I’ve had a few people ask me about NextGen air traffic control over the past couple of months wanting to know what it is and if it really is the silver bullet to current problems so I thought I would take a few minutes to give a cursory description of what it is and why airlines want it. This is part 1 and we’ll have part 2 tomorrow.
The FAA has tried to find and implement a new system of air traffic control for 20 to 30 years now. Airways were crowded in the 1960’s and 1970’s and all parties knew it was time to find better methods of controlling aircraft. Contrary to what is often read in general news media, the current system is not 1950’s technology. The basic system of controlling aircraft was introduced in the 1950’s, the technology has evolved and been improved a number of times over the past several decades. That said, the issue with the technology is that in our modern microchip world, our current ATC technology is still kind of rooted in the mainframe era. You can go only so far with a system and the technology that supports it before you need to transition.
NextGen really is two things. First, it’s a re-envisioning of how we control aircraft. In other words, we’re talking about re-inventing air traffic control and we’re able to do that because of newer, more modern technologies. Before going farther, you have to imagine first that any system we use is not similar to a highway system because not only are we concerned about direction and speed, we have different altitudes to use too. It’s more like layer upon layer of highway systems.
The old system (and by system, I mean methodologies for controlling air traffic) was conceived in an era where our knowledge and technology allowed us to navigate with a fair degree of precision for that era but which still required a fairly large dose of margin of error to make it safe. Under the old system, have a system of “points” that pilots can navigate to and upon reaching those points, they then navigate to the next point they need to go to. When they create a flight plan, it is a plan that states which points they’ll fly to (within the rules of planning) and at what altitudes and speeds they’ll do it at. It is a kind of multi-dimensional connect the dots plan. Ever see the actual flight path of your aircraft and wonder why it looks a bit convoluted and twisted? It’s because pilots are flying along airways from point to point rather than from departure to destination direct.
Let’s say a pilot for an airline wanted to fly from Chicago to Los Angeles. Currently, the pilot cannot simply take off, flight at an altitude of his choice and fly directly from Chicago to Los Angeles. Instead, he takes off, flies to a point that is on or close to a routing that leads him in the *direction* of Los Angeles and he continues to fly from point to point to get to Los Angeles. As he gets closer, he flies with more precision to the airport by navigating to points that lead him to Los Angeles. Flying to these points is essentially done by “homing in” on radio broadcasts from beacons at these points and through direction from air traffic controllers who are “tracking” his flight via radar.
Neither the radio nor the radar paint a very precise picture. There are many seconds delay in the radar that paints the picture of the aircraft and where it has been and where it is going. If there is, say, a 15 second delay, that amounts to a lot of error. It doesn’t sound like a lot but consider that these aircraft are traveling at 530mph. That aircraft is traveling 0.15 miles / second and in 15 seconds, it has traveled nearly 2.5 miles. In 30 seconds, it has traveled nearly 5 miles. In just one minute, it has gone 10 miles. This explains why we currently require so many miles of separation between aircraft in the air. When you hear about aircraft being required to stay 5 miles away from each other on the horizontal, it probably sounds excessive. When you consider that an error in knowing where you are that last just 30 seconds, you may well lose all of that separation and suddenly run into another aircraft.
We’ve developed some systems over time that mitigate these risks such as TCAS (pronounced TEE-CASS) which stands for Traffic Collision Avoidance System. This allows two (or more) aircraft to announce where they are to other aircraft and to decide if these two aircraft are on a collision course. If they are, one system tells its pilot to “dive” and one tells the other to “climb”. The problem is, aircraft have accurately know where they are for this to work.
For the most part, they do. Airliners use a complicated set of gyroscopic inertial navigation machines. These sophisticated machines sense movement direction and speed and if they know where they were before they started moving, then they can tell where they are as they travel. Again, the problem is that the precision of these systems is measured in miles rather than feet.
Since I wrote this post HERE in mid January, I’ve kept an eye on airfares between these two cities. A check made yesterday revealed that advanced purchase (and not too advanced as in less than 30 day) fares are now at $158.00 on American Airlines and Airtran. They are a few dollars higher on Midwest and a few more dollars higher on the Frontier flight that is actually the Midwest flight.
Airtran hasn’t started these flights yet and when they do, they’re planning to use SkyWest CRJ-200 aircraft for those trips. Not the most comfortable airliner for 2+ hours of flight. It’s interesting to note that since I last visited this subject, AA has upgraded its equipment to CRJ-700 aircraft on most of the flights with just one ERJ-145 remaining. Midwest/Frontier continues to use Embraer E-170 equipment and both those aircraft are quite tolerable for the trip.
Even more interesting, Southwest Airlines is now offering not one but two “direct” flights with no plane change between the two cities and their cheapest available fares match Airtran’s offerings. The flight times are 3 hours, 10 minutes which is just shy of an hour more than the others nominally. In other words, they’ve shortened up the transit time by 20 minutes and when you consider where you live in Dallas, flying through Love Field just might make that a wash at this point. You also get to fly a mainline Boeing 737 instead of a regional jet. The real kicker is no bag fees on Southwest which, in many cases, makes Southwest the cheaper flight and potentially no longer than the others “door to door” for many in the Dallas area.
I would say that if Airtran does expect to keep this route, the CRJ-200 isn’t going to be adequate for that route. They’ll need to offer the kind of service they have on their B717 aircraft to siphon away traffic from both AA and Midwest.
I found THIS short story on Republic Airways and noticed the elevation of a Frontier executive to VP in charge of branding and marketing. Ian Arthur, the man who oversaw development of the animal campaign(s) at Frontier has been put in charge of branding and marketing for Republic’s two branded airlines: Frontier and Midwest.
Republic plans to unveil a new “face” for these two airlines blending the “best of both” airlines together. Quite a few people may hope for something with Frontier’s flair or Midwest’s comfort but I think a third thing is going to happen.
I suspect we’ll see a harmonization that relies on commonality for aircraft and that means Frontier probably returns to more of a traditional 2 class model and Midwest see its brand go away both in name and colors. Republic uses its fleet of regional jet aircraft to augment these airlines and they can’t afford to configure either to fit a highly distinguished brand.
I suspect LiveTV might well go away because I’m skeptical that Republic wants to fit that product to their E-170/E-190 fleet. What I really suspect is going to happen is we’ll see the Frontier name but the brand turned into a vastly more generic experience for passengers.
FlightGlobal has THIS story about Boeing considering a wing extension to improve the aerodynamic efficiency of the Boeing 777 and improve load and range. How the 777 will sell against the Airbus A350 in development is a question everyone is asking these days even though the A350’s specifications and real performance definitions are, at best, still a bit murky.
Although the A350 is definitely a competitor to the 777, engine thrust is really what reveals may be happening here. So far, Airbus has been unable to grow its engine range into thrust ranges that approach what the 777 has with the GE90 engines. Airbus remains at about 93Klbs of thrust from Rolls Royce and its two larger aircraft versions, the -900 and -1000 are, for the moment, have Rolls Royce as a sole source for engines.
Already airlines who are operating the 777 and who have ordered the A350 have said that the 777 will still have a significant payload advantage over the A350. Payload advantages can translate into carrying more passengers, more cargo or more range. In other words, the 777, on first glance, remains a very viable aircraft and with performance improvements, looks to remain so.
But what happens if Airbus is able to convince an engine maker to grow its thrust range into the 105K to 115K thrust range of the GE90? That would probably mean a commitment to some kind of new engine from Rolls-Royce or a stunning reversal of position from GE on supply a version of the GE90 to Airbus. Nonetheless, it’s a hard to ignore how such a development would change the viability of the 777 overnight.
Incremental performance improvements are common on airliners and Boeing knows it can grow the distance between the two aircraft with these improvements but only if Airbus is denied a 100K+ thrust engine. Since Rolls Royce has had quite some time to recoup investment on its large Trent engines and time to spend on research and development, I would not discount the possibility that they’ll commit to such an engine in the future but probably only if they retain some sort of exclusivity.
I think the extended wing, engine performance improvements and other tweaks will keep the 777 in the sales game for the next 4 to 6 years but if Boeing wants to retain supremacy, it’s time to start asking what the follow on successor to the 777 might look like.
Boeing has the 787 back on the right track and while they’ve got some work to do in getting the 787-9 and the speculated 787-10 into production, that has become straightforward engineering now. The 747-8 has come into its own test program and since that is an incremental re-development of the 747, there isn’t much there that isn’t straightforward engineering as well.
The 737 successor is by all accounts something to be deferred for development until late in this decade. Instead, it will receive a new engine almost certainly which will require some changes to the existing design but nothing that would warrant calling it a new aircraft. Instead, such an aircraft will be much like a 747-8 development.
That means there is potentially a 5 to 6 year gap there in which a new development program can take place before the 737 development must start in earnest. I rather think that’s the moment of opportunity for Boeing to go forward with that new large wide body replacement aircraft. It will push the company, certainly, but that development, particularly with what they’ve learned in developing the 787, would almost certainly dominate the markets for 20 or more years if they were to make the commitment.
Ordinarily I stay away from non-commercial aviation subjects because they don’t interest me that much and they aren’t subject matter that I have a lot of knowledge on most of the time. The KC-X Tanker RFP is something I’m very much interested in and I do know a bit about this one.*
Imagine you are a mountain climber. Moutain climbing is difficult and dangerous work and you need the right equipment to succeed as much as anything. Now, suppose you need an energy bar that will help you climb a particularly difficult mountain and you decide to ask for a price on products. It turns out there are really just two energy bar makers and they do things kind of differently but both make a very acceptable energy bar depending on your requirements.
Now you have to figure out your requirements. You decide you need an energy bar that is compact so that carrying lots of these doesn’t take up all your backpack space but you need a minimum amount of calories from it so that when you have one, you don’t want another right away and consume all your bars prematurely. You decide you need a mimimum of 200 calories from these bars and they shouldn’t be greater than 1.25 inches wide by 4 inches long by 0.3 inches thick. That lets you carry enough bars with a margin of safety but also lets you have space in your pack for other necessary items.
The US energy bar maker produces an energy bar that can be tailored somewhat. It’s nominal size fits your requirements within tolerances and all you have to do is remove one bar from your count to make them fit and leave room. It offers 210 calories so it meets your calorie needs too. It’s a pretty good fit although not perfect. The price is within reach but you need the best price possible because mountain climbing is expensive and every penny counts.
The French energy bar maker has a nice product too. It’s a bit more tailored and was originally made for mountains of higher altitude than the one your climbing. It’s size is 2 inches wide by 4.5 inches long by 0.5 inches thick. It’s a bigger bar and you’ll have to leave out 3 or 4 bars from your count to make them fit. Since this bar was designed originally for a different mission, the maker has increased its calories to 270 calories per bar. There is a lot of energy stored in that bar. It’s price is a tad higher but the French government wants to sell more to US mountain climbers so it has already subsized the cost of this bar so that it is competitive with the US manufacturers bar.
On the surface, the French bar looks like a heck of a deal but you still dive into the details. You think about the climb ahead of you and realize that you might have a problem. These bars go stale after you open them and if you don’t eat all of them, it goes to waste. Your body can only take so much in at a time because extra contents can slow you down on your climb. You only *need* 200 calories and you can’t cut those French bars in half because they go bad once you open them. Then you realize that the French bars only allow you to carry a margin of safety of 2 bars whereas the US bars allow you to carry a margin of safety of 7 bars.
Space and weight is at a premium in your backpack and now suddenly you realize that an energy bar that is tailored to your needs as closely as possible is probably the right choice. More is not necessarily better if it goes to waste. Space and weight is at such a premium that the only way to carry more French bars is to get a bigger backpack. That means spending more money on a backpack and carrying more weight as you climb which means you may need more energy in the first place. More requires more which requires more.
You look at both selections and realize that price is, in most respects, the least important requirement. The goal is to get up the mountain and back again quickly and efficiently. Now that you’ve thought this through, you realize that the US bar is the best choice because it meets your specifications almost exactly without being burdensome. The French bars meets your specifications too but it is so much “more”, there is a penalty implicit in its use for your application. On a per ounce basis, the French bar offers the better deal. On a mission basis, the US bar is a better deal.
So you buy the US bar because it meets the mission better. That, my friends, is what the KC-X tanker deal is really all about. It isn’t that the Airbus is a bad tanker. To the contrary, it’s a fine tanker made by an aircraft company that has an excellent reputation. The problem is that it doesn’t fit the mission.
The Airbus tanker does offer more nominal refueling capability and more cargo area. No question. But this RFP is to replace a fleet of tankers numbering in the hundreds. No other country other than the United States projects its power through a fleet like that. Even the really big western military powers like the UK or France only have a fleet of, at the most, a couple dozen tankers. We can send a couple of dozen tankers on a single mission if we want.
The tankers are a force multiplier but the way you really multiply your power is by being able to refuel several aircraft at once. 5 tankers takes care of a mission much better than 2 tankers because it allows the mission to refuel and carry on quicker. On almost all missions, our current fleet doesn’t come back dry very often. Almost never in fact. The KC-135R tankers meet our needs just fine in terms of capacity for either cargo or fuel. They’re just old and inefficient when it comes to operating expenses. But they can still meet our needs fine. We have a smaller fleet of larger tankers that fill the other needs when that occasion arises (which really isn’t often) called the KC-10.
So although the Airbus carries more fuel, it isn’t carrying fuel we’ll really use. That means extra expense for flying the extra weight of the aircraft that was designed to carry more fuel that isn’t needed.
Our bases which house this current fleet were built years ago and have been fine tuned to our needs over the past 5 decades. Again, our current fleet meets our needs so our facilities meet our needs. The B767 basically fits the infrastructure footprint we already have in place and that means we can do a one for one replacement without needing to upgrade hard stands (concrete areas to park the aircraft on), refueling facilities, hangers, runways, taxiways, etc. That means the KC-767 kind of “plugs in” into our existing infrastructure already.
The Airbus tanker requires more than 80% greater footprint in the infrastructure than the current fleet. That means upgrading and changing our infrastructure in every location and systems changes for every part of the fleet. As you can imagine, that adds significantly to our costs to operate that fleet as those changes will have to be done over the lifespan of the fleet and we’re not talking about changes that you can go to Sears for either.
The Department of Defense cannot write requirements for an RFP that make both aircraft competitive. These aircraft are too different from each other to be an apples to apples comparison. Eliminating politics from the equation for the moment, they have two choices: Buy by the ounce or buy by the mission. When it comes to the military, buying for the mission is much more economical in the long run as we’ve seen time and again. Remember when we had thousands of nuclear missiles? The question was how many times did we want to destroy the Earth over and over again when a small fraction of those missiles would end civilization as we know it. Buying by quantity isn’t always the best choice for these situations.
Let’s consider the politics though. Yes, we are for free trade generally. That said, we do a pretty bad job of enforcing fair and free trade when it comes to our political partners in the world. France (and Europe) have massively subsidized Airbus and its aircraft development. You know what? That’s kind of OK to me. They did it to redevelop an aerospace industry which is a strategic industry for any country and makes them militarily less reliant upon the kindness of others. That isn’t a dumb move. The problem is, they did it commercially instead of militarily because there was profits to be had. I really don’t fall on the side of “punish the French” when it comes to these subisidies providing they stop it. So far they haven’t. They’ve got their industry, now they should let it sink or swim. But subsidies are addictive (and we’re not innocent of such addictions ourselves either.)
Because an aerospace industry is strategically very important, we, too, should consider where this work goes. No, we don’t want to be gouged for it but we don’t want to lose that knowledge and know-how either. Were Airbus to win the tanker competition, that would effectively be the end of our capability to produce tankers 20 years from now. The people who know how to do it would be retired or dead. It would be extremely expensive to redevelop that knowledge base and it’s a knowledge base that is at the heart of our ability to project power as a country. Stop and think about that for a few minutes. I’ll wait.
Another consideration is the French and Germans themselves. Both of these countries have some history of being non-cooperative with the US when they disagree or don’t want to participate in a conflict. The Germans to a lesser extent but it still happens. That is perfectly OK and their right. However, DO WE WANT TO BE DEPENDENT UPON COUNTRIES WHO HAVE A HISTORY OF NOT NECESSARILY COOPERATING WITH US DURING IMPORTANT CONFLICTS? What if you need spare parts from Airbus and the French government forbids Airbus from delivering those spares to us at a particular time because it disagrees with us? That’s an important and critical consideration.
Airbus wants a foothold in the US. An opportunity to build a factory here would be a huge advantage for them because they currently sell aircraft for dollars but their costs are primarily in euros. If they builit aircraft here, their costs would be inherently less. Add in the subisidies this company receives and that puts our own aerospace companies which have to sink or swim on their own at a dramatic disadvantage and potentially erodes our domestic strategic aerospace capabilities. Is that what we want as a superpower in this world?
We shouldn’t be encouraging Airbus to compete for this stuff. We should be encouraging another domestic company to re-enter commercial aviation. We should re-develop that industry for our own benefit by encouraging someone like Lockheed to go back into that business so that in the future, we have healthy DOMESTIC competition for RFP like the KC-X Tanker.
Is this tender a boon for Boeing now that Northrop Grumman has withdrawn? No, not really. Boeing can and should make a profit but let’s not forget that they’ll have opportunity costs involved in this and the current RFP requires them to offer a fixed price for a very long time. There is a lot of risk involved in that.
Will this mean an extension of life for the 767 commercially? No, probably not. Maybe for freignters a bit but commercial airlines depend too much on new technologies to continue with the 767 for much longer. Does that make the 767 an outdated purchase for a tanker? No, to the contrary. It’s not the same 767 rolled out in the 1980’s for one. Frankly, other than the basic design, little of that aircraft resembles the original 767s. Not the wing, not the engines, not the avionics, nothing but the basic fuselage which was always a very efficient design. The military is getting an extremely durable, long lived aircraft that should provide capabilities for another 30 to 40 years.
* I am employed by a first tier vendor to Boeing on this program and even work in a group that will be directly involved in the program. However, I’m involved in military software rather than avionics or other hardware.
The Dallas Morning News Airline Biz Blog has THIS entry. Continental wants any exemptions granted by the DOT for the 3-Hour Rule to be extended to the entire NYC airspace area (JFK, EWR and LGA airports essentially) claiming they are to interconnected and interdependent and one problem at one airport potentially causes problems at another airport. There is some truth to that. What is spoken is that airlines haven’t decided to be a part of the solution to those problems.
What this really is about is just undermining the rule with exemptions. Get one foot in the door on that issue and you’ll likely undermine the entire rule with more and more exemptions. The New York City area is just the best place to start as it has the best conditions for claiming a need right now. Take note that airlines want government off their backs (to semi-quote Jeff Smisek of Continental) but have not implemented restraint on their parts nor have they sought an industry solution to the overly congested NYC area other than to ask for a “NextGen” ATC system. The NYC area has been congested since the 1960’s. I’ll point out that airlines didn’t want the government off their backs post September 11th.
This bothers me for 2 reasons. One, undermining the rule is just bad policy right now until you’ve had an opportunity to operate under it. You make a much better case for these exemptions if you can show both the operational and economic impact of them. Two, it’s a distraction for the airlines. It bothers me that airlines have allowed themselves to become distracted by fighting this rule instead of planning for its impact and getting on with their business. There are other, very important problems for many of these same airlines to solve such as labor contracts, equipment purchases and even fuel hedging.
Let’s face it, most all of these airlines asking for exemptions are airlines that could stand to be focusing more on solving other problems that shareholders are impacted by to a far larger degree. Shareholders haven’t really been given much by legacy airlines in terms of real value for their investments.
You can fight this PR battle in the news like this and lose and Ithink the airlines will lose this one. Now, they’re not in the habit of losing much anymore as they’ve have asked for and received a great deal of consideration from the government over the past 10 years. Unfortunately, there really isn’t much good will left out there for airlines and we now have a very different government in place.
It’s interesting to me that a group of airlines such as ours can spend so much time, effort and energy fighting something like this but won’t come together and make a concerted industry effort to lobby for a real implementation of better ATC control.
I might be wrong but I really don’t think there is much tolerance left for an industry that has received as much consideration as the airlines have who hasn’t tried to be a part of the solution. And despite all promises to the contrary, airlines really haven’t solved the kind of problems that the 3-Hour Rule has been put into place to solve. For almost ten years the industry has said that this is a problem that is better solved internally. If it had been solved internally, we wouldn’t be focused on solving this problem still (or not nearly to the degree it currently plays a part in public debate.)
A healthy airline would, at this point, be making contingency plans and figuring out how to operate profitably within this constraints rather than hoping to win a PR battle. Watch who decides they have a dog in this fight and then look at their financial performance and labor relations. It should be an interesting story.
Have I missed something in the pay of flight attendants? Are there flight attendants running around and purchasing 10 bedroom McMansions on their salary? Are Gucci and BMW their favorite affordable brands?
I am baffled at how there can be so much resentment towards flight attendants and their pay. If you looked at what the annual take home pay was for a real worker bee at *any* airline, you’d wonder how the airline manages to hire people. They make many teachers look well off. I’m not exaggerating.
So why is everyone so resentful of flight attendants wanting a living wage? In particular, I’m calling out those airline enthusiasts who love to pretend that flight attendants are bred for serving them and who believe anything less than perfect service (and they, the enthusiast, define perfect) just serves up a reason why flight attendants are underpaid.
A 25 year AA veteran flight attendant doesn’t earn what en entry level administrative assistant earns at my company.
Regardless of who happens to lead a union and what drivel they may promote, surely we can all agree that flight attendants (and gate agents, etc) aren’t overpaid and perhaps, in light of pretty significant rise in the cost of living, could use a raise.
Sun Country Airlines has announced plans to fly weekly service from Minneapolis / St. Paul to London (Stansted) this summer from mid-June to mid-August. You can read their press release HERE. This service will include both first class and coach seating on a 737-800 aircraft. Yes, that’s right. A 737-800 aircraft is being used.
No, it isn’t a Boeing Business Jet in disguise. Sun Country is planning to have an intermediate stop in Gander, New Foundland in each direction. That’s right, we’re back to offering service comparable to 1959. Actually, that’s wrong. The original 707s used on such services were considerably faster than the 737-800.
Believe it or not, this service is being sold for $798 not including taxes and fees. Taxes and fees could add well over $200 to $300 more to the price. No real bargain there. Did someone at Sun Country have a dream that Delta wasn’t offering enough service to London and a Beefeater comes along and suggests London Stansted as an ideal airport to use? London Stansted is 45 miles to the city center of London and lacks a tourist friendly connection between the airport and city center as well. Believe it or not, the CEO of Sun Country justifies this choice by mentioning potential connection opportunities with Ryanair.
Come to think of it, is this Sun Country’s way of announcing they are for sale?
USA Today/AP has THIS story about Frontier mechanics who are represented by the Teamsters union going to court to enforce a contract. Republic wants to move maintenance to Milwaukee (home of the other branded airline they purchased, Midwest) and it has offered to move mechanics from Denver to Milwaukee to do this maintenance. The mechanics and their union claim their contract specifies the maintenance will be done in Denver and they’ve gone to court to see who is right.
The worst part of this isn’t the move in my opinion. The worst part is that Republic has apparently told the mechanics that anyone who moves to Milwaukee won’t be in the union. Why is this bad? Well, for one, even the courts aren’t fond of union busting via mergers and bankruptcies. Another is that Milwaukee is, itself, a very unionized city still. I’m not sure you want to get a reputation for being anti-union in such a city where you’re still attempting to court customers as the “home town” airline.
Republic may even get away with this move but it also attracts the attention of unions and they may now face unionizing attempts at their “core” airline unit(s). While unionizing attempts aren’t nearly as successful as they once were, they continue to be a bit more successful in the airline world which is heavily unionized and where those belonging to a union almost universally do better with respect to pay and benefits. Yes, Delta is somewhat the exception here but I fully expect them to become much more unionized in the future as well.
Are unions inherently bad? No, they aren’t. Bad union contracts are bad. Antagonistic relationships with unions is generally bad. And in the political and economic climate that many workers exist in today, unions really don’t look so bad anymore.
A couple more moves like this and I’ll move Republic onto my death watch.
Anyone who follows this industry is well aware of labor problems at many US and European airlines. There have been at least three major strikes I can think of in the last month in Europe (BA, Lufthansa and Olympic). American Airlines seems to have had almost its entire operations labor force at the negotiating table for the past 4 years and not a one of them seem to be acting like a deal is soon to be had with several threatening to ask for release from negotiations to begin a 30 day cooling period and one (the TWU) who has asked for such a release.
Even Southwest Airlines has had a couple of snags in the past year with its pilots union and their TWU local. Delta’s flight attendants are making noise about trying to unionize again and this time they may have the votes for it when you consider that Northwest’s flight attendants were rabidly unionized. Frontier employees haven’t rebelled yet but I kind of wonder if that isn’t closer to happening than many realize given Republic Airways’ direction.
US Airways has problems with its pilots’ unions not being able to get along well enough to come to a consensus on whether or not the sun rose in the east. I do wonder how long it will be before we see the unions at United Airlines begin to overheat much like American Airlines’ already are.
Sure, there are some airlines who are managing to get along with their operations employees pretty well. That includes Southwest Airlines, Continental and even Frontier (for the moment.) However, a pretty vast number of airline employees seem to be simmering just before the boil over point and I’ve begun to wonder if there doesn’t need to be a better industry solution to collective bargaining than what they’ve got now. With the way things seem to be headed, particularly at legacy airlines but certainly not limited to them, there could be a truly momumental perfect storm of labor actions in the US.
I won’t argue who is paid well, paid poorly or over-paid. I certainly won’t argue who is or isn’t over worked either. Frankly, if you think being an airline employee in operations is a cush job, you really don’t have visibility into just what those jobs entail and just how many hours a day they consume. But if there is this much job dis-satisfaction among these ranks, clearly change is called for and I really don’t think this is all about money.
I think this is about job satisfaction. Yes, the union leadership (such as it is and that ain’t much) expresses the grievances in monetary terms but I really don’t think it’s all about the paycheck. I think it’s about feeling job satisfaction and feeling some meaningful reward from the job which, yes, includes salary levels. For airlines, I think this about a need to have greater flexibilty and ways to improve productivity that aren’t constrained by decades old rules.
Who is going to find a better way in this system which is largely based on 1930’s law and habits? I really wonder if there is any industry leadership who has the ability to find a better way.
Both Boeing and Airbus have a great selection of single aisle aircraft for domestic/trans-continental service in their B737 and A320 series families. Both have excellent widebody families for medium to long haul service too. The single aisle families can carry anywhere from about 130 to 190 passengers and that’s a pretty nice cross-section. The current widebody families (and I’m excluding the 767 from this characterization but you’ll see why in a few minutes) accomodate a broad range of passengers ranging from about 270 to 400+ passengers. Each even has new widebody family aircraft being introduced now and over the next 5 to 7 years that promise fantastic efficiency at incredible ranges.
Where is the aircraft to serve the 200 to 250 passenger count on a trans-continental/trans-Atlantic system? Yes, the A330 and B767 are there but they’re really not quite the aircraft for that anymore. The A330 is best as a -300 series aircraft and that encroaches into the 270+ territory. The 767 is still being built but it is, for all intent and purposes, a discontinued aircraft.
Previously we had the 757 and 767 capable of carrying that 190 to 250 passenger range on routes ranging from 2800 to 5500 miles and that market remains very active. But no one is building a new aircraft for that segment. The 787 misses it by a touch too many passengers and the A350 misses it by much more. Neither the 737-900ER nor the A321 is capable of traversing the Atlantic ocean from the east coast of the US to points inside the middle of Europe. They can barely make it across the continental United States.
Everyone is interested in aircraft for long haul routes that are intercontinental / trans-Pacific routes that yield quite a bit of revenue but for which there remains a fairly limited market. Who is going to build the aircraft capable of flying from Northeastern United States to Berlin or Rome or Athens or even Helsinki without being too much aircraft? Yes, the 787-8 can handle that route and probably handle it pretty well but it offers only a small marginal improvement on efficiency for those routes.
It would appear that the world market could stand to see another A300/767 sized aircraft that offers the kind of efficiency we see being promised in the 787/A350 aircraft being built today. And that really shouldn’t be difficult at all for either manufacturer. The fuselage sizes and engines necessary are known quantities. The technologies to raise the efficiency needed for those routes are all available today. There is no challenge to building this kind of aircraft but it doesn’t even appear to be on the drawing boards (or, rather, CAD screens) of either company.
There are a lot of 757/767/A300/A330-200 aircraft still out there but they’re aging fast and have a limited lifecycle left at virtually any airline. I do wonder why airlines aren’t pushing more for a 200 to 250 passenger, 5500nm aircraft particularly since we’re talking about routes that are medium haul, bread and butter routes for much of the global airline system. It is a sweet spot being ignored and I think that the manufacturer that identifies it and addresses it sooner, rather than later, is the manufacturer who enjoys a healthy order book for the next 2 to 3 decades.
Both Delta and jetBlue have requested exemptions to the 3-hour rule about to be implemented in April for their operations at JFK airport citing the runway closure for re-construction that will be in place until July. At first glance, this seems a reasonable request and I’m sure most would say such a condition is justified.
To be honest, I thought so at first as well. However, the more I thought about it, the more I didn’t like the idea. This will set a precedent for other “exceptional” conditions in the future and what I don’t like about this is that this is not an unplanned or unforeseen event. We know the runway will be closed. There has been plenty of time to plan operations to accomodate this closure. Both the airlines and the FAA have had plenty of time to come up with a contingency plan to deal with potential problems. When I consider that, I really don’t think the 3 hour rule should be exempted.
If this runway closure was sudden due to unforeseen circumstances, I could certainly get behind the idea of an exemption. That isn’t the case. Granting exemptions for planned events is unwise, precedent setting and undermines the rule itself for future events.
It makes no sense to have rules and advocacy for customers if those rules can be undermined by a planned event. If we do grant these exceptions, then I have to ask what is the sense in having a rule in the first place?
Airlines might be tempted to state that they did plan for this event but the rule caught them out since much of their planning was done before the announcement. My response would be that that planning clearly was inadequate if there is a genuine fear of running into 3 hour delays.
If the FAA feels it must make some kind of accomodation, I would suggest they grant the exception only on days with weather events that impact airport operations or some similar conditions. Set a boundary range of conditions and if the airport meets those conditions, no exception is allowed.
I realize that these thoughts likely rankle many airline employees and airline fans even. I’ve never believed the 3 hour rule is a perfect rule. I do, however, think it is a good rule to start with and the nice part about rules is that they can be changed if they don’t work. With the massive and constant changes that go on with carriers’ carriage contracts that are simply designed to protect the interests of the carriers only, it’s time to have some rules that protect consumers.
I recently read one article that pointed out that while a consumer can be charged an egregious amount for needing to change their travel date on a non-refundable ticket, an airline can change that flight at any time without penalty to the consumer. This is a great example of the imbalance that exists between consumers and airline service providers. We have finally begun to address some of those imbalances and I think that is a good thing. I also think that by addressing some of these imbalances with rules that define a more just and fair relationship between the consumers and airlines, airfares may well go up in price a bit. That, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing either.
The relationship between consumer and airline today is, frankly, one of the more dysfunctional in existence. It resembles two spouses who hate each other and yet refuse to get a divorce or seek other options in life. That relationship is only going to change if we actually do something and doing something shouldn’t take several years of hearings either.
I would love to see a commission that addresses these issues in a timely manner similar to BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) Commission that addresses how this nation closes and realigns military bases on an annual basis. It’s isn’t perfect but it is bipartisan and something that we all generally can abide by.
Imagine a airline industry rule making commission made up of 3 former airline executives and 3 former FAA and/or DoT administrators and one former Federal judge that address these needs and issue guidance upon reaching a simple majority consensus on a fair rule. No consensus, no rule. Have them meet and issuance guidance twice a year and let the rules be implemented. It’s bipartisan, reasonable just and fair and may well have the ability to help both the airline industry as well as consumers.
There have been some interesting comments in the news today made by Continental’s new CEO, Jeff Smisek. First, he seems the switch in alliances as a very good thing for Continental but it is way too early for us to see that as anything other than justification for the switch. It was notable that he referred to being in the SkyTeam partnership as problematic since they felt Delta was trying to kill them. I’m not sure Delta was trying to kill them but I don’t think Delta saw them as adding value probably.
Another comment is one I’ve been waiting for from an airline. Mr. Smisek says Continental will cancel flights before risking fines under the new rules for 3 hour delays. I’ve been waiting for an airline to make that statement publicly because the rule is about to go into effect but also because the winter weather this year has been atrocious for northeastern airline operations. No airline likes new rules. No airline ever embraced a rule that punished its violators with fines. Even the most progressive of airlines hate change. But airlines have been relatively quiet for the past 2 months of winter and that made me wonder if I was ever going to hear threats of cancellations.
Well, to my surprise, it was Continental that finally stepped up to the plate. The thing is, if one looks at what winter did to airline operations so far this eyar, any flights that got cancelled would have had to be cancelled anyway. There might have been a handful that could have gotten off if given 4 hours instead of 3 but it would have literally been a handful. What has been notable is just how quickly and quietly the airlines recovered their operations after each event. No outraged passengers were found on the news complaining either.
The airlines were all negatively impacted by the storms and all lost a significant amount of revenue because of that. It was unavoidable and it wasn’t because of the 3 hour rule looming in front of them. That’s how the airline business rolls sometimes.
The final notable comment is comes from Continental reiterating that it may be open to a merger in the future. They don’t see the Delta/Northwest merger as being in the books as a success yet and I agree. They do, however, believe that if that merger does prove successful, it points to what Continental needs to consider in the future. I don’t see this happening any time soon at all. The truth is, Delta got the best partner available in the US. The next 2 candidates come with a lot of baggage that isn’t easily solved by even in the best managers in the industry: United and US Airways.
I think we’ll see Continental exploit its membership in the Star Alliance and grow itself organically rather than by merger. There is one company that, if I were Continental, I would be interested in buying. Alaska Airlines. The problem is, if they make a move on Alaska, it will become a bidding war between AA, Delta and Continental. Maybe United even enter into that fight. Continental doesn’t have the war chest to win that fight. Not right now. If they do recover and re-start their growth and if Delta’s merger doesn’t prove as successful as it hopes, they would have a chance. Even at that, I think AA would fight very, very hard to win that battle just to keep Continental off the west coast.
Allegiant Airlines is adding 6 Boeing 757 aircraft to its fleet for Hawaiian operations with 2 starting in the near future and the remaining aircraft being added in 2011 and 2012. Some are surprised by this development but it should hardly come as a surprise since it does fit their business model nicely.
First and foremost, Allegiant is a leisure airline flying point to point operations from smaller towns to leisure destinations. While they’re not big on even having focus cities, they do have them and they aren’t allergic to concentrating flights into something that makes a profit. Allegiant also likes proven aircraft that have a relatively low cost to purchase and a low cost to operate. The 757 fits that model just fine.
Certainly these flights will depart west coast cities but unlike many, I suspect it will be 2 or 3 larger markets and probably from major airports. I suspect that the LA area, the San Francisco area and Seattle (Bellingham) will be the “gateway” cities for these flights. It won’t be Phoenix, Las Vegas or even Salt Lake City because while they’re nominally in range, there would be issues with hot and high operations in the summertime that would possibly weight restrict these flights. No, it’ll be departure cities that are low, relatively cool and with nice thick humid air.
My guess is that they’ll start in the LA area where Allegiant is already sending quite a few flights and probably it’ll begin with 2 frequencies a day to Hawaii from there. Perhaps one to Honolulu and one to Maui. That will allow them to become accustomed to operating the flights (probably 1 round trip per day per aircraft) and at the same time support the aircraft with staff and mechanics.
Next up likely will be Bellingham (just take a look at how many destinations Allegiant flies from Bellingham already for those penny pinching Canandians) and then perhaps from SF/Oakland.
Supposedly these are one airline aircraft with Rolls Royce engines so support and maintenance should be no problem and I’ll bet that heavy maintenance gets done by AA just as that happens for their MD-80 aircraft now. Some may wonder why not the 767 but I think Allegiant remains interested in keeping their aircraft full and properly utilized. The 757 should result in high load factors, slightly lower operating costs than the 767 and it is an aircraft they can potentially use for flights within the continental US should they wish to.
I found THIS little nugget today announcing that Airtran will hold its annual shareholder meeting in Milwaukee on May 18th this year. At first glance, I might accuse Airtran of just pandering to the Milwaukee market. On further reflection, this is a bit more than just pandering. It’s too much effort for just pandering. It strikes me more as respect quite honestly.
I’m sure most see this as a shot aimed at Midwest Airlines since Midwest is considered Milwaukee’s home town airline. But I’m not sure it is aimed at Midwest so much as it might be aimed at both Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, Delta and United. There just isn’t any brand for Midwest even in Milwaukee anymore and to think it might still exist is to not give enough credit to those who live in Milwaukee. They aren’t fools, they can read newspapers and they’re just as smart as any other market.
But Milwaukee is a loyal city and I think Airtran is making the right moves in Milwaukee. Rather than just showing to offer a good fare, they’re investing in the city and I suspect that Milwaukee will respond to that. That’s why I think this move is aimed much more at Southwest, American and, yes, even United and Delta. AA, Delta and United all serve Milwaukee primarily through their nearby hubs and have never shown much respect for Milwaukee as a market. At least not until Airtran and Southwest showed up.
Southwest is the newest airline to arrive but Milwaukee has courted them for years without success. Southwest didn’t pay too close attention to Milwaukee until Airtran did. Only Airtran showed up, grew their presence in the market and now is respecting the city by making it a focus city, an employee domicile and now their shareholder meeting site. This all is very smart on the part of Airtran and it will get noticed.
Lufthansa is reporting a 152 million Euro loss for 2009 compared to a 1.3 billion Euro profit in 2008. No doubt that declining markets in Europe can account for a good portion of this reversal in fortunes particularly considering that the decline in Europe lagged behind that of the United States (and is likely to lag behind the US in recover too.)
However, their addition of Austrian Airlines and British Midland in 2009 is also highly suspect. I’ve been suspicious of their multi-brand strategy in Europe for a while and more so now after seeing their financial results. Adding sub-performing airlines to the portfolio is never a strategy that works in the long run (witness the demise of the original Swiss Airlines in 2001) and Lufthansa has so far not shown much inclination to benefit from harmonizing operations among the various airlines.
I also suspect that this loss is only the beginning for 2010 since Lufthansa is faced with labor problems and hasn’t made the moves that other European airlines have made to cut costs and re-structure service offerings (a la British Airways.)
THIS newstory by the Boston Fox TV station is about a series of 5 transmissions made by a small boy in JFK”s tower a few days ago. The boy does *not* give taxi clearances or landing instructions or anything that would be deemed critical. He gives a few departure clearances and that’ s all.
Personally, while I agree that this wasn’t the wisest thing in the world and it certainly isn’t something you would want anyone to make a habit of but the boy gives them clearly and precisely and no harm or risk is involved. Frankly, the boy gives a more “clear” clearance than any of the ATC working in DFW Airport’s tower.
There has been a great deal of talk about Midwest Airlines and Republic Airways’ intention to consolidate that brand with its Frontier brand in the near future. Most notable is that few people seem to be decrying the loss of Midwest Airlines anymore. Certainly not like they were when Airtran attempted to take them over a few years ago.
Midwest ceased being an airline last year and became a brand only. When Frontier and Republic equipment began to fly its routes, the distinguishing features of that brand were eroded heavily. Now it’s basically a logo and a location and no one seems to care anymore and that means the brand has little, if any, value.
Will Frontier be the new brand? No one has really said much about what the plans are but there have been a few vague hints that it might be a new brand altogether. The fact that anybody is talking about this in vague public hints really shows just how much Sean Menke is already missed in getting this thing figured out.
Frontier has an excellent brand and one that could well work in Milwaukee just as good as it has in Denver. Frontier had better service differentiation and a better selection of products than Midwest ever hoped to have. It’s nationally known and folks in Denver have learned to be very loyal to it. Others could too.
A new brand is the mis-step that I think many are wondering about. You can only have so much of a “virtual” airline in operation until people begin to wonder who they’re flying with. Dilution of both brands in favor of a much more generic but new brand is not a good idea.
There are signs the industry is, perhaps, starting to slowly recover. That recovery is likely to be slow and painful and it isn’t the time to be trying to introduce yet another new airline brand to the country and compete against established airlines who are arguably better situated to compete already (SWA, Airtran).
Republic would be far better off to work on consolidating the operations between both Midwest and Frontier and standardizing on the Frontier brand which means getting the Frontier services onto all aircraft too. Marketing and sales then will have much better guidance on what they’re selling and who they are selling it to. No matter what the brand’s name, it’s time to get a cohesive marketing plan together and begin executing it on all fronts including online social media as well as local sales efforts. Wait too much longer and Frontier, as a brand, is liable to go the way of Midwest and I’ve already pointed out that that brand suddenly has no value to anyone anymore even in its home market.
