AvTalk Episode 350: “Outrageous:” close calls near Venezuela

AVT 350 Transcript
EPISODE 350
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello and welcome to episode 350 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:17] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Ian, it is the first time I'm home, sitting in front of my actual
microphone to record this podcast in a month, I think. It's nice.
[0:00:27] IP: Our listeners thank you.
[0:00:29] JR: Yes, for this 350th episode, the A350 episode for when you want a generic code
and don't know if you're going to operate the 350-900, or want the big boy for the 1000. They'll
figure it out later.
[0:00:43] IP: Absolutely. This is the extra wide episode, Jason.
[0:00:46] JR: Excellent.
[0:00:47] IP: I'm not sure what that means, but we're going to lean into it.
[0:00:50] JR: Well, it's an extra wide plane, apparently.
[0:00:53] IP: It is. We are recording on December 17th, which holds all sorts of significance for
aviation history. We've got, starting with the first flight, December 17th, 1903 at Kill Devil Hills,
North Carolina. I absolutely love the naming of places. I like that people went somewhere and
said, “This will be Kill Devil Hills.”
[0:01:23] JR: And we're going to fly from the top of it.
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[0:01:27] IP: Marking the first flight by the Wright flyer, the first few flights only covering
hundreds of feet and tens of seconds, and then working all the way up to, well, the A350, which
can fly antipodal almost.
[0:01:47] JR: And everything in between.
[0:01:49] IP: We've come a long way. Jason, did you know that December 17th is also the
anniversary of the first flight of the DC3?
[0:01:59] JR: Which you could often look back and say, wow, the DC3 is 90-years-old. That's
almost as old in the grand scheme of things as aviation is as a whole at this point.
[0:02:11] IP: The first flight of the DC3 was 32 years after the first flight of an airplane, period.
[0:02:22] JR: 32 years ago, if you were flying, you probably could have been doing that on an
A320. I think there are 32-year-old A320s actually out there still flying right now, probably with
Delta.
[0:02:35] IP: Somewhere around there, absolutely. It's absolutely incredible. The beautiful thing
about the DC3, I mean, it's an iconic airplane that has played a pivotal role, not in just aviation
history, but in world history. I mean, the DC3 is responsible, generally speaking, for the mass
adoption of air travel, passenger air travel. Then just a few years later, they say, okay, we need
a reliable airplane. We need lots of them, because we're going to fight the first major air war.
The DC3 steps in, the Dakota becomes the Skytrain. Then leads the invasion of the Allied
invasion of Normandy. Then it participates in the Berlin airlift throughout World War II. Before
that, it's flying over the Himalayas.
Just thinking about the things that this airplane has done in the past 90 years is just incredible.
Then you fast forward to today, when it's still being converted. DC3s are still being converted to
BT67s, and then used in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. I mean, it's just absolutely incredible,
the versatility of the aircraft. The fact that 90 years later, it's still the best plane for the job.
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[0:03:58] JR: It's still the thing. You know what? I think I had dinner underneath one in a
museum just the other day. It looked just as old as everything else around it. Also, it's still a very
active and very required airplane in certain parts of the world.
[0:04:15] IP: It is both a museum piece and very in demand. Let's get to this week's news, of
which there is plenty. We will go first to Venezuela, where late last week, two separate incidents
called into stark relief, the dangers of military aircraft operating without transponders on in
commercial airspace. The first incident involved a JetBlue A320. The second incident involved a
Falcon 900EX, both of which reported coming very close to presumably, US military aircraft,
likely tanker aircraft, at least that's what the JetBlue pilot reported, and that's what would make
sense, given the size and description of that particular aircraft, a 767, or 777 style. It makes
sense that that we could be talking about a KC-46 tanker.
In both cases, the presumably military aircraft, were operating due regard without their
transponders on. In the case of JetBlue, they stopped their climb for a brief moment before
resuming their flight. The Falcon made some evasive maneuvers, not necessarily whether that
was the aircraft was above them, or to the side of them unclear, but in both cases, the aircraft
stopped doing what they were told to do by air traffic control and did something else for a brief
moment, because of a close encounter. That said, Curacao knows that this is happening. In the
Curacao FIR, there is a NOTAM that has been active since November 21 that advises aircraft
operators to exercise extreme caution when operating to and from Curacao, while transiting the
terminal airspace. There have been, “frequent pilot reports and primary radar indicates the
presence of non-identified aircraft operations within the traffic management area.”
[0:06:25] JR: Yeah. Which presumably, I guess, the JetBlue pilots were beating here, and so
were the private jet pilots here, where the JetBlue pilots and the other group of pilots as well
saw what was ahead of them and took action to avoid any potential outcome that we don't want
to end the year in the same way we began the year, with a civilian aircraft versus a military
aircraft that couldn't be seen by the civilian aircraft. In this case, JetBlue pilots were not all that
happy, non-frequency. They're quoted as saying, “They passed directly in our flight path. They
don't have their transponder on.” It's outrageous. Yeah, it's really hard to put any spin on that in
any way. It is outrageous. It's absolutely outrageous that the military is out there in controlled
airspace, out there transponders on interfering with commercial flight paths after in light of what
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happened just earlier this year. To happen at least twice, we only know of two incidents,
because these were widely reported on, but apparently, Curacao knows there’s others as well,
which is very not good.
[0:07:34] IP: What's interesting to me here is that there are multiple U.S. military aircraft
operating in that airspace with transponders on. They're trackable on FlightRadar24.
[0:07:48] JR: And ADS-B on, or at least MLAT. We can see many of them.
[0:07:52] IP: Well, ADS-B.
[0:07:53] JR: They have MODE-S.
[0:07:54] IP: Yeah, exactly. That's what's interesting to me here is that they, in this regard, do
not have their transponders on. That's certainly a choice that makes sense in certain
circumstances. But if other aircraft are operating closer to Venezuela with their transponders on,
why not these aircraft?
[0:08:15] JR: It's a great question. While I think it's important to differentiate here that these
aircraft are just out there uncontrolled in all manners, doing whatever they want, they are under
military control. The military knows exactly where these aircraft are. They have their own radar.
They have their own aircraft surveilling the region. They know where everyone in is every time,
at every moment in time, which raises the question of, what the hell is happening here if civilian
air traffic controllers are not aware of the military aircraft, but the military is aware of the position
of military aircraft, and presumably, also commercial aircraft. Why do they keep letting their own
aircraft conflict with commercial aircraft? It's just not adding up to me.
It's not like earlier this year where you had a government helicopter flying a route in VFR
airspace and unfortunately, conflicting with the commercial aviation flight path. This is a
controlled flight. Somebody knows exactly where this aircraft is. It's presumably where it's
supposed to be, but why are they letting it come so routinely at this point in conflict and so
closely with commercial aircraft that I just don't understand why this is happening.
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[0:09:28] IP: In the other airspace of the region, so moving over to the actual Venezuelan FIR,
the US has extended its security NOTAM that it is a revised and extended the security NOTAM
that it previously issued. This new NOTAM is now extended to February 19th, and advises of a
potentially hazardous situation in the Maiquetia FIR. It says, that operators are advised to
exercise caution when operating their at-all altitudes due to the “worsening security situation
and heightened military activity in and around Venezuela.”
That said, US aircraft have not been operating within Venezuelan airspace. The only change
here is that it removes the mention of GPS jamming, or GPS interference from any references
here. It changes it just to a military activity-based NOTAM alone. Yesterday, Copa suspended its
flights to Caracas through at least January 15th, 2026. Jason, to me, that seems like a significant
development, because Copa, up until now, has been –
[0:10:46] JR: The lifeline?
[0:10:47] IP: The lifeline. Yeah. The main international carrier keeping things moving in and out
of Caracas.
[0:10:53] JR: Yeah. Are there any international flights left out of Caracas that aren't operated by
Venezuelan airlines at this point? I don't think so.
[0:11:04] IP: I think we might be out of non-Venezuelan airlines operating.
[0:11:10] JR: You've got Avior Airlines, LASER Airlines, Conviasa. Is Conviasa even still
operating long-haul flights?
[0:11:17] IP: Yes.
[0:11:18] JR: Maybe? Okay. So, there's still some long-haul activity.
[0:11:21] IP: But they're Venezuelan.
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[0:11:22] JR: They’re Venezuelan. But yeah, I think that's their only actual long-haul link at this
point beyond maybe some neighboring Caribbean islands, or I don't know, Columbia maybe.
Yeah. Let's just say, we're recording this Wednesday, 5.25 p.m. This podcast could age very
poorly by the time it releases in day and a half time. We will see. We don't know. Yeah, the
situation there is not good. I and I'm sure a lot of other people in this industry are quite frankly
quite pissed off that we are yet again in a situation where military aviation is putting commercial
flights in jeopardy. We've apparently learned nothing, which is fantastic.
[0:12:03] IP: Well, as of today, so Jason, I'm going to rearrange the show notes a little bit here,
so that we can stay on that topic. Today, it seems like we may have actually learned something.
[0:12:16] JR: On paper, at least.
[0:12:18] IP: On paper, at least. What I'm talking about is let's back up and talk about why this is
important and being talked about again. Last week, in revealing the text of the National Defense
Authorization Act, which is considered a must pass bill to fund the US Defense Department,
among other things, one of the provisions included in the NDAA would have again allowed non-
ADS-B flights to operate in and around Washington, D.C. After the release of that text, National
Transportation Safety Board Chair, Jennifer Homendy took to the podium and made comments
that left absolutely no room for interpretation, or error in how upset she was that they would try
and do this.
[0:13:17] JR: Dare I say, she is doing exactly what the chair of the NTSB should be doing.
[0:13:25] IP: That was interesting.
[0:13:26] JR: Should we read the quote, too?
[0:13:27] IP: Go for it.
[0:13:28] JR: I'm reading off an NPR transcript and she starts off by saying, “It's a safety
whitewash. If it sounds like a mad, I am mad. This is shameful. We should be working together
in partnership to prevent the next accident, not inviting history to repeat itself by recreating the
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same conditions that were in place on January 29.” Yeah, she's pissed and she has every right
to be pissed off. She goes on to say, oh, the committee leaders here defended the language in
the bill and I'm going to quote again, “We all care deeply and are fully committed to ensuring
aviation safety,” said, US Senator Roger Wicker, Republican from Mississippi. He was
apparently the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Kind of feels like empty
words there. If you're backing the language that undoes the progress made to have
transponders, or ADS-B on for these military helicopter flights, I don't know.
I'm just happy to see that Jennifer Homendy, if you're listening and possibility, thank you for
speaking your mind and not being sheepish about this and really fighting for what you believe in
because fighting for what you believe in here is just such a no-brainer that it's upsetting that you
even have to fight for it. It's nice to see someone in government speak their mind and call out
something that is so ridiculously stupid to try to prevent yet another tragedy.
[0:14:52] IP: That seems, among other things, to have been the push that the Senate needed.
Today, the Senate unanimously passed the Rotor Act. This is the Rotorcraft Operations
Transparency and Oversight Reform Act. It will now be sent to the House of Representatives for
consideration. What this act does is says, hey, everything in the NDAA, no, we're not doing that.
Here's what we're doing instead. We're going to implement things that are much safer. This is
something that the NTSB has been pushing for for a long time. A lot of it is some good common
sense legislation.
We've talked about the specifics, I think, when the Rotor Act was introduced, just to recap, it
expands ADS-B out and ADS-B in implementation with a 2031 deadline for aircraft operators to
equip with ADS-B in for all commercial, military, and general aviation operators who are already
required to have ADS-B out. This makes flying much safer, because it provides pilots with much
more information than they have without ADS-B in. It also requires a comprehensive safety
review of Washington National Airport, as well as all major mid-sized airports for how aircraft
operate and how the airspace is set up to accommodate helicopter, UAVs, or first responder
flights, how those flights impact commercial operations and to better structure the airspace so
that they're not dealing with conflicts as often.
[0:16:41] JR: Good stuff. Good stuff.
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[0:16:42] IP: The Rotor Act also requires – there's a couple more that make some really good
sense. New level of coordination and information sharing between the FAA and the DOD. Now,
each branch of the military with an aviation component has to come up with an understanding,
basically, a memorandum of understanding with the FAA to have a plan how they're going to
work within the national airspace system.
[0:17:07] JR: Seems like the bare minimum.
[0:17:10] IP: Yeah. The last one that I'm super excited about is it advances – so providing
funding and moves forward, basically, the new version of TCAS, so ACAS X. That will be fitted
eventually on more aircraft, be better at preventing mid-air collisions and allows pilots to operate
at lower altitude, or allows pilots to have a larger safety envelope at lower altitudes.
[0:17:42] JR: Yeah, we're going to have to have a whole podcast and conversation about that
with someone who knows much more about it than we do, because how many times have we
talked about TCAS being the savior of so many flights and to have a system that is above and
beyond better than that and being mandated, that is just super good.
[0:18:01] IP: Yup. Some good common-sense stuff coming out of this after some very
nonsensical proposed legislation from last week. Jason, you know how they say everybody has
their price?
[0:18:13] JR: Yeah, I have my price.
[0:18:16] IP: Well, I bet yours might be a little lower than Lufthansa’s. But nevertheless,
Lufthansa has been given an offer it can't refuse by the United States Air Force for a pair of
747-8is.
[0:18:32] JR: Wait. What?
[0:18:33] IP: Yeah.
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[0:18:34] JR: The United States Air Force already has a pair of 747-8is, and they came from the
defunct airline Trans Aero. We know they've been diligently working at Boeing for the better part
of a lifetime to get those aircraft ready to be the new [inaudible 0:18:50] at Air Force One.
[0:18:51] IP: Those aircraft were announced last week, that they will be delayed until 2028 now.
[0:18:56] JR: Sure. 2028, definitely going to happen. Another pair of 747s? But I am so
confused, because as far as I know, the current VC-25s, there's only two of them. There's a pair.
There are not two pairs. There's one pair. Why does the Air Force want two pairs of this aircraft?
What's Lufthansa doing here?
[0:19:19] IP: Well, Lufthansa has the aircraft to spare. Setting aside this from –
[0:19:25] JR: Do they have aircraft to spare? Because that is a disputable statement.
[0:19:30] IP: Okay. They have aircraft, period.
[0:19:33] JR: Ah, okay. That makes sense. That's where it comes back to them having a price.
[0:19:39] IP: Exactly. Exactly. Let's set aside these particular aircraft for just a second and talk
about the 747-8i, generally speaking. The United States government has been searching for
747-8s anywhere it can get them.
[0:19:56] JR: There ain't that many out there.
[0:19:58] IP: Exactly. For both the VC-25B program and the E-4B replacements. They sourced
the E-4B replacements from Korean Air. When Korean Air said, “Yeah, we're mostly done with
the 747-8s. You can have these.” Sierra Nevada Corporation, or I think it might just be SNC
now, because no one has an actual name anymore.
[0:20:20] JR: Oh, that's not cool enough. It's got to be Sierra Nevada forever and always.
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[0:20:25] IP: They are doing the retrofit on those. But the Air Force thinks about this and says,
“You know what? Maybe we need more airplanes. Not necessarily because we need more
airplanes, but because they don't make those airplanes anymore and we're eventually going to
need spare parts.” Here's what the Air Force told Aviation Week when asked about this, the
purchase of the pair of aircraft from Lufthansa. “As part of the presidential airlift acceleration
efforts, the Air Force is procuring two aircraft to support training and spares for the 747-8 fleet.
Given the 747-8i is no longer in active production and is a very different aircraft than the
747-200, it is important for the Air Force to establish an overall training and sustainment strategy
for the future Air Force 747-8i fleet.” They need parts, Jason.
[0:21:17] JR: It's a death sentence for these airplanes, and I don't like it. They're too nice and
too young, but I guess, what is most surprising about this is that as of this very month, as of the
December 2025 Lufthansa investor slide deck update –
[0:21:34] IP: That was a big deal.
[0:21:36] JR: This was not here. This is not announced. This must have happened very, very
recently and very, very suddenly, because Lufthansa needs the 747-8i, because as we might
recall, the 777X is still vaporware at this point. It does not exist as far as Lufthansa is
concerned. It's very much in their fleet plan, but maybe it's next year, maybe it's the year after,
maybe it never gets certified. Who knows? That's probably not likely. But Lufthansa needs this
airplane. They're even refurbishing it to put Lufthansa's new leg rest business class sort of –
[0:22:08] IP: Sort of. In some parts.
[0:22:09] JR: Sort of, some of the lower deck, but not the upper deck. Upper deck will come
later.
[0:22:14] IP: That's a whole story, whole different story.
[0:22:17] JR: Yeah. That one's all sorts of confusing. But there was no mention of drawing down
the 747 fleet at all. There's plenty of mention for the A380, because it's quite literally a question
mark next to the A380 on that slide deck.
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[0:22:29] IP: Well, I mean, maybe that's less of a question mark now.
[0:22:32] JR: Yeah. Or maybe Lufthansa just decided, we don't really need how many aircraft
do they have? It's 19, 18, something weird like that.
[0:22:42] IP: 19 747-8s.
[0:22:43] JR: How did they end up with 19 and not 20?
[0:22:45] IP: Well, they were going to take the first one. They had an order for 20. They were
going to take the first one. That recently, very recently, finished retrofit for the government of
Egypt. That one was one of the early ones that ended up being, similar with the A380s, where it
ended up being much heavier.
[0:23:06] JR: Ah, so it was not a terrible team, but a terrible, terrible, one.
[0:23:10] IP: Terrible early. Yes.
[0:23:12] JR: Yeah. Okay. You just got all the answers today, don't you?
[0:23:14] IP: Sometimes I anticipate the questions that you're going to ask and just have this
knowledge at hand.
[0:23:20] JR: That's smart.
[0:23:21] IP: We've been doing this for 350 episodes.
[0:23:23] JR: Exactly 350. It's interesting, because the US government is essentially hoovering
up literally any 747-8 it can get its hands on, except from one lonely last commercial operator of
the type, and that would be Air China. I don't see that happening. You know what this potentially
means, Ian, our good friend, John Walton, might be really excited about this news, because you
can't just give away two long-haul widebody aircraft from your fleet and just be fine. You need to
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have aircraft to backfill for that. You know what aircraft is the perfect kind of cheap, already
available aircraft that you already operate, that you just can't quit, even though you really want
to, will be the A340-600, which may live as long as the DC-3 at this point?
[0:24:17] IP: It's just one of those aircraft that is there.
[0:24:19] JR: It's not in their fleet plan, as far as I can tell, but –
[0:24:23] IP: It is now.
[0:24:24] JR: It's there through 2026, but maybe not anymore. Maybe that gets extended to
2027, or how long is the DC-3 even in service? 90 years?
[0:24:34] IP: I mean, since it first flew, 90 years.
[0:24:36] JR: 90 years. Okay. 346, I don't know. 90 years.
[0:24:40] IP: It's got a ways to go.
[0:24:41] JR: The A340, yeah. At this point, they just can't quit it.
[0:24:45] IP: Oh, boy. Wouldn't that be something?
[0:24:47] JR: I don't know if we'll be alive to experience that, but anything's possible.
[0:24:52] IP: At this point, I wouldn't be surprised. I just wouldn't be surprised.
[0:24:55] JR: I am a little surprised that Spirit Airlines is still operating, given what –
[0:25:02] JR: That's harsh.
[0:25:03] IP: - we learned about over the weekend. First reported by Jon Ostrower and his team
over at The Air Current was Spirit's competitors, or other airlines generally speaking in the US,
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were preparing for the possibility that Spirit Airlines would shut down over the weekend. This
was because they were supposed to meet with their debtor in possession financing folks to gain
access to another tranche of money to continue operating the airline.
[0:25:38] JR: Like, not a ton of money in the grand scheme of things. It was 100 million dollars.
[0:25:42] IP: A 100 million.
[0:25:43] JR: In airline terms, it's not all that much. That's a lifeline amount of money.
[0:25:49] IP: But to get this money, they had to present a plan for continuing their operations,
basically saying, here's what we're going to do with the money if you give it to us. That didn't
happen, but they got an extension. They didn't necessarily have to present the plan when
initially agreed, but the debtor in possession financing came through. That is keeping them
going for now. They've also announced that their pilots and flight attendants have agreed to pay
cuts. Those pay cuts will go through at least August of 2028, though who knows if the airline still
exists by then. Spirit says, the revised contracts, they didn't give a number for the pilot
contracts, but they said the flight attendant contracts saves 15 million dollars annually. That's all
well and good, but Spirit might not be around for that much longer, because there are now
reports, Bloomberg is reporting this among other news outlets that Frontier and Spirit are
seriously looking at another merger agreement.
[0:27:01] JR: No way.
[0:27:02] IP: Yeah, surprise. What is surprising is that the person running Frontier Airlines is not
Barry Biffle anymore.
[0:27:11] JR: Yeah, quite surprisingly, out of nowhere and quite quickly. I think it's by the end of
the year, Barry Biffle is out of Frontier.
[0:27:20] IP: No, no, no. He's out now.
[0:27:22] JR: He's out now.
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[0:27:23] IP: He's no longer CEO.
[0:27:24] JR: In an advisory capacity until the end of the year, which basically means, sit in a
corner and don't talk to anyone, but help the transition. I don't know. But this came out of
absolutely nowhere. It was the second of three major airline executive transitions as of late. First
came Qatar Airways’ CEO out, then Barry Biffle. Then as of just an hour ago, not even an hour
ago, we learned that Delta COO, I believe, is also very suddenly, very unexpectedly out of the
company. Things come in threes, hopefully, maybe fours. I don't know. It'd be good for the next
time we record. I don't care. yeah, Barry Biffle out of Frontier. It's such a pivotal moment. Would
love to know what happened there.
[0:28:11] IP: I mean, according to Frontier's 8K that they had to file –
[0:28:16] JR: It was because of no wrongdoing.
[0:28:19] IP: Not just no wrongdoing, but expected departure as a director of the company is
not the result of any disagreement with the company, or any matter relating to the company's
operations, policies, or practices. Whatever happened, happened fairly quickly, or at least the
announcement seemed to come out of nowhere, but it had nothing to do with the business, so
who knows?
[0:28:41] JR: I don't know. That was the CO at Delta. Not COO. CCO, Gwen Hauenstein, which
is very surprising. This news from Frontier, very confusing.
[0:28:53] IP: Yeah.
[0:28:54] JR: At such a critical moment for the airline to possibly be on the cusp of absorbing
their biggest, or not biggest, but most direct competitor. What happened there? We'll probably
never know, but strange. Very, very, very strange.
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[0:29:10] IP: James Dempsey, the company's president, is now its interim CEO. We'll see if Mr.
Dempsey has decided that Spirit is going to become part of Frontier, and we'll probably find out
fairly soon.
[0:29:25] JR: I have a feeling the shareholders have more of a say in that, but it becomes his
problem.
[0:29:32] IP: It certainly does. Or opportunity, Jason.
[0:29:35] JR: Uh, yeah. Sure. I feel like, it's more of a problem. It's some number of working
Airbus airplanes. That's a big deal.
[0:29:45] IP: It's not nothing. Speaking of not currently working Airbus airplanes, Japan Airlines
has a very specific sub fleet of A350-1000 aircraft that it operates to premiere destinations,
including –
[0:30:04] JR: Premiere destination.
[0:30:06] IP: Including New York's JFK airport.
[0:30:09] JR: The finest of premier global hub.
[0:30:13] IP: While Japan Airlines may take great care in its aircraft, a certain other airlines
ground handler might not. Because they were taxiing an A330, and they taxi that A330 right into
the windshield of JAL’s A350.
[0:30:31] JR: You shouldn't do that.
[0:30:32] IP: No, no.
[0:30:33] JR: What's so notable here is that JAL is a bit short on airplanes right now. Well, A,
they retired – Japanese Airlines in general retired too many widebody aircraft during COVID, as
many airlines did. They're not unique in this form. But they also, as you mentioned, they have a
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very, very special sub fleet of A350-1000 for premium destinations. I was on one last year. Had
a very not premium experience, because the entertainment system was broken. That wasn't
great. Rather than swapping in another aircraft, which may not have even been available, in the
most Japanese way possible, they put out a press release brought to our attention by, again,
John Walton, everywhere right now, but they put out a press release detailing the operational
impact of a single aircraft being out of service.
I can tell you that a total number of 16 flights will be delayed with a maximum delay time of 15
hours and 55 minutes, because you don't want it elapsed at 16 hours, affecting 3,144
passengers. Over the time span of December 19th to December, 22nd, which interestingly is
even still a few days from right now. it's really interesting to see an airline be so forthcoming
about, here's what happened down to the exact time, the location, the aircraft registration, and
the aircraft type that impacted them and the damage done at JFK. I still don't know who's A330
that was, but I think this may have been during deicing. We've had some weather here in New
York recently and our airports don't really handle weather well. I wouldn't be surprised if this was
as a result of deicing. But they were just very forthright in saying, “Here's what happened.
Here's the impact. We don't have another aircraft to make up the delay, so here's how we're
going to be delayed.”
It really reminds me of how we've talked about Norse Atlantic in the past, another long haul low-
cost airlines, where if they take a delay on the first day of the month, it's going to ripple all
through the end of the month, because there is no slack in the schedule and there are no other
aircraft to pull around from the back warehouse and operate a flight. This is just something that
they will have to figure out over time how to schedule around. Eventually, when the aircraft is
repaired, things will go back to normal. Until then, there's no slack. No aircraft to pull around.
There's no flights. Your options are either you cancel flights and strand people entirely, or you
delay them 16 hours, 15 hours, 55 minutes or whatever. It's a tough call, but really highlights the
shortage of aircraft airlines like JAL are facing.
[0:33:18] IP: Yeah, the widebody shortage is real. To put a point on that, it's not just a lack of
aircraft from an airline's perspective. It's a lack of aircraft from a manufacturer's perspective,
because JAL is sitting around waiting for a bunch of A350s to enlarge its fleet.
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[0:33:36] JR: That might not even be because of Airbus, but the entire supply chain, as we've
talked about so often, especially when you're talking about ultra-ultra-ultra premium aircraft like
this that have just so many components and special things that are really only going onboard
this aircraft. It may not even be Airbus's fault, probably isn't, but that doesn't really help
passengers at the end of the day. If your flight’s delayed, your flight’s delayed and you don't
really care why. But it is interesting to know why it's delayed 16 – What was it? 15 hours and 55
minutes.
[0:34:09] IP: 15 hours and 55 minutes. Yes.
[0:34:12] JR: Yeah, the London flights in particular seem to be getting the worst of it.
[0:34:16] IP: At least, they're precise.
[0:34:18] JR: Yeah. If nothing else, there is that.
[0:34:23] IP: Let's talk briefly about another preliminary report that came out. Very brief report
on a Malta Air in-flight engine shutdown. This one turns out, had absolutely nothing to do with
the engine itself. The sun visor came detached from its position on the flight deck, struck the
engine's start lever and turned off the engine.
[0:34:49] JR: No. This reminds me of that time, what was that? On a Delta A350 that the pilots
spilled coffee and then shoving out the engine fuel cutoff switches, I believe, and actually turned
off the engine.
[0:35:02] IP: Turned off the radios. Yeah.
[0:35:03] JR: Turned off a whole lot of stuff. It reminded me of that –
[0:35:05] IP: Got caught of the engines. Happened more than once, too. Yeah.
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[0:35:09] JR: It did. It's a real problem. But that's crazy that the sun – I wonder how the sun
visor fell. I guess, after many, many years of use, a screw or bolt came loose and it fell and
man, it hit the worst of all the possible options on the console.
[0:35:24] IP: This aircraft is not that old though.
[0:35:28] JR: Oh.
[0:35:28] IP: No. This is a 737 MAX 8-200.
[0:35:32] JR: Oh, so this has to be very, very new. Yeah. That's not great.
[0:35:38] IP: The pilots stopped the climb and restarted the engine and then continued on.
[0:35:44] JR: That's one of those reports where the pilots probably put in the logbook, or
whatever, like, man, you're not going to believe this. You're going to call me a liar, but I swear
this is what happened. The sun visor.
[0:35:54] IP: This is how it happened.
[0:35:56] JR: The sun visor just all of a sudden, broke off and turned off the engine all on its
own.
[0:36:00] IP:  There I was.
[0:36:04] JR: A million to one shot, doc.
[0:36:06] IP: Oh, man. Oh, man. Okay, we've got some other news to round out the episode.
Jason, do you want to go to – No one wants to go to Dulles.
[0:36:14] JR: No. I don't want to go to –
[0:36:16] IP: Do we want to talk about Dulles first?
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[0:36:18] JR: I just came from Dulles, and I didn't even get to fly home, because my flight was
delayed, because of course, it was. We just talked about an incident where an engine was
turned off, because of not the engine's fault. But then, there's a United 777 at Dulles, which had
some sort of failure and set the airport on fire. Hmm. Yeah, that happens.
[0:36:38] IP: Not the airport itself. We should specify.
[0:36:40] JR: Not the terminal, but there’s a lot of nothing around Dulles. Whatever the engine
spewed out, and by the way, the fight was fine. They dumped fuel quite at a low altitude, by the
way, because I saw some video on that. This was a flight from UA 803 from Dulles to Tokyo,
Haneda. How old is this 777? It's a pretty old 777. They're all old at United. It's just how old was
this aircraft? Let's see. N78004 is 22.7 years old. This is not a young aircraft.
[0:37:14] IP: No. 78004?
[0:37:16] JR: Yup. 27.2 years old aircraft. Yeah, it spewed some parts out of the engine,
apparently, and set some of the grass outside of the airport on fire, which is not great. The
aircraft returned and it was – I had actually read, this was an interesting twist about the handling
of the situation that United actually closed a United Club at Dulles to shuffle all with passengers
in there to rebook everyone and deal with that delay, which I think I've never heard of an airline
doing before. I think that's quite an interesting –
[0:37:47] IP: That's a very interesting way to do it.
[0:37:49] JR: Interesting twist on a otherwise pretty mundane story.
[0:37:53] IP: It's worth noting as regular listeners of this podcast will no doubt be attempting to
rack their brains about. I've heard of previous United Airlines engine issues on their 777s. This is
a former Continental Airlines GE-powered 777. While it may be an engine issue, it's not related
to any of the Pratt engine issues that United has previously experienced.
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[0:38:23] JR: No. Those aircraft, there are rumors that those Pratt-powered aircraft, those are
being quietly parked, or withdrawn.
[0:38:31] IP: Pushed into the ocean?
[0:38:32] JR: Yeah. Or just vaporized from existence with all sorts of problematic existence. But
yeah, these are the GE-powered aircraft. It doesn't mean they're getting any younger, because
they are certainly not getting any younger, but this is another case –
[0:38:45] IP: No, no.
[0:38:46] JR: - of United needing new aircraft that they're – just Boeing is years late getting to
them. They're catching up. I guess, it's also good to remember that they have other aircraft that
are older than this 777. All of their 76s pretty much. US airlines really needs some new
airplanes.
[0:39:06] IP: Ain't that the truth? Speaking of new airplanes, sort of, kind of, Austrian Airlines is
getting rid of its Embraer fleet, sort of, because it's going to move that fleet to Air Dolomiti.
[0:39:24] JR: That's exciting.
[0:39:25] IP: This is interesting for a few reasons. One, all of the aircraft will be transferred out
and get a new livery, which is fine, whatever. But two, it marks the first time that Lufthansa has
shown restraint and not just started a new airline.
[0:39:41] JR: Not yet. Not yet.
[0:39:43] IP: Whenever this actually goes through, we could be seeing Air Dolomiti Regional, or
Air Dolomiti City.
[0:39:48] JR: Ooh, city airlines operated by Air Dolomiti on behalf of Austrian airlines marketed
by Lufthansa code share with United. That could be a real thing.
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[0:39:59] IP: All of that's going to be operated by an airBaltic A220.
[0:40:03] JR: Oh, that's how you bring it all together. We should probably should have talked
about this earlier, but there seems to be some fleet rationalization plan coming to Lufthansa.
This is step one. Shuffling on how –
[0:40:14] IP: Well, we did talk about this early. We talked about this when we talked about the
Lufthansa investor deck that came out and we talked about their – Mostly, we talked about the
wide-body fleet rationalization. It does seem to be that somebody sat down at Lufthansa and
said, maybe it would make sense to have regional airlines, mid-haul airlines, and long-haul
airlines. That seems to be what's at play here.
[0:40:38] JR: There's definitely a German word for that.
[0:40:41] IP: I'm sure there is. I'm sure if someone knows it, they can email us at
podcast@fr24.com and let us know. Let's close the show with an interesting new route from
Oman Air. They are launching a few new flights, some to Saudi Arabia. They're launching a flight
to Russia. They're also launching a flight to Copenhagen via Baghdad.
[0:41:07] JR: You had me at the Copenhagen part. That's no big deal, but via where?
[0:41:11] IP: Baghdad.
[0:41:13] JR: Oh, sure. Surely, this must be like, we operate to Baghdad and then offload all the
passengers and then only have local – No. You can actually fly on the same aircraft in one hop,
on one ticket from Oman to Copenhagen via Baghdad.
[0:41:30] IP: Why not?
[0:41:31] JR: Sure.
[0:41:32] IP: Why not?
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[0:41:33] JR: Look closely at your tickets when you book. Wow, that'd be fun. Got to be up
there for one of the year's most unexpected route launches.
[0:41:43] IP: I for one would want to take that flight. I think that would be fun.
[0:41:46] JR: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I mean, you do go to the Nordics every so often. I believe, you
just got back. Maybe next year you can do it via Oman.
[0:41:54] IP: I'll do a round the world flight.
[0:41:57] JR: Now, that's good content.
[0:41:58] IP: And pick that particular eastbound route. Speaking of interesting routings, we have
one more flight to talk about, Jason. That's Santa.
[0:42:08] JR: You can't book that flight.
[0:42:10] IP: You can't book that flight. But it will possibly be making a stopover at your airport,
or perhaps, your house. We will once again absolutely be tracking Santa on FlightRader24 this
year. Look for Santa to begin warming up the reindeer and his sleigh on the 23rd of December
ahead of the Christmas eve present run extravaganza.
[0:42:34] JR: All right. Let's just hope he doesn't go to JFK and get cut by an A330.
[0:42:39] IP: It's always my grave concern that Santa will be taken out by a deicing truck. But
I'm hopeful that that won't happen this year. Look for that on flightradar24.com in the
FlightRadar24 mobile apps and wherever fine Santas are found. With that, we close what is the
final new episode of 2025. We made it to the end of the episode. We made it to the end of the
year, and I would be remiss if I didn't say thank you to everyone who has made it this far with
us.
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It's been quite the year for aviation and unfortunately, I don't really mean that in a good way. It's
been a really rough year for a lot of the industry, really going back to last Christmas and
unfortunately, things did not let up throughout the year.
[0:43:34] JR: But there's been some good stuff.
[0:43:35] IP: There's been some bright spots.
[0:43:37] JR: There has been. I'm just scrolling back to our episode you list, you went to
Oshkosh. That's fun.
[0:43:43] IP: That's true. That's true. No, I'm not trying to sound down, generally speaking. What
I was going to say is, I think, that we have covered it well and hopefully provided what our
listeners come to expect and deserve, as far as some no-nonsense explanations of what's
happening in the industry, and we'll continue to do that in the new year.
This will be our last new episode for the year. We will be off next week. Then to start the year,
we'll have a look back at a few of the more interesting conversations that we had with our
guests in 2025, and then we'll start –
[0:44:19] JR: 2025. That's right. You got to check that.
[0:44:21] IP: I'm still writing 1935 on all my checks. Then the second week –
[0:44:26] JR: Are you a DC-3?
[0:44:27] IP: Yes, I am a DC-3. You figured me out. Then we'll get into the first new episode of
2026. Will come out on the 9th of January. Look forward to that. In the meantime, if you want to
get in touch with us, email us at podcast@fr24.com. We are always around. With that, we say
thank you so very much. I am Ian Petchenik, here as always with –
[0:44:56] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
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[END]
© 2025 AvTalk 24