AvTalk Episode 266: A new challenger emerges

AVT 266 Transcript
EPISODE 266
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello and welcome to episode 266 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:17] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. How are you, Ian?
[0:00:19] IP: I'm well, Jason. How are you, sir?
[0:00:20] JR: Good. I'm good. It's been a quick week. Not a ton of news, but we've got some –
well, we've got a very interesting story to start off with. But first of all, how are you? What else is
going on?
[0:00:30] IP: I'm well. We're getting into the – it's officially spring. The windows are open in the
house. The backyard is ready to be used. It's no longer the barren wasteland of winter, so I'm
excited about that.
[0:00:42] JR: That's nice.
[0:00:43] IP: We're into May, which is nice. Doing some traveling this month, so we'll have more
to say about that later. If you listened to last week's episode of the podcast, you know that we're
giving away a few signed copies of Scott Bateman's forthcoming book, Hercules. You already
know that you can enter to win a few of those copies just by emailing us at podcast@fr24.com
and saying, “Hey, I want to win the book.” That's all you have to do. Super simple. You don't
have to do anything more than that right now. This may be the easiest contest you've ever
entered in your entire life, and there's still plenty of time to enter to win a signed copy of Scott's
book.
If you haven't listened to last week's episode, stop now. Go back. Listen to our interview with
Scott about his new book, because it's fascinating, both the book and the conversation with
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AVT 266 Transcript
Scott, and then come back and let's talk about some information and news that has happened
this week. How's that sound, Jason?
[0:01:42] JR: I think that's a plan.
[0:01:45] IP: We go from the Royal Air Force in the UK, way, way south to Brazil, because this
is some very interesting news. First reported by Andrew Tangel and Benjamin Katz at the Wall
Street Journal today, before we recorded.
[0:02:01] JR: Amazing.
[0:02:02] IP: How about that?
[0:02:02] JR: Amazing. Early in the morning even. Gave us hours to digest this news.
[0:02:07] IP: We got time to prepare to discuss this. Brazil's Embraer is considering building a
new single-aisle 737/A320 sized jet.
[0:02:22] JR: Oh, boy. I don't know what degree, or what level of real this report is. I'm sure
Embraer has been kicking the idea around for a long time, possibly ever since, what was it?
2020, when Boeing didn't quite stab Embraer in the back, but they did leave them high and dry
when they withdrew from the bid to acquire Embraer Commercial Aviation. Left Embraer in a
weird place on its own at a time where Bombardier Commercial Aviation was just fully acquired
by Airbus.
Now you have Embraer out here who's really, really good at what they do, making those
regional jets. They're very good at it. I think American CEO recently praised Embraer for being
the only manufacturer out there that can actually build planes and deliver them when they're
supposed to, and say they will deliver it. So, good for them. This could very well be make or
break for Embraer. We've seen what happens when other very experienced, very large
conglomerates get involved in building an aircraft, competing with at least the 737, or A320 and
that would be Mitsubishi. That did not go well. Of course, we know from a few weeks ago that
has not stopped Japan from giving it another try for some reason.
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[0:03:37] IP: They mean business this time.
[0:03:39] JR: I'm sure they do. Lessons have been learned. People have been fired. New
people have been hired. The new people are probably the same people as the old people, but
this time, they're going to do it right. This has the potential to be very, very interesting. Of
course, nothing Embraer does now will result in you flying on a 200-seat Embraer jet for
probably 10 years, give or take?
[0:04:03] IP: At least.
[0:04:05] JR: At least. There is a lot of time. But if Embraer were to announce now while Boeing
is at the lowest point it ever has been, and Airbus is so delayed with its products being because
of manufacturing issues, or engines that don't work, not to say Embraer is not also impacted by
that. This would be just a really, I agree with that doorbell. I think that's the perfect emphasis for
the importance of this report that Embraer could be doing something extremely interesting. This
report in the Wall Street Journal from Andrew and Benjamin, of course, being the reputable
news outlet that it is, they have some commentary from Embraer and I quote. They say that,
“While the company certainly has the capability to develop a new narrowbody aircraft,” it doesn't
have any plans for a sizable new project this time and is focused on selling existing models.
Of course, Embraer is not going to come out and say, “Ah, yeah. You got us. We're going to
build an A327, 37 competitor.” That's never going to happen until if and when they are ready to
actually announce that. But they do go on to remind us that Boeing itself doesn't have a plan, or
at least we don't know of a plan to replace the 737. We are stuck with the MAX for the
foreseeable future at this point. If Embraer worked to start developing a new larger mainline
aircraft for the US operators, they would be presumably ahead of Boeing at this point and
possibly, Airbus. Probably less convinced on that. But it would be very interesting timing for
Embraer to really go after Boeing's throat at this point. I think, go right after the bread and butter.
[0:05:54] IP: From what we generally understand about the plans of Boeing and Airbus, Boeing
is planning to launch, not field, but launch development of its next generation of aircraft
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sometime early in the next decade. In the early 2030s, Boeing will announce what it's going to
design and build.
[0:06:16] JR: By that point, Embraer could be well into development of a larger aircraft.
[0:06:22] IP: Nearing certification at that point. That's a little optimistic. But they could be well,
well into development if they decide to do this in the near future. Airbus for its part, has been
targeting 2035 for the next step change narrowbody aircraft. We'll see what comes of that and
how that timeline fluctuates over long term. I mean, we're still a decade away. If Embraer did
this now, or even soon, that's a pretty big leap for them. I think, and this is now me putting on
my personal hat, I think it's worth it. I mean, they've shown that they can consistently design,
develop, and build good airplanes. I mean, everybody loves the Embraer. Pilots love it,
passengers love it, everybody loves it. Why not make a bigger aircraft? It's not to say that any of
this would be easy, but why not?
[0:07:23] JR: Yeah. It does call into question what Embraer's plans are for things that have
already been announced, which would be it’s Energia, I think it's pronounced, line of concept
aircraft. They shifted their focus to hydrogen fuel cell and hybrid electric tech on just 19 to 30-
seat aircraft, with about a 200 nautical mile range. Not a ton. But they moved away from
originally announcing, I think, a fully electric aircraft and turbine SAF and a couple of things, and
they whittled that down to just hybrid electric and fuel cell. Those are small aircraft. Smaller than
what they currently have, which would be the E170, E190, E2 range and the E1, but grudgingly,
I'm sure at this point still.
What happens to those? Do they still press forward and develop those concept aircraft, while
potentially also developing a new clean sheet narrowbody aircraft? Does it have the capital and
the engineering resources and just the physical space to do both of those at the same time? Or
would this hybrid, or fuel cell model have to take a back seat for the more practical here and
now?
[0:08:35] IP: I think that's a really interesting question, not the least of which is the money,
obviously, is always the major player. I think that brings up an interesting point about what
development resources does Embraer have to do both of those project orders. Or does one
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feed the other? I don't know the answer to that. It sounds like, based on the Wall Street
Journal’s report, Embraer doesn't yet know the answer to that either, as much as they need to in
order to make that decision.
[0:09:03] JR: Yeah. It will be expensive that the article says that Embraer has a market value of
around 5 billion. However, new aircraft programs typically cost tens of billions of dollars. It would
need to take on, I imagine, quite a large amount of cash to get some program like this off the
ground, because Embraer has not designed a fully new clean sheet commercial aircraft in a
very long time, unless you somehow consider the E2, that which, I don't think you can.
[0:09:33] IP: It's like a sheet you used and then erased.
[0:09:35] JR: Right. You erase some stuff and you reshape the wing a little bit and put a bigger
engine on it. That sounds familiar. Not a new concept. But yeah, this could be make or break,
because Embraer can't keep making the same e-jets forever. The E2 line has not been wildly
successful. The E2 line will probably never be able to operate commercially for the US majors.
The scope clauses seemingly never going to change. If it wants to break higher into the US
market and increase sales and really get a foothold with the US major airlines, it's got to do
something different and this might be it. But they need to tread very carefully, because this is
going to be very expensive. If they don't do it right, we've seen what happens when it's not done
right.
[0:10:20] IP: You get sold to Airbus for a dollar.
[0:10:23] JR: Yeah. We didn't really talk about the 220, or I'm sorry, the C series all that much.
Yeah, that fate was not too great for Bombardier. $1 for that program. Turned out to be a great
airplane.
[0:10:36] IP: It did turn out to be a great airplane. We were just talking about the movie trading
spaces before we started recording. The central tenant of the movie is that there's a $1 bet
between two of the characters.
[0:10:47] JR: That would be trading places before you get any hate mail.
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AVT 266 Transcript
[0:10:50] IP: Oh, what did I say? Trading spaces? Trading places. There you go. Hey, let's
leave Brazil and go to India, because this particular bit of news broke right after we recorded
last week.
[0:11:04] JR: That was very rude of them. But it’s big news and they gave us some stuff to talk
about this week.
[0:11:08] IP: You're welcome, Airbus. I mean, obviously, if we hadn't recorded last week's
episode, this order would not have come through.
[0:11:14] JR: Never.
[0:11:15] IP: But Indigo, famous for the world's largest narrowbody aircraft order in history with
500 aircraft months later, has now ordered 30 with 70 options for the A350.
[0:11:33] JR: That's a lot of airplane for an airline that has not operated technically any wide-
body aircraft.
[0:11:39] IP: Yes, technically.
[0:11:40] JR: Technically. Indigo does have a couple of 777-300ERs in its fleet right now, but
those are operated for, or on behalf, or by Turkish Airlines. I don't know. There's some weird
thing going on with that. Indigo itself is firmly an A320 family aircraft. There is a huge potential
for another long-haul Indian airline and Indigo thinks, why not them?
[0:12:06] IP: I mean, those are your options. It's Indigo and Air India. Those are your options, as
far as financial footing and capability goes. They're going long haul. In a big way, starting in
2027.
[0:12:20] JR: Yeah. Or whenever these aircraft end up actually getting delivered, but it's going
to be very interesting. We have Air India being completely revitalized, but will take years to
realize that and get to the point where, I don't know, people can trust them to not be terrible.
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AVT 266 Transcript
There is still that chasm between what is the old Air India and the old garbage airplanes and the
new airplanes that are nice. It's going to take a very long time to get that brand harmony, where
you can trust that you're going to get on an Air India aircraft and it's going to be a good
experience.
Maybe by 2027, 2028, that will be a reality. Indigo sees space in the market where others have
tried and failed throughout the course of this podcast, which is not all that old. We've seen how
many Indian Airlines come and go, unfortunately?
[0:13:09] IP: We haven't even gotten to the Indian Airline that's gone later in the episode yet.
[0:13:13] JR: We'll get to them.
[0:13:14] IP: That's what I'm saying. Like, there's another Indian airline that's failed in this
episode. Yeah, to your point, I think that this is the only other option, as far as this goes. I think,
to Indigo's credit. I mean, they've done a very nice job creating a solidly run airline and a good
product. Then they said, “Okay. Well, let's carry more people further afield.” Because India has
been Emirates's playground, for lack of a better term, I guess, for a long time. Because I mean,
they dumped a ton of capacity into India. I think Indigo says, “Well, we don't need to have
people connect through Dubai. We don't need to always make sure that they're going on
Emirates. We can take some of that traffic.”
[0:14:07] JR: Can and should.
[0:14:10] IP: As to that, Airbus also announced this week that they are raising the A350
production rate up to 12 per month in 2028. This will be an end goal that was the original end
goal, because they were already, I think, almost at 10 a month before the pandemic. Then
obviously, decreased very much. Now they're raising this back up. By 2028, going to 12 a
month, because who knows, by then, Indigo may have ordered another 200 A350s. We'll see
what comes of that.
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[0:14:47] JR: Yeah, 2028 feels like a long time away. But I guess, that really tells you just how
long it takes to get the logistics in line to increase the rate, even modestly of an aircraft
production line like that.
[0:15:00] IP: Yeah. Let's stick with Airbus and continue to talk about production lines. We've
talked about Boeing and its quest to bring Spirit AeroSystems back into the Boeing fold. What
we mentioned a few episodes ago when we talked about this initially is that the wrinkle here is
that Spirit AeroSystems also does manufacturing work for Airbus. Spirit produces section 15 of
the A350 fuselage, which is the center section of the fuselage that sits above the wing box. It
also builds the wings for the A220 in its Belfast facility. We finally got to hear a little bit from
Airbus this week when they discussed their earnings.
Airbus CEO, Guillaume Faury, gave a little bit of his thinking around how Airbus is approaching
this. He said, that they're going to need to do something about this in the event that Boeing
acquires Spirit, which seems near certain at this point. Airbus is exploring options for these
particular work packages, whether or not they become part of Airbus, they get spun off
somehow. It'll be interesting to see. Airbus is confident that whatever work comes from Spirit
won't be a Boeing-owned piece of work. As he points out, it seems not a good idea to have your
very important manufacturing components come from your direct competitor.
[0:16:34] JR: No. This is a very complicated problem that I'm sure nobody at Airbus this time
last year would think, “This is what I'm going to be dealing with for the rest of my career.” Right.
Yeah, this is tricky.
[0:16:47] IP: I think it'll be interesting to follow along, whether I'm not sure Airbus wants to
acquire these particular pieces of work, but they might have to.
[0:16:59] JR: Given the circumstances, they're probably going to be okay with it.
[0:17:01] IP: I mean, I think whatever happened, it'll be just fine. This week, Finnair announced
that they’re suspending flights to Tartu in Estonia due to GPS interference. Twice in the past
week, the flight from Helsinki to Tartu has had to return to Helsinki, because of GPS
interference. Because the airport itself only has GPS-based arrival procedures. The standard
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terminal arrival procedures and the misapproached procedures are GPS only. If GPS is being
jammed, or spoofed, they can't land, so they have to go back from whence they came. Now,
Estonia is basically turning back the clock to figure out non-GPS-based approach procedures,
so that they can still use the airport during GPS jamming.
[0:17:59] JR: Okay, that's not great, but it is clearly the realist impact, I think, we've seen of
GPS jamming and interference. In this case, it's not just, oh, the aircraft thinks it's somewhere
that it is and toward the inflight entertainment map isn't showing an accurate location. This is an
entire airport losing services. Not just Finnair suspending its flights. Finnair was the only airline
servicing this airport. Now this city, this airport, has no flights for at least a month, which is not
great. I'm sure they'll be able to cook something up here. Looking at the terrain around the
airport, there isn't exactly much around it in the way of terrain, or outlands, or even hills,
seemingly. I feel like, they'll be able to figure something else out, but it must be good times if
you're one of the last remaining VOR technicians out there, or ILS technicians, or whatever
thinking, “Yeah. I'm going to have some job security for a good while,” because maybe we
shouldn't be retiring things like old VORs, when they're seemingly much less susceptible to
jamming or anything, like GPS. This is going to get worse before it gets better. A lot worse.
[0:19:11] IP: Yeah. The long and the short of it is the comment that the pilots made when we
shot the video on the SAS A350. The pilot said, GPS jamming is just very, very annoying when
you're in cruise. Because we can use DME, DME, it's fine, it's just annoying. When it comes to
flying at lower altitudes and when you're trying to take off and land, then it becomes an
impediment to safe flight and being able to actually continue. What do you do with all of this
newfound badness in your navigation system? I think that this is an extreme example, because
it's such a close proximity to the likely source of the jamming in Russia to learn how to navigate
this. Who knows, as this becomes more and more of a problem, as we've seen just in the past
few years, is this going to start affecting more aircraft at busier airports?
[0:20:08] JR: Yeah. That would not be great. Granted, this airport is within exactly a stone's
throw of Russia, but it's as close to the border as many airports not in Russia will get. Yeah, if
I'm Finland, I'm not too pleased about this, or Norway, or Sweden. This is going to become very
problematic if GPS jamming, spoofing, all of that increases in range and crosses borders, it's not
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really something that's easily solvable. There really is not a lot of practical solution to this as we
discussed in that interview a couple of weeks ago.
[0:20:45] IP: Yeah. We'll keep after it and see what we see as things hopefully, stop progressing
in the wrong direction.
[0:20:52] JR: Yeah, I wouldn't count on that.
[0:20:53] IP: Yeah, I know. I'm trying to sound a hopeful note.
[0:20:56] JR: That's nice.
[0:20:58] IP: If you are an aircraft lessor that was leasing aircraft to Indian Airline Go First, you
had a good week in court last week. A judge in India has ruled that the aircraft that were leased
to go first can be deregistered and returned to the lessor.
[0:21:20] JR: Hey, that sounds like good news, but I feel like, there's a butt coming.
[0:21:24] IP: There's a big, big but. Those planes aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
[0:21:30] JR: But why?
[0:21:33] IP: Let's talk about what the legal case was, because this is actually pretty interesting.
In aviation law, there is the Cape Town Convention Protocol, technically known as the
Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment.
[0:21:47] JR: Wow. Rolls right off the tongue.
[0:21:48] IP: It does. There's also the protocol on matters specific to aircraft equipment.
[0:21:53] JR: Well, you don't want general. You want it to be specific.
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[0:21:56] IP: This is where the convention and protocol come in. What the Cape Town
Convention does is it creates a framework that within ICAO creates a framework that allows
lessors, lessees, and state actors to all have the same rules and regulations, regarding who
owns the planes, when they can be taken back by lessors, what lease agreements need to
have, as far as what needs to be in there, so that everything conforms to what everyone has
agreed upon. This was concluded in 2001. As of, according to the ICAO website, as of 2016,
there are 65 parties to the convention. India is one of them.
What should have happened, according to the Cape Town Convention, is the airline should
have gone back to the lessors and said, “Okay, we're not a going concern anymore. You can
take your planes back.” The lessors would have said, “Okay, we're taking airplanes back,” and
that would have been the end of it. But because of the insolvency proceedings in India, Indian
law has a stipulation that you can't remove assets during the insolvency proceedings, which
makes sense in another business, when we're talking about other businesses besides aviation,
where you have assets that are movable and really need to keep moving in order to make
money. Make anybody money.
What this court case was about was whether or not the DGCA in India could de-lease the
aircraft, so that the lessors could take the aircraft back. There's hundreds and hundreds of
pages in this court decision. The one thing that I wanted to call out was the very end before the
orders issued. The judge says, “It is also to be considered that in the view of the delay in de-
registration of the aircraft, India's compliance rating of the Cape Town Convention and Cape
Town Protocol has fallen from 3.5 to 2 out of 5, which is a significant drop.” This was also the
first time I learned that there is a compliance rating for the Cape Town Protocol, which is, I think,
8.
Compliance ratings have a long-term impact on the aircraft industry in India and also to airlines
operating in India, including a significant increase in lease rental payments charged by the
petitioner's lessors. Basically, what the judge is saying is that everybody's lease payments are
going to go up in India, because Go First isn't giving the aircraft back.
[0:24:26] JR: Uh-oh. Other airlines aren't going to like that too much.
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[0:24:30] IP: Right. This judgment sets that and says, “No, the law is – we are bound by the
Cape Town Convention. India is the signatory. We are bound by this. The wanting to keep your
assets because you're in insolvency proceeding does not outweigh the fact that we have
international treaty obligations. You're going to ruin it for the rest of us if you continue to go
down this path of not giving the aircraft back.”
Now, that is fascinating. It's interesting. It's all of those things, but it doesn't really matter,
because it's not like we can send Nomadic and Steve, and they can pick up 54 aircraft
tomorrow.
[0:25:17] JR: That'd be a good episode, though.
[0:25:18] IP: It would be a good episode. Can you imagine 54 A320neos just flying out one after
the other?
[0:25:25] JR: Going to need a bigger crew for that one.
[0:25:28] IP: Exactly. Here's the problem. There's a bunch of problems. The problem is that
there's a bunch of bombs. Big problem, they're all powered by GTF engines.
[0:25:36] JR: Oh, that's not good for anyone right now.
[0:25:40] IP: There's 54 aircraft in this court case that all need to have their engines serviced by
Pratt. Plus, these aircraft were not stored. They weren't wrapped up.
[0:25:56] JR: They were parked.
[0:25:57] IP: They were just parked. They said, “Okay, we're not flying anymore. We're done.”
They walked away at the end of the day. They haven't been maintained for flying, and they
haven't been maintained for storage. There's so much work that needs to go in. A podcast
listener who's familiar with the storage situation of these aircraft also mentioned the fact that the
aircraft, Go First, was swapping parts between aircraft that were owned by different lessors.
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[0:26:26] JR: Uh-oh.
[0:26:28] IP: It's going to be a bit of a puzzle to figure out who has which parts and where they
need to go. What's going to happen to get any of these aircraft back to the lessors, so that they
can then be put into play is the engines have to come off the wings. They have to be sent to
Pratt, wherever Pratt has shop space for those engines. They have to all be returned to the
aircraft, and then the aircraft has to be exported out of India.
[0:26:57] JR: This is years, years of work.
[0:26:59] IP: Ton of work. Well, considering the fact that we're still in the 300 to 400-day range
per engine for the GTF, yeah, we're looking at quite some time before some and a majority and
all of these aircraft are anywhere near back to operating for an airline. We could see a new
Embraer aircraft competing with the A320neo before you see the last of these.
[0:27:26] JR: Yikes. That's certainly one way to put it.
[0:27:29] IP: It's a mess. But this is a big step for the lessors and the industry to settle one of
the remaining issues here. Now the hard work begins.
[0:27:41] JR: All right. Good luck to everyone involved, and I look forward to an episode of
Steve going out there in six years re-bowing, how many of these airplanes were they? 50 –
[0:27:50] IP: Just in this court case, it's 54 aircraft. There's more in the fleet.
[0:27:56] JR: All right. Good luck to everyone.
[0:27:58] IP: Yes. Yes, indeed. Luck has run out for Australian carrier Bonza, which this week
said, “Yeah. I'll take what I can get.” This week said, that they were attempting to evaluate, can
they continue as a going concern? Then they've entered voluntary insolvency proceedings this
week. They had a fleet of leased 737-8 MAX aircraft. One of them is currently operating for
Canadian low-cost carrier, Flair. They had another one that was up until very recently, also in
Canada. Those aircraft are now going back to their lessors.
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[0:28:39] JR: Yeah. This one may have set a world record for time between temporary ceasing
of operations, hoping to return shortly to, “We're done here. Goodbye. There will be no refunds.”
I think it was 12 hours between temporary and permanently done flying. Really, I don't know
where I don't think there was much warning to passengers that anything was coming, at least
with links in Canada a few weeks ago, there was indication that something was happening.
They gave a few days warning saying, “Hey, on Sunday night, we're done at midnight.” Bonza
was pretty much like, “Hey, that last flight that just landed, that was the last flight. We’re done.”
[0:29:20] IP: That was it.
[0:29:21] JR: “We’re done. There are no refunds.” I don't know what credit card chargebacks
are like in Australia, but in the US, this would certainly be, you're on your own situation. I hope
you didn't use a debit card. Otherwise, you're completely out of luck. Man, Australia just cannot
catch a break with some diversity in its airlines. You've got Qantas, you've got what's left of
Virgin Australia, Rex, and that's really it. Bonza didn't really seem like it was going to stand a
chance with its secondary city to secondary city operation, but they tried. Australia is pretty
harsh for a lot of things. But the airline space seems to really not have any luck with getting
anyone to seriously compete with Qantas.
[0:30:07] IP: You've got two, and you'll get two, and you'll continue to get two, and that's all
you'll get.
[0:30:12] JR: I mean, it's one and a half now. Virgin Australia doesn't even fly long-haul
anymore since COVID. It's really one and a half, one and two thirds. It's not great. But at least
Qantas is a decent airline. Competition-wise, that's a big country to not have enough
competition. Sorry to Bonza's employees and passengers. You're on your own.
[0:30:37] IP: Jason.
[0:30:37] JR: Yes?
[0:30:39] IP: JetBlue is reactivating A320s. Tell me more.
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[0:30:43] JR: Not just any A320s, Ian. Its oldest A320s, including its original A320.
[0:30:51] IP: We get to do that whole retirement shenanigans again?
[0:30:54] JR: We do.
[0:30:56] IP: Fantastic.
[0:30:56] JR: A report was put out by paxex.aero earlier this week, Seth Miller's blog.
[0:31:01] IP: We know them.
[0:31:02] JR: We do know him, that JetBlue is so desperate for airplanes, given the, yet again,
we're back to the Pratt & Whitney GTF problems that JetBlue claims to be a growth airline, but it
cannot grow, because it has so many aircraft parked, because of the GTF problems. I mean, we
talked, what was it, two weeks ago that one of its A321neos, its fourth flight had an engine
failure? Its first transatlantic round trip, not great. JetBlue is so desperate, it is reactivating up to,
I believe, 12 of its oldest A320s, I believe that were retired last year in 2023. One of them being
N503JB, aka Christine, as she was known to employees. It’s the first aircraft delivered in 1999.
I've been on that aircraft many times, but it was never really refurbished at any point in its life
after 2003. It's got a very vintage interior that will thankfully be overhauled before it's put back
into service. That is just how desperate JetBlue is.
It has bought out the lease of its oldest aircraft to press them back into service. I think they're all
out in Arizona right now and in one of the boneyards. That's not a move that JetBlue is going to
be alone in doing as recently, I believe we talked about this as well. American has extended the
life of its oldest A320s, which came from US Airways, which itself came from America West, and
they're refurbishing the flight deck of those by actually swapping out the CRTs for newer LCD
screens, which hopefully, JetBlue will have planned for some of these aircraft as well. Man,
desperate times call for desperate measures, but going into the boneyard to pick out the scraps
that you discarded last year. That's desperate.
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[0:32:47] IP: Yeah. Good luck.
[0:32:49] JR: It's a sound plan. For an airline that doesn't have a lot of cash to go around. It's,
hey, they're already painted in the JetBlue livery. Don't even need new paint.
[0:32:56] IP: They don't even need new paint. You know what they could do, though? They
could do what Air China and China Southern have done and order the C919.
[0:33:07] JR: Yeah. That's a bit dicey. Actually, I don’t know. We need to check in on the
certification of the C919, at least for Europe. I don't think there's any headway in the US so far,
but 200 orders put evenly between Air China and China Southern coming days apart, feels like
China's done with Boeing for the time being. These probably should have been 73 MAX orders.
Both of these airlines have the MAX in their fleet, but have between the initial groundings and
delays and everything else. Then the tariff situation, they only what is it, just a couple months
ago, started taking direct deliveries of the MAX again after the years. I don't know. Maybe
asking politely Air China and China Southern to order more of the homegrown C19, probably a
very logical decision.
[0:33:57] IP: Yeah. I mean, I don't think anyone's surprised at this point.
[0:34:00] JR: No, but I really want it out there, fly one of those.
[0:34:01] IP: Interesting that they came days apart.
[0:34:03] JR: Interesting or expected. Yeah. Again, I don't think this is an order that they
probably – I'm sure they wanted it, but I'm sure there was some very stern talking to saying,
“Hey, you're going to order these. Figure it out and announce it next week.” I want to find one of
these, just to see what they're like.
[0:34:19] IP: Yeah. No, absolutely.
[0:34:20] JR: I don't expect to see a North American ,or Western European airline operating
these at any point in the near future, but they have my interest.
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Yeah, I can't think of any. There's a few that may be one day, I could see, but nothing in the near
future. Let's go back to American Airlines and talk about what they're doing with their route
network based on not 737 MAX delays, but Boeing 787 delays.
[0:34:49] JR: Yeah. We can't blame Pratt & Whitney this time. I don't think. Boeing does –
[0:34:56] IP: Why not?
[0:34:58] JR: I mean, we could try. Maybe we can come up with some flow chart to get back to
Pratt. But Boeing, of course, is late delivering 787-9s to American. The ones that we're
supposed to have, it's brand-new business class cabin look very nice, but we'll have to wait a
little while longer for that. It is another instance of an airline announcing grand plans for the
summer with new frequencies, new routes, new destinations that have to be withdrawn entirely,
or paired back. This internal memo seems to come to us from @XJohnNYC on Twitter, as it
usually does.
Service reductions, JFK to Rome reduced from two to one daily, effective August 5th. JFK to
Athens and Philly to Venice, both early seasonal suspension in September and October.
Chicago to Paris, service suspended outright starting September 3rd, coming back next year.
JFK-Barcelona, suspended the 3rd. You can see the theme here that a lot of routes are either
suspended early, reduced in frequency from one to two flights, but in some cases, even DFW to
Kona in Hawaii will not operate this winter at all. I close the question on Twitter when this came
out a couple days ago, when is the last time a US airline was able to announce its plans for the
upcoming summer season and fly the whole damn thing? It's been a long time, I feel like, at
least since before COVID. It's probably half a decade at this point where an airline said, “Here's
what we're going to do this summer,” and then they're actually able to do it. It's been a long time.
[0:36:34] IP: Yeah. I mean, maybe 2019? Maybe you have to go back before that? I don't know.
[0:36:38] JR: Maybe. But between COVID and A350 delivery delays and 787 delivery delays,
just can any airline actually do what they say they're going to do anymore? By no fault of their
own at this point for American, it's just, they can only plan their route network and their fleet as
© 2024 AvTalk 17
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the manufacturers tell them airplanes will come. But when is the last time that's actually
happened? I don't know.
[0:37:03] IP: I don't know what to tell you, but that's a good question.
[0:37:05] JR: Yeah. You know what might actually come now after years and years of saying
we're going to do it and putting up big plans and big physical models and even starting up a little
operation would be Dubai World Central, the other airport in Dubai, that's supposed to be the
new Dubai airport. It's apparently going to happen for real now?
[0:37:25] IP: The new, new Dubai airport.
[0:37:26] JR: The new, new, new, new one. We're scrapping the old plan. We're scrapping
what's there now and they're going big. What are they doing, Ian?
[0:37:33] IP: We've got a 35-billion-dollar terminal taking annual capacity up to 260 million
passengers. That's a lot of passengers.
[0:37:47] JR: That's a lot.
[0:37:47] IP: Five times the size of Dubai International Airport. All of the operations will be
transferred over there. Al Maktoum will expand to five parallel runways with four operating at
any one time, four satellite concourses, and 400 gates.
[0:38:07] JR: Oh, that's a number.
[0:38:09] IP: That is a big number. 70 square kilometers of airport.
[0:38:16] JR: Yeah. There is a sizable plot of land around the airport as it is today, which is
basically, a glorified cargo hub. The grand plans that they had did not come to fruition. I think
there's one runway built right now, at least for the commercial operations. I'm looking at satellite
view on Google right now. There is a second runway. I'm not sure what that one does, if
anything. But there is one main. Yeah, it's just there. It's all X’d out. I don't think it's actually an
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operation. Maybe it is. I don't know. Maybe that's for private jets. Oh, no. That's the Emirates
Flight Training Academy. Oh, there's probably some actually interesting stuff happening down
there.
There are passenger flights at Dubai World Central, Al Maktoum International Airport. I've
actually flown out of there, I think back in 2015. It was weird. There was nobody there. It was a
ghost town. It's in the middle of nowhere. I know there are plans to build out the area.
[0:39:11] IP: For now.
[0:39:12] JR: For now, there are plans to build up as Dubai does all around it and become a
mega hub in its own right. But it is not exactly as centrally located as DXB is today, or connected
by public transit as DXB is today. There is a long road ahead of them. Wish they suck it more in
the middle between Abu Dhabi and Dubai and they could just share one big airport.
[0:39:37] IP: Then just put in some high-speed rail.
[0:39:38] JR: Yeah, that would be great. Instead of having multiple redundant mega hubs like
that. But they seem more real about it this time. Though, looking at the renderings, I'm not
convinced the plan they have is the best plan. It looks like, there's going to be a lot of walking
involved in that terminal. For an airline base there that is all about connections. We don't know
what's underground. Maybe they have lots of underground tunnels, or whatever. But it is
certainly a bigger facility than the very constrained DXB that we have today, which is remarkable
in its own right that Emirates and every other airline operating out of there is able to do that with
just two runways so closely spaced together, packed in the middle of the city. It's a really, if they
do end up eventually closing the current airport, that is a huge pot of land as well to redevelop,
which is a whole other interesting aspect.
[0:40:34] IP: I'm sure we'll be talking much more about this as the years ticked by. Now we get
to talk about hot Russian planes.
[0:40:43] JR: Excuse me?
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[0:40:44] IP: You heard me.
[0:40:45] JR: Okay. Yeah. Apparently, Russian regulators have told Russian carriers to consider
cabin heat reduction in warm climates. I just find it interesting that the Russian authorities are
instructing Russian airlines.
[0:41:02] IP: The best part about the story is that in hot places, it is hot.
[0:41:07] JR: It is hot. That's true.
[0:41:09] IP: There's a whole list of things that they should do. None of them are possible to do,
because you can't make outside less hot.
[0:41:17] JR: No. This report apparently comes, because of an incident that happened to an
Aeroflot flight that was in, I think it was in Bangkok, or at least somewhere in Thailand.
[0:41:27] IP: Yeah, it was Bangkok.
[0:41:28] JR: Yeah. An Aeroflot A330 had an issue with one of his engines, had to go back to
the gate, but they couldn't get back to the gate. So, they went to a hardstand and they weren't
allowed to run the APU, because of some airport regulations. It got really hot in the aircraft that
they had ground air. If you've ever been on a big airplane, parked somewhere on a very hot day,
ground air just doesn't get the job done. The aircraft gets very hot. They were eventually allowed
to turn on the APU. But by that time, it had gotten to 31.5 degrees Celsius, which my computer
right now tells me is 88.7 degrees Fahrenheit, which is very hot. Having been on some very
unpleasantly hot aircraft myself last summer, that's unpleasant. I know that's unpleasant,
especially if you're looking for an eight, 12-hour flight ahead of you.
What I don't understand about this is they said, don't operate to places where it's hot if you don't
have the equipment to operate where it's hot, where Aeroflot did. They didn't do anything wrong
here. They say, should not operate to hot destinations with unavailable systems, which could
reduce cabin temperature control. Not only did they have an APU and a functional APU, which
isn't always a guarantee, they eventually did turn it on. I'm not really sure what they want the
© 2024 AvTalk 20
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airlines to do, but this certainly isn't something specific to Russian airlines. This should be
something that all airlines adhere to. If you don't have a functional APU, please don't send it to
Miami, ever.
[0:42:55] IP: We're sorry for that, Jason. Hey, let's get out of the heat and head north of the
border and go on a bus. Because Landline is now operating in Canada, with Air Canada.
[0:43:10] JR: Hey, good for them. If you're not familiar, Landline is the bus operator that
operates on behalf of airlines to connect major airports to smaller nearby airports that cannot
and probably should not have a flight. I say cannot, but they have in the past. We're talking here
in the northeast, you have Philly and Allentown and Philly and Atlantic City cannot, should not
ever have a flight, but you have a connecting bus opportunity. They are booked by the airline,
like any connecting flight. Instead of Envoy, you're on Landline. You're protected in case of a
delay, or cancellation and Air Canada is getting in on the game.
Really, really funny that Landline got a land side water cannon salute for the inaugural, I almost
said flight, inaugural bus rollout something?
[0:44:04] IP: Journey. Yeah, I don't know.
[0:44:05] JR: Trip. Let's say, trip.
[0:44:07] IP: Okay, trip.
[0:44:08] JR: Fun stuff. Free car wash.
[0:44:12] IP: Hey, there you go. Jason, you flagged this one, so I will let you take the
introduction.
[0:44:17] JR: Controversy. I love controversy. We want to hear your feedback. Airbus put out a
tweet yesterday, April 30th, in response to a flightradar24 tweet, actually. Nice tie in, where the
flightradar24 tweet said, what does a year of A380 operations look like? You visualized for the
A380’s 19th birthday what 12 months of A380 operations looks like. Then Airbus quote tweeted it
© 2024 AvTalk 21
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saying, “Great to see the A380s still connecting so many people on the most iconic passenger
aircraft ever built.” Huh, that is a spicy take. I don't even think it's Airbus's most iconic aircraft
they've ever built, if you count the Concorde. I don't even think it's close to being a competition
there. Yeah, right in. What do you think is the most iconic aircraft ever built? Because I don't
think many people would agree with Airbus that it's the A380.
[0:45:12] IP: They quote tweeted our tweet and I disagree with them.
[0:45:17] JR: Yeah. What do you think it is?
[0:45:18] IP: What do I think it is?
[0:45:20] JR: Yeah.
[0:45:21] IP: I don't think my love for the 747 is any secret.
[0:45:25] JR: I mean, personally, I think that's the correct answer. The A380 didn't shepherd in a
new era of aviation in a way.
[0:45:33] IP: I mean, I love the A380. I think it's a fantastic airplane.
[0:45:35] JR: It is. The second sentence goes on to say, still a passenger favorite with its
unique cabin experience. Yeah, absolutely. As a passenger, on a long-haul fight is one of, if not
the best aircraft to be on. But is it the most iconic passenger aircraft ever built? Absolutely not.
[0:45:51] IP: Yeah, I don't think that that title is an earned one at this point. Yeah,
podcast@fr24.com. Email us and let us know what you think is the most iconic aircraft of all
time. Let's stick with commercial aircraft, because there's a whole separate military unit.
[0:46:08] JR: We don’t want to get involved in that. That's a tricky one.
[0:46:10] IP: That's not our business and we don't want to go down that route.
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[0:46:12] JR: That’s for another podcast.
[0:46:15] IP: There are strenuous thoughts on that from a lot of people, myself included. Let us
know what you think, because the reactions to the tweet were also interesting. There were
some interesting contenders on there that I didn't think would be – I mean, are iconic, but I didn't
think would rise to the level of most iconic. Let us know what you think. Then continuing a theme
that I thoroughly enjoy. I'm not sure how much Jason –
[0:46:37] JR: You would. You would.
[0:46:38] IP: We're going to talk about how Jason was wrong in the last episode.
[0:46:42] JR: Technically wrong, which is the best kind of anything.
[0:46:46] IP: Isn’t that the worst kind of wrong?
[0:46:47] JR: It's the best kind of wrong.
[0:46:49] IP: Being technically correct is the best kind of correct. Isn't technically wrong the
worst kind of wrong?
[0:46:52] JR: I think you're technically correct. Yeah. You might be correct. Anyway, last week,
we talked about a runway incursion issue at JFK. I had said, the landing aircraft are passed off
to JFK ground and the aircraft taking off are still on the tower frequency. That is not correct as,
let's say, a pilot for a large US airline who happened to operate one of my flights this year, who I
won't tell you which one, but he operated one of my flights this year, which is pretty cool, wrote
in and said, “Actually, JFK ground controllers never give clearance to cross an active runway for
inbound traffic that just landed. They only give it to the outbound traffic crossing a runway that is
not active. For example, when taxing to runway four left, they have to cross 31 left to get there,
or 22 right, and they have to cross 31 right to get there. If they use 31 left in conjunction with
four left, blah, blah, blah, blah. The important part, landing traffic on four right 22 left stays on
tower frequency before crossing the other runway.”
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The issue is that they actually use two different tower frequencies for landing and departing, but
they are both tower frequencies. It doesn't make it any less of a problem, but they are not on
ground versus tower, but they are different frequencies. Same end result, you have the pilots
who just landed on different frequency who were not hearing what's going on on the departure
runway, but there is a distinction between tower and ground, but the effect is the same.
[0:48:22] IP: You were sort of, kind of technically wrong, but it's still a big, big thing that seems
like it just shouldn't happen.
[0:48:32] JR: Yes. No pilot I have talked to who is familiar with this operation at JFK says this is
a good thing. In this case, this particular pilot said, “It blows my mind that they don't simply
switch the inbound traffic to the other tower frequency.” Nobody thinks this is a good thing.
Operational efficiency seems to have taken too much liberty here that the operational security of
the aircraft on the ground is, you know what? We talked about this already. Doesn't matter at
this point. But yes, was wrong technically, kind of, sort of.
[0:49:05] IP: But thank you, thank you to the pilot for writing in and giving us the exact details.
We certainly appreciate that. If you want to write to us to enter the contest to win a copy of Scott
Bateman's book, Hercules, do so. Just say, “Hey, I want to win the book.” That's all you have to
do. If you want to email us and tell us what the most iconic commercial aircraft ever built is, do
that. If you want to email us and tell us what we got wrong in this episode, what we got right,
what you want to see more of, what you want to see less of, or just to tell us – even technically
wrong, email us at podcast@fr24.com.
While you're emailing us, why don't you go to wherever you listen to the podcast and leave a
rating and a review and tell other people stuff about this podcast. We would be ever so grateful.
This has been episode 266 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always with –
[0:49:57] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
© 2024 AvTalk 24