AvTalk Episode 336: No supernatural demonic force

AVT 336 Transcript
EPISODE 336
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello, and welcome to episode 336 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Hello, Ian. What’s up?
[0:00:18] IP: Hello, Jason. It's Wednesday, September 10th. By the time the podcast comes out,
you and I will be on our way to Los Angeles to hang out for the weekend together and with
hundreds of other avgeeks. I am very excited.
[0:00:36] JR: That's true. When this comes out, I will be on a Delta 767 operating with the flight
number 747.
[0:00:44] IP: Oh, I hate when they do that. I hate when they do that.
[0:00:47] JR: That's a thing. But I don't know, maybe this is a repeat, but maybe, we talked
about this earlier, but all of the flights, Delta flights between JFK and LAX, have aircraft themed
flight numbers, which is fun, like Delta 747, 767, 757. Let's see what's operating right now. I've
got to go past all the boring ones. There's Delta 707, 738, 742, 747, 752, 767 and 773.
[0:01:16] IP: I went from hating it to appreciating it very, very much.
[0:01:19] JR:  You got to appreciate it.
[0:01:19] IP: Now that I understand.
[0:01:20] JR: But every now and then, yeah, the Delta 747 seems to always be operated by a
764. Close. Please, tell me 767 is operated by a 767, and it is a 763. Real heavy avgeek
influence –
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AVT 336 Transcript
[0:01:35] IP: There you go.
[0:01:36] JR: - on that route.
[0:01:37] IP: I appreciate that.
[0:01:38] JR: The sole reason I fly Delta between JFK and LAX.
[0:01:41] IP: The sole reason.
[0:01:42] JR: Sole reason.
[0:01:42] IP: The sole reason. All right, fair enough, fair enough. Anyone who's listening to the
podcast coming out on Friday, we hope to see there if that's in your plans for the weekend.
You'll hear more about the adventure over the weekend on next week's episode. Hopefully, we'll
hear from some friends. We'll see who we run into over the course of the weekend and if we can
get them to come on the podcast and chat for a little bit.
Last night on the 9th of September, Russian drones made their first incursion into Polish
airspace, or I should say en masse, because there were a lot of them. The effects on
commercial activity were pretty quick. Everything just moved west, as NATO allies came in with
Dutch F-35s. There was the NATO MRTT that was visible last night. I'm sure there were many,
many other things that were not visible on ADS-B. Commercial traffic moved west. The airport,
terminal and center areas around Warsaw, Modlin, Lublin and Chekhov were all closed. Those
remained closed until about 6.30 or so this morning, local time. That impacted a few dozen
flights.
Thankfully, everything was overnight as far as commercial impact is concerned. As far as a new
development in, I guess, this is the war in Ukraine spilling over maybe, but a troubling
development if this becomes a regular occurrence. Because certainly, there are already huge
work arounds with the inability to fly through Ukraine. If this affects commercial air traffic even
wider, the problem just continues to get worse and worse.
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AVT 336 Transcript
[0:03:39] JR: Yeah. I know this wasn't just an incursion. There were also, I believe, shootdowns
of drones. It wasn't just a, “Oh, look. Russian drones are busting our airspace.” This was, they're
busting our airspace and we're having to shoot them down and get them out of our airspace. It
became a hot area that you definitely don't want civilian aircraft. Honestly, I think the most
impacted, the region would be if you had to close Eastern Polish airspace, ironically, would be
flights transiting Polish airspace to get to Russia. That would be ironic twist.
[0:04:14] IP: Yeah. The irony last night of the largest number of flights having to be rerouted
were the flights that are operating between Turkey and Russia, was certainly not lost on me.
[0:04:24] JR: No. Certainly stinks for Finnair being involved in this as well, since this is right –
[0:04:29] IP: Finnair, airBaltic, two real strong impact. Already skirting at the margins of being
able to fly around and still make it to destination. It's definitely something that we'll be watching
closely to see if this flares up again.
[0:04:42] JR: Yeah. None of that is good.
[0:04:44] IP: No. None of it is good. In St. Martin –
[0:04:47] JR: Speaking of not good.
[0:04:47] IP: - a WestJet 737 had a hard landing over the weekend and managed to collapse
the right main landing gear. This is not WestJet's first St. Martin incident.
[0:05:05] JR: No. Definitely, it seems like, WestJet seems to get itself bit in trouble in St. Martin,
more than the average airline, which is funny, because they're probably one of the least frequent
carriers there, at least compared to Delta, American, United. I think it was what, a couple years
ago? This is really all the benefit of having so many webcams, automated webcams at St.
Martin viewing everything. You see more than you would ordinarily see. I think there was a very,
very, very low approach during inclement weather at St. Martin from a WestJet, maybe a 767
back then.
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[0:05:39] IP: No, it was a 737, because it was a special livery.
[0:05:42] JR: Ah, okay.
[0:05:42] IP: It was, I want to say, one of the Disney liveries.
[0:05:46] JR: Yeah, so that was caught on camera. And so was this one with quite good
production values, if I do say so myself. If you're familiar with St. Martin, and if you're listening to
this podcast and you're not familiar with St. Martin, what the heck are you doing listening to this
podcast? Anyway, it is a single runway airport. Unfortunately, the airport was entirely closed for
nearly 24 hours, I think, as the aircraft was stuck on the runway with a busted right main landing
gear. St. Martin, I guess, the staff there and even down to the court comms and social media
team, they did a phenomenal job, not just removing the stricken aircraft off the runway, which
involved heavy lift machinery, which is probably not all that easy to source on an island like that.
But keeping passengers up to date on social media throughout the airport closure, they did a
phenomenal job. Hats off.
[0:06:38] IP: Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate how they used the crane to raise the aircraft up.
Then they backed a flatbed truck underneath the wing.
[0:06:47] JR: And then backed it out.
[0:06:48] IP: Then had the flatbed truck drive underneath the wing, while they tugged the
aircraft off the runway. I thought that was really –
[0:06:55] JR: You do what you got to do. Because places like St. Martin, the airport is the
lifeline of the island.
[0:07:01] IP: Absolutely.
[0:07:01] JR: Almost everything that comes in and out, except for that one little weird barge that
has 50-foot shipping containers on it that comes from, I think, San Juan, that's it. Everything
else coming in and out of the island either comes on a cruise ship, or comes on a commercial
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AVT 336 Transcript
flight. I don't think they take a lot of cargo on cruise ships. It was imperative that they get that
out of there real quick. This was very similar to what was it, the Alaska Air 737, I think a John
Wayne, was it that the landing? Yeah, it was hard, but it didn't look all that hard to get to the
dramatics of a busted main landing gear and the evacuation on the runway.
This was one of WestJet's oldest 737s, so I can't imagine we'll be seeing it back in the future,
but we've been surprised many times before. I feel like, there's going to be a lot of similarities to
that other incident where they look under the hood and go, “Oh, yeah. There's a lot more
corrosion here than the last time we looked.”
[0:07:58] IP: Right, right. What Jason's referencing is August 20 – is actually just almost two
years ago, exactly. August 2023, hard landing, because it happened during a storm. Everyone
assumed that the storm had something to do with it, and it was a hard landing. But when they
investigated, they found that there was poor maintenance on the trunnion pin in the landing
gear.
[0:08:21] JR: Oh, that's right. It was the old trunnion pin. I don’t remember talking about that.
[0:08:24] IP: The old trunnion pin. Yeah. Again, wait for the investigation to see whether or not it
was just a hard landing, or if there was something else going on there. Earlier this week, the
NTSB released its preliminary report on the Delta Flight 56 turbulence incident that happened
on the 30th of July over Wyoming. This was Delta Flight 56 from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam.
The aircraft was climbing from 35,000 feet to 37,000 feet. Reached 37,000 feet, and then
needed to move around some weather. The NTSB says, the pilot said, “Hey, can we go right
around the weather?” ATC said, “Why don't you go left?” They went left. They flew for a few
more minutes. Then all of the flight attendants started bouncing around the cabin. Because as it
turns out, while 18 people of the 24 passengers who were evaluated by EMTs went to the
hospital, the only injuries sustained were by those of the cabin crew.
Two members of the cabin crew sustained serious injuries and five sustained minor injuries. The
balance of the 234 people sustained no injuries, according to the NTSB. That is super
interesting in its own right, because that means that everyone was probably belted in and that
probably prevented a lot more injuries.
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[0:09:55] JR: Well, that is something I feel we don't often get to say. Hate to see anytime any
crew, including flight attendants are injured. They were probably up and about doing the service.
Wow, good job. Built the passengers, apparently, for potentially all having your seat belts
fastened. Look at you guys following directions and little lights. Good on them.
[0:10:17] IP: And little lights. The aircraft had an over speed event, exceeding the maximum
operating speed of the aircraft by between 15 and 20 knots. Then an updraft carried the aircraft
from 37,000 to 38,000 feet over the course of about 20 seconds. During that time, the autopilot
disengaged. Then the aircraft descended rapidly all the way down to 35,500 feet. That cycle
repeated about two or three times over the course of two and a half minutes. The first officer
was the pilot flying and they initiated the All-Attitude Upset Recovery Strategy, which allowed
them to recover the aircraft and reengage the autopilot.
The aircraft and everyone on board landed safely in Minneapolis a little while later. The NTSB,
to its credit, discusses why they diverted to Minneapolis, saying that there was no weather there
and they felt comfortable with the ability to land there based on runway length and lack of
adverse weather and some other factors. I thought it was interesting that they included that in
the preliminary report and good on them.
[0:11:31] JR: Yeah. You never want to divert somewhere from medical emergency where you
might create more injuries. That all makes sense, doesn't it?
[0:11:38] IP: We'll keep an eye on the investigation for a final report, which I'm sure will be
much more in depth as to the weather and the process between the crew and air traffic control
and their suggestions about ways to get around that weather. The link in the show notes to the
preliminary report has a graphic from the National Weather Service radar imagery at the time of
the accident that shows the Delta flight flying, basically, into the most strenuous storm activity on
the map. Some interesting things there about how that all transpired that I'm curious to see.
[0:12:21] JR: I would love to read when the NTSB dives into why the crew wanted to go right,
but ATC made them go left. Quite interesting, since the crew presumably has the best look at
the weather, with their onboard weather radar. Then, I guess, they could have just declined that
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turn and gone with what they thought was safest, but there's all sorts of circumstances and busy
airspace to take into account there. Very much looking forward in that.
[0:12:48] IP: Exactly. Exactly.
[0:12:50] JR: You can't just go wherever you want anytime you want in that kind of airspace, but
very interested to read in the future why the crew wanted to go right. ATC said left.
[0:12:59] IP: Yeah. We'll keep an eye out for the final report on that one. Also, in the preliminary
report column this week, we have an Air Canada Rouge Airbus A319 that landed short in
Nashville. This particular landing resulted, thankfully, in no one being injured, a few broken
runway lights, but the NTSB is investigating the incident that occurred on the 14th of August.
Just some preliminary pictures. The narrative thus far shows that there was a line training
captain and a candidate captain who was manually flying the aircraft. They encountered heavy
rain at about 200 feet above the ground. The aircraft then descended too soon and touched
down in the grass before the paved area of the runway.
[0:13:56] JR: Even before the displaced threshold. It's a pretty significant display threshold
there, and that they missed that, too.
[0:14:03] IP: Yeah. It'll be interesting to get more into this, because the preliminary report
discusses the fact that the training captain in the right seat could see fine. The candidate
captain in the left seat couldn't. That's interesting to me. What's also interesting to me is the
NTSB mentions that the captain asks if he should go around, despite not being able to see and
what transpired after that is unclear as to what the discussion exactly is.
[0:14:37] JR: Reading a quote here from a Flight Global article. It goes, “Although he asked the
line training captain whether a go around should be initiated.” Good job asking that pilot in
training. That's the question you should be asking. It goes on to say, “The line training captain
could see the runway environment, despite the rain distortion and “believed the aircraft was on
the glide path.” It adds, “Clearly, they were not.” It goes on to say, “Is the thrust lever is a little
more to idle. The candidate captain was startled to see the runway threshold lights directly
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ahead of the aircraft's nose.” Yeah, I'd be startled about that, too. Not great. But if you are the
candidate pilot there, I think you passed the test? I think the rules are a little reverse there, huh?
[0:15:19] IP: That'll be interesting to find out.
[0:15:21] JR: Hmm. The student becomes the teacher.
[0:15:25] IP: In the last bit of incident discussion that we have for this week, we have some
EMAS to talk about. I love EMAS.
[0:15:34] JR: EMAS is great, because it is just crunchy concrete. Crunchy concrete can save
the day. The FAA would love you to know that it saved the day not once, but twice on
September 3rd. Busy day for EMAS saving wayward business jets. One was a Gulfstream G150
at Chicago Executive, which apparently, our good friend, Josh –
[0:15:56] IP: That EMAS gets a lot of repeat business.
[0:15:58] JR: Apparently, at Blaine Plains on the blue skies, Josh, who is a pilot based in the
Chicago area, I believe says, he believes this is the number three save at Chicago Executive.
That's a lot of saves there. Another was a Challenger 300 at Boca Raton. That one, I believe, or
the first one at Chicago Executive busted. Nope, that looks Florida. I'm going to say, this one
was in Florida. Went through at an angle, the EMAS, and then busted through a fence along the
perimeter road, and the one in Chicago, I believe. I might have these flipped. That one firmly
dug into the EMAS and stopped cold, which is exactly what you want to see.
[0:16:39] IP: The one in Chicago ended up almost on the street.
[0:16:42] JR: Yeah. Chicago's got a history of that, huh?
[0:16:44] IP: We do. Both with private and commercial aircraft. That's a really interesting point,
because one of the things to keep in mind as far as EMAS goes is it's most effective, it's like the
Titanic and the iceberg, where you think trying to steer out of the way would be helpful.
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[0:17:04] JR: No. You got to head on.
[0:17:06] IP: You need to go into it head on, because it only works if you put all of the mass of
the aircraft into the EMAS.
[0:17:13] JR: Yeah, it looks like the one in Chicago.
[0:17:14] IP: We should probably say what EMAS stands for, which is Engineered Materials
Arresting System.
[0:17:19] JR: Crunchy concrete.
[0:17:20] IP: It's basically crunchy concrete, as Jason said. It crumbles under significant – You
can drive a car on it, but you can't drive an airplane on it.
[0:17:28] JR: You shouldn't drive a car on it, nor should you even step on it. You shouldn't even
look at it. If you drive an airplane through it, it's going to crumble apart as the landing gear of the
aircraft, or presumably, the aircraft fuselage. It doesn't even have to be the landing gear. But it
will crumble under the weight of whatever is on top, significantly slowing whatever it is down on
top of it. It looks like in Chicago, they hit it at an angle, but went through most of it, seemingly,
like a lot of it. The one in Boca, they were not exactly dead center, but they hit it straight on.
[0:18:02] IP: Firmly planted.
[0:18:03] JR: Firmly planted. There you go. A hard message to really stick to pilots that, hey,
there's this thing at the end of the runway. If you hit it, you're in a huge amount of trouble, but it's
going to save your butt, probably. Try to hit the thing you never want to hit square on.
[0:18:18] IP: Aim for the middle. Aim for the middle.
[0:18:20] JR: Aim for the thing that's going to be a real problem for your career, or not. We have
no idea what the circumstances were of these. They could have been both mechanical, who
knows? But we love EMAS.
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[0:18:32] IP: Investigations are forthcoming.
[0:18:35] JR: Yes.
[0:18:35] IP: Last week, we talked about Ryanair's threat and moves to remove a million seats
from Spain due to their –
[0:18:48] JR: They didn't do it again. You got to say it like Dr. Evil.
[0:18:52] IP: One million seats.
[0:18:53] JR: There it is.
[0:18:54] IP: We talked about Ryanair's side of the story, basically. Well, as soon as we hit stop
on the recording, which is usually how these things go, the chairman and CEO, of Aena, the
Spanish airport's authority, issued a statement of their own. As far as corporate statements go,
this one is probably one of the most interesting, humorous, striking, and well laid out statements
I've seen in a very long time.
[0:19:28] JR: If you're hitting back at Ryanair, this is exactly what you got to do.
[0:19:32] IP: They brought a variety of receipts. Jason, here are some things that I learned from
this particular statement.
[0:19:40] JR: Okay.
[0:19:41] IP: One, and I think most importantly, no supernatural demonic force compels Ryanair
to be one of Aena's biggest customers and to sell its tickets to more than 60 million people
traveling to and from Spain.
[0:19:54] JR: Huh. I mean, they ruled out supernatural, but they didn't rule out intergalactic.
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[0:20:01] IP: Oh, okay. It might be that.
[0:20:04] JR: There might be aliens controlling Ryanair. We don’t’ know.
[0:20:07] IP: The supernatural demonic forces come in very late in the statement. But what the
statement does lay out and we'll put a link to this in the show notes, because I think it's worth
reading in its entirety for the other side of the story here, in that Ryanair's demanding to not pay
this charge that is basically mandated by law. They're saying, “Well, okay. Forget it. We're just
going to leave.” The airport authority is going to say, “We can't really do anything about this,
because the government has said, this is how much things need to cost. This is part of the
regulatory regime in which we operate. Those are just the costs. There's not much we can do
here.”
Then, they lay out how Ryanair has operated within Spain, how they've benefited from some of
these things, how Ryanair has asked for things that aren't rarely possible. They say that the
additional charges amount to approximately 2 euros per passenger.
[0:21:13] JR: I mean, when Ryanair fares or 10 euros, that's like 20%. But not really. Even the
beginning, the very first sentence of this sets the tone. I'll read it verbatim. It would be hard to
find in contemporary business history, another case such as Ryanair, where the dissonance
between a company's operational excellence and the dishonesty of its communications policy is
so striking. They started hard.
[0:21:43] IP: It goes on from there. It would be fun to do a dramatic reading of the entire thing,
but I don't think we have that time, so we're just going to move on. There's a link in the show
notes to the full statement, if you so choose to read that. Other interesting statements this week,
we have United Airlines CEO, Scott Kirby, saying that the ultra-low-cost carrier model in the US
is dead. It's done. It's just gone.
[0:22:16] JR: I mean, all indications are pointing to that maybe being true. Frontier and Allegiant
still making it work. But there certainly isn't room out there for Frontier and Allegiant and Spirit,
at least.
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[0:22:34] IP: I think the interesting thing here is that the ultra-low-cost model in the US, there
are so many US specific things here that go into it not working, as well as it works elsewhere. I
think, that's worth exploring long term. Maybe we can get into that later. It was just one of those
things where Kirby just came out and said it.
[0:23:04] JR: He's been doing that a lot recently.
[0:23:06] IP: Yeah, he has. He also said some things that were interesting to me. Kirby said,
“Surprising customers with fees doesn't work.”
[0:23:17] JR: I mean, United isn't exactly free. I'm surprising anyone with fees. They do have
plenty of their own.
[0:23:24] IP: It's like, if you have a big enough network and enough planes, you can get away
with some of this.
[0:23:30] JR: He's not wrong.
[0:23:31] IP: He’s not. He's not wrong. But also, there's a little bit of pots and kettles calling
each other names.
[0:23:40] JR: Yeah. I guess, as one of the world's largest airlines, they can get away with
saying a lot, including directly calling out, “Hey, we're ramping up these routes, because Spirit’s
probably going to die soon.” More or less. Not the exact words, but damn near close to it.
United's getting real frisky with what it has to say in the market these days. Again, it's probably
not wrong. I'm not going to say the ULCC market model is dead in the US. I don't think that's
true. Otherwise, Allegiant would still be a thing. Frontier would still be a thing, but they are still
very much a thing. I don't know. I don't know what they're – It's not a great model in the US, but
it certainly, not did.
[0:24:18] IP: I agree with Jason's assessment here.
[0:24:21] JR: Fantastic.
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[0:24:22] IP: Flush with mystery cash, Avelo has ordered 50 firm and 50 optional Embraer E195
E2s. This will be in addition to the 737 fleet that it currently operates. It'll bring the E195 E2 to
the US for the first time.
[0:24:45] JR: Yeah. I guess, Avelo's not a ULCC. It's an LCC, or something. Are they a ULCC-
ish? That's why I bumped this up at the last second, because it's a good transition, but I guess,
they're not a ULCC, but they’re something like it. I'm not really sure what you want to call it. But
this has been a weird year for Avelo. Remember, this was the same airline that earlier this year
was apparently, so close to the brink of death, that they had no choice other than to accept a
contract from ICE to operate deportation flights, which is a whole other can of worms. I'm not
sure we're going to open up on this podcast. But they were so short on cash that they had no
choice to do this. Otherwise, they would face imminent demise. Now just a couple months later,
apparently, they've got enough cash to order 50 firm E195 E2, plus 50 options.
[0:25:40] IP: We're not sure where that investment came from.
[0:25:42] JR: No. Their biggest cash infusion, they said since inception, since the beginning of
this airline. I'm real conflicted. I love to hear E195 E2 having a US customer. If you're Porter,
you're also thrilled about this, because it's all sorts of good news for you in the supply chain in
North America. But not a big fan of Avelo right now. Don't know what they're going to do with up
to 100 E195s, in addition to the 737s. It's exponential growth for that airline. Rumors out there
that they're also plotting for the demise of Spirit and will aim to capture as much as they can.
The first delivery won't take place until 2027, so they've got a bit of a wait until that.
[0:26:26] IP: We'll see where they end up with those in in a few years’ time. On the other side of
US Embraer news, JetBlue has officially retired its last Embraer E190.
[0:26:37] JR: Oh. This one hits home. I have been flying JetBlue since before the days of the
E190, which it was the launch operator of, in way back in 2005. Interesting note, JetBlue's
current Chief Operating Officer, Warren Christie, captained both the first and final flights of the
E190 at JetBlue, which is pretty cool. The final flight operated the most boring route possible,
between JFK and Boston, but did so on time, which is no small feat for JetBlue operating out of
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JFK. This is somber for me. I love the E190. Now there are no more E190s in the US,
anywhere.
American retired its during COVID. JetBlue retired its E190s just a few days ago. They are a
spectacularly comfortable airplane. JetBlue's were great, even though the interior hasn't been
updated since introduction in 2005 with the tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little TVs. But the big windows
make up for it. It was nice.
[0:27:41] IP: If you want to fly on an E190, there's still a chance to do so. The best way in the
US, at least the best way to do it is to charter a breeze airplane, because that gets you an E190.
Or find one of the routes, where they're having problems with the A220 and then you can fly on
that route, because they're putting those into sporadic commercial service, because they're
having all sorts of issues the way all other A220 operations.
[0:28:08] JR: Yeah. BermudAir also, I believe, took a couple E190s, but those are not domestic
US.
[0:28:13] IP: Right. Not US airlines. Because you could still fly on Aeromexico Connect if you
wanted to really fly in US.
[0:28:19] JR: Air Canada got rid of  AC92. It's just disappointing that such a nice, comfortable
airplane is really just not something you find in the US anymore. I'm not thrilled that Avelo of all
airlines is taking the E195 E2. It is what it is.
[0:28:37] IP: Let's talk about comfort for a minute, because there are a lot of options for getting
comfortable on an airplane, all the way from incredibly luxurious first-class suites down to new
construction economy seats that are built for comfort in the economy cabin. We've been
struggling lately with being able to actually put those onto aircraft. When we come back from a
quick break, we're going to talk with John Walton. Welcome him back to the show and learn
more about aircraft interior certification delivery and why we've seen so many problems for the
last few years and why it might not be getting better anytime soon. We're going to take a quick
break and we'll be right back.
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[CONVERSATION WITH JOHN WALTON]
[0:29:30] IP: Welcome back. We are joined for the first time in a long time, far too long, by John
Walton, who is now the Editor-In-Chief of The Up Front. John's expertise is going to take us
inside a lot of the new aircraft certification that's coming out inside the cabin. He is recently back
from Toulouse, and has a lot to share about what's going on not only with a launch of a new
A330neo customer, but what's happening generally with certification and compliance within the
cabin. John Walton, welcome back to AvTalk.
[0:30:10] JW: Thank you very much. It is a delight to be back.
[0:30:13] JR: Hey, John. Happy to have you back. I know we will get there, but we open this
segment as talk to us about certification. I think we have to focus more on the lack of
certification for things. Do we want to jump straight to that, or talk about your fun trip to
Toulouse?
[0:30:29] JW: Up to you. Let's talk about my fun trip to Toulouse and then we can dive into the
certification later.
[0:30:33] JR: I am not jealous at all. Nope, nope. Not a little bit.
[0:30:37] JW: Also, it is a delight to go to Toulouse at only 30 degrees, so 86, 87 Fahrenheit,
rather than having gone somewhere early in the summer, it was 40 degrees or 120, whatever
that comes out to. It was a very lovely temperature to be looking at airplanes.
[0:30:51] JR: Must have been very nice for you.
[0:30:53] JW: No, completely, completely.
[0:30:55] IP: Jason is clearly very accepting of this.
[0:30:57] JW: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
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[0:30:59] JR: Tell us more. What were you doing?
[0:31:01] JW: I was there for the delivery of the Air Côte d'Ivoire A330-900neo. This is Air Côte
d'Ivoire, who are the national airline of the country of Cote d'Ivoire, known in English as Ivory
Coast, which is in West Africa, and has been the national airline for a decade and a bit if
memory serves, and currently operates mainly A320 family aircraft and some Dash-8s. This is
their first long-haul aircraft, which they have procured through some development bank funding,
and have flown home to Abidjan yesterday, or today, I think it was. So, as we record on the 4th or
5th of September, whatever day we're on.
[0:31:40] JR: Pretty nice. For such a small airline in a part of the world, you don't typically hear
much about, I feel like, they've always been punching above their weight a little bit. They have,
what is it, one A320neo and a couple COs, but way back when, years ago, they had Wi-Fi. No
airline of that size has Wi-Fi, at least back then. It's really interesting to keep hearing about this
relatively minuscule airline in the news. Why the 330neo?
[0:32:09] JW: Well, so, it is largely a state-owned airline economic development play from Cote
d'Ivoire and the Ivorian government, which we saw because great and the good of the
government were there last night, including the First Lady of Cote d'Ivoire, the Minister for
Transport, the Minister for Culture and Francophonie, so of the French-speaking, two
ambassadors, a Consul-General, you get the idea. This is essentially a move to enable more
cheaper and better connectivity through Abidjan, the capital of Cote d'Ivoire, not just as an origin
and destination point, but as a connection point for the rest of West Africa as well.
The idea is essentially, that Cote d'Ivoire will, in addition to operating these flights, be adjusting,
or re-banking the rest of its operations, so that it can bring people in from other airports in the
region, which may or may not be well-served internationally, and connect them to initially, Paris.
[0:33:08] JR: Very nice.
[0:33:10] IP: The A330neo seems to be the aircraft of choice for airlines that are reaching out
into new service. I mean, you really have got the 787 versus the A330neo at this point, as far as
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new service is concerned. They're doing something different with this aircraft, though. I mean,
it's a four-class aircraft.
[0:33:30] JW: It is. It's four-class, and it's very high J, which is initial lingo for high-business
class, J being one of the codes that we talk about when we talk about booking codes for
business class. This plane has 242 seats on it, which is three seats more than the current
maximum on an A321neo, of 239 seats.
[0:33:49] JR: Super well-density.
[0:33:51] JW: It's super well-density, largely different by the fact that it has 44 business class
seats, plus four seats in first class at the front of the plane, three rows of premium economy, 21
seats, and just 173 economy class seats.
[0:34:05] JR: First class. I mean, this is an airline that never had anything higher than
narrowbody recliners up in business class on narrowbodies, and now they've gone full-in 44
business class and four first class seats. Why on earth do they have first class? There better be
a good reason.
[0:34:23] JW: Well, the phrase first class for free comes to mind, which is a phrase that
Thompson era seating have used for quite some time. About six, seven years ago, they first
introduced this first class for free concept with their VantageXL Staggered product. People might
be familiar with that on Delta’s A350s, and the D-Day for 330neos on Virgin Atlantic's A330neos,
and the number of other airlines, Qantas, for example, SAS. The way that the tessellation, or
the patterning of these aircraft layouts work is that at the front, and the very front row of the
cabin, you don't have to overlap with a number of seats in front. You can take that space and
give it over to being a larger business class passenger. That's what we at the upfront call studio
class, right? Because we've got to define this front row business, plus first minus kind of
position. We're just calling it studio class, right?
JetBlue called it Mint Studio. United is calling it Polaris Studio. It's just a quick and easy way to
explain the way that the seats at the front of the cabin, which before might just have been like,
oh, this is a nice seat to have, right? Well, oh, yeah, that's definitely the one you want to pick
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and one the airline might well hold back for top-tier frequent flyers, right? Now, this is a fully
monetized product. What's onboard Air Côte d'Ivoire is very similar to what's onboard Virgin
Atlantic with the retreat suite, or Shanghai Airlines, or Chinese Eastern with their version of the
product.
Essentially, it looks like a big business class seat. Instead of having the bit of seat in front of
you, it opens up. You have more space, which means you have a lot more foot room, your feet
don't have to be tucked into that little footwell in front of you. There's a big screen. It's a really
impressively large screen. Everybody from Miss Cote d'Ivoire 2025 to the first lady of Cote
d'Ivoire will remark you on how big and impressive this screen looks, right? It is.
[0:36:23] JR: Someone should tell American.
[0:36:25] JW: Yeah. Well, precisely. What Jason is referring to there is American Airlines, in its
version of the studio class, has the exact same size of screen as in the rest of the cabin.
[0:36:37] JR: There’s a TV for ants.
[0:36:39] JW: An enormous bezel around it, which makes it looks about the size of an iPhone 4.
It is tiny, and it just didn't need to be like that.
[0:36:48] IP: It reminds me of the CPEC screen from the old 252-777s with that 4-3 square
thing.
[0:36:53] JR: A little post-it stamp square thing. Yeah.
[0:36:56] JW: Yeah. No, exactly. I asked the people who would know how long it would take to
recertify that, two years, if you wanted to put a new screen on that.
[0:37:05] JR: Okay. If we want to jump straight into the certification conversation –
[0:37:10] JW: Sure, sure.
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[0:37:11] JR: This has been something that has been plaguing this sector of the industry for, I
think it predates COVID. Realistically, COVID just made everything a whole of a hell lot worse.
What the heck is going on with seat certification? Because if there's anyone I trust to give us the
straight answer, it's you.
[0:37:28] JW: Well, thank you. We always like to be upfront about these things.
[0:37:31] JR: Ah, see it there.
[0:37:34] JW: Yeah. Look, the reason why this segues nicely is because of the 21 premium
economy seats on Air Cote d'Ivoire, the second and third row of seven are currently blocked off
for certification problems. I've been chasing this down since I discovered it, when I literally
walked onto the aircraft and wondered, “Hey, why is there a giant metal bar across these two
rows of seats?” Nobody there can tell me. It is not for my comfort, because it says, “No stowage,
no seat,” in both English and then in French. The French says, “Don't place anything here,” but
obviously, in French. This is just, it's the latest in a number of certification problems.
[0:38:09] JR: It's not just a smaller line new plane problem, since we're seeing this with entire
fleets of aircraft, from Delta’s 321neos, United's 321neos, Americans 321neos, and Lufthansa’s
–
[0:38:25] JW: Lufthansa’s entire business class.
[0:38:28] JR: What is happening?
[0:38:29] JW: You're right in saying it isn't new. It has become magnified recently. The problem
essentially is, well, the problem is different depending whether you're looking at business class,
or premium economy. Let's start in premium economy, of which there are some read-acrosses
to business class. The problem, as it's been explained to me by people who know, including the
seat maker, is essentially, that the regulators, EASA, in this instance, are requiring further
demonstrations of compliance than they had previously requested. Now that's a very difficult
way of saying, they want more proof that the thing is safe and in different ways than they
previously wanted it.
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Previously, you would be able to, for example, say, well, this seat is materially the same as the
previous seat we certified, and we certified that using this method. Therefore, it will work the
same. Then the regulator could either say, “Yeah, that sounds right.” Or, “No, you can't do that.”
Yeah, essentially, it's a tightening of these existing requirements, including physical testing,
which is where the lay start creeping in, because when you test, you have to shoot the seat
down a sled, which is essentially, the same thing that you do with a crash test dummy for a car,
except in reverse.
The aviation version of these, they use acceleration, instead of deceleration, because they are
exactly the same force. You don't have the seats slamming into the end of the track. What
happens is it's reverse, and you have the dummy standing to the seats when they accelerate.
There are very few of these seat track testing facilities around. You may have seen, if you've
been following the industry for a while, Recaro built one during COVID in their new facility, and
Recaro being a very large economy class seat maker on most of the market in long-haul and
quite a bit of the short-haul market. By most, I mean more than 50%. Less on business class,
but still, a big player there.
Mirus, who are a small UK slimline seats specialist, they built their own. Essentially, part of the
problem is that the automotive industry who used to have a lot of these need to use them
themselves to certify a lot of the new EV generation. This is a Brexit problem. The seats that
were previously just hopping across the channel to a UK site, or vice versa, now can't hop
across the channel, because there are customs issues, and nobody wants their test seat to be
stuck in customs limbo for three weeks to two months.
All of which means that you run into these problems where the seat just gets delayed, because
you can't certify it. Now, you might then say to me, well, why is the front row not blocked off, but
rows two and three are blocked off? That's a good question, and that's one that I haven't figured
out the answer to yet. My presumption is it's got somebody with a head strike. Essentially, one
of the things that you test for is that if the plane stops suddenly, i.e. crashes, or comes off the
runway and people get thrown forward in their seats or whatever, the dummy in the test, i.e. the
passenger, their head can't strike anything in the direction of travel, basically.
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What that runs into is usually, these days, a very large in fact, entertainment screen. As the
screen's got bigger, and as they – you might have noticed if you fly regularly, they've stopped
being that matte, dull texture, like laptop screens used to be 10, 15 years ago, to the glossy
texture that laptop screens and tablets are today. As that happened, they lost quite a lot of the
ability for that to be a, well, I guess, essentially, a crumple zone, right? Now, that's a shatter
zone, and then the shatter problem has been quite difficult.
All of that is to say, that's why a lot of the seats are late, and that's why quite often, the planes
are late, which is an ongoing problem with industry, but it's not to do with any one seat maker, or
any one product.
[0:42:11] JR: That's all really complicated. There's a lot of stuff going on, and there are many
moving parts, literally, and figuratively in this. What I'm wondering is, did anything happen to
necessitate this change in how seats are certified? Was there an incident that ended up
changing regulations and laws, or did nothing happen, and we ended up here anyway?
[0:42:33] JW: Very much that nothing happened, as far as I'm aware. Certainly, on the EASA
side, in terms of premium economy, there hasn't been a major crash where these seats have
been discovered to be somehow unsafe, or left safe than we thought.
[0:42:47] JR: Because that's happened before, right? With the Japanese seat manufacturer,
where suddenly, they all became pumpkins, and you had to get rid of them. That's not the case
here.
[0:42:55] JW: Right. What you're referring to, I think, is the Japanese seat manufacturer, Koito,
now known as shamed Japanese seat manufacturer, Koito, who falsified the head safety testing
and were found out.
[0:43:08] JR: But that's not the case here.
[0:43:09] JW: No, that's not the case here at all. It's a new seat, but it's a seat on which a lot of
certification had already been done. This premium economy seat has got a shoulder belt, and
the shoulder belt comes from Schroth and Schrother, a very respected German engineering
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background company. They sorted out the testing of this seat belt and seat combination a year
ago. What this really does seem to be is regulators saying, “Actually, we're not going to take the
paperwork proof anymore. You've got to do some physical testing.” That, I think, is what has
happened, but to a different extent in the business class world.
On the business class side of things, as more planes have had suites installed, particularly what
they call mini suites in regular few parlance, which are basically just business class seats with
doors on the side, there have been a lot of questions about how you certify those for emergency
egress, right? How to get out in a crash, basically. Regulators have been asking questions,
which have been answered on a per seat, per cabin, per airline basis by seat makers, which is
why if you look inside a new business class suite, or you take five different suites from the same
airline or from different airlines, there'll be a different emergency handle, or release to be able to
get out of that seat in an emergency. That's essentially the seat maker going to the regulator
and saying, “Is this enough? Will this work?” The regulator going, “I'm not sure. Can you make it
red, so it's really obvious?” Then going, “Sure, absolutely. We can definitely get that to seat
manufacturers.” That then going to service and passengers think that the red handlers, when
they pull to simply get out of the seats, go to the bathroom.
What that does is that then puts a seat into emergency mode, largely by taking it off the tracks.
So, it has to be reset by crew, which is why you then end up hearing on the pre-departure
briefing, “Please, don't pull the red handle, unless it's an emergency,” because the crew get tired
of having to go and reset your seat all the time.
The problem is that this is all done under what are known as special conditions by EASA.
There's an FAA term, which is essentially, the same thing where you say, well, okay, there's
nothing in the regulations that covers this seat. But we think that an equivalent safety finding
can be made if we do this. By this, we can mean add an additional way of the door falling off its
hinges and still being able to be retracted by the door snapping into, by a little panel opening up
in the door that you can come out of, like Winnie the Pooh exiting Rabbit's house. Any number
of things, sometimes the answer is, well, we've made the wall of the seat low enough that you
can clamber over it, and that'll be fine in an emergency.
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All of this ends up meaning that it's a very manual process of getting these seats approved,
whether egress problems to play with. That takes time, that takes expertise, and the FAA has
been particularly keen to be raising these issues. I'm not sure it's the best, or easiest or most
productive time to be an FAA employee this year. I think that's another issue if you are having to
deal with the storm in Washington at present, but I think that's a problem.
[0:46:25] JR: Is this how we end up with Lufthansa first flying an empty business class and then
a business class with seats, but you're not allowed to sit in them, except for the four up front. It
seems like any combination of you could sit here, but not there, and please don't look at those
seats, because they don't exist. Is this just, it's all culminated in everything we're seeing?
[0:46:48] JW: Lufthansa is its own special class of nightmare. Lufthansa's first nightmare was
that they were having problems with the certification of their first-class cabins, which as I
understand it, was largely around decompression. Essentially, part of the issues with
decompression is that you need the panels around the seats to allow for the air to blow in if the
plane decompresses, right, or to blow out if the plane do move, into the cabin, out of the suite
sort of thing, without taking panels with it. That as suites have got higher, because the
Lufthansa, a leg risk and twist sensors first, those suites have got higher, the walls got higher,
the doors got bigger. Decompression was, as I understand it, a big part of that.
Also, then they just ran into production issues, and it was a nightmare. They started flying the
A350s that were supposed to have a leg risk first without a leg risk first. The first one had a very
unwise loading symbol on the wall, saying, coming soon, a leg risk first-class.
[0:47:45] JR: Buffering.
[0:47:46] JW: Yeah. Which quickly disappeared once they thought that was a bit too on the
nose. Yeah, that entire section just had a few economy class seats as hand holds, basically, for
the crew to be able to use to walk through. They then started getting those aircraft with first-
class delivered, and always well, until they were working on the 787. Lufthansa in its wisdom,
and that sure is a word, decided to have different seat manufacturers build the same seat on
different airplanes with entirely different underpinnings from those manufacturers. Not a
common Lufthansa manufacturer.
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[0:48:21] IP: This is the story of the 787 in a microcosm.
[0:48:24] JW: Yes. Well, so if you think about it, it's essentially like, you're building a stock car,
and the outside looks similar, but the underpinnings are entirely different. What that ran into with
the 787 is the same seat that STELIA had built for the A350 had very little relevance to when the
Collin's built version that seat for the 787 was coming up for certification.
[0:48:47] JR: None of the prior work that had been done for certification for one seat was
applicable to the other seat, basically, is what I’m hearing.
[0:48:52] JW: Precisely. The whole process with the various coordinating meetings and
revisions, and you leave time for this, and inside your seat company, you learn and you grow, as
you do the first aircraft, or the first had of version as its known, which is the first one to come off
the line, you learn things that you can then put into place. “Oh. Well, okay. Well, we learned this
for the A350. So, when we build it for the 787, we'll have learned that.” That just didn't happen in
this case. I think we've seen the impact of that, right?
We're not entirely sure why the Lufthansa business class problem is the way round that it is, and
nobody is talking, what is very shtum about this. You would have thought that if this was an
egress issue, it would affect the business suites, but not the regular business class seats, and
that's not the case. In fact, it's the inverse. Business class suites are allowed to be sold, but the
rest are not.
[0:49:41] JR: Of which, there are only four.
[0:49:43] JW: Yeah. There are eight on the A350, because there are two cabins in business, but
the 787 business cabin is smaller. Yeah, the entire rest of business class cabin cannot be sold
or sat in at present until they sought out the certification, which is obviously, a giant problem,
because they want to be able to sell business class, given that something like 75% of an
airline's, like Lufthansa's revenues will come from business class. Not having most of your
business class cabin is quite the problem.
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[0:50:06] JR: I love how they're just like, “Well, we really want to put them in service, so we're
just going to put them to the least revenue generating cities possible,” which turns out to be
Montreal and Toronto.
[0:50:16] JW: Oh, that's not a revenue thing. That's because they have a lot of flights to Toronto
and Montreal, including with their partner, Air Canada. Also, you have the opportunity to route
Air Canada customers who are connecting through Toronto and Montreal onto Lufthansa via
other Star Alliance hubs.
[0:50:34] JR: That’s smart.
[0:50:35] JW: Yeah, exactly. It does make sense. They've also, they used Montreal and Toronto
as the kickoffs for previous generations of cabin as well. They did that with the Lufthansa
cabins, which are the old Philippine Airlines cabins that Lift Aero Design created. I think they
sent those to Toronto. Then Allegris, I think, also started to Toronto and Montreal.
[0:50:54] JR: Vancouver, I think.
[0:50:56] JW: One of the ways around, yeah. It was definitely Canada to start with, right? They
obviously have some gentlemen's agreement with Air Canada. But particularly the Canadian
East Coast, because A, it helps, because you can use one plane for a daily return and leave
enough space and schedule for it not to be a nightmare if it gets delayed Norwegian style. Also,
because it's a Air Canada hub, and because you can also route the traffic that would have been
coming across there through other Star Alliance network options in North America.
Yes, as I understand it on the Lufthansa side of things, it is a combination of known issues,
which have been picked up by the regulator. By known issues, I mean, problems that we've
experienced before on an industry basis that have not been able to be fixed in time, which
sounds very similar to what geven is experiencing with the Air Côte d'Ivoire A330neo seats. All
of which is to say, this is just another reason why the industry is so dependent on a shrinking
number of seat makers, right? Various acquisitions within the industry have happened, mergers,
and there are fewer and fewer players, the players get bigger and bigger, the players then get a
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little bit too big to fail, and then also, a little bit too big to bid on some of the smaller aircraft,
right?
That's why, for example, an airline like Air Côte d'Ivoire has some fairly standard, but nicely
customized Thompson seats up front. Then seats from geven in premium economy, rather than
somebody else like Safran, or Collins, or Recaro, right? It's the two few ship sets problem. By
ship set, we mean full aircraft full of seats. The big fellas really just don't want to put all of the
research and development into what is a very small number of planes, total, right? It's only two
aircraft. You end up with a company like geven, who have not, obviously, not been certifying as
frequently, or as often as these large companies, and who then run into the problems that a
Safran, or a Recaro, or a Collins might not end up running into.
[0:52:58] JR: Well, this is all extremely complicated, and doesn't sound like there's a resolution
coming next week. But, John, if I wanted to learn more about this and stay probably more up to
date than anyone should be, where can I go to find more about that?
[0:53:14] JW: You'll be delighted to learn that I have an option for you there. It is The Up Front.
We are the home for in-depth independent aviation journalism that covers the entirety of the
passenger experience, seats, cabins, lounges, the rest of the airline industry, where people are
going. We call this the context of travel. Because even one person's a business class traveler,
let’s say, will have an entirely different set of needs, wants, and expectations if they're traveling
on a tight overnight to a business meeting, versus with their family to a cruise holiday, saying.
That's why we created The Up Front, to really talk about the aviation industry, to dive deep into
seats and certification, and really quite frankly, nerdy things like that that we all really enjoy
talking about. Yeah, I'd love to offer the listeners of AvTalk a special 24% discount offer
subscription.
[0:54:06] JR: I see what you did there.
[0:54:09] JW: Because, yeah, our articles are long-form. We write 4,000-word pieces about a
topic. Not just a 500-600 word thing that you can flick through in a couple of minutes. We're
entirely funded by our members right now, either subscriber, or pro level. Subscribers get all of
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our articles, plus our podcast, and pros add any number of things, but largely our industry
intelligence. If you're nodding your head, nodding along with us and, “Oh, yeah.” We were
talking about this in our ITCM, or our meeting about airplanes. Well, pro is for you. As it is, if
you're a regular flyer and you're actually, “I do want to know the difference between these two
types of seats and why it happens.” Yeah, visit us at theupfront.media/fr24 for those 24%
discount. Yeah, we'd love to see you. Join us and figure out this industry together, for sure.
[0:54:57] JR: I often find myself in meetings about airplanes. That was very, very specific, John.
Thank you.
[0:55:03] IP: It's almost like a targeted audience here.
[0:55:04] JR: Weird.
[0:55:05] IP: We will put a link in the show notes to John's very gracious offer. We will talk to
John again soon as we move towards, hopefully, as an industry figuring out how to put new
seats onto aircraft and have them certified within –
[0:55:21] JR: What a novel idea.
[0:55:22] IP: - a decade, maybe?
[0:55:25] JW: Fingers crossed, for sure.
[0:55:25] IP: John, it's always good to talk to you. Thank you so much for joining us once again.
[0:55:29] JW: My pleasure. Thanks, gents.
[END OF CONVERSATION WITH JOHN WALTON]
[0:55:36] IP: Welcome back. Jason, I am not encouraged at all about getting to fly on a new
MID.
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[0:55:45] JR: I love talking to John, but I don't like the bad news he brings that see, that
everything's broken.
[0:55:50] IP: Everything is broken. Things that are not broken and that are exciting, Air Canada
has announced where it will head first after it takes delivery of the Airbus A321 XLR.
[0:56:04] JR: Wait, are the seats certified?
[0:56:06] IP: Maybe?
[0:56:07] JR: Maybe, because they'd be one of the few XLR customers who actually have seats
that are certified. Looking at American in Delta.
[0:56:16] IP: They are going to send the first flights from Montreal to Palma de Mallorca. Then,
they will be doing a full year service, because the Palma service is seasonal. Then they will be
doing full year service from Montreal to Toulouse. I can only imagine what company might be
interested in having nonstop service between Montreal and Toulouse.
[0:56:39] JR: It's unknowable, but it's the Toulouse one that's going full year, which is, I put that
in there because that's the benefit of the XLR. There's not enough demand full year for Air
Canada's smallest wide body, the A330. But the A321 XLR can do it all year round. That's a nice
Airbus shuttle bus on Airbus, because Boeing can't deliver a similar product.
[0:57:02] IP: Yet. Sort of.
[0:57:03] JR: One day, maybe.
[0:57:05] IP: Speaking of Boeing products, we've heard a lot from Southwest Airlines CEO, Bob
Jordan this week, who says, they're still hoping, eventually, to take delivery of the 737 MAX.
He's also said some interesting things about where the airline could fly.
[0:57:23] JR: Just the MAX. They have MAXs. The MAX 7.
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[0:57:25] IP: Oh, MAX 7. Sorry. Yes.
[0:57:27] JR: You'd know you'd get an email, Ian, if you didn't correct that.
[0:57:30] IP: Yes.
[0:57:31] JR: Dear, Ian. Did you know that Southwest already has the MAX? How did you not
know that?
[0:57:39] IP: Yeah. I thought they were flying A220s around.
[0:57:41] JR: The more you know.
[0:57:43] IP: Jordan said that everything's on the table, as far as Southwest going from what
used to make it Southwest to ensuring that nothing that used to make it Southwest remains. To
that end, they're looking at flying to Europe and having lounges, because why not?
[0:58:01] JR: Southwest just wants to become the all-Boeing version of JetBlue, which is now
once again, for the first time in decades in all Airbus airline, which I forgot to mention earlier,
retiring the E190, makes JetBlue an all-Airbus operator. It just seems like Southwest is copying
JetBlue, which I'm not sure is the best idea right now. But sure, flights to Europe, lounges, USB
ports, free Wi-Fi, bag fees, not sure that customers want that one.
[0:58:31] IP: That's what Jordan says, though. Jordan says that they're giving –
[0:58:34] JR: Who doesn’t love bag fees? Sure. Southwest making up for a whole lot of lost
time right here, real quick, like JetBlue. Never really thought about how the two have so much in
common right now. Except, one is doing it because it's not making any money. The other is
doing it, because an activist investor is pointing a gun at their head.
[0:58:53] IP: And saying, “You're not making enough money.”
[0:58:54] JR: Yeah. Different circumstances.
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[0:58:57] IP: But the same –
[0:58:58] JR: Same outcome.
[0:59:00] IP: Well, let's wrap up this week's episode with a couple interesting stories that are
interesting in different ways. The first one comes to us from South Korea, where T’way Air is
rebranding to become Trinity Airways.
[0:59:15] JR: What?
[0:59:17] IP: I don't know.
[0:59:18] JR: Why?
[0:59:19] IP: But that's what they're doing.
[0:59:20] JR: Okay.
[0:59:21] IP: Yeah, Trinity comes from the Latin word trinitas, meaning three come together as
one to form completeness. The idea is that they are combining different holding companies and
acquiring stakes in different companies. Through that, they are changing their name to Trinity
Airways. I'm sure the customers will understand that. I feel like we're in a renaming area right
now, where airlines are renaming themselves from something that has some root, where they
came from, where they operate, to things that don't mean anything. Nesma airlines is
rebranding as Fly Plus.
[1:00:11] JR: Sure.
[1:00:13] IP: I mean, they could be from anywhere.
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[1:00:15] JR: Yeah, that's true. What this does mean is we get a new livery out of them, too. I
mean, the rendering they gave us is of an A330neo, I believe, which apparently, they have on
order, I assume. Or, this is a weird way of announcing they have A330neos on order.
[1:00:32] IP: Surprise.
[1:00:35] JR: It's fine.
[1:00:36] IP: Yeah, they take delivery of their first five in 2026. We’re waiting till next year to get
that.
[1:00:42] JR: Fine. I have no real, I don't know, it doesn't evoke much emotion out of me, either
positively or negatively.
[1:00:50] IP: There you go.
[1:00:51] JR: I feel no way about it, whatsoever.
[1:00:55] IP: I'm happy to have brought out neutral feelings in you. Next story, bad news that it's
happening, good news that the FAA is doing something about it. The FAA is finding companies
that are shipping lithium-ion batteries improperly. One of these finds stems from an incident
onboard as part of a FedEx shipment chain. They don't say exactly where the battery caught
fire, but the battery caught fire and three batteries melted together as part of a 25 lithium-ion
shipment for phone batteries. The batteries were not packaged properly. They were not
declared properly. They did not follow the rules. They are being fined. There are a few other
companies that are also being fined for not properly declaring that these are lithium-ion batteries
being shipped and not providing the necessary paperwork and labeling. Good to see some
enforcement action coming out of these.
[1:02:00] JR: Yeah. It's one day, I feel like in the future, we're going to look back at our prolific
use of lithium-ion batteries and just look at it and go, people really used to carry around portable
bombs in their pocket all the time? Sometimes it just exploded and melted together. Man,
lithium-ion batteries, they're dangerous stuff. If companies are flying them around without even
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declaring that they're in shipments, that's all sorts of bad. Good on the FAA for doing something
here.
[1:02:29] IP: Yeah. In the last story we have this week, Jason, I regret to inform you that Virgin
America, AirTran, Continental, and US Airways are no longer air carriers.
[1:02:42] JR: Oh, man. This is going to come as devastating news to hotel airline check-in
kiosks all across the United States. Where? You can still fly Virgin America, AirTran, Continental,
US Airways, and all sorts of other airlines that don't exist any longer. That's disappointing. We're
going to have to tell them, can't do that anymore.
[1:03:06] IP: Yeah. This comes from the US DOT revoking their certificates earlier, or late last
week. Why that hadn't been done already?
[1:03:20] JR: Wait a minute. If United just one day last year woke up and said, “Now we're
Continental again,” they could have legally operated flights under the Continental Airlines.
[1:03:31] IP: I don’t know.
[1:03:33] JR: Or if like, Alaska was like, “You know what? Psych. We really love the Virgin
America brand. We're undoing everything we did. We're Virgin American now.” Really?
[1:03:42] IP: I mean, you would have to operate as them for this to have – I mean, I'm sure you
could paint Virgin America on one of the planes in it and it would be fine.
[1:03:48] JR: Well, yeah. But you couldn't have operated as Virgin America.
[1:03:52] IP: No.
[1:03:54] JR: someone basically went into a database and said, “Wait a minute. Did we never
press delete on these?” Huh. It's okay. They're going to live forever on third-party checking.
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[1:04:02] IP: This sounds to me. Yeah, exactly. This sounds to me like somebody forgot to do
something a few years ago. They're like, “Okay, let's just do it all in a batch.” Goodbye, AirTran.
[1:04:12] JR: The intern told me, he did them. They're still there. You can't trust them.
[1:04:17] IP: All righty, sir. I need to get packing and a bunch of other stuff before we head out
to California for the weekend. I will see you there. Until then, this has been episode 336 of
AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always with –
[1:04:35] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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