China has told Airbus directly that there will be potentially severe consequences if Europe goes ahead in requiring China to participate in the Emissions Trading Scheme next January first. The scheme requires airlines to buy carbon credits to offset pollution created by flights to and from European countries.
China’s response is somewhat loud and even hysterical but it isn’t poorly targeted. By threatening Airbus directly, they send a very direct message to France and Germany and even the United Kingdom. All countries who benefit considerably from sales of Airbus aircraft. Airbus is to France and Germany’s economy as Boeing is to the United States. And the United Kingdom’s aerospace industries do a healthy business with Airbus as well.
Already Germany and the UK are working to find an alternative to requiring China to participate in this and this is bad business. Permitting a threat like this to inspire such a reaction puts you in the position to be not treating all trading partners the same and it puts you in a weak position when it comes to your future business in that country.
Everyone is aware of the KC-135 tankers and they’re often thought of as 707 tankers but they are not. The KC-135 has the slightly narrower original fuselage and was developed in parallel with the 707 but it is not a 707.
Some may even know of the KC-130 tankers used which refuel aircraft through a chute/drogue system.
And there are the mighty KC-10 tankers which are prized both for their ability to offload fuel as well as carry cargo.
But can you name the other three tankers developed from US made commercial airliners? The answer is after the fold. . . (more…)
jetBlue has this most excellent commercial for making its point on baggage fees. Far better than even what SWA has done so far. It’s notable, however, that while jetBlue doesn’t charge for the first checked bag, it does charge after that. It charges $35 for the second bag and $75 for the third bag.
As the new United airlines has worked towards integration between United and Continental, two flight numbers got reinstated: Flights 93 and 175, the United flight numbers of planes involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks. Typically after a disaster, an airline “retires” flight numbers to simply avoid the controversy that might erupt around them. And United had avoided these but in “harmonizing” schedules, these two appeared available to sync with Continental flights that do use the numbers.
United’s flight crew unions immediately slammed the airline for this and have expressed their outrage over such a mistake.
“How could these flight numbers have been ‘inadvertently reinstated’ as the company indicates?” asks Capt. Wendy Morse of the United branch of ALPA. “The pilots of United Airlines expect accountability of how these flight numbers were considered in the first place.”
I’d like to suggest that everyone take a breath. First, this was a mistake and an understandable although regrettable one. Second, it was corrected immediately upon discovery. Third, United’s corporate response to this was nothing but brief and deferential.
You have to wonder at unions who want to make such a thing political when it comes to those flight numbers. It’s militancy at its worst and more distasteful since United’s was a mistake the union’s moves are intentional.
By now, most have heard of the successful data capture of the flight data and voice recorders on the Air France A330 that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. What has disappointed me most in this is the near instantaneous (for crash analysis) pronouncement that was leaked to the press stating that there was no obvious airframe fault.
Disappointing because it is all too common that the press neglects to mention a few things. First, both Airbus and Air France have manslaughter charges pending against them as a result of this crash. France’s practice of doing this, in my opinion, severely clouds the issues that need to be settled and puts a highly charged political context to the investigation. It’s notable that the French government has a huge stake in Airbus and still retains a take in Air France.
If it is a fault with the aircraft, Airbus will potentially suffer marketplace setbacks and if Airbus experiences that on what is their most successful widebody, the nation of France will feel it too. It’s a conflict of interest, plain and simple. It’s easy to see who gets thrown under the bus in this: the pilots. If it is pilot error, Air Frances suffers but doesn’t suffer a lot and Airbus is vindicated. If it is a maintenance problem, France’s flag airline suffers a lot and Airbus suffers a bit as well. If it is Airbus’ fault with design, France’s shining monument to aerospace suffers a lot and Air France suffers a little bit, too. Pilot error is the desired judgement in this.
While there have been attempts at politicizing air disasters in the United States, we also have so far maintained mechanisms to avoid that as much as possible. As a result, there is a great deal of credibility on the part of the NTSB when a ruling is finally made.
Not so in France who has already managed to spend 10+ years managing its image with respect to the Concorde by making Continental Airlines and a DC-10 the whipping boy in that disaster. The not so distant crash of an A320 on a test flight in France also managed to taint the pilots as the source of most of the problem as well. In fact, I would say that if you are a pilot in France and you’re flying for a French airline and/or a French built aircraft, your reputation is quite likely to suffer in the post crash analysis.
The truth is that pilot error is very frequently a contributing factor in disasters. People are human and pilots are people and human do make mistakes. Particularly in a fast moving crisis. Today’s pilots are almost always not where such things start, however. Even when we discover pilot error, it almost always starts with poor airline procedures or training.
I find the reporting that has already occured on this disaster (the Air France A330) in the French media highly suspect and a signal that we’re already finding a reason to not find blame in French industry. No one should be making any pronouncements about any data within the first 48 hours of analysis. I would wager that any NTSB investigator would blanche at such an idea.
This is a huge dissservice to the airline industry and public safety. Maybe it *is* pilot error and if it is, then we do a disservice by clouding it with acts that appear political. If it is a fault in the airframe, we need to know about it and we need to most specifically avoid missing that conversation as a function of blaming a pilot. If it is a fault with the airline and its procedures, the airline needs to fix those procedures and a public discussion on what happened will help other airlines fix their procedures as well.
Allowing blame to creep into this so early and so loudly only negates the value of a crash analysis.
There has been a new agreement found between British Airways and cabin crew union Unite to settle the long running fight between the two. This stops strikes set to begin again at least until after the union itself votes to accept the deal. Union leaders are recommending agreement.
The breakthrough essentially comes as a result of British Airways agreeing to restoring full seniority perks it withdrew during the conflict. New BA CEO, Keith Williams and former Unite negotiator and now leader, Len McCluskey are receiving credit for the new agreement.
I’ve got three thoughts on this: First, Willie Walsh (now CEO of International Airlines Group, holding company of BA) should have made this deal last year. It cost nothing and it was fairly punitive. Second, if you think that Keith Williams did this without OK from Willie Walsh, you’re just kidding yourself and that makes the fact that this has gone on as long as it has somewhat silly. Finally, this isn’t over until it’s over. The union has a history of militant behaviour in this conflict and despite the leadership recommending acceptance, I wouldn’t count this as done until it does win an approval vote. Furthermore, even if it does win approval, I’ll wager that it will be by slim margins at best.
Once done, the airline and the union need to restore not just peace but harmony and take a long look at how this is avoided in the future. That’s a tall task but necessary in this economic climate that airlines operate in.
American Airlines and QANTAS are filing for anti-trust immunity for a joint business agreement between the two airlines across the Pacific between the US and Australia. This doesn’t mean revenue sharing at the moment because American Airlines doesn’t have flights on those routes.
This request doesn’t come as a surprise whatsoever and fits neatly within what AA has been doing with all of its Oneworld partners. Not only does AA not have flights to Australia and New Zealand now, I honestly don’t believe they’ll have them in the future.
There is a reason why QANTAS is coming to DFW airport and it isn’t to provide interim lift for AA. I’m certain American sees QANTAS as the perfect airline to operate those routes and sees itself as the aggregator of traffic for QANTAS.
United Airlines has about 1800 flight attendants returning from voluntary furloughs soon and Continental Airlines is due to be short about 800 flight attendants in the coming year. The holding company wants the flight attendant unions to help out by agreeing to shift employees between the two separately operating airlines.
The two airlines are merged but they are still operating from two operating certificates which are some time away from being combined into one. The unions are due to hold elections and then begin negotiating seniority lists thereafter. United says it can’t wait that long, however.
My prediction? You won’t see any cooperation from old United flight attendants on this issue. In fact, I’ll wager that they’ll use this as a bargaining chip against United management. If Jeff Smisek, CEO of United (and former CEO of Continental), thought that things would operate much as they did at Continental when it comes to employee cooperation, he’s in for a rude shock.
The Dallas Fort Worth area has a number of operating airports including DFW, Dallas Love Field and Alliance Airport. All busy commercial airports.
Long before DFW International was built, Dallas was served by Love Field and Fort Worth was served by Meacham Field. The FAA grew weary of funding two airports for the city and Fort Worth was tired of being second fiddle to Dallas.
Question: Can you name the first airport built between Dallas and Fort Worth and and where it was built?
What is an airline selling these days? Food? Baggage transportation? In flight entertainment? Mood lighting? Opportunities to upgrade to business class?
It’s kind of hard to tell these days what an airline is selling with the dilution that has occured as a result of de-bundling services. The truth is, airlines are more frequently in the news for some subsidiary service they’ve de-bundled than they are for their primary service product.
The primary service product is transporting passengers reliably between point A and point B and if you don’t do that, no manner of any fees is going to make you profitable. It won’t matter how many channels of TV you have if the customer can’t get where he/she is going on time frequently enough to build trust, you aren’t going to make a profit.
Think I’m wrong? Ask yourself why Southwest succeeds with a very basic service product even compared to many other LCC airlines.
It’s about the customer getting where they want to go when they wanted to get there, stupid.
The US Airline Pilots Association representing all of US Airways pilots is calling for the resignation of US Airways Vice President of Safety and Regulatory Compliance Paul Morell citing unaddressed lapses in safety as the primary reason.
This is what happens when you don’t have respectable relations with your labor union groups. Safety is popular target for airline unions because it is very difficult for the airline to address the topic without appearing to be on the defense for something that may not have even been going on.
And airline unions target their company when they haven’t gotten a deal and it looks as if they aren’t going to get one soon. It applies pressure.
Is US Airways unsafe? No, it isn’t. The airline is clearly running a safe operation. Whether or not it could be even safer is a question I cannot answer (and nor can the airline pilots either.) That calls for an objective third party audit of US Airways safety. Coincidentally, it appears that US Airways declined to participate in such a study because that is what USAPA talks about in its public complaints.
I am a big advocate for there being as much transparency and objectivity possible in evaluating safety at airlines. I think participation in programs where pilots can self report safety incidents without consequence is an excellent idea and I firmly believe that airlines should participate wherever possible in third party studies.
That said, US Airways may have had an excellent reason for declining participation and we’ll leave that up to them for a response.
I have to take a shot at USAPA for this: It is no less responsible to make safety a political issue than it is for an airline to decline participation in third party safety studies. There are plenty of issues to talk about but casting aspersions on the safety of airline to apply pressure is over the line.
Jon Ostrower has written about a conversation he had with Southwest Airlines VP Operations Coordination Jeff Martin. Mr. Martin says they need an efficient replacement aircraft for their 200+ 737 Classic aircraft and they need it sooner than 2019/2020 and, no, a re-engined 737 Next Gen does not meet the criteria they have for such a replacement.
Actually, Southwest has two subfleets to think about. The 737-300/500 fleet and the 717 fleet. The former because it is just aging and aging quickly and the latter because it isn’t sustainable as a fleet over time since it isn’t being made anymore and obtaining additional aircraft would be difficult at best.
Would Southwest consider another aircraft maker? Absolutely. This idea that Southwest wants one fleet type is somewhat silly. This is an airline with over 500 aircraft and one aircraft type doesn’t fit all situations as well as 2 or 3 fleet types.
I’ll also point out that since Gary Kelly has taken over as CEO, Southwest has embraced a lot of change and they’ve succeeded despite predictions to the contrary.
In addition, I recall Southwest getting a bit lathered up over what they saw regarding the Frontier Q400 fleet when doing their due diligence almost two years ago. If there is one thing Southwest likes to do, it’s save money.
I think Bombardier products will get a strong look. I think the CSeries and the Q400 might get looked at quite closely. Dispatch reliability is going to be a key point, however. But there are at least 2 cities that SWA operates from in which a fleet of Q400 aircraft could make very profitable bases: Chicago and Dallas.
In addition, I think Embraer will have a shot at pitching their aircraft (current and future) and I think Airbus will get its feet in the door as well over the A320NEO. Thing is, the very fact that it is the A320NEO that Airbus has to offer is what, in my opinion, makes them an unlikely player at SWA. Southwest doesn’t want a warmed over design to tide them over. They want revolution over evolution when it comes to efficiency.
Revolution is potentially the CSeries with both enough capacity and range to fill almost all of Southwest’s requirements. They also have enough seating range to make it an effective aircraft in both the 110 and 130 seat range. That is going to be a sweet spot for Southwest for some time to come. Yes, they need an aircraft that will seat 145 to 170 as well (and that aircraft will also need continental range as well) but they’ve got that in a fairly new fleet of 737-700/800 aircraft. The nice advantage to the CSeries / Boeing approach is being able to have a range of sub-types across a two type fleet. You get effective 4 needs met with two basic types and doesn’t that approach sound frugal?
Boeing needs to wake up just a bit and get a little more aggressive. To believe that SWA is a Boeing customer now and for the future ignores a great deal of change when it comes to SWA and its needs.
Last week, a total of three Muslim imams were denied travel to Charlotte, North Carolina by two different airlines. One in New York City by American Airlines (who offered no real reason why) and two more by Atlantic Southeast Airlines operating for Delta Airlines (because a pilot felt that some passengers remained uncomfortable with their presence despite not one but two security screenings.)
I’ve already posted about this and I’ve already said shame on Delta. I’ll say shame on American Airlines as well.
Focusing on someone’s religion as a security risk is extremely foolhardy. Ignorance is not an acceptable excuse even where security is concerned. More importantly, we’ve already experience far too many of these incidents in the past 10 years to excuse flight crew or security personnel behaviour on this subject.
Denying these people the ability to fly is tantamount to making them second class citizens (whatever their nationality) for no other reason than their religion. As a nation, we have historically resisted allowing religion to be a reason to persecute someone but in the case of muslims and particularly Muslims wearing traditional robes and headgear, we seem to have suddenly accepted that that is OK. Just because someone speaks a foreign language (Arabic or any other language indigenous to a Muslim culture), we’ve almost enthusiastically treated those people as security risks.
This is sheer stupidity for two reasons. First and foremost, it goes against the very grain of our nation and our constitution and the gains we’ve made with respect to civil rights over the past 50 years. It’s an insult to our national culture and our national laws.
Second, it shows we aren’t being objective about our security concerns. Good security comes from good objectivity, not subjectivity. You can no more point to Muslims as a risk by virture of their terrorist acts than you can point to Catholics as being a risk by virture of the terrorist acts of the IRA. In fact, I would point out that if that was valid criteria, you would actually be at greater risk from Irish Catholics than you would a Muslim from Yemen because the Irish Catholic can far more easily “blend in” with our national background.
As far as I can tell, we don’t ban Irish Catholics from flights because of their religion or accent. Oddly enough, we do not even ban Hindi people because of their association with violent Hindu extremists.
I blame the government for promoting this behaviour but I particularly blame the airlines for allowing their staff to practice it. The best and only response to either of the incidents from last week would have been to find a flight crew that has good sense and board these people for their flights. Tolerating this racism within a company is stupid and bad business.
An abundance of cautiou doesn’t mean you get to give into predjudice. And let me point out that if we continue to tolerate this, there is no reason that some other class of people can’t be identified in the future to practice this predjudice against. That class could be white women over 50 or black children or hispanic males over 20 or white men between 30 and 40. You aren’t immune to this potential.
Then there is Rageh Al-Murisi, the man who banged on an American Airlines cockpit door on a flight to San Francisco. It’s notable that this man wasn’t dressed in a way that would particularly identify him as a Muslim or an imam and he got onto his plane.
The name International Airlines Group, holding company for both British Airways and Iberia and managed by BA’s Willie Walsh, couldn’t have a more appropriate name. Or more bland. But that is the stated purpose since IAG is about managing brands across the world rather than conquering the world with one brand.
That kind of makes other airlines and industry watchers wonder who the next target is. Many considered QANTAS a target but that almost seems illogical to me despite the close ties between QANTAS and BA. It doesn’t get them much more in QANTAS’ part of the world. But it is true that it is a strong brand.
Instead, I think IAG is looking for strong brands in parts of the world that they want more access to. I think that means Asia and I think that means North America. Those are the two centers of commerce that Europe does business with and adding a brand in each of those areas only helps grow the business.
The challenge is adding a brand from another country because most countries still have laws governing ownership of their airlines. So that, to me, means targeting brands in countries with liberal, commerce centered laws and/or in British Commonwealth nations.
It’s the Cathay Pacifics, Air Canadas and Air New Zealands that would, to me, appear to be more attractive on a global basis. Strong brands with strong customer loyalty.
It won’t be about access to facilities or fleets. It’ll be about identify brand strength with a service product that harmonizes reasonably well with IAGs current brands. It will be about getting strong executives who’ve crafted strong business plans for their regions. It won’t be about getting a firesale price on airline because, frankly, those airlines have nothing to offer but a few assets and assets are easy to buy.
Richard Anderson, CEO of Delta Airlines, has pointedly and consistently talked about managing an airline for a profit and while that seems like a no brainer, I’m not sure everyone does that.
Delta has recently announced cuts in capacity and while that, too, seems like a no brainer, I think people miss Delta’s point. If a route isn’t earning a profit it needs to go. Few airlines use this as their criteria. The larger point from Delta is that it isn’t about market share and I agree.
In addition to capacity cuts, Delta has also announced a program targeted towards early retirements to trim their labor force as well. This is to match capacity cuts and rightfully so. Oh, mind you, I think this is also about getting the work force to average a younger age in seniority as well but that is something airlines have to do on a regular basis as their work force tend to stay with not nearly as much “churn” as other large companies experience.
Southwest has always managed for a profit and it has proven it can be done. It’s kept its workforce levels consistent with its business and, more importantly, it doesn’t fly routes that cannot regularly produce profit. Not for nothing, this is one reason why several cities are worried that SWA will cut Airtran routes currently serving them with subsidies. SWA doesn’t see subsidies as a sustainable profit model.
There is something that I often remember my father telling me about the airline business (he’s a former EVP from an airline no longer in business and from 30 years ago. You have to look at ever route between two cities as a small, entreprenurial business. You have to invest in the business and you have to get a return on that investment in a timely manner. Failing that, you have to drop it and move on to other opportunities.
This is what Delta is doing. Instead of managing for surival, they’re managing for profit. Instead of managing for sheer size, they’re managing for profit. Instead of managing on the basis of what another guy is doing, they’re managing for profit. In Delta’s most recent earnings call, Richard Anderson made the comment: “This isn’t a hobby.” and I think that underscores the proper attitude about being results oriented.
This is not what we seeing American Airlines doing. It wasn’t my sense that United Airlines was doing this pre-merger with Continental and it isn’t necessarily my sense that even some LCC carriers such as JetBlue are making this their goal. Notably, I do think that US Airways is doing this and the results show.
So when does someone ask when AA’s management team plans to manage for profit? I haven’t seen AA manage their route system for profitability. I haven’t seen them manage their labor force for profits. I haven’t seen them manage their fleet for profitability. I’ve seen them managing for the status quo in the hopes that other airlines will return to AA’s fate when it comes to costs.
The question is, why should you expect that when there has been a fundamental change in your competitors attitudes towards managing their business for profit?
Happy Mother’s Day. Know how to get back at a hostile mother in law?
Book her a flight on American Airlines to come visit you.
Airport codes identify airports around the world. In the United States, airports are identified with a 3 letter code (smaller airports sometimes have letters and numbers.) There are many that are legendary.
JFK: John F. Kennedy (NYC)
ORD: Chicago O’Hare
LAX: Los Angeles
SUX: Sioux City
Airline workers know these codes by heart and many of you aficianados know them just as well.
Question: (without looking it up, of course) What airport is FFA?
It’s time we get over ourselves when it comes to Islam and clerics serving that religion and culture. Shame on Delta and ASA for not replacing the pilot instead.
American Airlines will be testing streaming video on two WiFi equipped airliners using the existing onboard GoGo system. Apparently the GoGo system was robust enough to store this video and rather than be streamed from a ground location, the content will be stored onboard the aircraft and distributed via the onboard WiFi system.
I think wireless is a great idea for aircraft. Weight is a fundamental issue on airplanes and WiFi allows this to be overcome in many cases. However, I’m not so sure WiFi is ripe for this yet. Streaming video is a bandwith hog even when sent to laptop devices (which in most cases can accept higher definition on screens that are often now as much as 17″. What happens when 50 people stream video from the same system at the same time on the same WiFi system?
Ensuring robust enough servers is easy. Ensuring robust enough WiFi is not. If customers experience buffering delays, this will be an epic fail in the test. Especially if they’re paying for this content. While you can boost WiFi bandwith by streaming it on an “N” standard, “N” standard is still pretty new. New laptop users will have it but not necessarily laptops that are as little as 3 years old. Bandwith is still a problem to solve.
I hope this is relatively successful. My instincts tell me that aircraft aren’t ready for streaming video via WiFi with the current technology. At minimum, I think you may need to be using “N” standard for this. In fact, the real solution might be a power outlet and an ethernet connection at every seat which is fundamentally cheaper and lighter than an entire IFE system at every seat.
