AvTalk Episode 359: Reading them the ROTOR Act

AVT 359 Transcript
EPISODE 359
[EPISODE]
[0:00:08] IP: Hello and welcome to episode 359 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here as always
with –
[0:00:17] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Hello, Ian. What's up?
[0:00:19] IP: Hello, Jason. It's episode 359. It is the A350-900 episode.
[0:00:28] JR: Yes, that's true. The original A350 episode.
[0:00:32] IP: This isn't in the show notes, but are you excited about a possible stretched A350?
[0:00:38] JR: Is that a thing? Are we going beyond the 1000?
[0:00:41] IP: It is something that we’ve talked about last week during Airbus's big year in review
press –
[0:00:50] JR: Annual press conference.
[0:00:51] IP: They hinted that it's possible there could be a stretched version of the A350
beyond the 1000.
[0:01:00] JR: Would it be the 1100, or the 2000? Can you really make that aircraft longer? I
missed this.
[0:01:07] IP: They’re going to try, I guess. Yeah, it was slightly – it was one of those, “Yeah,
we're thinking about it, but we were not seriously there yet.”
[0:01:20] JR: Maybe. You never know.
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AVT 359 Transcript
[0:01:21] IP: There you go. Exactly. You just never know. We'll talk a little bit more about Airbus
later in the show. We're going to talk about more engine stuff and production and all that good
fun stuff. But first, we're going to start with the snow, because there was a lot of it. Jason, have
you dug out yet?
[0:01:37] JR: Yes. Actually, it's mostly melted already. This was a very different snow than what
we had in January, where we stayed below freezing for weeks on end. It's above freezing now,
which is fantastic. Several degrees above zero. But this blizzard, this historic blizzard, man, did
it come out of nowhere. That's why I'm home right now and not on the road recording in a
corporate building's gym, or in a closet, or something. It got me.
[0:02:10] IP: It got you good, too. I mean, we're talking multiple iterations of trying to get to
Dulles from New York. I think we went through –
[0:02:24] JR: Or just any year, really.
[0:02:25] IP: -18 travel arrangements.
[0:02:27] JR: Yeah. This one played out weird. Usually, with the blizzard, you see it coming and
forecasts will tell you, “Hey, next week, something’s cooking.” Like, “Hey, four days from now,
things are going to get pretty snowy. Maybe do something about it.” But for the storm was
ramping up Sunday afternoon into evening and Friday night, all the way up until Friday night, the
forecast was like, “Yeah, you know, we're probably going to get a bit of snow. It'll be a few
inches, or whatever. No big deal.” Then everyone woke up Saturday and apparently, all the
meteorologists drank some Red Bull, or had some coffee, reread some models and said, “Oh,
it's actually going to be a historic blizzard. It's going to be multiple feet of snow, and it starts
tomorrow. Good luck.”
That was a surprise. Caught everyone by surprise. Flights in that of New York, Boston, really
everywhere in New England, I'd say, from Philly, all the way up to Maine were canceled for
nearly two full days. Then icing on the top, just as everything finally reopened at noon on
Tuesday, today, Wednesday morning, we got a bit of a dusting of snow, which was just enough
to throw all three airports back into chaos, because everything that stayed overnight that came
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in after the blizzard, then had to be de-iced to get back out, which when you have to do every
airplane at once, doesn't go all that well.
[0:03:53] IP: No.
[0:03:54] JR: But oof, that one, that was a surprise. My original flight was on Monday. It was
canceled on me. Obviously, I moved it to Tuesday. That was canceled again. Whenever I go
down to Dulles, I also have mirrored Amtrak bookings, because you never know. Again, I was
booked on the same train consecutively two days in a row and it canceled two days in a row. I
just gave up. I tried.
[0:04:19] IP: You did your best.
[0:04:20] JR: And just need this one.
[0:04:21] IP: You did your best.
[0:04:22] JR: I did my best. Amtrak servers did not do their best and went down completely on
Monday night. Yeah, what a mess.
[0:04:33] IP: Well, let's talk about a different mess, because while you were trying to get to
Washington DC yesterday, Congress was already there. They were voting, the House
specifically was voting on the ROTOR Act. This was the piece of legislation that had been
proposed bipartisan support coming out of the Senate. This was Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell
over in the Senate, and they were crafting legislation that would address specific safety
recommendations from the NTSB, not only in the wake of the mid-air collision in Washington
DC, but also long-standing NTSB safety recommendations.
This was the Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Oversight Reform Act. This was passed
unanimously in the Senate in December. At the time of its passage, assistant to the Secretary of
War for Public Affairs and Senior Advisor Sean Parnell said, “The Department of War, thanks
Chairman Cruz, Ranking Member Cantwell, Senator Moran, Senator Marshall, and Senator
Duckworth for their leadership on the Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Oversight
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Reform Act, which would enhance communications to improve aviation safety. The Department
supports this legislation and appreciates the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation's continued partnership and dialogue to account for critical national security
operations. The Department looks forward to continuing the productive dialogue with the
Committee to finalize the bill and working towards its ultimate passage.” That was December
17th.
[0:06:30] JR: Fast forward to February 23rd.
[0:06:32] IP: On February 24th, Tuesday, the same day the House voted on the bill, the same
Sean Parnell said, “The bill would create significant unresolved budgetary burdens and
operational security risks affecting national defense activities.” Further, the Senate version,
“Does not reflect several of the mutually discussed updates negotiated with the Commerce
Committee.”
[0:07:02] JR: Didn't know the Department of Defense ever really cared about cost concerns,
because it's what, half of our federal budget. That's not a legitimate concern on their part. All of
a sudden, just flipped on a dime and suddenly, what they were backing, what they said is good
legislation and will help prevent future disasters, suddenly, “Oh, no. We can't do it, because of
security concerns. We're not going to tell you about cost concerns that don't really matter.”
[0:07:30] IP: What did the ROTOR Act require and why the about face from the Department of
Defense? The ROTOR Act required the adoption of ADS-B in in any place that ADS-B out was
already required, and would create a rulemaking committee to study the feasibility of mandating
ADS-B in all controlled airspace within the US, so even very small airports. As far as the
Department of Defense is concerned, the ROTOR Act would significantly limit the DoD's ability
to operate without active transponders in the national airspace system.
Prior to the crash in Washington DC, the DoD had been using its exemption from the original
ADS-B mandate law that allowed the DoD to conduct flights that included sensitive government
missions, without an active ADS-B transponder. The DoD had taken that definition of sensitive
government missions and expanded it to training missions and carriage of sub-cabinet level
members of government. The ROTOR Act removed that exemption and it also requires that
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Congress be notified if the more limited exemption that the ROTOR Act puts into place is used
more than five times in a given month.
These are the rules that are actually in place at the moment based on the FAA's emergency
powers. This would have codified the emergency rules that are in place as part of the FAA's
ability to make these rules on an emergency basis. The DoD's issue here becomes one of, they
claim to have a national security concern, which is interesting, given that there are still
exemptions within the ROTOR Act. It doesn't prevent them from using those exemptions. They
just need to notify Congress and say, “Hey, we're using these exemptions.” They don't need to
notify them ahead of time. They just need to notify them within two weeks, if they use them
more than five times within a month.
[0:09:36] JR: Mere paperwork is all that was.
[0:09:39] IP: That's one of the issues raised by the DoD. Elsewhere, there's the argument that
there's a competing bill. Some folks would say, it's not a competing bill. It's a companion bill that
addresses some of these same issues. Families of the victims of the DC midair collision were in
favor of the passage of the ROTOR Act. They wrote a letter to the Senate sponsor, Senator
Cruz, saying, “While we recognize that additional work remains to fully address all NTSB
recommendations, ROTOR is a critical step that can reduce known and documented risks in our
airspace today. Acting now does not preclude further reform. It begins it.”
The argument from some of the congressional staffers, as well as Congress people in the
House said, the ROTOR Act is very prescriptive. It says what the FAA has to do. It says what
the DoD has to do. It doesn't address holistically all 50 of the safety recommendations that
came out of the NTSB's final report on the DC midair collision.
[0:10:54] JR: There's been a lot of back and forth. There's a good New York Times article that
we'll link to in the show notes that sums a lot of this up. But there seems to be, I'm not going to
say, intentional misrepresentation, but potentially a knowledge gap here, wielded by those in
Congress, which will be the first time. Certainly, won't be the last time. But the Times quotes
Sam Graves, a Republican from Missouri, and unfortunately, the Chairman of the House
Transportation Infrastructure Committee on the House for saying that the systems required by
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the ROTOR Act are “Emerging technology,” that could cause a quote again, “Operations crisis.”
Really don't know what that means, nor does Jennifer Homendy, the Chairwoman of the NTSB,
who calls them just straight out false.
We think, or what assumed is the technology he's talking about is ADS-B in, which is absolutely
not an emerging technology. Applications of it in commercial aviation may be emerging, but the
technology itself is absolutely not emerging. Hell, the Twin Otter operated by WINAIR, I flew in
St. Martin a couple of weeks ago, that had ADS-B in, which is actually quite interesting as a
passenger appearing over the shoulders of the pilots, looking at the other air traffic around us in
very congested airspace. It was helpful for me even as a passenger. But that is in no way in
emerging technology. I cannot possibly fathom how requiring ADS-B in would cause operations
crisis. That is nonsensical. That wasn't all Ms. Jennifer Homendy had to say, was it?
[0:12:34] IP: No, it was not. Because after the failure to pass the ROTOR Act yesterday, I will
note, by one vote in Congress – one thing to note here is that the bill had considerable support.
It was, yes, votes were 264 in the house. It had considerable support. But because of the way
the bill was advanced to the house, it required a two-thirds majority to pass. It missed that by
one vote. After the bill failed to pass, NTSB Chair, Jennifer Homendy, just simply asked, “How
many more people have to die?”
[0:13:16] JR: Basically, the actual quote was, “How many more people need to die for us to
decide that action needs to be taken?” Jennifer Homendy is not someone who is afraid to say
what she's thinking and does not mince words. I am not surprised at all to hear this from her. I
have a feeling we'll be hearing more from her in the coming weeks. This must have just been
absolutely crushing from the point of view of the NTSB to have the ROTOR Act fully
encompassing, I think, all 50 of their recommendations on the FAA.
[0:13:49] IP: This is where I agree, the ROTOR Act doesn't encompass all 50 of the
recommendations. It seems that the house is taking the view that if they pass the ROTOR Act,
they can't pass the ALERT Act. Rather than viewing them as necessarily competing bills, it's
certainly possible to view them as companion bills. Yes, there is some conflict about how that
would work and those things would need to be worked out. I don't think it's one of those things
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where they're mutually exclusive, or their goals are mutually exclusive. We'll see where we go
from here.
As Jason mentioned, Jennifer Homendy, who chairs the NTSB, is not a stranger to arguing
vociferously for safety improvements. To that end, we will in fact be talking with her on next
week's episode of the podcast, about safety improvements, about the NTSB's mission in
general, and frankly, what we do from here to advance the cause of safety in the wake of the
ROTOR Act's failure to pass this week.
[0:15:01] JR: All right. I really alluded to the possibility of talking to her. You just put it out there.
Okay. No secrets here on this podcast.
[0:15:08] IP: We're adding it to the schedule. No, I want people to tune in next week, because I
think it's going to be a fantastic conversation.
[0:15:15] JR: She’s getting mad.
[0:15:15] IP: Stay tuned for that.
[0:15:16] JR: Rightfully so.
[0:15:18] IP: Stay tuned for that next week. We will, I'm sure, revisit the topic. Speaking of
topics revisited, Spirit, Jason, they say they have a plan.
[0:15:30] JR: That's great. Do we know what it is?
[0:15:33] IP: Sort of?
[0:15:34] JR: Sorta, kinda. It’s up in the air. Kinda, sorta.
[0:15:39] IP: Better, more premium?
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[0:15:41] JR: They've got three bullet points, key aspects of the new Spirit. This is big. An
optimized network, they say. More premium choices and Ian, stronger financials.
[0:15:53] IP: Oh, that's good.
[0:15:54] JR: That's a three-bullet point plan to success. This time, they mean it. What we're
talking about here is Spirit plans to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, again, late spring, or
early summer. They have a plan, they say, to – this time, it’s different.
[0:16:08] IP: They probably still have the sign from the last time they emerged from bankruptcy.
They hang it up in the break room.
[0:16:12] JR: You can just dust it off. That's stronger financials. You don't have to print the same
materials again. You've already got it. Optimized network, they say they're going to align its
networking capacity to routes and periods of strongest demand, higher aircraft utilization during
peak days, while reducing off peak flying, as well as the flexibility to adjust to seasonal demand
across markets. Why weren't they doing that already? Hmm. More premium choices, so more of
the same here. They were already rolling out, or we're going to roll out at some point, first-class
seats, or premium economy. That is still an ongoing thing. Stronger financials. They just say,
they will reduce their cost structure, expanding cost advantage compared to legacy airlines.
Apparently, their debt's going to be reduced from 7.4 billion to approximately 2.1 billion post-
emergence, which is a big difference. Growing by shrinking, we know does not work. Will it work
for Spirit this time? Who knows? A lot of nice A320neos and COs in yellow, if you like it out there
on the market, though.
[0:17:18] IP: That's true. Except the two that they chopped up and sold for parts, but beyond
that –
[0:17:23] JR: What the actual plan is? They're not saying just yet. Stay tuned, because this time
it's going to be different.
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[0:17:29] IP: Exactly. Exactly. Over the weekend, actually, there was a military operation in
Mexico to capture one of the most notorious drug cartel leaders. That capture then led to cartel
violence at multiple airports in Mexico, including Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara. Both of those
airports canceled, or not the airports, but airlines at those airports canceled many, many, many,
many flights. Some continued to operate, which is –
[0:18:09] JR: Did they? Really?
[0:18:10] IP: - interesting to me. Things were relatively back to normal by Tuesday. But Sunday
and Monday, it was quite scary. There were shelter-in-place orders from the local government
and then other embassies telling their citizens, including the US, Canada, selling their citizens to
shelter-in-place. Don't try and get to the airport, because there are flaming roadblocks and
roaming gunmen. Not necessarily something you want to encounter when you're trying to make
your flight. Airlines canceled a ton of flights at these two airports, in particular. But then, on
Tuesday, things seemed like they were back to normal. Airlines moving again. A pair of
Canadian airlines, including Air Canada and Air Transat, sent larger aircraft. Air Canada sent in
place of a MAX 8, they sent a 787-9. Air Transat, instead of a 321neo, sent a 330-300 to move
more passengers and get folks moving home. Just another aviation impact from geopolitical
machinations.
[0:19:20] JR: Yeah. That was another one of those events that I only learned about through
receiving an email from United about a change waiver being issued, which seems to be the way
I learn about a lot of worldwide events. It must be a non-stop, never-ending job at a global
airline to know about all of the things happening in all of the places you not only operate to, but
also fly over, about what's going on there, what's bursting into flames on the road, on the
approach to the airport. I would love to better understand how airlines keep track of all of this,
because they seem to do it very well, very quickly.
[0:20:02] IP: We can talk more about that. I'm not prepared to answer that question at the
moment, but we can definitely do that. I think that would be a fun episode to have, because the
answers are both incredibly complex and also, comically mundane –
[0:20:22] JR: Those are the best –
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[0:20:22] IP: - depending on what we're talking about. Yeah. All right, we'll come back to that.
That's a good idea for a future episode. I've added that one to the notes. Let's head to Germany
now, where we've got a couple of good stories, and they both center on Munich. Today,
Lufthansa brought home the A380 painted in the airlines’ special centennial livery registration –
[0:20:45] JR: It is a looker.
[0:20:46] IP: It is. DAIMH. Mike, hotel came home today to Munich. It looks very, very good. I
can't wait to see it. The only photo I've seen is on the ground so far. I cannot wait to see a flying
photo of it, because I think the double deck crane, I think just looks very good.
[0:21:10] JR: Yeah. I only just learned from someone on social media that it had – I don't
remember where, but a top-down view of it, the crane wings on the centennial livery are –
[0:21:21] IP: No, Jason. You learned this from the podcast when they came out with it, and I
explained all of that.
[0:21:27] JR: No, I don't remember that. I don't remember that. I only learned about this
yesterday. Because I actually saw the picture of it from above, which we didn't have at the time,
but we have it now. On the A380, at least the rendering, I never listened to you, but it's all that
much, all that much more evident on an aircraft quite this large. But what a turnaround story for
Lufthansa's A380 from being completely sidelined, removed from the fleet. What did what did
Christina Foerster say at the time? There would have to be some tremendous otherworldly
return in travel demand for us to bring the A380 back. Now it wears their 100th anniversary
centennial livery. What a comeback.
[0:22:06] IP: What a comeback, indeed. That's the good news at Munich. Jason, what else
happened at Munich this week?
[0:22:12] JR: Oh, it's all downhill from there. Apparently, it snows in Germany sometimes, and
they don't quite handle it as well as we do here in New York, which is a real low bar. Out in
Munich, apparently, it's known quite a lot. Not only Lufthansa, but a number of airlines, I'm
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paraphrasing from an article here from The Independent, pushed back or had late departures
from Munich, which has a very strict curfew.
[0:22:42] IP: We talked about the Munich curfew before, most recently a Condor flight, I think,
from –
[0:22:48] JR: A minute late.
[0:22:49] IP: - maybe a year ago. Not even a minute. I mean, they were over the threshold of
the runway when the clock ticked over.
[0:22:54] JR: Well, in this case, they actually extended the curfew by an entire hour to 1 a.m.
De-icing is very difficult, especially when it's wet, heavy snow. It takes a long time to deice
aircraft, especially if you have to do a whole bunch of them, and you might have to do it multiple
times for whatever reason. But a bunch of flights late in the day, delayed, pushed back, went out
to get de-iced in for whatever reason, were not able to get out before the 1 a.m. curfew. That's
where things really went downhill, because an airport with a curfew, they turn into a pumpkin
overnight, and everyone goes home, and they turn off the lights, and everyone comes back the
next day, which is really unfortunate if you're operating flights, and you can't bring them back to
the gate, or do anything, or even get passengers off the plane, because, “All bus drivers had
already gone home.”
You had situations where passengers were on a short-haul configured aircraft. If you've ever
been on a Lufthansa A320, you do not want to be on that aircraft for more than an hour or two.
But passengers were trapped onboard the entirety of the night, because there was no staff on
the ground to drive a bus up to the aircraft and bring passengers back to the terminal, which
was not even open, which is really shocking that this would be allowed to happen at all, that the
airport would allow its staff to just abandon flights that are out on the ramp out there, or
wherever they were, being de-iced on a pad, and just saying, “Okay, we're done. Going home.”
Apparently, they have apologized. Lufthansa has apologized to their passengers for this
unacceptable situation, and Munich Airport is doing everything it can to make sure that does not
happen again.
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I am really curious to know how somebody at Munich Airport obviously knew this was going on
and still said, “Yeah, you know, whatever. It is what it is. They're stuck for the night.” That should
never be allowed.
[0:24:50] IP: Rules are rules, Jason. Rules are rules.
[0:24:53] JR: But this is –
[0:24:55] IP: Rules are rules.
[0:24:56] JR: Okay, rules are rules. Rules are rules. You're right. Should never have been
allowed to happen. But sometimes snow gets the best of all of us.
[0:25:09] IP: In a follow-up and hopefully, conclusion to a story that we first talked about
probably a year ago now, the Serious Fraud Office in the UK has concluded its investigation.
Now, the Director of AOG Technics, Jose Alejandro Zamora Yrala, will spend four years and
eight months in prison for more than 60,000 counterfeit CFM engine parts sold between January
2019 and July of 2023. The company made 10 million dollars in that time. The Serious Fraud
Office says 90% of that was from fraud.
[0:26:02] JR: All right, consequences. We've actually got some consequences. That's so rare
these days. I mean, not exactly like the, what was it? Madagascar that rounded up half the
country and prosecuted them for fraud.
[0:26:13] IP: I mean, that brought down the government, basically.
[0:26:17] JR: Yeah, that was an interesting one. I hope they're able to round up some additional
people here, just than this one person with far too many words in their name. Man, 90% of your
business being fraud, I feel like that's above average, even for a mafia-run front, they're
probably –
[0:26:32] IP: I mean, what's really interesting to me is that there was 10% where it was
legitimate.
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[0:26:36] JR: Yeah. Where does that come from?
[0:26:38] IP: Why not commit? Why not just commit to fraud?
[0:26:39] JR: At 90? Yeah, just go to the full 100%. Nobody's buying 10%. That's crazy. But
apparently, 60,000 engine parts sold from January 2019. Before even the COVID supply chain
crunch. This has been going on for a long time to July 2023. That was allowed to go on for far
too long. I don't know how far along the aviation industry is in digitizing records for parts.
Probably, not that far along. Talking about emerging technology is there. But not great. At least,
there was consequences for one person.
[0:27:18] IP: Yeah. Well, more than more than one person. But this person was the central
director for the for this and –
[0:27:26] JR: Not a whole lot of jail time now, or prison time. How long was it? Four years –
[0:27:31] IP: Four years, eight months.
[0:27:32] JR: That's not a whole lot of time for 10 million dollars’ worth of 90% fraud.
[0:27:40] IP: I don't make the rules. I just read the page that has the rules.
[0:27:46] JR: That's true. A lot of rules discussion this episode. Good thing he wasn't in Munich.
That would have been somewhere worst.
[0:27:53] IP: He'd still be stuck on a plane.
[0:27:55] JR: Just lock him in a Lufthansa A320 for four years, eight months, he'll never commit
a crime again.
[0:28:00] IP: God. That is prison in itself. Let's talk about some orders, deliveries, and the
business of making and delivering aircraft. We have two finalized orders and expanded orders
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from Vietnam. These were first placed as part of the recently signed trade agreement between
the United States and Vietnam. New airline, which up until now has only had Airbus A320 family
aircraft, has ordered, Sun Phu Quoc has ordered up to, according to Boeing, 40 787s. The
airline on its part says, 40. That's the number we ordered. Somebody needs to talk to somebody
else to see how many aircraft they've actually ordered. That's a lot of 787s.
[0:28:51] JR: It's also a weird one from an airline I've never heard of before, that they're very
new.
[0:28:55] IP: They’re new. Yeah.
[0:28:56] JR: They seem to be going down the same path as Bamboo did. We know how that
turned out for a Bamboo. It was really not good. It seems to be the same exact path, except this
Vietnamese airline kind of reminds me of also Allegiant’s failed attempt at doing all of the things,
where they also had resorts and they tried to keep everything in house and that didn't work for
Allegiant. Apparently, this Vietnamese startup was to be a very premium, very international 787-
heavy airline. There are so many airlines before them that have tried to do this that have failed
spectacularly up to, and including other Vietnamese companies. I don't know.
I do just love the rendering of the 787 that has this magnificent built out airport that doesn't
actually exist and they never actually exist at their hub, that I'm pretty sure also doesn't exist
right now. A lot of hypotheticals being thrown around with this airline.
[0:29:56] IP: A very rendered scene. On the other side of, yeah, this makes sense and I can
understand things, Vietnam Airlines has firmed an order for 50 737 MAX 8. That one is a much
more –
[0:30:11] JR: Hey, that's a real airline.
[0:30:13] IP: - straightforward order, “Hey, we want some planes.” We talked about Airbus's
year in review press conference. As part of that guidance, Airbus talked about how many
A320neo family aircraft it wants to build per month. Now, they are targeting, instead of 75 per
month by the end of 2027, they're only targeting between 70 and 75, because of the continued –
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[0:30:43] JR: Towards a range, instead of a –
[0:30:45] IP: It’s a range now. Yes.
[0:30:47] JR: I feel like, it always should have been a range.
[0:30:49] IP: You got to have a number, I guess.
[0:30:50] JR: There's so much more leeway there.
[0:30:53] IP: Yeah. This is continued engine supply constraints. We're dealing with engine
supply constraints for the Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engines and the CFM LEAP 1A's.
Continued supply constraints all the way through the end of time at this point.
[0:31:11] JR: Yeah, it really seem –
[0:31:12] IP: Will ever get to a point where we have enough engines.
[0:31:14] JR: Yeah, it seems like, whatever happened during COVID, this is the new normal. It's
never changing. It's never getting better. The supply chain will always be broken. Until we get to
the next, next generation of engines, which hopefully, is a little as bleeding edge, it's never
getting any better, is it?
[0:31:30] IP: It doesn't seem like it. No. But if you want to assemble aircraft and you need a
different place than your current final assembly line, you could say, change from Brazil to India,
which is what Embraer is going to do. They've signed an enhanced MOU with India.
[0:31:53] JR: I didn't know that was such a thing. I thought you went from –
[0:31:55] IP: I didn’t either.
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[0:31:56] JR: - a memorandum of understanding directly to a – no, a letter of intent to a
memorandum of understanding with actual firm deals. This is somewhere in the middle?
[0:32:05] IP: This is an enhanced memorandum of understanding.
[0:32:08] JR: Operates E175s in India. Nobody? What?
[0:32:13] IP: But they're going to build them there.
[0:32:14] JR: Usually, when you insource, or outsource, I guess, production of an aircraft is
because there's some reason you need to build them in that country. In the US, you have the
A220s built in Alabama, and the A320 family, of course, because there are either so many
aircraft in that country that it makes sense, or because there's some other stupid reason, like
tariffs being put in place. Airbus has its A320 final assembly line in Tianjin, China, because there
are just so many Airbus narrow bodies going to Chinese Airlines. I assume this is a final
assembly line in India, but I can't name a single Indian airline that operates any Embraer
aircraft, or even has any on order, or am I just not thinking of any off the top of my head?
[0:33:02] IP: If you build it, they will come.
[0:33:04] JR: Or if you build it there, it'll just be cheaper?
[0:33:09] IP: This is a consortium of Embraer, Indian defense and aerospace contractor, the
Adani Group, as well as Hindustan Aeronautics, they would manufacture the aircraft locally,
because India is scrapping custom duties on airframe and engine components. Interesting,
nonetheless, but we'll see.
[0:33:33] JR: Okay. Not going –
[0:33:36] IP: It’s only an enhanced MOU.
[0:33:39] JR: It may never happen. But yeah, it's very interesting, because this isn't really to aid
Indian aviation, or to build them closer to home. It's not like Air India has an outstanding order
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for 100 E175s. That's only for American, Delta, and United to do. I guess, it's probably just
cheaper to build there.
[0:34:00] IP: That, too. Let's talk about Frontier, while we're talking about things that are
cheaper, sort of. What are they up to, Jason?
[0:34:11] JR: Unless you fly out of JFK, then the great Frontier experiment that seems to have
come out of nowhere back in 2024 is now nearly entirely gone, which is really interesting. As a
great breakdown, because of course, if there's a topic like this, Brett Snyder over at Cranky Flier
will have a breakdown, and indeed, he does, of the divergent paths of Frontier operating at JFK
and LAX2, very high-cost airports. While they continue to ramp up LAX, they have almost
entirely gutted JFK, leaving only a flight to Atlanta, likely because that's another base for
Frontier. But all of the flights from, I guess, they had flights to San Juan, LAX, Miami, Orlando,
Tampa, they had a lot of flights seemingly out of nowhere, they came into JFK. Just like that,
they're all gone, but they're still building up LAX, until they don't.
That was interesting times to see an ultra-low-cost carrier, like Frontier at JFK, because LAX is
LAX. It gets everyone. It gets Spirit. It gets Allegiant. It gets Frontier. But JFK is not somewhere
you'd expect to see Frontier. Apparently, they now agree.
[0:35:35] IP: They've run the numbers, and they agreed with the original assessment of
everyone but themselves.
[0:35:41] JR: Yeah, they're currently use the old terminal seven for their operations at JFK. The
days are numbered for that terminal. Maybe they looked at the new terminal six and said,
“Whoa, that's too fancy for us. We're out of here.”
[0:35:54] IP: Fair enough. A couple stories to close the show this week. One is a FlightRadar24
story. This week, we –
[0:36:07] JR: I've heard of them.
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[0:36:08] IP: Yes, briefly. This week, we fully enabled global space-based ADS-B with Aireon’s
data integrated into FlightRadar24. While it's within our terrestrial coverage network, or other
space-based networks that we pull data from, you'll see those. Otherwise, you'll get to see
flights tracked by satellites with Aireon’s data. That comes in 15-minute increments when it's
outside our coverage area. This is full coverage over the oceans, over the poles, over the –
[0:36:53] JR: Even over the poles, really?
[0:36:54] IP: Even over the poles. Yup. This is everywhere all the time. Very cool to be able to
plug that gap and be able to keep on tracking those flights, even outside of our traditional
coverage, where we lack terrestrial coverage, or otherwise, lack coverage. You can notice those
in the app, or on the site with a thin blue outline around the yellow icon. Or if you click on the
flight and it's being tracked by Aireon, it'll say in the banner, just below the photograph of that
particular aircraft. Have a look at that and go check that out. That is available across all the
platforms, so web, Android, and iOS at the moment.
On the flip side, if you're listening to this thinking, I'm an air navigation service provider, or a
national government, or something like that, and I'm looking for data, FlightRadar24 data is also
now integrated into Aireon products as well. Those products are now enhanced by unique data
that we can offer that Aireon doesn't necessarily have on its own.
[0:38:06] JR: Neat. Yeah, you really have –
[0:38:06] IP: That was a lot of fun.
[0:38:09] JR: You have to really zoom in on the map in places you wouldn't ordinarily zoom in
on the map to see some of these flights, like Haneda to Frankfurt. Hey, didn't we just talk about
them last week? They are not returning.
[0:38:19] IP: Oh, good.
[0:38:20] JR: They are continuing on –
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[0:38:21] IP: You scared me for a second.
[0:38:23] JR: Now, you have to zoom in really in a place on the map you wouldn't ordinarily
zoom in and there they are, tracked by satellite. They've got this very, very, very faint blue line
around them, and there they are, tracked in a place where I don't think you can stick a receiver.
It still surprises me to this day when I zoom in and play around on the map that there is a flight
not all that far southwest of that one, Haneda to Paris, which is apparently being tracked by
terrestrial ADS-B. Where the hell is that receiver? Because there is nothing out there.
[0:38:57] IP: There's always an island somewhere.
[0:38:59] JR: Somewhere. Yeah, it's using the map in ways Apple didn't really ever intend to be
zooming in on. Coverage everywhere. That's pretty cool. Or should I say, really cool.
[0:39:13] IP: You should say really cool.
[0:39:14] JR: Why?
[0:39:14] IP: Because this last story comes to us from Really Cool Airlines. Yes, that is their
actual name, or will be when they eventually get going. This is a startup airline out of Thailand. I
was going to make this a brief mention and just say, “Hey, there's an airline called Really Cool,”
whatever. But then I started reading this article from CH Aviation, and it actually is super
interesting what they're doing, or rather why they're doing it. The airline was planning to launch
with A330-300s. Now, they are revising their submission to the Thai regulator to get an AOC for
777-200ERs. They're doing that because the leasing costs for the A330 more than doubled in
the period they went from starting with this idea to getting to the point where they said, “No, we
can't make the economics work if we do that.”
This has been in process for a while. They also briefly considered A350s, which they were going
to pick up when Qatar was in its fight with Airbus and was not accepting any A350s. Airbus was
getting to the point where they were going to start remarketing those. Those costs have also
doubled as well. The A330 leasing costs went from about $200,000 per month, and are now
about $450,000 per month.
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[0:40:55] JR: Ouch.
[0:40:56] IP: Yes.
[0:40:57] JR: Yeah. I don't know much about this airline. I'm just browsing their website now
and there hasn't been an update since 2024, which is not a good sign. But I want to know more.
I clicked on their About Us page and I'll quote the line here. “Really Cool Airlines is a full-service
international airline that distinguishes itself by incorporating innovation and technology into its
services to create interest and open new market opportunities.” Word salad?
[0:41:26] IP: Sure.
[0:41:26] JR: Sure. Why not? I feel like that's every airline in the world that distinguishes itself
by incorporating innovation and technology into its service to create interesting and new market
opportunities. That's meaningless. I like its logo, though, and I like its livery and I hope to see it
on an actual –
[0:41:42] IP: A 777-200ER.
[0:41:42] JR: 777-200ER one day, although the rendering on this website still in A350. What the
heck is going on with this airline? I don't know. They should probably update their website a little
bit, maybe. Because they say, 2025 take off. Last time I checked my calendar, it's no longer
2025.
[0:42:02] IP: Well, there's that.
[0:42:04] JR: I'm going to watch it to come –
[0:42:05] IP: We'll have to see, though. We'll have to see what happens. All right. We're going to
call that an episode, so Jason can go watch the promo video. This has been episode 359 of
AvTalk. Don't forget to tune in next week when we speak with NTSB Chair, Jennifer Homendy.
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AVT 359 Transcript
That is sure to be a fantastic conversation and one that I'm very much looking forward to. I am
Ian Petchenik, here as always with –
[0:42:31] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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