Southwest Airlines’ and Airtran Airlines’ pilots unions have agreed to agree on the process for integrating their seniority lists. This isn’t an agreement on merging the lists but simply an agreement on how they’ll go about doing so.

They’ll first negotiate and then if they don’t get an agreement, they’ll have mediated talks and if those don’t work, they’ll have arbitration with a binding agreement. Standard stuff between unions but what I like is the fact that they’ve set deadlines for all these processes and those deadlines all fall within 2011. Good on both of them.

This process is governed by the McCaskill-Bond Act which was passed by Congress after the AA-TWA merger and the flight attendants union simply stapling on employees to the bottom of their list.

A curious question comes to my mind on US Airways as a result of this. I believe such a process was followed by US Airways and America West pilots unions. The result was an arbitrated result that the US Airways pilots didn’t like. The process was hijacked by US Airways pilots who initiated a vote amongst *all* pilots for new union representation. Since US Airways pilots outnumbered America West pilots, they got their way at the end of the day. At least until America West pilots sued. It would seem to me that federal law may well have been violated in this. If any readers here know the status of this, please comment.

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Airbus has been in existence in one form or another for roughly 40 years. It’s first aircraft was the A300 which was designed as a large capacity, short haul aircraft. It was well designed for European routes but US airlines regarded it as a bit undersized and too short ranged for their uses. At that time, US airlines were using Douglas DC-10s and Lockheed L-1011s for those needs.

Finally, Airbus got a toehold here in the US with one major US trunk airline. Can you name the airline and the CEO who agreed to give the A300 a try? The answer is after the fold:

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Shortly after most airlines begin charging to check a bag on flights, the debate began on whether or not the airlines had an obligation to deliver that bag to the destination reliably and, failing to do that, refund the charge.

It’s a question I asked myself as soon as American Airlines began those charges since they used to be well known for bag delays from Chicago to Dallas. So well known that if you’re bag didn’t show up on your flight and you were a regular, you just waited for the flight that arrived an hour to two hours later. It never came on the very next flight, it usually came on the flight after that and sometimes the flight after that. I became so used to it, I simply sighed, went to a bar and waited without even registering a complaint to the AA baggage clerks because I inevitably found that I knew when it was coming more accurately than they did.

I firmly believe that when you charge for this service, you have obligation to deliver the service reliably or, failing that, an obligation to refund the baggage charge. In dollars, not flight credit. And immediately, not weeks later.

Airlines say that if the DoT requires them to do this, costs will rise and everyone will pay more for their flights. Yes, they said costs.

Costs won’t rise but the revenue from those fees might, perhaps, be reduced and doesn’t it say something when airlines panic over this? The airline industry is a weird one. They’ll cavalierly hand out freebies to people who fly frequently and, yet, charge huge fees and abuse customers left and right who are anything less than a frequent flier. They’ll cling to the fees and fares they’ve charged until their body is cold and dead. And many consumers accept this without even much objection.

Let me ask you this: Would you order a new washer and drier, permit yourself to be charged months in advance for a delivery that is delayed and when the items do arrive you find them damaged or one missing and not complain? What we wouldn’t put up with from just about any other service or product provider we regularly put up with from the airlines. Why?

I would love to see someone reading this argue the airline case and not from the point of view of “fares are cheap, quit expecting so much.” It isn’t expecting much to see your luggage travel on the same aircraft to the same destination you are going to.

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For the past two weeks, we have learned of a number of incidents involving sleeping on the job by air traffic controllers. Congress is outraged, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood is outraged and now we see people resigning over this as well.

It’s definitely a problem and it is definitely disappointing that so many incidents can be identified as happening so recently. Outrageous? Not necessarily. Anyone who knows the life of an air traffic controller in the tower is likely unsurprised.

It’s a hard job. It’s stressful, demanding and one mistake can put your entire career at risk. Duty time in this role takes a toll on people in ways that most experience rarely. These people experience it every time they go on the job.

What I find so distressing is that no one is asking the question: “Why are all those air traffic controllers so exhausted?”

Trust me when I say that these sleep events aren’t sheer laziness. It comes from odd schedules that leave controllers sleep deprived to such a degree that if they were truck drivers, we would pull them off the road. If they were pilots, they wouldn’t be allowed to fly. But since they are air traffic controllers, we just keep pushing them.

No one should be regularly experiencing this kind of fatigue in their job and certainly no one who is in position to affect hundreds of lives. And, by the way, NextGen air traffic systems aren’t going to solve this problem.

These controllers work very odd schedules that change day to day. They have no regularity and if you think a pilot’s life is irregular, just shadow an air traffic controller for a week. Rather than villifying them and firing them, we should be investigating these incidents in a manner similar to how the NTSB investigates a transportation disaster.

We need to ask for an unbiased, non-political, solutions based investigation that addresses all the problems with firm recommendations.

Instead, we’re trying to fire people and look good in the press.

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Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly has said recently that he believes Southwest will want to keep Airtran destinations such as Wichita, KS in all likelihood.  He also added the caveat that until they can see the viability of these smaller destinations for themselves, a solid committment can’t be made.  That evaluation won’t take place until Southwest officially merges with Airtran.

I think Southwest got a peak at what their world could look like when they did their due diligence on purchasing Frontier Airlines.   I think they saw the viability of operating smaller aircraft with reduced frequencies to some of these destinations and I think Southwest wants in on that action.  It wasn’t just Atlanta that Southwest wanted when they looked at Airtran. 

Airtran has made it kind of specialty of theirs to develop routes to what I would term third tier destinations.  Those destinations are places such as Wichita, Branson and Des Moines.  Airtran serves quite a few small destinations with regularity but not frequency.  Some with subsidies and some without. 

Take a look at these cities and you’ll see opportunity that fits neatly within the Southwest system. 

1. Key West, FL
2. Bloomington, IL
3. Moline, IL
4. Des Moines, IA
5. Wichita, KS
6. Lexington, KY
7. Portland, ME
8. Flint, MI
9. Grand Rapids, MI
10. Branson, MO
11. Omaha, NE
12. Atlantic City, NJ
13. Rochester, NY
14. White Plains, NY
15. Asheville, NC
16. Akron-Canton, OH
17. Allentown, PA
18. Harrisburg, PA
19. Knoxville, TN
20. Newport News/Williamsburg, VA
21. Charleston, WV

Airtran has built up quite the business at these airports and all of them can be served by Southwest focus cities.  This is why Southwest keeps saying that the 717 has a place in the fleet for some time to come.  It’s an aircraft that can efficiently serve such cities (as well as their 737-500s) to feed traffic to major cities such as Chicago, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Dallas, Orlando, Washington, D.C., Tampa, Oklahoma City, Nashville and Milwaukee.

And serving such cities isn’t out of SWA’s experience.  Take a look at the third tier cities they serve:

1. Birmingham, AL
2. Little Rock, AR
3. Hartford, CT
4. Boise, ID
5. Louisville, KY
6. Jackson, MS
7. Omaha, NE
8. Manchester, NH
9. Albuquerque, NM
10. Albany, NY
11. Long Island, NY
12. Oklahoma City, OK
13. Tulsa, OK
14. Providence, RI
15. Greenville / Spartanburg, SC
16. Amarillo, TX
17. Corpus Christi, TX
18. El Paso, TX
19. Harlingen, TX
20. Lubbock, TX
21. Midland/Odessa, TX
22. Norfolk, VA

As much as SWA is concentrating on growth to larger, mainline cities, SWA still has a vested interest in serving those smaller third tier cities and towns.  Even more so today as they can feed that traffic to one of many focus cities and carry people onwards at a far better value than being offered by a legacy airline.

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Some photographer taking an 11 hour flight to Paris from San Francisco via the polar route took time lapse photos of his entire trip.  During the “night time” portion of the trip, he caught the aurora borealis in its glory.  It is all well worth watching.

SF to Paris in Two Minutes from Beep Show on Vimeo.

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Both the CEOs of American Airlines (Gerard Arpey) and Southwest Airlines (Gary Kelly) decried rising oil prices as a crisis at a conference in Dallas last week. 

“We’re all very worried about what’s happening in the oil market,” Arpey said. “If the economic recovery dampens, it won’t be good for traffic.”

It’s true that rising oil prices will again challenge airlines to earn a profit and it is also true that the volatility in the oil market(s) makes things very unpredictable for airlines.

However, we have created another problem within the airline industry that goes unrecognized so far.  We haven’t allowed a major airline to go bankrupt and liquidate since Eastern Airlines.  Instead, we’ve allowed continually bankruptcy reorganization that has permitted uncompetitive companies to become marginally competitive again for a brief period of time.  Some of those companies figured out that they had to change the way they did business (Continental) and some haven’t. 

Mergers haven’t really eliminated airlines.  They have re-branded them with a new name.  Delta didn’t eliminate Northwest, it absorbed it and it continues on today.  United didn’t eliminate Continental, it continues on today. 

The reason we need to permit an airline or two to truely fail is that the barriers to entering the airline market are exceptionally high.  When we prop up the legacy and SuperLegacy carriers, we make it an order of magnitude more difficult for new new, leaner airlines to enter into the market place. 

We also don’t regulate anticompetitive behaviour very well.  In this country, it’s perfectly acceptable to allow an airline to flood a route with capacity and below cost pricing to eliminate a new entrant from that route.  The consumer is hurt in two ways:  They see potential for new, low fares show up for a very limited time and they see an new, better airline potentially eliminated from the marketplace.

After more than 30 years, we still haven’t done anything about the anti-competitive nature of unions in the airline business.  The airline industry got deregulated but labor did not.  The current scenario makes change in rapidly changing conditions all but impossible for airlines facing higher costs elsewhere. 

I’m not in favor of eliminating unions but I am in favor of eliminating years long talks between airlines and unions on new contracts.   Billion dollar business negotiate mergers and consummate those mergers in as little as one or two years.  It can take far in excess of 2 years for a union and airline to come to an agreement on a new contract that by the time it is voted in, market conditions have changed again.

This puts both unions and airlines at a strong disadvantage in this industry.  It is as big of a crisis as any oil crisis at this point.  This industry has no agility and is constantly lagging behind changing conditions. 

It’s interesting to me that the only airlines who earn profits and who do negotiate things like high oil prices with any agility at all are the newer airlines who have contained other costs such as labor and equipment or those airlines who have figured out that working with their employees to get agreements quicker is the right business decision. 

A depature from the marketplace of a major airline would be healthy and good for the airline industry.  It would put executive teams at various legacy and SuperLegacy airlines on notice.  It would put unions on notice as well.  The status quo isn’t working and the industry remains fairly stagnant.  Legacy airlines inch along while low cost carriers earn money for investors. 

We now even encourage airlines to become even larger monolithic companies that are even harder to turn around in the face of trouble.  That’s our real crisis in the airline industry, not oil.

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Ever wondered what happens when a larger aircraft clips a smaller aircraft with its wingtip?  Wonder no more:

The Air France A380 hit the tail of the Comair (Delta) CRJ-700 Monday evening and spun the CRJ-700 around by 90 degrees.  Listen to the ATC audio on this clip:

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Watch the videos of the Virgin Galactic WhiteKnight Two and SpaceShip Two lining up with a Virgin America flight to land at SFO.  Sometimes, things are just that cool.

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Airline CEO Doug Parker says that there is one more big merger deal to be done in the United States and that is with his airline, US Airways.    Parker’s comment was made during US Airways recent media day.

The question is, who?  I’ve said before that US Airways and AA could actually do a nice deal when it comes to the complementary nature of the two airlines but I have also noted that you would be combining two airlines with very bad union relations right now.    Furthermore, neither has the cash to do the deal and a stock swap is just swapping one so-so share for another. 

The truth is, I think US Airways has something AA needs.  The executive team.  The US Airways executive team manages to deliver profits despite being an airline with not a lot of international traffic and an airline with no hub that anyone views as particularly strategic.   I would like to see that team manage American Airlines’ resources.  I think we would all be pleasantly surprised financially.

I actually don’t see a partner for US Airways.  Not right now.  It isn’t an low cost carrier (ironically enough, US Airways stock symbol is LCC) as the models are two widely apart.  It isn’t an airline that shares a similar fleet as US Airways flies Boeing and Airbus and within the Airbus fleet, it flies two somewhat dissimilar fleets of A320 series aircraft. 

I cannot identify an airline that has a strategic position that would complement US Airways routes without being a clash in every other way.  JetBlue owns JFK and an Airbus fleet but the clash in cultures and everything else makes me shudder.  The same is true for Frontier Airlines.

Southwest has no interest in them.  They simply identify where US Airways is strong and then move in to compete with them.  Southwest wins and US Airways moves along to another place.

SuperLegacies?  They don’t need US Airways.  There is no real route rationalization to be had in many cases and the few places where one SuperLegacy might want more dominance are places where anti-trust regulation is unlikely to grant it.

Right now, US Airways is on its own and that’s OK.  This is a profitable airline and, in many cases, more profitable than SuperLegacies.  5 years from now may prove differently but I don’t see it in the next 2 years or even 3.

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Airbus was the first commercial airliner manufacturer to introduce full authority fly-by-wire into its aircraft.  The A320 was the first with the A330/A340 following it.  Airbus aircraft use a sidestick controller which resembles a computer game joystick to control its aircraft instead of a “yoke”.

Can you name the next commercial airliner manufacturer to introduce fly-by-wire technology?

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One has to hand it to the Airbus PR machine and COO John Leahy.  Those guys could spin a strike as an innovative development for their aircraft line. 

One of  the latest claims from these fine folks is that the A320NEO is already the best selling commercial aircraft ever.   Not so fast.  While the NEO has racked up some good orders, much of what Airbus is counting as orders are actually just memorandums of understanding.   They are not firm orders in the sense of what Boeing would count as an order.  But it does have some good momentum and that’s great for that product.  It’s getting the kind of updates it really needs and that’s good for anyone operating the A320 series aircraft.

Yes, there is rampant speculation that the NEO could have 600 orders by this summer’s airshow in Paris but let’s see if that develops first before we proclaim world domination.

Mr. Leahy also puts forth the idea that because the NEO has the potential to last until 2030, Boeing will ultimately have to decide to do a 737 re-engine itself.  He also has decided that technology won’t be advanced enough for a new aircraft (Boeing or Airbus) until far past 2020, the date Boeing says it could come up with something to replace the 737.

Coming up with a better, more efficient airliner is a matter of engineering, not developing unknown technologies.  If there is a business case that funds the new aircraft development, then the aircraft can be built.  If anything, Airbus’ decision to do the NEO actually advances Boeing’s business case for doing a new development.  Why?  Because Airbus’ adoption of the CFM LEAP 56 and Pratt & Whitney GTF engines will encourage those companies to mature their products faster, not slower.  The faster those engines mature, the more ready they are for a newly developed 737 replacement.

Mr. Leahy thinks Boeing will re-engine.  I think Boeing will do a new development.  In fact, I think as the case for a new development gets stronger, Boeing may well pull in its date that it could be done by to as early as 2018 or just 7 years from now.  I think John Leahy desperately wants Boeing to keep the 737 because it allows the Airbus to remain competitive.  Most independent observers feel the Airbus A320NEO only manages to deliver trip costs that are equal to Boeing’s current 737, not exceed them.   If Boeing can deliver a 20%+ improvement on trip costs with a new family of aircraft in a timely manner, it clobbers Airbus’ product line right out of the door and Boeing won’t promise what it can’t deliver.

There is one thing about Airbus that really annoys me and, in my opinion, causes trouble in the aviation world and that is its bombastic claims.  I get rather tired of tossing cold water at a company that is actually producing a great, competitive product simply because they cannot be content to be a world player in the aviation world and desire to continually proclaim themselves the World’s Greatest Ever.

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Since the Southwest decompression incident last Friday, there have been a number of parties suddenly using the event to promote an agenda.  The DoT and FAA have both acted more politically than anyone would necessarily like to see.  In fact, I believe a number of people have failed to see what went right in this incident such as a successful emergency descent and safe landing.  A recovery that was so smooth, all but one passenger continued on their flight when a replacement aircraft was sent.

Now the TWU (Transport Workers Union) is calling for the FAA to clamp down on maintenance being down out of the United States.  What they would really like is for it to be forbidden altogether.  Sadly, this is much more about jobs than it is about safety.  The reality is that if maintenance done outside the United States was the hazard that the TWU would have you believe, we would have catastrophes happening left and right.  The fact is that air travel in the United States over the past 10 years is vastly more safe (by inicidents and type of incidents) than it has ever been before. 

We don’t have lax safety procedures.  We really don’t.  An unpredicted and unpredictable event happened and the good news is that everything that was supposed to happen if the unforeseen happened did actually happen.  the hole in the fuselage was contained, the aircraft performed an emergency descent with no further issues and the aircraft was landed safetly with no substantive injuries.  And for every event remotely similar to this over the past 10 years, the outcome was the same.

Making political hay out of this or any other event is irresponsible and unsafe.  When you begin to allow political motiviations control the ultimate outcome of these situations, you lose the transparency that actually makes this industry safe.  Who wants to self report unsafe events and incidents if they know they’ll be crucified for it politically?

This is my criticism of how France approaches such things.  By opening criminal investigations into air disasters, they encourage people to not cooperate, not self report and, worst of all, not engage in self examination with a goal of avoiding or eliminating the problem in the future.

The most responsible thing that could be done in this event would be to let the NTSB do its job, make its recommendations and then follow those recommendations.   Allowing anyone to “score” politically as a result of this incidents puts us all more at risk.

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American Airlines and Japan Air Lines can now start cooperating over the Pacific and that can’t come too soon.  JAL is emerging from bankruptcy and while it has new financing, it still has a lot of work to do.  Combine the exit from bankruptcy with the recent earthquake/tsunami disaster and you’ve got an airline that has a lot of struggles ahead of it. 

American Airlines also is suffering.  Projected by some to have as much as $1billion in losses for 2011, AA needs to get some things right.  It’s now starting to benefit from its trans-Atlantic cooperation with British Airways, Iberia and other smaller Oneworld partners but only time will tell if that is truly successful.

Oneworld partner, International Consolidated Airlines Group (British Airways / Iberia Airlines) has also just expressed an interest in taking a stake in JAL when it is re-listed for stock exchanges.  This is Oneworld bringing the network closer together among partners.

AA and JAL can now cooperate similarly and both would be wise to consolidate some service between the US and Japan for the near future.  Rather than see a splashy introduction, I think we’ll see both of these airlines act as quickly and as seriously as they can to preserve their revenues on flights between the two countries.  This partnership is defensive rather than offensive in the manner of the trans-Atlantic pact.

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In the last few days, there have been a lot of airliner incidents reported in the media.  Southwest Airlines had one 737 experience decompression after a hole developed in a fuselage of a 737-300.  Another Southwest Airlines 737 diverted due to flight crew smelling smoke in the cabin.  To make matters worse, during inspections of 737-300s, Southwest discovered two more aircraft with sub-surface cracking in their fuselsages.  An American Airlines flight diverted after a few passengers and flight crew became dizzy and another AA aircraft, a 767, had to return to the airport after taking off because of a suspected tail strike on take-off.  A regional jet flew into a flock of birds and suffered major damage to its nose cone and body. 

It seems like there have been several other incidents over the past few weeks as well but are things suddenly unsafe?  No, not really.  I just named 4 flights out of several thousands that have taken place over the past few days.  Statistically speaking, they are insignificant.   One thing that drives reporting of these events is whether or not it is a slow news day.  Over the past few days, we’ve had little news to block out less significant reports related to airliners.   Japan and its disaster is settling down in the news and Libya news has settled a fair bit as well.  When things are quiet, airliner incidents get reported and the more prominent the airline is, the more its incidents get reported as well.

It’s safe, go fly.

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The latest stats on airline complaints have Delta at the top with 2 complaints per 100,000 passengers and Southwest at the bottom with just .27 complaints per 100,000 passengers.  The legacy airlines (and many of their regional airlines) occupy the worst positions with LCCs and smaller airlines doing the best.  Does that mean that bigger is worse?

No, not really.  Southwest Airlines carries a tremendous number of passengers but it carries them on shorter flights and most flights are “point to point” rather than hub flying.  In fact, the better airlines tend to be more “point to point” flyers and the worst airlines are those with exceptionally heavy hub flying.    Does that mean hub flying is bad?

No, not really.  It’s notable that Airtran which definitely uses hubs occupied a low complaint position despite being heavily hubbed out of Atlanta, home of Delta Airlines. 

If anything, I would argue that it indicates just how much an airline values a customer and their repeat business.  Those airlines holding bad positions sacrifice service to maintain revenue and in many instances that works out OK for them.  However, those airlines who pretty much always show profits in good times and bad are the ones that are occupying the best positions. 

There is a lesson there for airlines:  Value your passengers total experience and they’ll value the services you offer.

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United Airlines flight attendants (comprised of about 15,000 United employees and 9,000 Continental employees) will be voting on which union will represent them in the merged companies I like to call ContiUnited. 

United (old) flight attendants have been severely unhappy with United since they lost their pension in bankruptcy in 2002.  The blame has often aimed at United Chairman Glenn Tilton and employee groups at United (old) have made it clear they intend to get what is theirs with this merger including the Flight Attendants.

It’s been my observation that Continental crews haven’t viewed their merger with United with great enthusiasm either.  Continental crews have had pretty good working conditions, good industry salaries and have been rewarded with the company’s success.  That experience has been seen to be at risk since United (old) employees typically outnumber Continental employees in the same jobs.

This vote will be won by the United (old) flight attendants and expect Continental flight crews to be displeased by this.  Jeff Smisek, CEO of United and formerly CEO of Continental, has been exceptionally quiet during this merger and hasn’t put much of a “one team” spin on this merger in the public in my opinion.  As times passes, this merger appears, from the employee perspective, to be less and less a merger of equals and more and more one of Continental executives taking over United operations.

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In light of Southwest Airlines’ 737 decompression, I thought I would offer a bit of trivia on the 737.

Question 1:  How many family iterations has the 737 seen?

Question 2:  How long has the 737 been in production?

Question 3:  How many engines brands have been offered for each variant of the 737?

Question 4:  What airliner was the world’s most popular before the 737 overtook that place?

Answers after the fold:

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Southwest Airlines has had another 737 develop a hole in its fuselage while in flight.  The aircraft suffered a rapid decompression, performed an emergency descent from 36,0000 to 11,000 feet and then landed at Yuma’s airport. 

According to one passenger account in the media, the hole was about 3 feet long but I would cautiou that these accounts often are wrong.  Passengers were met with another aircraft and the flight continued onwards to Sacremento.  One passenger hitched a ride with a family relative in a Cessna 182.

Southwest has announced that it is grounding its 737-300 fleet for emergency inspections.  This particular aircraft was delivered in 1996 which is neither particularly old nor particularly young for such an aircraft. 

A little less than 2 years ago, another Southwest flight from Nashville to Baltimore also developed a hole in its upper fuselage and had to divert to an airport in West Virginia.  That hole was slightly larger than 1 square foot and was later determined to be caused by metal fatigue.

Is Southwest or this aircraft type unsafe?  No, not really.  I do suspect that we’ll see some recommendations come out of this event with respect to inspecting for metal fatigue more frequently.  Southwest’s aircraft isn’t really old at all by any standards but Southwest does tend to perform many cycles (a landing and takeoff together is a “cycle”) each day with its aircraft compared to many airlines.  The numbers of cycles an aircraft takes on is far more important than its actual age or how many miles it has flown.

Expect some delays if you’re flying Southwest as they have 81 of this aircraft type in its fleet and until inspections can be performed, Southwest is liable to have a shortage of aircraft for its flights since 81 aircraft represents not quite 15% of its overall fleet.

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Pratty & Whitney has done pretty well this week.  First off, they’ve won the IndiGo order for the Airbus A320NEO and that is a big order over time.   150 aircraft is nothing to sneeze at.  P&W already is in development on this engine for Bombardier (CSeries) and Mitsubishi’s regional jet.  In addition, COMAC has now expressed interest in this engine for its 919 developement. 

At first glance, P&W appears to be getting interest from the little knowns but that’s simply because they’re the ones with new aircraft in development.  The Airbus A320NEO adds legitimacy and the order for IndiGo’s A320NEOs solidifies it.

It does strike me that airline industry appears attracted to the perceived greater promise of the GTF.  When does the GE/Snecma CFM LEAP 56 engine start gaining interest?  It’s noticeably silent in that area so far.

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