AvTalk Episode 343: It’s a retention issue

AVT 343 Transcript
EPISODE 343
[0:00:08] IP: Hello, and welcome to episode 343 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here as always
with –
[0:00:15] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. And welcome to the slowest, longest takeoff roll episode of this
podcast. It's going to take us a while to really get up to speed and start talking about the news,
but we're eventually going to get there. We're just a little underpowered today, which I really
actually feel like is kind of true in personal and work life, but I'll take it as the crossover here.
[0:00:41] IP: Jason, what's the perfect registration for an A34300 registered in Uganda?
[0:00:47] JR: In Uganda? URSLO. UR is the correct prefix, right?
[0:00:57] IP: No, it is not.
[0:00:58] JR: Oh, no.
[0:00:59] IP: It would be 5XAPU.
[0:01:03] JR: Oh. Ah, I get it. Wait, where is 5U? Where did I get that from? UR is close, right?
[0:01:08] IP: No.
[0:01:10] JR: Oh. Oh well. Oh well. 5XAPU.
[0:01:12] IP: That's okay.
[0:01:14] JR: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's good. That's good.
[0:01:18] IP: Where is UR, Jason? Real quick.
[0:01:20] JR: I don't actually know.
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[0:01:21] IP: It's Ukraine.
[0:01:22] JR: Oh, that's why you don't see it much these days, huh?
[0:01:26] IP: That's true. We got that aviation dad joke out of the way. And happy Alaska Day to
you, sir.
[0:01:34] JR: Yeah, I guess. Happy, but also sad, Alaska day.
[0:01:37] IP: Yeah. A bittersweet Alaska day to you.
[0:01:40] JR: Yeah, bittersweet Alaska Day. And if you are wondering what the heck we're
talking about, well, the Alaska Air Group today begins single operating certificate with Hawaiian,
who it is now almost fully assumed as an entity. There's still some more – arguably, the biggest
piece other than clearing it, the regulators, the PSS cut over. But as of today, earlier this
morning, the Hawaiian call sign is no more.
[0:02:06] IP: Yeah. Flight 866 from Pago Pago to Honolulu was the last flight to depart using the
Hawaiian call sign. And they got a nice welcome from the tower when they landed. The last
flight to land using the Hawaiian call sign was 824 inbound from Tokyo to Seattle.
[0:02:26] JR: I'm happy that both of those were really solid Hawaiian Airlines routes. Pago Pago
and Tokyo are two just very, very Hawaiian Airlines route. So I'm happy it wasn't like LA to
Honolulu or something.
[0:02:42] IP: Where there's a lot of crossover.
[0:02:43] JR: Right.
[0:02:44] IP: Yeah, now they're all using the Alaska call sign, the ASA ICAO three-letter
identifier. But the Hawaiian brand will remain. So, they're not getting rid of Hawaiian Airlines as a
brand yet. Who knows what'll happen in the future, but that's a ways away still.
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AVT 343 Transcript
We've got a great show for you this week. We have a lot of news to get into. Many things have
happened. And we have a fantastic conversation with Katherine Moloney, who is the founder of
Elevate(her) Aviation. A group that is dedicated to getting more young women involved in
aviation. Something that is very well needed. We'll have a great conversation with her in just a
little bit.
But first, we begin in Hong Kong, where the Air ACT 747 that veered off the runway, striking a
security vehicle, knocking it and the aircraft itself into the bay. That aircraft has now been
salvaged and removed from the waters so that investigators can begin their work to figure out
what exactly happened and why.
[0:03:59] JR: Yeah, lots of people would like to know that and the answer to that. We don't
really have a better idea of what happened now than we did the last time we discussed this. We
have some pretty dramatic photos of cranes on barges pulling a parts of 747 out of the bay at
least. But would really like to see what happened here. This is not an airline with a stellar safety
record, I would say, but really would love to know what happened because this was still just
very, very, very bizarre.
[0:04:32] IP: Yeah. So, the tail section was the first portion of the aircraft to be recovered. That
section, of course, is the one that includes the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.
So, those have both been retrieved by Hong Kong investigators and hopefully will provide some
answers as to what happened to the 747 and why it left the runway when it did.
Speaking of investigations, we have the preliminary report now from the low overflight incident
in Nice. This was Nouvelair's A320 overflying an EasyJet A320. The Nouvelair flight was
arriving. The EasyJet flight was departing. And they came incredibly close.
[0:05:21] JR: It is as bad as we initially thought. And the initial data –
[0:05:25] IP: It's worse.
[0:05:25] JR: Oh, it's worse. Oh, that's not good. That's not good. We were properly alarmed, at
least, we can say.
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[0:05:32] IP: This is certainly not the case of it looks really bad. And then we find out, "Oh, no,
there mitigating circumstances," things like that. No, no, no, no. At their closest point, the aircraft
– each aircraft was 10 feet apart or as close as 10 feet apart.
[0:05:49] JR: Not good. Not good. Sorry. I was distracted by a co-worker telling me,
unfortunately, seconds too late, since we already moved on from Alaska, that maybe things did
not go so smoothly today. And the entire Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines site is down at
the moment. They blame a Microsoft Azure outage.
[0:06:14] IP: Yes. That's been affecting multiple airlines.
[0:06:17] JR: They can't blame AWS today. But ooh, that's a bad day to celebrate a big change.
[0:06:22] IP: Find a cloud service. Any cloud service. Yeah, back to Nice. I'm quoting from the
preliminary report here. And we'll put a link to this in the show notes as well. At 21:32.23, TS-
IMP, which is the registration of the Nouvelair flight, flew over OEIJZ, which is the EasyJet flight,
which was stopped and aligned with the center line of the runway 04 right. The TS-IMP radio
altitude value dropped from 39 feet to 10 feet in 1 second before rising to 24 feet in the following
second. And then there's a footnote. The footnote says this variation in radio altimeter height
very probably corresponds to TS-IMP flying over OEIJZ.
[0:07:13] JR: This is basically exactly what we initially said when you had pulled the ADSB data
and assumed the drop in altitude you saw was exactly that. Turns out it probably was. And what
values did you pull? Did we have 10, or did we have a little more than 10?
[0:07:31] IP: With the ADS speed data, it's much –
[0:07:32] JR: It's only increments of 25, right?
[0:07:34] IP: Right. So it's a wider margin of error. We knew that the aircraft was below 50 ft.
That put us within the margin of error of about 10 ft over the tail of the aircraft.
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[0:07:49] JR: Well, there you go. Spot on. Yikes. Not good. At least this is a case where we
could say the aircraft didn't continue on with its day. Like nothing happened. They were able to
pull the boxes and get some data off of them. That's good.
[0:08:06] IP: The preliminary report also goes into the meteorological conditions. The French
understate the weather as unsettled, which is I think, a good turn of phrase into this, translated
into English report. But there's also a discussion about the visibility of the runways at night. The
preliminary report goes into the edgelight specifications, the centerline specifications, the PAPI,
the runway threshold identification lights, where they are, how bright they are.
And there's an interesting note about the distinction between lighting of runway 04 left, which
was where the Nouvelair flight was cleared to land, and 04 right, which was the departure
runway at that time. The phrase here is, "At night, the runway 04 right lights are much brighter
than the 04 left runway lights."
And to put that point home, figure 10 in this report shows an airborne photo at night of the two
runways. And unhelpfully, the various levels of brightness are unconfirmed in this image. But if
the image shows the runway lightings set to equivalent values, the values are 1 through four,
four being the brightest, and it doesn't really matter what the runway values are here. The
lighting values are in this image. What matters is if they are equivalent, oh wow, is 4 right so
much brighter.
[0:09:48] JR: Yes. It basically looks like there isn't another runway, which would then lead you
to question why is it 4 right or left and not just 4? But that requires a little bit deeper thought in
the moment. But it basically looks like there's a single runway. We actually had a little discussion
before we hit record about what the significance of this is. We've seen over the years situations
where an airport is converting its runway lighting infrastructure from traditional incandescent
lighting, I guess, over to LED. And LED lighting is much, much brighter, which could lead to a
situation like this. The report did not note if that was the case. But if that was the case, it could
very well be that you have runway 4 left and runway 4 right, both set to intensity 2. And then the
intensity of the LEDs is just naturally going to be overwhelmingly brighter compared to the non-
LED lights on runway 4 left.
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We'll be very interested to read the final report to see if that's actually the case or if the two
runways just had different lighting intensity values, which would be very strange because you
basically can't see that there's a runway 4 left with the image that was included in the
preliminary report.
[0:11:11] IP: Yeah. And the other thing that is just confusing to me is that runway 4 left is the
primary arrival runway and 4 right is the primary departure runway. You would think that you
would want –
[0:11:21] JR: 4 left should be brighter.
[0:11:23] IP: You would think that you would want to focus your energy – if in fact you are
converting things, you would want to focus your energy effort the runway that gets used for
landings more often. But maybe that's why they didn't do it. Maybe they did the other one first
because it was easier to close and switch out the lighting. I don't know.
[0:11:40] JR: Yeah, who knows? It could be some legacy thing that 4 left was done X-years
ago, 4 right was done Y-years ago. And that the infrastructure was just ready to be swapped out
at a different interval. It happens. And that is certainly one of the aspects that the French
investigators will be looking at. Because we've talked about a lot of close calls in the past on this
podcast, especially in recent years. But this one, we're almost in singledigit number of feet from
disaster. Yeah. What was the one coming into CDG a couple years ago where they just totally
botched the approach? Did we get into single digits on that one or now? I don't think so.
[0:12:20] IP: It was close.
[0:12:21] JR: But not this close.
[0:12:23] IP: I mean, we're at the point where the wheels on this A320 could have been and
very likely were alongside the tail of the aircraft.
[0:12:32] JR: That's a good point that we didn't mention here at least this week that the radio
altimeter is not the lowest point of the aircraft.
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[0:12:39] IP: But I think it does.
[0:12:41] JR: Does it compute the difference between where am I versus where is the gear? I
actually don't know.
[0:12:47] IP: This is a good question for our pilot listeners. Email us at podcast@fr24.com with
a definitive answer. We'll do a look up and post a link in the show notes if I can find a thorough
and definitive answer there.
Elsewhere around the world, an intense storm has moved through the Caribbean, a category 5
hurricane.
[0:13:14] JR: Understating, as you would say. The French report just did. This was one of the
strongest hurricanes ever recorded, I believe.
[0:13:21] IP: As far as pressure goes, I think it was the third lowest pressure, fifth highest winds,
sustained wind speed. I say all that to say the hurricane hunter aircraft did an incredible job. And
the reason we're talking about them in regard to this particular storm, Hurricane Melissa, is that
both the NOAA P-3 and the US Air Force Reserve C130 aircraft had to turn out of the storm
because turbulence was so bad, they had to go inspect the aircraft.
[0:13:57] JR: Yeah. At least as long as I have been following aviation, I cannot recall that having
happened. I'm sure has happened in the past or at least done –
[0:14:08] IP: It's happened individually in the past. I'm not sure it's happened to both aircraft in
the same storm within the span of about 24 hours.
[0:14:16] JR: That's wild, yeah. We've seen videos obviously from the NOAA and the USAF
hurricane hunters, and I cannot say even on like a category one or two storm doesn't look like a
nice ride by any means. But I can't imagine what that must have looked like on board because I
haven't seen any video. But being bad enough that they had to bug out and go inspect the
aircraft, that's – ooh.
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[0:14:42] IP: I saw a video. And there's usually video and at least still imagery posted to the the
DVIDS site used by the US Department of Defense. So, I'll see if there's anything downloadable
from there that we can put in the show notes to give an idea of what we're talking about
because it's – imagine just like shaking a box as hard as you can and having stuff in it and
watching it just go everywhere.
[0:15:11] JR: And you can't just make a left turn and avoid it and it's over. I'm sure it lasted a
good fair while on board. And remember, they're not getting paid right now. So, if you happen to
come across a hurricane hunter fight crew, be sure to thank them extra this week because
they're going through all that and they're not even getting paid.
[0:15:32] IP: Yeah, the Norfolks are not being paid right now. Elsewhere, Jason, this is a bizarre
one, which I'm sure we'll learn about more as the arraignment happens. But this one happened
on the 25th of October, so a few days ago. A 28-year-old man on board a Lufthansa flight from
Chicago to Frankfurt stabbed two people with a fork, then tried to fight his way out when he was
being detained.
[0:16:03] JR: Wow. Clearly, this guy had something to prove.
[0:16:06] IP: Something going on.
[0:16:08] JR: Something going on. Was it an actual fork or was it a spork?
[0:16:12] IP: It was an – according to the complaint, it was a metal fork.
[0:16:18] JR: Do they give out metal forks in economy on Lufthansa?
[0:16:22] IP: Wasn't clear if maybe this fork was procured from a non-economy class meal. But
I don't know where the fork came from. I do know that it was used to stab one person in the
collarbone and one person in the back of the head. And then this person tried to fight people as
they were being restrained. The aircraft turned back and diverted safely to Boston. This person
has now been charged with federal crimes –
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[0:16:50] JR: Yeah, don't do that on an airplane.
[0:16:52] IP: Because of their actions. So, we'll learn more and see if there was a precipitating
incident or if this was just a case of someone – yeah, I don't know.
[0:17:00] JR: Yikes. Should we stick with Lufthansa?
[0:17:02] IP: Let's stick with Lufthansa.
[0:17:03] JR: I think we'll stick with Lufthansa. You know what sucks? In the aviation industry,
there is just so much that you have to keep track of between the news, the weather, political
unrest, just any number of things that can impact your flight operations and can change at a
moment's notice. One thing that Lufthansa seems to have not paid close enough attention to
was its overflight rights over a couple of African countries apparently. And oh boy, did one
Lufthansa A350 heading to Cape Town take a massive detour to get around it. Did you see this
with this flight?
[0:17:46] IP: I sure did. Yeah. So, this is not unheard of where permits can get delayed.
Approvals can take longer than they should. This relates to the switch over from the IATA
summer season to the IATA winter season. And because of that, it's often necessary to resecure
rights and permissions and permits.
[0:18:12] JR: Right. This was the first operation of this particular flight, LH574. This was
October 25th. The last time this particular flight had operated was March 29th. So, it had been a
good while.
[0:18:24] IP: And it sounds like what we're hearing from some folks inside the airline group,
things were not processed in a timely fashion. And this particular flight, instead of cancelling,
they just routed it around adding about 2.5 hours to the flight.
[0:18:44] JR: Ooh. They were the lucky ones. Fortunately for them, other flights were not so
lucky. I believe Lufthansa flights to Dubai ended up being cancelled. The return flight, I believe,
from Cape Town was also cancelled as someone in Lufthansa operations figured out what the
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heck just happened. But big oops. But hey, you got to give Lufthansa credit for, I guess, filling up
those gas tanks all the way and sending them the long way to Cape Town. They couldn't do that
with old aircraft.
[0:19:15] IP: No. They've fixed their systems. They've gotten approvals. And the rest of the
flights should hopefully go okay, at least for the rest of the winter season.
[0:19:21] JR: Yeah, there's just so much in this industry to keep track of. And sometimes stuff
just falls through the cracks. This would have been a good transition to one of our other topics,
but we'll come back to it. We want to stick with Lufthansa.
[0:19:35] IP: Yeah. Okay, let's stick with Lufthansa. We'll close the show with the other one.
Lufthansa has taken delivery of its first CFM LEAP-1A engined A320Neo. That's a mouthful of
acronyms.
[0:19:50] JR: That's a mouthful. I hope there's more.
[0:19:51] IP: I was just going to say, but it basically means that Lufthansa in this trench of
A320neo deliveries said, "We're going to go with the engine that seems to work just a little bit
better."
[0:20:05] JR: A little bit better.
[0:20:06] IP: A little bit, but not a lot better. Just a little bit better.
[0:20:08] JR: It's a big deal for an airline to break commonality in a fleet like that and take
delivery of a particular aircraft type with a different type of engine because that means they're no
longer interchangeable. As far as I'm aware, I think there are cases where they're trying to make
that a thing. But in this case, that's a big break for Lufthansa. But also, Lufthansa is going to
Lufthansa. And Lufthansa loves fleet weirdness.
[0:20:31] IP: I thought they were trying to go less weird.
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[0:20:35] JR: No. Well, this one is weird. It's fleet weirdness, but for a good reason this time, not
for Lufthansa reasons. So, they're not the first. They're not the last to do something like this, but
it just shows how problematic the new engine technology is for airlines. Even a Lufthansa just
says, "You know what? Give us the other ones. Maybe we'll have better luck with them."
[0:21:00] IP: Here's hoping.
[0:21:00] JR: It's not good news for everyone. Even Airbus can't get engines because it
reported the third quarter financials today and revealed that it has 32 A320s just hanging out
without engines at the end of the third quarter, which is apparently down by half, but that's still
32 airplanes that doesn't have engines.
[0:21:19] IP: Exactly. The numbers, they're not good, but they're better than they were at the
end of the last quarter. So, hopefully we're still going in the right direction. This was all part of
the third quarter briefing by Airbus on their financial results. They also mentioned, and this was
echoed by CFM, that they are still working towards an agreement for engine supply for the 75
per month rate for the A320neo family, which actually moves a bit closer to the target goal
because Airbus has just opened the second final assembly line. It's Tianjin, China facility.
So, we're moving in that direction. We're moving back towards possibly a supply chain that isn't
extremely – yeah, I was going to be nicer and say extremely dysfunctional. But yeah, Jason's
word makes sense, too. There are, in the words of Airbus CEO, Guillaume Faury, signs of
recovery.
[0:22:24] JR: You know who else is showing signs of recovery? And this might even be bigger
news. It's Boeing.
[0:22:30] IP: What?
[0:22:31] JR: It's Boeing reporting good, also bad, but mostly good news. Because the bad
news wasn't all that unexpected. But Boeing, for the first time in 2 years, reported cash positive
numbers. Wow. They made money and apparently didn't lose it, which is great news. They are
on track to deliver the most aircraft this year since 2018, which is pretty, pretty great. Things,
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even for Boeing supply chain, are looking good, except if you're waiting on the trip 777X, which
was officially delayed until 2027.
[0:23:06] IP: Yeah. And as part of that delay, they took a $4.9 billion charge. That's billion with a
B.
[0:23:14] JR: Oops.
[0:23:15] IP: Ooh, boy. Oh boy. Oh boy.
[0:23:17] JR: Yeah. CEO Kelly Ortberg says he is "disappointed".
[0:23:21] IP: Yeah, I think we all are.
[0:23:23] JR: Join the club, buddy. There's a lot of disappointed people over the 777X.
Nobody's particularly surprised, but disappointed. I'm not mad. I'm disappointed.
[0:23:32] IP: Oh, thanks, dad. Signs of recovery and signs of progress, even if it is two steps
forward, few steps back. But hopefully, this is the last time they delay the trip 777X.
[0:23:48] JR: Yeah, maybe one day when they make a profit, it won't be completely undone by
all the charges on delayed programs because that wasn't the case today.
[0:23:57] IP: We'll keep hoping.
[0:23:58] JR: So close.
[0:23:59] IP: Jason, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to chat with
Katherine Moloney from Elevate(her) Aviation. Some very interesting things happening with
regard to getting young people and young women specifically interested in the aviation industry.
And as it turns out, one of the big problems is keeping them in the industry once they're there.
Stay with us. We'll be right back.
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[BREAK]
[0:24:29] IP: Welcome back. We are now joined by Katherine Moloney, who is the founder of
Elevate(her) Aviation. She is also a private pilot of both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. So all
around. Katherine, welcome so much to AvTalk. Thank you for being here.
[0:24:45] KM: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
[0:24:48] IP: So, as I like to call them, you fly the devil's bird as well as fixed-wing. Which one
did you get started on and? And how did you become interested in aviation and then become a
pilot?
[0:25:00] KM: Yeah, absolutely. I actually did it, probably as most people think, the wrong way
round. So I actually started with helicopters and then went to fixed-wing a little bit later on. But I
actually had no intention of being in aviation, and certainly being a pilot was not on my radar
until I was about 18.
When I was at school, I probably would have been voted least likely to be a pilot, I think, out of
everyone. Certainly, I hadn't thought of aviation really as a career path for me, which actually is
quite funny now looking back. Because when I was at school, we actually did quite extensive
aptitude testing. And my aptitude test actually came back and suggested I should apply to the
RAF as a pilot.
And I took that piece of paper and I literally threw it in a bin. I just thought that's not me. I could
never be that person. I could never do that. So, it was quite an interesting kind of reflection for
me looking back now to see that maybe I did have the aptitude from the start, but just didn't
think it could be for me.
So anyway, I left school. I went straight to work. I always wanted to go straight to work. I didn't
go to uni. And I started working in a warehouse of a flight equipment company, picking and
packing parcels just as a bit of Christmas cover, to be honest. And this is really where my
interest in aviation was completely piqued, because I was handling all of these different items
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every day, learning about aviation, learning about the industry. And I became really curious
about flying.
I was working on the airport, Shoreham Airport in the UK. And I went to my dad and I said, "You
know, I'm kind of curious about this. I'd like to give it a go." And he said, "Well, just get a trial
lesson. See if you like it. There's no pressure. Just give it a try." That's exactly what I did. One of
the flight schools next door was a helicopter flight school. I literally walked next door and said,
"Hey, can have a trial lesson?" And they took me up.
And from that first moment that I touched the controls, I was absolutely hooked. I loved it. I
thought, "Why have I never thought about this before?" It just was so exciting. It felt like
freedom. It felt like everything I'd kind of missed, to be honest. So yeah, that's really where
aviation, where I got the bug, let's say.
So I was 18 then. Immediately signed up to do my PPL, my private pilot's license, and got that
at 19. And I continued to work at the same company in lots of different roles, from shows,
marketing, sales, trade sales. And ended up being marketing director there as well. And learned
so much about the industry during that time. And also became a department for transport
aviation ambassador as well during that time.
Yeah, then I laterally went on to do fixed-wing. And my thinking behind this was really I love the
industry. General aviation is my absolute passion. And I really wanted to explore as much as I
possibly could. And I could see all of the amazing things you can do with fixed-wing aircraft,
from gliding, to microlights, to tail draggers, to aerobatics. And I really wanted to give it a go. So,
I did the same thing. Walked to a flight school, got a trial lesson. And yeah, was absolutely
hooked again.
[0:27:59] IP: And you've been flying for a few years, and then you say to yourself, "I want other
people to experience this, and especially young women to get involved in aviation." So, you
founded Elevate(her) Aviation. And so, tell me about the process of getting that started. Where
did the idea for that come from?
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[0:28:21] KM: Yeah, absolutely. And during the whole time of my flight training, during both
licenses, I never met any other women in aviation. And this is not to detract from the incredible
male instructors and mentors that I've had throughout my whole career because they've been
absolutely phenomenal. And my dad's probably my biggest mentor and has been my biggest
support throughout my whole career. But I did want to connect with other like-minded women.
And I did feel like I was maybe missing out on that.
After I got my fixed-wing PPL, it literally was like 2 months after I decided to host an event. So
what I did was hired out a room, again, at Shoreham Airport, or Brighton City Airport, as it's now
known. Got a plate of sandwiches and put out an open invitation to as many women in the
industry as I could find in all different careers and said, "Look, just come have a laugh, have
some fun, and we can all talk."
I was very nervous, to be honest with you. I didn't know who would turn up or if anyone would,
but I was absolutely delighted that day when we had 40 women attend. And the event was just
wonderful. The atmosphere was electric. All of us were sharing, talking about different parts of
the industry, sharing our stories. And I really came away from that event feeling so inspired by
the women that I'd met and thought, "Hey, this could be a real thing here."
Another thing I'd noticed in the industry was that it's very hard to find good information. There's
a lot of great information out there. There's a lot of amazing cadet schemes. There's a lot of
amazing scholarships, but that you really do have to dig through the internet to find them a lot of
the time. So, I also thought it'd be great to have a bit of a one-stop shop for lots of aviation
knowledge and just where to find things basically.
So, I went away, took six months, and built the Elevate(her) platform, which I then launched on
my Instagram. And yeah, that's really how the journey began, to be honest. And it really started
as a way of connecting people and just really providing some support and some useful links and
things like that. But it's grown to so much more now, I'm really proud to say.
[0:30:21] IP: How has the organization evolved since the beginning and getting the platform
launched?
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AVT 343 Transcript
[0:30:26] KM: Oh my goodness. It's evolved massively, to be honest. If you told me when I
launched it this is what would happen, I wouldn't have believed you. I launched it on my
Instagram. Obviously, just me. And now I work with 25 women and mostly volunteers, or
majority volunteers. And we're now a global organization. We have thousands of members in
over 64 countries worldwide. We've hosted 37 events this year already in five different
countries. We work with incredible partners like British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, NAT, Cirrus,
Tecnam. And that has been incredibly exciting journey.
We do a huge amount of educational outreach now and lots and lots of research. I think the
research has been the most interesting aspect for me, probably across the board, to be honest.
Where we're going with our research and how it's directing Elevate(her) as a platform is
incredibly exciting. Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's unrecognizable from what it launched as, and it's
all due to what an amazing team we have, but also to the women who are our members. The
success of Elevate(her) is purely a reflection of how many women and girls want to be in this
industry and want to stay in this industry as well.
[0:31:32] IP: Do you hear similar things from people that are approaching the organization that
you were kind of thinking when you were looking for ways to get into aviation?
[0:31:41] KM: Yes, we do. There's certainly a few common themes. Again, I am kind of
generalizing a little bit here. But particularly, we find that with young women, confidence is one
of the things that's brought up to us a lot. And I think that's why having a community and a
support system is so incredibly important because you need that group of people around you
who's going to lift you up and be there for you when you do have hard days.
And aviation is the most incredible industry to be involved in. But it can be really challenging. No
matter what career path you go for, whether it's flying, whether it's engineering, or ATC, it can be
really hard. We're all about building those communities all over the world and ensuring people
have that support system ready for them.
[0:32:24] IP: What advice do you have for people, anybody, but young women in particular,
looking to get into aviation? I have an interest. Maybe they've taken an aptitude test that says
you would be a good pilot or something like that, and they don't really know where to start.
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AVT 343 Transcript
[0:32:39] KM: Yeah, I think that's a really great question. And to be honest, I actually have
maybe two bits of advice. My first bit of advice would be just give it a go. Just try it because
there's nothing to be lost from trying something. If you try it and love it like I did, then fantastic. If
you try it and you think, "Hey, maybe that's not for me," or maybe it informs your decision about
maybe going down a different path in aviation. I think we always say about our research, all data
is good data. Go out there, try it, and have fun with it as well. I think it's really important to have
fun with your aviation journey.
And the second piece of advice is one I think about quite a lot, and some people may think it's a
little bit funny to say. And I do mean it in the most positive way possible, but no one cares. No
one cares apart from you. So, you may as well go out there and try the things that you want to
try and do the things that you want to do. Because, ultimately, you're the only one it really
matters to. So, you should go out there and, yeah, have fun with it, enjoy it, and just put yourself
out there to try new things.
[0:33:42] IP: Elevate(her) has been intimately involved with getting young women into aviation,
but what about other organizations? What about airlines, or flight schools, or other aviation
companies? Do you see them also being part of that outreach? You mentioned you have some
airline partners. But generally speaking, is there more that can be done that you're not seeing?
Or is there a model to follow that you are seeing?
[0:34:08] KM: Yeah, again a really good question. I think the conversation now is certainly
changing around women in aviation and the need for diversity in the industry as a whole. I think
now is the best it's ever been, to be honest. But look, let's look at the statistics. Globally, only
6% of pilots are women. This is still incredibly low. Yes, of course, there's more things we could
be doing.
And through our research at Elevat(her), we've really separated this into two separate issues.
One is getting girls into aviation, and that comes down to the outreach, the changing of
perceptions, which social media. Love or hate social media, but it's very useful for that, and
those kind of aspects. And then secondly, and actually probably the biggest one, which I would
say the industry as a whole really needs to work on is the retention.
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We've noticed that there is a bit of a leaky pipe in the industry. Even though now we have more
girls getting into aviation than we ever have done historically, the numbers not increasing. The
percentage is not increasing. And I truly believe that this is through retention. When we talk
about retention, we talk about things like a really good maternity leave policy. We talk about
having uniform that's specifically for women and fits correctly, and facilities that are for women.
Even in the UK, we found through some of our research that out of a lot of aviation
organizations in the UK, around 16% still don't have women's toilets. For instance, I know it
sounds like a bit of a small thing, but that obviously is a huge barrier to women staying in the
industry. And we found similar statistics with uniform. Over half of flight schools we found don't
supply a women's uniform. And the same with PPE, life jackets, helmets, gloves. Very rarely we
find ones that are specifically made for the kind of female physique and that actually fit properly.
And all of this contributes to, A, the message of you don't belong here, which is the message we
want to change. And secondly, it stops women staying in the industry. This is really what we're
trying to get down to because aviation as an industry does not compromise on safety at all. It's
one of the things that we pride ourselves on in an industry. So we need to stop compromising
when it comes to women and women's safety coming into the industry, too.
[0:36:25] IP: Do you see that beginning to change at all, or is it still something that awareness is
key here?
[0:36:31] KM: I think awareness is still key here. I think we're at the beginning of this journey. I
mean, certainly, we're doing a lot of research particularly into the equipment and facilities. And
we've not seen any other kind of data surrounding this yet. So I do think we're at the beginning
of the journey. But I do think the reception has been brilliant, certainly, from all the organizations
and other kind of key stakeholders in the industry. Everyone is now very up for seeing the
change and seeing where we can make a difference. Because I do believe that they're small
changes really that could make a huge difference to the whole industry.
[0:37:07] IP: That's fascinating to see that there's – it seems like some low-hanging fruit here
that would make a big impact.
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[0:37:13] KM: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. I totally agree with that. Yeah.
[0:37:18] IP: This has been a fascinating conversation. I want to thank you so much for building
this platform, which we'll have a link in the show notes to Elevate(her) Aviation so that you can
take a look and get involved. If you run an aviation organization, you're thinking, "Oh, that would
be good to have. Maybe we can install a woman's toilet." And that would be good to have. I'm a
little bit flabbergasted by that percentage that that just doesn't exist.
[0:37:42] KM: I am using that one as a bit of a showstopper of a statistic. But yes, no, there's
plenty more. And you're so right. It's low-hanging fruit. And if there are any other organizations
out there that would like to see our research, our research is available on our website as well.
And we're always more than happy to have the discussion and see where we can work
together.
[0:38:03] IP: Katherine Moloney, thank you so much for joining us. Katherine is the founder of
Elevate(her) Aviation and a private pilot of both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Katherine,
absolute pleasure to have you. Thank you so much.
[0:38:15] KM: Thank you so much for having me. It's been lovely.
[BREAK]
[0:38:23] IP: Welcome back. I learned a lot in our conversation. I think one of the things that
really struck me was that the numbers aren't really increasing. The number of young women or
women generally in aviation, they're not increasing even though we have an increasing number
of young women joining the industry. Which as Katherine rightly pointed out, we have a huge
retention problem. I thought that was revealing.
[0:38:55] JR: Good, and that a problem was identified, and now we know it's not just a
recruiting issue. That it's not just they need to recruit more women. It's we need to figure out
how to actually retain that. And that's an extremely different topic that requires a lot more
thought, a lot more figuring out how to stem that kind of loss of obviously a very important
segment of the entire world in our industry. That is a crazy stat.
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[0:39:20] IP: I think the best thing is that they are so focused on research and figuring out things
that are helpful, that work, and that can be replicated across the industry. I think that's a huge
thing. And I hope that conversation was as illuminating for everyone as it was for me.
[0:39:40] JR: Retention's the hardest part. I mean, this is not news, but we've seen the same
thing with the air traffic controller recruitment and training. You can bring a bunch of people into
that first meeting and get them in training. But actually, holding on to those people you've
recruited, it's turning out to be extremely difficult. It requires a very different mindset and very
different approach. Not just getting people in the door, but keeping them around is really the
trick.
[0:40:05] IP: In California this week, the X-59 finally made its first flight. This is the experimental
aircraft commissioned as part of NASA's research into quiet sonic booms. Call them sonic
thuds. This aircraft is goofy-looking, and I love it so much. Designed and built by the Lockheed
Martin Skunk Works. It is a pointy X-Plane-looking X-Plane, and I'm here for it.
The idea is that this uniquely shaped aircraft will create very quiet sonic booms, quiet enough
that you can fly them over cities, which is exactly how they're going to eventually test this
particular aircraft. So, I'm looking forward to that. And, hopefully, NASA proving itself right.
[0:40:57] JR: Yeah, interesting. For sure. wouldn't have expected that this week or really
anytime right now. Apparently, this testing is essential and must go on. I don't think supersonic
travel is essential. But I don't make that call, do I?
[0:41:13] IP: They were ready to fly, and they flew. So, this was a not very long first flight, from
Palmdale to Edwards Air Force Base, where the aircraft will then go on to begin its testing.
[0:41:23] JR: What speed did it make it up to? Do we know?
[0:41:26] IP: Not fast. This was a "Does the plane fly?" test flight.
[0:41:29] JR: Oh, okay. It was doing conventional airplane things.
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[0:41:32] IP: Yes. Yes. It is going to work up to supersonic speeds. And we'll keep you posted
on those tests. In the UK this week, Eastern Airways ceased all operations. This was the not tiny
regional carrier in the UK operating a bunch of regional routes in the northeast, as well as sports
charters for a lot of the UK football teams. So, they had been kind of keeping afloat with some
wet lease work. And with the loss of that, it sounds like they just couldn't make the numbers
work anymore. And unfortunately, they decided to just fold up.
Really unfortunate. Though a number of other airlines have stepped in to offer rescue ferrers.
And a number of other airlines have said, "Hey, Eastern Airways pilots, flight attendants, if you
need a job, we'll put you at the front of the line because we're hiring." So, I thought that was
good.
[0:42:45] JR: 14 aircraft, I believe, in the fleet at time of shutting down. Quite a varied fleet,
ranging from BAE41s all the way up to four E190s these days, too. Some of those ended up
ceasing operations earlier this month. But man, it just seems like small airlines in the UK just
cannot catch a break. It's either your BA or nothing, which doesn't make sense. It's a big
country.
[0:43:17] IP: With a robust air market.
[0:43:21] JR: Yeah. Apparently, not robust enough to make it work for anyone. Is Flybee around
now? I haven't checked my – is Flybee still operating again calendar recently.
[0:43:31] IP: Yeah, you need to – no. They'll give it a go again, I assume, at some point. We'll
have Flybee.
[0:43:40] JR: This time, though – this time they mean business.
[0:43:44] IP: In other, I guess, not great news as far as the reasons for this. Icelandair not doing
as well as they want. Years of "unsustainable losses". As a way to stem the tide on that, they
have moved forward the retirement of its 767 fleet. All of the 767s will leave the airline by the
end of 2026. a target which will move up three years from the end of 2029.
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[0:44:16] JR: That stinks. The days of the 767, at least for passenger airlines, are getting
dimmer and dimmer, at least back in economy. You hate to see it because there really aren't any
bad seats on the 767. At least if you're not like a crazy Russian airline that packs in an extra
seat in every row. There are very few of those. But man, that stinks. I get it. Those have got to
be some of the most expensive aircraft for them to operate compared to the Max and the
321neo. But yeah, as a passenger, you hate to see it.
[0:44:49] IP: Other airlines not having a good time of it. We do our regular check-in with Spirit
Airlines, which –
[0:44:55] JR: Oh, I have to check that calendar, too. Is Spirit Airlines still around? Yes, the
calendar says yes.
[0:44:59] IP: They're still around. They are still around, and they are still ferrying aircraft to the
desert. Currently, at the moment, let's see if we have any – I have a Flight Radar 24 filter called
Spirit Rejections. And that is aircraft that are being flown to various places in the desert, either
Goodyear or Marana, which has been taking in a large collection of Spirit A320 family aircraft as
the lease rejections come into play. But that's not what we're talking about here today. We're
talking about the fact that Spirit now says, "Hey, a merger might be our best option."
[0:45:40] JR: Yeah. Going to be a way different conversation than the last time Spirit tried to
merge or be consumed by either Frontier or JetBlue. Whatever ends up happening is going to
be more picking up the pieces and discarding the scraps. Whereas JetBlue wanted to fully
integrate Spirit. Got to be a real different conversation now. But Ian, have we tipped the scales
of Spirit aircraft parked in the desert somewhere versus planes actually still operating for
Spirits?
[0:46:08] IP: Not quite yet. No.
[0:46:09] JR: Are we going to get there? Or is it even close? Not even close.
[0:46:12] IP: Oh, yeah. We'll get there. We'll get there. Definitely, we will.
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[0:46:14] JR: Oh, great.
[0:46:16] IP: I don't know if that's a good thing, but we'll get there.
[0:46:18] JR: No. It's not good. Not good. But none of it's good news, especially since there are
so many airlines that really need working engines and working aircraft. And Spirit's just dumping
them in the desert because it can't figure out a way to make it work. I don't feel like that's going
to last too long.
[0:46:35] IP: I don't think they'll sit very long, to be perfectly honest.
[0:46:38] JR: No.
[0:46:39] IP: I think Steve Giordano is going to have his hands full moving those to other
airlines pretty soon.
[0:46:47] JR: Good for him. Business must be good.
[0:46:50] IP: Yeah. Let's see. In escalating tensions between the US and Mexico, the US
Department of Transportation yesterday ordered routes that were already approved to be
disapproved. And they proposed the halt of belly cargo to the US from Mexico City's main
airport.
[0:47:21] JR: Ooh, that's stinks.
[0:47:23] IP: Some of the routes that will not be permitted to launch include Aeromexico's route
from Mexico City to San Jose. Sorry. San Juan. Volaris's route from Mexico City to Newark. And
a whole mess of Viva Airbus routes from Mexico City's new airport to Austin, New York,
Chicago, Dallas, Fort Worth, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, and Orlando. One of those
routes was set to begin today.
[0:47:53] JR: Did it begin?
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[0:47:54] IP: It did not.
[0:47:55] JR: Oh, sad. That sucks.
[0:47:59] IP: The other one was set to begin next Tuesday. That was Aeromexico's City San
Juan route.
[0:48:05] JR: And are they easily able to reaccommodate on Delta these days? Again, I've lost
track of can they cooperate with Delta or not? Has the time elapsed that they have to unwind
their JV and that the US-Mexico airline scene is just –
[0:48:21] IP: It's getting ugly.
[0:48:22] JR: Yeah. To be an airline passenger thinking, "Yeah, I'm going to go to Mexico
tomorrow." And then suddenly, your flight doesn't exist because the government said it can't
exist. That's rough. Literally, the next day.
[0:48:34] IP: Yeah. Delta and Aeromexico are still – they've filed a lawsuit objecting to the
termination of the joint venture. That is still in progress. No new news there.
In Australia, the first aircraft has landed at the new Western Sydney airport. A New South Wales
firefighting 737 aircraft landed at the airport, marking the arrival of the – I shouldn't say first
aircraft. First jet. Because they've had previous tests and calibration aircraft use the runway. But
for the first time, a jet has touched down at the new Western Sydney airport as they move closer
to opening that particular port. Phase one includes one runway and a terminal complex. And
then there are additional phases that will see multiple runways and more terminal complexes
opened up.
[0:49:33] JR: Yeah. I know nothing about uh Western Sydney International Airport, which
apparently will have a code of WSI, I guess, which doesn't yet exist in the system. But if I see a
headline that says first jet lands at new airport, and it's a 737-700 aerial firefighting aircraft, I'm
going to talk about that because that's pretty cool.
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[0:49:54] IP: Yeah. That's a an excellent threshold to meet.
[0:50:01] JR: It's way out there, too. Western Sydney International Airport.
[0:50:05] IP: It's West.
[0:50:05] JR: Yeah, it's West. I hope it doesn't come one of those airports that has international
in the name and doesn't actually end up with any international flights. I actually know nothing
about this, and I need to go research. I don't think they're replacing Sydney Airport because that
would be insane.
[0:50:20] IP: Eventually, that's kind of what will happen. Eventually.
[0:50:25] JR: All right.
[0:50:25] IP: A long time from now.
[0:50:26] JR: Hey, if this becomes the real new Sydney, Australia airport. Hey, first jet aircraft
landing there is actually kind of a big deal, or whatever.
[0:50:35] IP: We don't really have a transition for this now because we used up the transition.
[0:50:39] JR: We did earlier. We used it. I don't even remember what it was now. Fell through
the cracks.
[0:50:43] JR: Fell through the cracks. See, that's why we play off each other so well. What
happened? Because I've never heard this before.
[0:50:48] IP: This happened two weeks ago, and it's just kind of coming out this week. But you
know how they make an announcement all the time that says if you drop your phone, don't try
and get it. Tell a crew member.
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[0:51:02] JR: If you drop it in the seat, don't move the seat because the mechanical bits of the
seat could crush the phone and make –
[0:51:10] IP: And then you've got a battery fire on your hand. But what happens if you say drop
your laptop and it falls down the sidewall of the plane and ends up in the cargo area?
[0:51:21] JR: That is a thing I did not know was possible. And yet – man, it must have been a
MacBook Air, because that's a really thin space, I assume, to drop.
[0:51:34] IP: I have no idea how –
[0:51:37] JR: I've never noticed it before. But apparently, there's a slot wide enough for a laptop
of some size to drop from the passenger cabin through the floor of the cabin and into the cargo
hold, which is that's wild. But apparently, that is actually something that happened on a flight out
of Dulles. And they went back to Dulles almost three hours later after reaching the Atlantic
Ocean west or east of Boston. Wow. Okay. I would have believed it if it was a phone. But a
laptop. I guess if you fold a laptop and it's a really thin laptop, and you're really unlucky, that that
could happen. But can you imagine walking up to a flight attendant and be like, "You're never
going to believe what happened. So, I was typing an email. And suddenly –"
[0:52:24] IP: It was gone.
[0:52:25] JR: It's in the cargo hold. I wouldn't even think that's possible. I would have just
thought like it's down on the floor somewhere, and I can't find it because it's dark. It must be
under the seat. It never would have even occurred to me that it would be physically possible for
my laptop to disappear out of the cabin entirely into the cargo hold. Really?
[0:52:48] IP: Part of the big issue here was that the area that the laptop fell into was outside of
the scope of the fire suppression system. So, it became a possible safety issue, where if
something had happened, they wouldn't necessarily have been able to put out a fire with the
suppression system. So wild.
[0:53:12] JR: Yeah.
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[0:53:14] IP: So, a little bit of bizarre news to end this particular episode. This has been episode
343 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here as always with –
[0:53:28] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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