approved a billion-
dollar fund to help Indian airlines make it through the rising costs of jet fuel. Basically, what
they've done is set aside a billion dollars to provide interest-free loans to oil companies to cover
the undermarking of jet fuel prices.
[0:30:17] JR: That was an interesting twist to me, that it wasn't just, here's a check to you,
Indigo and Air India to cover the costs of increased fuel, but to give it to the oil marketing
companies instead to offset the increased fuel? I'm sure there's some legal reason they had to
do this. It just seemed really strange to me.
[0:30:36] IP: What happens is the oil, there's the wholesale rate that these companies are
paying for the jet fuel, and then they go and sell it to the airlines at whatever negotiated price
they're at. But because the price has risen so high, they're not able to recruit even close to what
they're actually paying compared to the negotiated rate. This is covering that spread.
[0:31:05] JR: Interesting. Yeah. I haven't heard of many other countries, or territories doing
something like this to offset the cost here in the US. That's certainly not the case. We saw what
happened in the case of Spirit, they just stopped being an airline. We haven't really seen any
conversation about a bailout, or loans, or financing to the airlines to cover the cost of increased
fuel really anywhere else. Very interesting that India would have had to do this for its domestic
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airlines. But, I guess, the cost of fuel in some areas is dramatically more than in others, and I
think India does happen to be one of those places.
[0:31:39] IP: Exactly. We talked about the cuts that were coming to Indian Airlines, or Air India,
specifically a few episodes ago, where they're slashing a lot of their international flying, their
long-haul flying. But now, even in the face of these jet fuel recoveries, or billion-dollar jet fuel
fund, Air India is cutting 22% of its domestic flights in the summer months. Air Indigo is cutting
between 7% and 10% of its domestic flights. We're starting to see not only long-haul cuts, but
domestic cuts as well. The long-haul services were things like Delhi-Paris, Toronto-Singapore
was a big change, and then Shanghai and Chicago were cut entirely.
Dealing with high fuel prices and then falling demand, because of the rising ticket prices, so Air
India Express is also trimming schedules, the budget airline. They're trimming domestic
schedules beginning this month by about 10%. A combination of fewer flights, higher ticket
prices, higher fuel prices, not looking great. As part of that, Indigo has canceled its Manchester
service and is returning the Norse 787 that they have leased back to Norse, which doesn't want
it, because they changed their business model to say, “Hey, we're going to lease out half our
fleet to other airlines.”
[0:33:21] JR: That's before they canceled a bunch of routes, or scaled back. I think LAX to
London is gone and a bunch of other routes as well. Taking back aircraft, you have no need for
and still have to pay for. That's the thing that tips the scale in the direction of, would you be not
good for Norse?
[0:33:40] IP: Yeah. Yeah. We're going to continue to keep an eye on that. Norse says it's
sticking with its new business model, or recently said that, that it's sticking with its new business
model, even as it looks for, as we discussed a few episodes go, looks for someone to buy the
airline. Jason, if you've got some money later on, maybe you can think about that.
[0:34:00] JR: I don't.
[0:34:02] IP: Fair. Yeah, that’s right, because you were in Switzerland last week. You have no
money.
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[0:34:05] JR: Yeah. I told you, I will never financially recover from that.
[0:34:08] IP: Not going to happen. That's fair. Other not great signals about where we are, Cebu
Pacific is cutting executive salaries and offering voluntary furloughs to employees, and Qatar
Airways says that it will not be offering its nearly 60,000 staff bonuses this year as it looks for
ways to preserve cash in the face of continued uncertainty, which is a phrase that I really want
to stop saying.
[0:34:37] JR: Yeah. Really don't want to be returning to the COVID era of uncertainty being the
only word you heard on TV.
[0:34:45] IP: Yeah. Well, after an uncertain future, the MD-11 is slowly returning to service. Last
week, the only other airline that still operates the MD-11, Western Global Airlines, aside from
FedEx, returned its first of four MD-11s to flying service. That is now back in action. The other
three have shown no signs of life though. It'll be interesting to see. FedEx is still flying just, I
think, two or three of them. Obviously, inspections and repairs and sign offs take a while, but it'll
be interesting to see exactly how many of these aircraft really return to service, or whether we're
just looking at, “Ah, we got a couple flying and now we're not.”
[0:35:32] JR: Good enough.
[0:35:33] IP: Not doing that anymore.
[0:35:34] JR: You never know with Western Global. They are one of the world's most
mysterious, weird airlines. They're just going to do what they do.
[0:35:42] IP: This is true. They're an enigma wrapped in a puzzle, wrapped in a, who knows
what? Jason, shall we head to New York?
[0:35:51] JR: I'm already there.
[0:35:53] IP: Okay. Then tell me what's going on at LaGuardia. What can I buy at auction?
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[0:35:58] JR: Well, first of all, talking about LaGuardia, before we get to the auction, there are
delays right now of up to an hour due to hole patrol, Ian. Did you know about the LaGuardia
hole patrol?
[0:36:08] IP: You know what, did we not talk about it? We talked about it, didn't we?
[0:36:11] JR: I think we did. There was a sinkhole just off runway 422 at LaGuardia a couple of
weeks ago. Apparently, is shaky enough repair that they have to periodically close the runway
for inspection every couple of hours. That's creating some issues here, because of hole patrol.
Beside that, we talked about this a while ago, what happens to Spirit’s extremely valuable 22
slots at LaGuardia? For the uninitiated, LaGuardia is a special snowflake open airport, along
with JFK and DCA, where you need a slot, you need a government mandated slot, or purchase
slot from someone else to be able to fly into LaGuardia, because it's a very congested airport.
Spirit went bankrupt with 22 of those. Now we know come July, I believe, the FAA is just going
to auction those off.
There's a bit of an interesting twist here in that the FAA says, it would prefer to go to another
low-cost carrier, which there aren't really all that many out there. At the same time, the
bankruptcy proceedings for Spirit, well, they have a fiduciary duty to get the most amount of
money possible out of its whatever Spirit has left to get rid of. This is probably one of the more
valuable assets outside of the aircraft, and I don't know, that the Dell Inspiron computers they
had at the headquarters in Fort Lauderdale. It's going to be very interesting to see what ends up
happening with these slots, how much revenue they generate for the bankruptcy proceedings,
and what airline would be interested if they go wholesale to one airline, or to a whole bunch of
different airlines.
[0:37:56] IP: It's got to be Cape Air.
[0:37:58] JR: I mean, they do operate the JFK. That could be interesting. But it could be, let's
say, maybe Porter expanding its operation. It's only got three fights. Maybe they want more than
three to compete with Air Canada. JetBlue, almost certainly not, since it's been withdrawing from
LaGuardia for quite a while. Frontier, they'd have to move out of the central terminal, the
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terminal A probably to make that work. I'm really struggling to think of what low-cost carrier
would want to operate with LaGuardia.
[0:38:28] IP: Is there a universe in which these slots – because Bedford's, I guess, other
preferred option is that no one gets them and there's just less congestion at LaGuardia.
[0:38:42] JR: Yeah. I would think the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey would have a
couple things to say about that, because planes landing equals more revenue. At the same
time, it already has plans to close and renovate terminal A, which is where Spirit resided. That's
a whole lot easier if there is no Spirit at terminal A, since you don't have to shuffle anyone
around and place them somewhere else. Yeah, maybe for the time being, those slots just don't
get reallocated. I don't know. I'm not sure if the 22 slots is more than a drop in the bucket, or the
ocean in terms of LaGuardia delays, because when things go sideways, they go really
sideways, and it's not the fault of having one or two more flights per hour.
Doesn't help, but probably not what's really tipping the scales and breaking LaGuardia. I'm just
struggling to think what else they see could possibly want more LaGuardia slots, since we know
that the cost per passenger is $98 per passenger at LaGuardia. That's really hard to make back
as a low-cost carrier is you don't really see much of that there. You're not going to see Avelo
come in. You're not going to see Breeze come in. It's just too expensive. I don't know. It's
probably going to end up going to United, Delta, American. Not to be all that interesting.
[0:40:00] IP: Okay.
[0:40:01] JR: I personally would not mind if we return to the days of eight daily flights from
LaGuardia to Dulles, just so I could have some more options. But that's probably not the most
practical use.
[0:40:12] IP: Yeah. Not practical, economical, environmentally friendly. Anything, really.
[0:40:17] JR: Helpful for me personally. Well, in all other cases, a terrible, terrible idea.
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[0:40:23] IP: I feel like you need to write a letter to the DOT. “I understand that this doesn't work
in any way, shape, or form on any level, except it benefits me personally.”
[0:40:32] JR: But United's got this one route and it's really bad.
[0:40:37] IP: Does this become the Chairman's route? This is the new version of the
Chairman's route?
[0:40:41] JR: If I'm Chairman, sure. I did look in the schedule and I think United did go back up
to those eight daily flights way out in the schedule, which I think is just a placeholder. But man, I
would not mind if those came back for real, because Amtrak's not working so well these days.
[0:40:57] IP: Well, we'll figure something out. Maybe you can get an A220-100 out of the deal
and just go with an ACJ-220.
[0:41:04] JR: I mean, none of it's being parted out.
[0:41:06] IP: You can reassemble the parts.
[0:41:08] JR: The good news is one of the two is an airplane I've already personally flown, so I
am familiar with it. I know where the pieces go.
[0:41:18] IP: I can put it back together. I've sat in it once.
[0:41:21] JR: I and Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren, we can put it back together. Because Swiss, we
have seen stories of airlines removing from service and in some cases, parting out young
aircraft. That's exactly what it's doing with two of its nine A220-100s that's already been taken
out of service for quite a while to provide engines and other parts for its A220-300 fleet for
higher capacity flights. In this case, HB-JBD and JBC have been stored in Toulouse since
January, according to Aviation Week. They will not be getting unstored. They will be
disassembled, parted out specifically for components for the rest of their fleet. HB-JBC was
actually the first A220, but at the time, Bombardier C-Series that I had ever flown with Jeremy,
we did, that was a real early podcast episode, like episode two, where Jeremy and I flew, I think,
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from Amsterdam to Zurich to London City back to Amsterdam on the same day. One of those
flights happened to be on a Swiss A220, or sorry, C-Series. After so long, training my brain to
say, A220 instead of C-Series. Now it's really unnatural to go back and say C-Series. But that
was my first fight on A220/C-Series. Sad to see it being parted out already. So young.
[0:42:45] IP: Yeah.
[0:42:45] JR: Oh, a 10-year-old aircraft. We've certainly seen younger aircraft, specifically a
Spirit aircraft, two-year-old A320neos getting parted out. This one, I've gotten a personal
attachment to this specific aircraft and hate to see it.
[0:43:01] IP: All right. Let's play a game, Jason.
[0:43:03] JR: Oh, no.
[0:43:04] IP: That was episode 16.
[0:43:06] JR: Wow.
[0:43:07] IP: It aired in October of 2017.
[0:43:12] JR: Wow.
[0:43:12] IP: What else did we talk about in that episode?
[0:43:14] JR: October 2017. Always safe to assume something happened with Boeing. That the
73 MAX did something, or –
[0:43:22] IP: No, no, no.
[0:43:23] JR: - the 78 did something. What else did we talk about?
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[0:43:27] IP: There was bad royal news. I don't know how to make this one a thing. There was
an uncontained engine failure.
[0:43:37] JR: Oh. Oh, Monarch demise?
[0:43:40] IP: Uh-huh.
[0:43:41] JR: I think you're reading Monarch demise. Not the royal family, but the airline
Monarch.
[0:43:47] IP: Exactly.
[0:43:47] JR: We have to go that far back?
[0:43:48] IP: Yes.
[0:43:49] JR: Loons? I assume that means the balloons Google used to have for their high-
altitude internet thing that never worked. Air Berlin was still a thing. Wow. This apparently was a
light episode. We only have some bullet points.
[0:44:04] IP: But it was not a light episode, because we had a lot to talk about, because that
was – We got the preliminary report from the Air France A380 uncontained engine failure over
Greenland.
[0:44:20] JR: Oh, is that the one that dropped engine parts over Greenland? Yeah.
[0:44:24] IP: Yeah. Then they had to spend, I think, the next – I remember covering that when I
was in Stockholm. So, a few months till December when they had to find all of those pieces
using – it was like a heat gun, snowmobile teams, lasers. It was a whole big thing.
[0:44:44] JR: This should be a thing that we do. We should go back and look at our list of old
episodes for, obviously, only Ian and I know this, but we have been using the same Google Doc
for our show rundown since episode one in a document called, what's the title of this? It is –
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[0:45:00] IP: Things That Would Be Good to Talk About in a Podcast.
[0:45:03] JR: It is a 338-page Google Doc. The very first thing that is in this is a picture of a
Virgin Atlantic A340-600. You're welcome, John Walton. But we can refer back to any episode
just by scrolling back far enough. We were really diligent for episode 11, apparently, where we
talked about the Paris Air Show. We should just scroll randomly to a random episode and see if
we remember literally anything that we talked about. In episode 49, the 777Xs engines were
mounted for the first time. I'm sure that program will go just fine.
[0:45:35] IP: Wow. That aircraft has been certified and in service for years now.
[0:45:39] JR: Definitely. Episode, let’s just scroll randomly, episode 70. I was going to Madrid for
some reason. The show notes say, pickles, no context there. El Al retired its 747 fleet. This is a
fun exercise.
[0:45:53] IP: All right. I can't remember if we talked about – no, we didn't, because we skipped it
to come back to later, because I didn't want to bring it up as part of the Boeing block, but here
we go. United is getting its first A321 XLR as we speak. Yeah, it's probably on the ground by
now.
[0:46:10] JR: It's still going, right?
[0:46:11] IP: It just landed.
[0:46:13] JR: It has done the XLR thing. What was the route?
[0:46:16] IP: Yes, it is.
[0:46:18] JR: Certainly, it went Mobile to Dulles, right?
[0:46:21] IP: Mobile to Dulles. The A321 XLR, those are built in Europe. It flew from Hamburg to
Tampa, where United is inducting it into service. It'll go through some more United specific fit
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and fixture stuff, before it eventually enters service with the airline on a route that is probably
never going to be as long as the delivery flight.
[0:46:45] JR: Yeah, it did so in disguise as a 727, of course.
[0:46:49] IP: Yes, it did.
[0:46:50] JR: Someone's got to get a new image of that aircraft.
[0:46:52] IP: I can almost guarantee that a new image will be up very shortly.
[0:46:56] JR: Momentarily.
[0:46:58] IP: As folks see that land in Tampa, I'm sure we'll get one up on jet photos right quick.
[0:47:03] JR: Good route, though. Good route.
[0:47:05] IP: Yeah. Jason, let's end the show with a question that we often ask ourselves when
these things happen. Who wants to buy an MD-83?
[0:47:16] JR: Western Global Airlines?
[0:47:18] IP: Maybe. In this particular case, it's a decrepit, elderly, been sitting in the same spot
for years. Old, old, old, old, fat MD-83.
[0:47:32] JR: Is that the Taiwanese airline?
[0:47:35] IP: It is. This is Far Eastern Air Transport.
[0:47:40] JR: Why do I have that in my brain? Why do I know that Far Eastern Transport was
from Taipei?
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[0:47:46] IP: I don't know how to help you with that. But the airline, this is one of those started-
stopped, started-stopped airlines. They started way back in the 50s and had a really good run
and stopped in 2008 for the first time as part of the global financial crisis. Then they got
restarted back in 2011 and lasted just eight years before completely stopping flights in the end
of 2019. There have been a number of MD-82, 83 aircraft that belonged to the airline that have
been sitting around, and Taiwan has this really cool bureau whose entire job it is to recover
money for the state from stuff that has been left unattended and they put it up for auction. Not
only can you buy an MD-83, or bid on an MD-83, Jason, you can also bid on a screw size
measuring and appearance defect automatic inspection machine.
[0:48:51] JR: Sure. I'll take five.
[0:48:53] IP: There you go. Sometimes all you have to do is bid over the reserve price and
other times, it's a lot more complicated where you have to be over the reserve price by 50%, but
above any other bidders, but more than 5% above any of the other bidders, and if you're not, it
goes back. It's almost like, they just don't want my money for this plane.
[0:49:14] JR: Yeah. You know what?
[0:49:16] IP: You've flown on the plane.
[0:49:17] JR: I have a picture of the plane. The last time I was in Taipei, I took a picture of a
bunch of these Far East transport MD-82s on the ramp at not your normal Taipei airport, but the
other airport, Songshan, where I flew out of – there's a bunch of them on the ramp. I'm trying to
find out if I got a picture of this exact one.
[0:49:37] IP: B28011 is the registration number.
[0:49:41] JR: Yes, I did. Because, of course, I did.
[0:49:43] IP: Of course, you did.
[0:49:44] JR: They're just out there on the ramp.
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[0:49:45] IP: But do you have a picture of the screw size measuring appearance defect
automatic inspection machine? I think not.
[0:49:51] JR: I don't. I don't have that. But if you have 5.12 million new Taiwanese dollars,
which turned out to be $160,792.92, you can be the proud owner of future beer cans.
[0:50:07] IP: I mean, that actually doesn't sound like a bad deal. I like beer cans.
[0:50:10] JR: No. What's the price of aluminum these days?
[0:50:15] IP: Buy and hold, baby. Buy and hold. Jason?
[0:50:17] JR: Yes.
[0:50:18] IP: Today is Wednesday, June 3rd.
[0:50:20] JR: If you say so.
[0:50:21] IP: Next week's podcast will be a normal podcast.
[0:50:25] JR: Great. Looking forward to it.
[0:50:26] IP: Then the week after that.
[0:50:28] JR: You alluded to this last week.
[0:50:29] IP: While next week's podcast comes out, while next week's podcast comes out, we'll
be doing something very fun.
[0:50:36] JR: Do we talk about what it is? Because even I barely know any of the details. Other
than you booked me a flight to Cleveland? What the hell? Why am I going to Cleveland?
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[0:50:45] IP: I booked you a flight to Cleveland. I'm going to come pick you up.
[0:50:47] JR: From JFK.
[0:50:48] IP: Airport in Cleveland, because next week, Jason, Gabe, and myself will be visiting
the good, wonderful, and very funny folks at Goodyear to learn all there is to know about their
fantastic semi-rigid airship that they have down in Akron.
[0:51:11] JR: Also known as the Goodyear Blimp.
[0:51:14] IP: The Goodyear Blimp. We are going to learn everything there is to know. We're
going to become Goodyear Blimp experts and we're going to have a special episode of the
podcast in a couple of weeks that covers everything we learned, as well as a video report from
Ohio as well. Next week, completely normal episode, but know that we'll have gone blimping.
[0:51:39] JR: Send us blimp questions. What do you want to know about blimps?
[0:51:41] IP: Yes, please.
[0:51:42] JR: How do they work? I don't know. I'm going to find out. What do you want to know
about blimps?
[0:51:47] IP: There's so much to know. Send us your questions.
[0:51:50] JR: How fast do they go? How do you land a blimp? How do you fly a blimp? How do
you get the blimp over the sports thing that is nowhere near Cleveland, Ohio? These are the
questions I want to ask, but what do you want to know? Because it turns out, Ian, I don't know a
lot about blimps. We don't really get them much here in New York.
[0:52:09] IP: That's a shame. That's a real shame, Jason.
[0:52:12] JR: It is a shame.
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[0:52:13] IP: Maybe after we visit there, you'll be able to convince them to bring the Goodyear
Blimp to New York more often.
[0:52:17] JR: Cancel my American flight back to JFK. We're taking that blimp to New York.
[0:52:22] IP: You're taking the blimp. All right. On that note, if you do have questions about the
Goodyear Blimp, or blimps in general, or semi-rigid airships, or Zeppelins, or whatever, that we
can ask the good folks at Goodyear, email us, podcast@fr24.com, and we will happily get those
answers. This has been episode 373 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here as always with –
[0:52:47] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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