The Nordic airline, Scandinavian Airline(SAS), is looking to modernize a good portion of its current fleet of 737 and MD-80 aircraft and Bombardier is reportedly favored to win with its CS300.
SAS owns a pretty varied fleet which includes both Airbus A320 series aircraft as well as old and new generation 737s (including the unpopular 737-600). A more harmonized fleet would help.
The problem is, SAS doesn’t necessarily need aircraft that are necessarily big players on medium haul routes. While it does need some higher capacity aircraft for leisure destinations, it needs smaller capacity aircraft in bigger numbers for frequency.
The CS300 has a nominal maximum range of at least 2200nm and that’s enough for SAS’s world in Europe. That would allow them to serve all of europe from their hubs of Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo or any of their other focus cities as well. Take a look at what 1900nm range gets you from Stockholm by clicking HERE.
It’s notable that this airline is the only airline that found a real use for the 737-600 and bought 28 of them. They also have a number of -500 models as well.
The Cs300 would probably fit well into their strategy and offer them a light aircraft with good capacity for flying frequency in their stronghold(s). They would get an efficient engine for this kind of flying as well.
My guess is that the Boeing aircraft will go away completely over time and SAS will buy more Airbus aircraft for routes requiring more capacity. Boeing just doesn’t have anything in its product line up that fits the SAS model.
A lot of people believe the CS300 isn’t going anywhere and even I wondered but it seems to me that this might be just the kind of niche Bombardier needs to serve.
The dirty little secret in aircraft sales are the subsidies that are used both in the United States and Europe to bolster their exports. You see, you can actually affect your trade balance by selling just a few extra aircraft and that really isn’t possible to do with virtually any other industry.
Right now, foreign airlines such as Emirates or Ryanair can purchase airliners using financing from sources such as the US government in the form of low cost loans. If we sell and deliver more 737s to Ryanair or 777s to Emirates, it helps our trade balance. The airlines get to grow with lower costs that are a function of these loans that offer lower than market interest rates.
And let’s face it, Ryanair and Emirates aren’t exact airlines in need of subisidies.
The same situation exists in Europe with Airbus. You didn’t think that United Airlines and Northwest Airlines bought those Airbus A320s at market rates, did you?
To date, it’s been the dirty little secret among governments and the manufacturers. Recently, US airlines started pointing out the inherent disadvantages of this when it comes to their ability to compete and they’ve got a strong point.
The truth is, sudsidies aren’t necessarily bad if we’re using them to bolster transportation in parts of the world where obtaining any financing is difficult. But we’re not. Not really. It’s a good idea that has been turned on its head with loopholes for situations that just no longer exist.
Now a pack of airlines who are major beneficiaries have indicated that they are open to relaxing the “home country” rule that forbids such subsidies being offered to airlines in home countries as long as no restrictions are put into place that would inhibit their own great deals. Read more about it HERE.
How nice. It’s notable that removal of this “home rule” would also permit several of these airlines to get the same great financing in Europe on Airbus models in addition to Boeing aircraft.
How about we end all subsidies to all airlines with the exception(s) of those in true third world areas? Is it appropriate that an airline like Ryanair can purchase airliners from Boeing at already ridiculously low prices and then finance them with such low cost loans that they’re able to buy a 737 and re-sell it for a *profit* 3 years later?
No, of course not.
A better idea would be to come to an agreement on how to offer these subisidies to airlines in poor countries who might really benefit from such a subsidy and then eliminate such things for any airlines operating in modern economies.
This means you Ryanair/Emirates/Virgin Blue/Etihad/CargoLux/Oman/Norwegian/Pegasus/Wizz airlines. Not a one of you is a disadvantaged airline. Instead, you’re all airlines who are pounding your competition into the ground with lower costs that really are a direct function of these subisidies.
Before anything else today, let me say this: I’m quite sure that very few security officers in the TSA are truly evil or have even bad intent. I suspect most are just trying to earn a living in a world where that has become quite a bigger challenge in the past few years.
After reading a CNN story found HERE, I got curious as to what we’re buying when it comes to security. So I checked jobs at the TSA website to see what was being advertised. What I was interested in was the going rate for a TSA officer.
I was more disappointed than I expected and that’s saying something.
Apparently most of these jobs start as part time and can continue to be so for as much as 3 years. That means less benefits and the officer will almost certainly be working another job to make it in this world. Anyone who has worked 2 jobs will tell you that that is a draining experience. Even if you’re working a steady 40 hours as week, a 2 job lifestyle is much harder on a person than a single steady one job lifestyle.
We pay these vaunted officers $14 / hour roughly to do this job part time. Again, in this world we actually life in, that ain’t much. Do people survive on less? Sure. Do many people survive on less? No. We have this idea that honest work at low pay rewards and frankly as someone who has done honest work at low pay, I can tell you it doesn’t reward you. It just stresses you out and generally depresses you.
I wonder how vigilant the average person is working 2 jobs (at least) for pretty low pay in an environment that places them on the frontline for abuse?
If a worker gets a full time gig, they earn about $29,000 a year and they stop out at a stunning $43,000 per year. These folks can make a maximum of $43K per year and that equates roughly to someone over 25 years of age who has achieved an Associates Degree.
Look at it differently. The median income for an officer lies somewhere in the vicinity of $36,000 / year. My point is that we are, at the very best, hiring the middle section of people who below average in capability as determined by earnings.
Then we abuse them a bit more with lackluster benefits (their healthcare can cost hundreds of dollars per month if they think they can afford it and they probably cannot without working a 2nd job again.)
Let me suggest that we want security officers who are *more* capable than average. We want officers who are more vigilant than average. We want officers who we would at the least hire to be police officers in a major city (and they aren’t) and we probably want a better person than entry level police material.
Because good security involves critical thinking and the exercise of good judgement. That costs something. Instead, we’re hiring a person who is roughly qualified to work at a Sears department store.
Tim Clark says Emirates wants more range from Airbus and its A350-1000 than it presently offers and it expects more from Boeing’s 777-300ER, too. The airline is unsatisfied with the inability to serve ultra-long haul routes from Dubai with what it considers adequate payload. Adequate payload is carrying 350 passengers from Dubai to Los Angeles with a full cargo/baggage load in about 16.5 hours.
Frankly, that’s expecting a lot from even advanced technology. We’re getting there but the big problem is how much fuel you have to carry to achieve those distances with those loads. Those distances begin to require airliners to carry more fuel in order to carry more fuel for range and you can guess how quickly the diminishing returns show up on such a prospect.
Lighter but stronger aircraft can solve that but we’ve already seen what a challenge that can be with the 787. There is no doubt that the manufacturers will figure out how to do it somewhere along the line but my gut tells me that this isn’t a problem solved with a better wing or better engine. It’ll require re-thinking the large widebody airliner in a way that will require even better composites and other lightweight materials.
It takes time to develop and test those materials. It can take a lot of time to even figure out how to ramp up production on these exotic materials. We still haven’t seen 787 partners prove they can meet production demands for CFRP fuselage barrels. I think they can but the proof is in the pudding and we haven’t tasted the pudding yet.
My gut tells me we are at least 15 years away from producing a truly revolutionary widebody capable of carrying 40+ tons of payload for those ranges. We’ll get there and it’s time to start thinking about it but don’t look for such an aircraft in the next 10 years. It won’t be showing up.
Besides, it’s a relatively limited market and it’s become clear that the manufacturers need to turn their resources towards producing a better short haul, single aisle airliner. Frankly, that’s where the real money is at in the next 10 years.
There has been a lot of talk about the Chinese aircraft, the COMAC C919, over the past year and what it means for Boeing and Airbus. From my perspective, it’s not the aircraft that is a threat. To the contrary, I do not believe this aircraft will be any more successful than any other Chinese made commercial airliner. However, I do think that there is a signal to be read in that the way the Chinese have chosen to engage in this project signals that they are learning and they do want to be a player.
To build a successful Boeing/Airbus competitor, you really do have to have quite a bit more experience than what the Chinese have. The real threats to Boeing and Airbus come from Bombardier and Embraer, in my opinion, because they not only know how to build an integrated system called an aircraft, they also know how to meet an airline’s needs as a function of having built their businesses from the ground up.
Bombardier and Embraer have doing what they do for a long time and they’ve learned through both successes and failures as well as from working with airlines to find out what they need in the next product they make. There is no substitute for experience when it comes to building that integrated system. That has never been more true than it is today.
China has a robust airline industry, to be sure, but it is one that has been dominated by the sublime customer service that Boeing offers every customer and even Airbus has struggled to bring itself to parity with Boeing in this market. Chinese airline executives understand and, more importantly, value what Boeing brings to the table when it comes to a complete customer product.
Chinese aviation industries would have been far better served with the goal of producing a world competitor in the regional jet class and taking their time to do it right. I’ll point out that Japan’s aviation industry has decades more experience building aircraft systems and even they are just getting their feet wet with a total system in the new Mitsbusihi regional jet.
A good jet engine isn’t the key to success in producing a Boeing/Airbus competitor. Competitive jet engines are easy to find. The harder part is the airframe, the avionics, the testing, the wing and many other things. It comes from knowing how to squeeze out even 1% more efficiency from an already mature system. You can’t buy that experience off the shelf. You have to earn it.
All that said, China has decided to get partners and good ones at that. They learn and they’ll listen and they’ll build their upon their experiences and as long as they keep trying, they will succeed more and more with future generations of aircraft. They key is to be in this for the long haul.
Traditionally, executing a strategy in support of the long view is a strong point for the Chinese but in this particular case, I sense a very un-Chinese like impatience to be a player. The real thing Boeing and Airbus should pay attention to is whether or not they regroup and re-engage when the C919 isn’t the killer app they think it is. If they do, it’s time to start getting worried. If they retreat and allow their experiences to wither, it’s over.
You can’t even build a modestly good aircraft and expect to succeed. You have to not only be able to make it look attractive from a performance point of view, you have to be able to service and support that product 100% of the time. Even Boeing and Airbus will tell you that it isn’t easy to do.
Take a look at the ARJ21 aircraft being built in China at present. It’s an aircraft that has already, for all intent and purpose, been exceeded by Bombardier and Embraer. It won’t fly for any airlines outside of China most likely and even then it’s unlikely to be even much of a political success. It’s an exercise to learn how to build an integrated system and China will have to work mightily to build upon that effort with the C919.
Even the Chinese airlines who made “orders” for the C919 at the recent Zuhai aviation show signaled some doubt. Most only made firm orders for 5 aircraft each with options for more. Frankly, that implies resignation to political realities, not enthusiasm. China is a country to watch in this business but this particular aircraft isn’t a threat whatsoever.
United Airlines (ContiUnited aka Continental and United Airlines merged) has a problem. Continental pilots have enjoyed one of the most restrictive scope clauses in the industry so far and United pilots have seen quite a bit of mainline flying move from their group to being outsourced to regional airlines flying the CRJ-700/900. Both parties are unhappy with outsourcing the flying and both see the merger and need for a new contract as the perfect opportunity to gain ground on this issue.
At the same time, United needs to keep its costs in line with rivals Delta and American Airlines and, if possible, lower. To do that under the present day model, that means outsourcing even more flying to regional airlines.
As usual, I would suggest that both parties need to meet in the middle a bit. Pilots (and other flight crew) could stand to permit lower wagese for this “regional” flying to keep it “in house”. United needs to recognize that this is about job security and these pilots want some assurance that their seniority means something in bad times. Neither party is going to get what they want or even a majority of what they want.
And if this conflict blooms into a multi-year negotiation, things won’t be good for either side. Pilots will lose out on salary increase opportunities and United will lose out on the synergies that this merger is supposed to provide.
One solution could be to retain the 50 seat Continental scope clause but pilots permit a lower entry level wage for 51+ seat aircraft or even perhaps a “B” wage scale until a pilot moves into generally accepted mainline aircraft (say 125+ seats.) The pilots could be permitted to use their seniority to retain a job in the lower pay scale in the event of a downturn and bad times displacing only the newest pilots and at the same time the airline could benefit from being able to use regional airlines for truly regional flying.
CEO Jeff Smisek would be wise to get creative rather than tough here. This is a real obstacle to realizing the benefits of his merger.
Ground workers at Delta (and who were unionized at Northwest airlines) have rejected unionization at the combined airline by a similar vote (52% against) as the flight attendants making it a “win” for Delta.
Everyone likes that Delta has so far maintained the status quo here although I’m sure the former Northwest employees continue to feel uneasy about this. I think it’s good for both parties so far but let’s realize that one reason the elections have gone the way they have is the numerical superiority that original Delta employees have. To be fair, they vote non-union because their experiences at Delta have been largely positive and fair although it would also be right to point out that most of them have never known a different environment.
The key here is that Delta still needs to work on winning over these Northwest employees. They still need to reassure these people and, if anything, work even harder at ensuring their needs are met and that they are being treated fairly in the grand scheme of the new airline. That doesn’t mean they have to bow down to them. It simply means that people can tell when they are and aren’t being treated fairly.
Part of treating Northwest airline people fairly means listening to their concerns and accounting for why those concerns exist: they don’t have a similar history of treatment from airline management at Northwest. Actions speak louder than words and Delta management would be wise to use that as their mission statement going forward with all their labor groups.
American Airlines has announced that they’ll be enjoying an even closer relationship now. In addition to their codeshare/interline agreement, they’ll be adding additional flights including one from JFK to Budapest, Hungary.
Even more exciting, they’ll have a reciprocal frequent flier agreement. (and that’s why moving your reservations system to something real like Sabre is a good idea. Are you listening Southwest?)
American Airlines has announced that it will be offering Happy Hour prices on its drinks in December on flights departing between 5:00 and 5:59pm.
First, that’s a short duration and I already see a problem. Is this scheduled departure time? What if the plane departs 2 hours late? Second, for flights departing in just one hour of each day? Really? Even TGIFriday’s gives you more time than that.
Third, and more importantly, do we really need to be encouraging people to drink on flights? Drunk passengers are a top pet peeve for both passengers and flight crew. It is pretty much agreed among frequent travelers that drinking alcohol on flights is a bad idea. It dehydrates you and the alcohol does seem to have a more measurable effect and can result in things like headaches and bodyaches and a general unpleasant feeling while traveling.
But AA wants you to enjoy a happy hour during your holiday travel. This has bad idea written all over it.
Update (Nov 22, 2010 / 3:12pm CST): I just saw this quote from Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security:
“I think we all understand the concerns Americans have,” Napolitano is quoted as saying by The Associated Press. “It’s something new. Most Americans are not used to a real law enforcement pat-down like that.”
Yes, please. Insult our intelligence a bit more for the holiday season. More to the point, let me point out that even if that were similar to a “real law enforcement pat-down” (it’s not and, yes, I know), no one in a line for security at an airport is under arrest or under suspicion and aren’t subject to such overstepping anywhere else in their lives.
Original Entry:
I don’t know if I would recommend “joining” the “boycott” being suggested for Wednesday, November 24th, where people are suggesting that all passengers opt out for being scanned in favor of the pat down as a form of protest.
It’s a poor choice of day because many do have something to lose in being either late or exceptionally inconvenienced traveling someplace for the holiday. It would feel more smart if it were on another day. On the other hand, I can’t actually discourage it either because this needs attention and quickly.
Take a look at what the Denver Post photographed at the local airport HERE. In particular, I think this photo HERE represents all that is wrong w/ these procedures. I’m not sure where exactly the line is but I’m certain that the line has been crossed by a good margin at this point.
TSA chief, Joe Pistole, keeps saying that relatively few people object. I say that this is too new for us to know how everyone feels. In fact, every time I see interviews of people on the street asking if they would subject themselves to this kind of patdown, I believe their “yes” answers come before experiencing this process.
Let’s put it another way. If you saw your family being put through this, would you stand for it anywhere else? I wouldn’t. Take a look at this video:
The father removed the shirt because the boy was too shy to lift his arms for the patdown. Regardless, this is getting more offensive as time goes by and it still happened because of invasive search requirements by the TSA.
And I’ll reiterate my own feelings that whatever a passenger is required to go through, the same should be applied to everyone including flight crews regardless of background checks, etc. If this really is about security, then it should be applied with no holes. I’ll include the President should he ever fly commercially during his tenure in office.
In addition, there is too much evidence that how these procedures are being applied at various airports is inconsistent and indicates, at the least, poor training for TSA agents although I’ll continue to maintain that the people I’ve encountered in the TSA uniform continue to appear to be doing their jobs without real vigilence and seem to be following a policy rather than acting in real concern for security. Read this ABS news story for the latest example (and at an airport where policy just should be flat out known) HERE. If that isn’t enough, see Scott McCartney’s Middle Seat Terminal blog entry about TSA training and an audit on it that was performed recently.
I would suggest writing your congressmen and senators. They are easy to find and easy to email and it is well known that they pay attention to trends in communications they receive from their constituents. In addition, I would suggest sending an email to the ACLU and to your local newspapers. And do it multiple times. These communications go farther in the long run.
The New York Times has a story about Southwest Airlines that you can read HERE. People always like to try to define Southwest and, in my view, often credit them in areas that really don’t apply and miss the point to so many facets of their success.
I’m always a bit amused that a distinction in Southwest’s success is so often low cost. While there is no doubt that offering lower fares is a key component in Southwest’s model, people very often miss the fact that it isn’t a low service model. To the contrary, Southwest delivers on its promises more consistently and with a smile. If anything, it’s their low fares that draw people to the airline but it’s the service that makes them a repeat customer. Let’s not confuse the fact that Southwest has never offered a meal with the lack of service. Better yet, notice that their view on baggage fees is that they aren’t fair and their customers deserve better.
Another component to their success is both effiency and productivity. Southwest doesn’t do anything spectacularly different than other airlines when it comes to running their flights. They still have cabin crew, pilots, ground handlers, gate agents, etc getting that flight moving across the country. The difference is that Southwest has managed to recognize that their people are a weapon for success rather than the “enemy”. They pay well, treat their people well and ask for quite a bit in return. That gives them the edge in productivity. Let’s not fault them for remaining consistent in that policy for 40 years and, frankly, it’s time to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop in that area, too.
Industry insiders like to characterize them as cold and ruthless when it comes to a market. First, let’s not act like this is a daycare playground where everyone is supposed to be treated equal and fair. It is business and in this particular business, competition is almost always fierce. Just because Southwest is able to fight well doesn’t make them cold and ruthless. It makes them a good business with good people.
Furthermore, they are, if anything, often a very conservative company. They study things, experiment, wait for the right moment (and in this business timing is everything) and try very hard to enter new markets when they can do so on their terms, not their competitors. They are who we would wish our bankers of today would be. They aren’t the pirates or the rebels, they’re the responsible people who show a great deal of concern for their stakeholders.
Do they look for weaknesses? Absolutely. Is it smart to enter a market where an incumbent has an overwhelming advantage in every way over you? Of course not. Timing, as I’ve already said, is everything. Just because another legacy airline is weak and unable to do business on any real world market terms doesn’t mean that Southwest should treat them with kid gloves. That other airline’s weaknesses are opportunity and it’s nothing that anyone else in any other business wouldn’t try to capitalize on.
I’m all too often amused at how SWA is made out to be someone clinging to their business model after all these years and how so many perceive them to be unable to change. Their so agile that they’re moving in new directions while other airlines are still figuring out they have a problem.
They went sexy in the 70’s and no one ever noticed they went business casual in the 80’s so that their own appearance would match their customer’s own model. They’ve stuck to the 737 but they’ve driven that aircraft’s design changes over the years with their own needs and few have ever noticed that. It’s remarkable that one airline could hold such an influence over a business like Boeing and not manage to sell itself it out in the process.
When there was war in the early 1990’s that suddenly impacted their business, the entire company recognized the needs to reduce costs immediately and did so in a matter of days while other others languished in the markets bleeding red in bright streams. When fuel became a much more uncertain commodity, they became an early adopter of fuel hedging in order to make those costs much more certain and predictable.
When they found themselves with no more underserved markets to enter, they didn’t stagnate, they reinvented themselves and began entering larger and larger markets. Instead of rushing into places at any cost, they charted a course that required them to meet their own criteria for entering a new market and then executed flawlessly. If you had asked anyone 3 years ago if they would ever enter the New York City market properly, no one would have bet on that including me. Now they’ve got a plan to serve it via 3 airports (La Guardia, Newark and Long Island).
It’s hard to call an airline as old as Southwest a new entrant. Frankly, I don’t they are a rebel either. I’m not sure they were ever rebel. They simply run their business better than virtually anyone else and they do it so consistently that no one ever seems to quite believe that there isn’t something hidden. I think the markets treat Southwest as that family relative you can never quite believe has it together that much since it doesn’t match what everyone else in the dysfunctional family is doing.
Is Southwest becoming a legacy airline? No, not really. They are simply not following the crowd in everything they do. They follow their own path and sometimes that means they are in step with the crowd and sometimes they aren’t. Reading too much into it just results in speculation that doesn’t match fact.
I was a somewhat early adopter of Airtran starting with some flights in the late 1990’s and for a variety of reasons, the airline just worked for me. No one would describe Airtran as having a luxurious service product but, somehow, it was a service product that found a fan base.
Now there are many Airtran Fans who are lamenting the merger between Airtran and Southwest Airlines and what it means for Business Class. Right now, it means it’ll be going away.
I think that’s a mistake. The way Airtran operated their business class was somewhat unique and was a great upsell for many passengers including me. I have often arrived for a flight and paid the upgrade fees at the spur of the moment although I have to say that buying that upgrade at the last minute has gotten to be pretty difficult.
Airtran’s business class is a bit special. It’s really more a decent seat, a few free drinks and a ride at the front of the bus. It isn’t a luxurious “total experience” that a SuperLegacy might offer but it does embody the 3 best parts of riding in a business class product.
And at the price it was offered at, it not only made money for Airtran, it also didn’t tax Airtran’s LCC service model either. Airtran didn’t have to dedicate one of the cabin crew to that section to rub the toes of those passengers and it didn’t have to carry meals either. They did their drink service and when in the front of the bus, they didn’t charge for the first couple of alcoholic drinks.
What I’m really saying is that Airtran’s business class actually *does* embody the Southwest service model. It is the Southwest service model translated by Airtran into a business class product.
In fact, I think you could retain it and toss assigned seating to the wind and few, if any, would even pause over that.
But here is the thing: it’s time to get over the idea that Southwest is the champion of the little people and it’s time to get over the idea that Southwest is completely egalitarian.
They are neither and, in some respects, they never were. Southwest was successful in Texas because it offered fast travel between city centers for the new breed of businessmen: entrepreneurs. It is true that Southwest did stimulate first time travel in people as it grew across the country but those days are over too. The 1980’s were a period when air travel became accessible and it was solidified in the 1990’s but the idea that there are a great number of people in various markets who have never considered air travel until Southwest (or other LCCs) showed up is disingenuous at best.
More to the point, an Airtran business class product is well suited to the Southwest frequency model that is still employed today. Imagine the revenue opportunities that exist in their newest markets from New York City to destinations like Chicago, Baltimore, Washington DC and Houston.
Southwest has matured in many ways and all for the better. Retaining a business class product like Airtran’s offers far more opportunity than it does risks and for SWA to dismiss it out of hand is a flawed move. Keep it, play with it and look for advantages. Use it to start eroding the appeal that newer LCC models like jetBlue and Virgin America have built up. If you think it’s the in-flight entertainment those airlines offer that is driving their business, you’re kidding yourself. It’s the better seat at the better price where they compete against legacy and SuperLegacy airlines.
Southwest’s quick move to announce it would go away struck me as inflexible and particularly so given their agility in most things. Yes, they are slow adopters, experimenters and generally an airline that waits for scale to develop before they make a move. The scale is there, Airtran is a ready experimentation and they’ve already adopted a number of features to better accommodate business travelers.
For all you Airtran Business Class Fans, I’m with you. It’s worth keeping not just because you like it but because it has all the appearances of being a solid business choice.
British Airways cabin crew union, Unite, has decided that it cannot recommend the latest deal and put it to a vote among its membership. Now it wants more talks with British Airways.
And I would like to offer this: That’s bargaining in bad faith.
When you are the leadership of a union and engage in talks that result in a proposed agreement and you agree to put it to a vote, you damn well put it to a vote. You don’t change your mind and then ask for more talks on threat of another strike. Being weak and changing your mind just damages the process for both sides. If your membership doesn’t like it, they won’t vote for it. The outcome is the same but it’s an outcome that results from an appropriate course of action rather then a cowardly one.
I didn’t like BA’s punitive moves against the cabin crew and I did think that gave Unite the upper hand somewhat. Now I think they’re both behaving atrociously and contrary to the spirit of what it means to negotiate a resolution. One thing I can’t criticize British Airways for is being cowardly and indecisive. Unite loses the upper hand here and goes back to wallowing in deep mud.
I have to be honest, I thought Donald Nyrop was already dead. I was wrong.
Donald Nyrop died on Tuesday, November 16th, at the age of 98.
I’ll wager that quite a few younger airline fans may not even know his name. Nyrop was one of the Titans of the airline industry and served as CEO of Northwest Airlines. He should be thought of in the same category as Robert Six (Continental), Juan Trippe (Pan Am), Jack Frye (TWA) and CR Smith (American Airlines) in my opinion.
Nyrop was a former government lawyer who ran Northwest as frugally as possible. American Airlines is known for leaving their aircraft unpainted to save money but Nyrop did it for the same reason. He kept their headquarters in Minneapolis in a non-descript building near the airport and he often fought with his airlines’ unions during his tenure.
But he is the man who made that airline what it was and certainly it embodied his spirit in some form or fashion and for good or bad right up to the point it merged with Delta. Don Nyrop retired from the Northwest Airlines board all the way back in 1984 leaving a legacy of frugality and safety. Not many men could navigate those two prioties with the success he did. Northwest was the airline that pioneered things like forecasting clear-air turbulence, for instance.
He wasn’t without his quirks. Nyrop reportedly became convinced that employees were lollygagging in the restrooms reading newspapers and once had the doors to the stalls removed to stop it. Like many other airline leaders of his time, he was also known for being very solicitous of his employees and looked after their well being with many simple, undeclared acts of kindness.
He was tough with aircraft manufacturers and their salesmen and demanded safe aircraft that met Northwest’s needs. He standardized their operations as much as humanly possible in his time insisting that aircraft all have the same configurations including engines. He insisted on the best navigational equipment for Northwest’s routes to Asia and employees respected the way he made money in a business where that quality is rare.
I’ve often tried to find a biography on this man. I always wished that Robert Serling had written about him and this airline because its a story that I suspect hasn’t been fully told. Serling would have told it best, I believe.
I find it a bit sad that his obituary appears only in the Minneapolis St. Paul Star Tribune because it should be noticed in so many more places given his contributions to both Northwest and aviation. It’s even a bit sadder that Nyrop goes unmentioned even in the Wikipedia entry for Northwest Airlines (as I write this anyway). So, if you happen to see a Northwest aircraft, especially one of the old DC-9’s, raise a hand and wave because it was bought under Nyrop’s leadership and it’s really quite remarkable that it continues to fly on today.
The great argument driving TSA rules on x-ray machines and patdowns derives from what was, quite honestly, a horrible act on September 11, 2001. We’ve been treating air travel with high security for 4 decades starting with hijackings that resulted in bombs and deaths resulting from other horrific acts. You have to acknowledge that air travel has, in fact, been used as a weapon and as a terrorist act more than once.
These acts have, in my opinion, driven us to accept conditions upon our free movement inside this country that we don’t accept anywhere else. In fact, we are asked to accept conditions in order to travel by air that we don’t accept in virtually any other place in our lives. Let me point out that we aren’t asked to accept this level of scrutiny in order to enter a courthouse, the Capitol, a military base or even the White House. Even with respect to the real world, we aren’t asked to endure this scrutiny to visit a federal building or a movie theater or restaurant. Think about that for a minute: we aren’t groped (sexually or otherwise) in order to proceed about our lawful business in virtually any other setting.
I am far from suggesting that there be no security checks in airports. To the contrary, I believe that there is a level of security that should be applied and applied evenly and without regard to race, religion, etc. There should be absolutely no exceptions for anyone including flight crew.
But I do think we’ve gone too far and I do think that we, the public, have been far too accepting of the latest indignities and, quite frankly, inappropriate searches of ourselves and our personal belongings all in the name of “security”. This is making the free movement about our country a privilege rather than a right and I’m extremely uncomfortable with that. And to argue that there are other choices is disingenuous at best in this modern age.
What we’re really doing is carving out exceptions to basic and derived rights on the basis of security theater rather than real security.
It doesn’t just exist at airports although I think airports are the most extreme case. Recently, I’ve made a number of trips to McAllen, Texas. Ironically, by car and I’ve witnessed behaviour on the part of several law enforcement agencies that I honestly believe would not only not been tolerated but soundly stopped just 20 years ago. Imagine traveling 90 miles and seeing 18 State Trooper cars, 5 Border Patrol cars and a mandatory checkpoint where you are interrogated and potentially asked to consent to a search before simply proceeding about your lawful business.
Privacy in this country has traditionally been a very sacred subject. The right to privacy, to not incriminate oneself and even the right to engage in lawful business between two areas has been infringed upon to a degree that I think it’s changing our country.
It’s time we start accepting that this world is not and has never been a perfectly safe place and to attempt to make it so does far more harm than it does good. I’m rather shocked that people haven’t challenged these acts in the courts (is the ACLU really that docile now?) and that we haven’t complained rationally and loudly to our lawmakers and policymakers.
For the record, I have written Congressmen and Senators and I think others should too. Also for the record, I am not a libertarian or conservative or liberal. If anything, I’d be identified as a moderate Democrat that find himself largely unrepresented by either side.
My standard in feeling revulsion at these developments has come from the fact that I’ve realized over the past few years that I actually feel more exposed and less safe as a result of these security measures. They don’t reassure me and they don’t make me feel that my plane has been adequately protected from threats.
I do think there are measures we could take and if we’re really serious about security, why aren’t we hiring bright and capable people to perform our security roles? Furthermore, why are we endorsing a para-military approach to security at our airports when we find that, time and again, this mindset doesn’t result in greater security to ourselves.
I have a great fear that we are going to abrogate more and more rights in this quest to perceive ourselves “safe” that any value we derive from being citizens and residents in a country with uniquely protected basic civil rights will be simply gone. And I wonder if that isn’t a “win” for terrorists as well.
Just in case you think I’m the only one out there disturbed by these many farces, read FL250’s post HERE.
When the Air Transport Association offers nothing much but criticism of new pilot fatigue rules, I have to call foul. Pilot (and cabin crew fatigue) is something that has gotten worse and worse, not better over the past few decades. In the drive to increase productivity, union rules and contracts have been renegotiated over and over resulting in less and less rest for crew members.
There was a time when getting that increased productivity was a reasonable thing because other factors affecting fatigue weren’t nearly the issues they are today. One of the biggest issues is commuting and its a necessary evil in the airline world. Pilots often have to commute from their home to their home base and that can mean flights anywhere from a short hop to a transcontinental flight.
When that home base is stable, arranging and managing those commutes can be done. However, home bases are often anything but stable these days as airlines have expanded, contracted, expanded, merged and even grown into entirely new regions. Pilots are being moved around like inanimate objects and that leads to fatigue. Fatigue doesn’t just come from lack of sleep. It comes from commuting, stress, poor food and difficult schedules.
This stuff just has to be managed better and I throw a red flag at the ATA. Don’t just criticize, solve the problem. Being a player in getting this issue solved. Behaving as if nothing has changed over the past 2 decades is sticking your heads in the ground just as badly if not worse than the unions have at times. Find ways to offer some stability and productivity and get those people better rested. We’ve had one air disaster that clearly saw fatigue playing a role. The fact that it was a small commuter aircraft that time doesn’t mean it won’t be a large widebody next time.
I’ll add this: unions need to get smart. Demanding everything in terms of rest, wages, etc without finding a way to offer more productivity is a losing game and puts you in the penalty box with the ATA. If you don’t find a way to come to some understanding on this, it will fall to the government and not a single person out there will find the solution satisfying or effective.
It’s been announced that jetBlue and Emirates will have an interline agreement functioning through JFK airport and within the next few days, it will be possible to buy thru passage to destinations between the two airlines. JetBlue has been arranging and aligning itself with a number of airline partners through this type of agreement and Emirates makes the seventh such agreement. American Airlines was announced just a few months ago and jetBlue has been enjoying an arrangement with Lufthansa (a major shareholder with seats on the board) for some time now.
CEO Dave Barger has described this as an open architecture and that means they are doing deals with whoever it makes sense to do a deal with. The problem is the potential for conflict among the various partners. For instance, one can only imagine how amused Lufthansa was to learn of this since their CEO has been a vocal critic of the advantages that Emirates enjoys in international travel.
This isn’t exactly new. Alaska Airlines has been engaged in similar practices with a variety of partners both domestic and international for years. In Alaska Airlines’ case, it’s made sense and worked to a fair degree although in part because Seattle, it’s hub, is not a hub or really a focus city for anyone else. However, over time, Alaska did business with so many partners who were competing with each other individually, it began to annoy some. For instance, AA has been gradually drifting away from its partnership with Alaska and Delta has been strengthening this partnership.
Ultimately, Alaska has found that it really does, in a sense, have to dance with the partner who is making a difference to their bottom line. Of late, that’s been Delta and when one airline substantially bigger than you starts contributing significant revenues to your balance sheet, it is only a matter of time before it starts conditioning those results upon receiving certain concessions.
JetBlue sees opportunity and there is opportunity at present from all of its partners. However, over time, someone is going to start making a bigger difference to the bottom line than someone else. Emirates has great potential for this as does American Airlines. Just between AA, Emiratese and Lufthansa, you have two airlines aligned with different alliances and one airline who isn’t but who knows how to provide massive long haul feed. The potential for conflict is huge in the future.
Maintaining some kind of balance between its partners is going to be key to keeping this open architecture. Like any business, dependence upon one partner can lead to inequalities that drive your business in directions you never wanted to go in. The size of airlines that jetBlue is partnering with indicates just how massive that potential is and no one should ever make the mistake that a huge airline won’t one day decide to use its influence to diminish the influence of other airlines its competing with.
Frankly, I think it benefits a small airline to pick a dance partner and stick with it. If jetBlue wanted to enjoy feed from other airlines, it would have been better served to have chosen an alliance and worked within its system where there is some understanding that picking apart a partner is counterproductive. Under the current model, no one partner has any great incentive to remain loyal if the competitive environment evolves.
