New Aviation Podcast - The Airplane Geeks
By admin | June 10, 2008
For those of you sick of reading what I have to say, why not listen to it? I’ve partnered up with Max Flight from www.thirtythousandfee.com and we’ve put together a weekly podcast for all the true airplane geeks. Focusing on the airline industry, we also deal with the latest in general aviation, and military aviation. Oh, and I make a total fool of myself, too. Give us a listen and let us know what you think. I’ve even set up a voicemail account if you’d prefer to leave a message we can hear: 812-757-4252.
Topics: Podcast |
Tis the Season…To Break Deals With Airline Partners
By miller22 | May 30, 2008
It seems to be the latest fashion in the airline industry to try to screw the people you’ve signed a deal with. Whether it be mainline-regional agreements, or cargo, there’s been no lost love in the industry lately. With yesterday’s news regarding the relationship between Mesa and Delta, I thought it was time to discuss just how nasty it’s gotten out there.
After Delta’s claims that Mesa did not meet minimum flight completion requirements, Delta announced they would no longer continue to do business with Mesa. For those of you who’ve been following the death spiral that is Mesa, you know that they’ve been largely criticized for their inability to maintain crew staffing, have launched an expensive and questionable ventures in China and Hawaii, and have recently been ordered to pay over $50 million to Aloha. After the announcement by Delta, Mesa warned it’s shareholders that, should Delta be allowed to terminate the contract, Mesa would be forced to file for bankruptcy on or before July 20. Mesa filed for an injunction which was allowed by the courts yesterday, effectively holding everything at status-quo.
For Delta, the attempted cancellation of the contract comes at a convenient time when they’re trying to get rid of excess 50-seat lift. The injunction will leave them looking elsewhere, or waiting for the appeal process to be completed or the contract to expire. The clear exposure here is on Comair, which is the only regional carrier owned lock-stock by Delta.
For Mesa, this injunction is a small win which just delays the inevitable. Their performance has been suffering across all customers as of late, and forcing one of your larger customers to keep in a contract they don’t agree with does not a viable long-term solution make.
The biggest surprise of yesterday came from the announcement that DHL would entirely scrap it’s U.S. network and outsource all flying to UPS. This is a devastating blow to both ABX and Astar, both of which who currently fly for DHL in the U.S. DHL owns 49% of Astar, and accounts for almost 100% of its revenues. No announcement has been made by Astar as to the future of the company. ABX does operate some flights outside the DHL network, notably with ANA in Asia. Even with this slight diversification, shares of ATSG were down over 40% on the news.
According to releases from both UPS and DHL, the transition will take place over the course of 2008 and 2009, and still has to pass Department of Justice approval. With precedence set in the FedEx/USPS contract, this approval is not expected to see any obstacles.
In one of the most creative stabs in the back we’ve seen in a while, Continental Airlines said it would only continue its relationship with ExpressJet if they sold to Skywest airlines. This was conveniently accompanied with an offer from Skywest to by ExpressJet. It seems the contract between Continental and ExpressJet wasn’t even negotiated by ExpressJet, but Skywest.
Topics: Continental, Cargo, Delta |
Pay for your Delta Tickets on Paypal
By miller22 | May 29, 2008
Paypal has announced that Delta will soon be offering the option for travellers to pay via Paypal. This represents a significant milestone in internet 
history for us geeks, since Paypal has long been regarded as the Ebay payment service. Now that Delta has agreed to start using them, expect other airlines to follow suit.
I prefer to use Paypal when given the option, and this announcement makes me all the happier. The big winner, however is Paypal itself, who has made the transition to a more mainstream market. Delta doesn’t fare to badly on this either, since options for their
Share ThisTopics: Delta |
American Announced Route Cuts - Is ORD on the Chopping Block?
By miller22 | May 28, 2008
After warning of route cutbacks, American announced yesterday some of the routes to be hit in the initial round. Not surprisingly, ORD was hit hardest with routes to HNL and EZE (Buenos Aires) being shut down, as well as BOS-SAN. It doesn’t take a geography scientist (or in this case the winner of the Oregon-Davis Elementary Geography Bee 1990…Thank you. Thank you very much) to tell you that these are all thin long-haul markets. What I do find interesting is the ORD-HNL route, which admittedly must be lower yield, but with the recent reduction of flights to HI from the likes of ATA and Aloha, I would expect this to be lower on their list. More likely, they’re going to reroute all of their Hawaii customers through DFW to not only fill those planes, but boost yields that are lagging behind the surging fuel prices.
But as much as this will build load factors and yields out of DFW, it will also hurt them out of ORD. Could this be the beginning of a major pullback for American out of ORD? They have taken what some would consider more drastic, nay desperate measures which were announced at their annual meeting. The $15 fee for the first checked bag is something we would have expected out of an LCC long before the largest legacy airline in the country. In fact we’ve seen the exact opposite with American taking that $15 leap, and Southwest announcing they wouldn’t even join the club and charge the almost-standard $25 for the second checked bag. Remember that ORD is the fortress hub for one United Airlines, recently-ish emerged from bankruptcy, with a low(er) cost structure than American who narrowly avoided the “B” word. United is undoubtedly leveraging its new cost structure to put pressure on American, which may be too much for them to bear.
The Dallas based airline also mentioned that this would be the beginning of several announcements of cutbacks to reduce mainline capacity by up to 12 percent in Q4 2008 vs 2007. Also mentioned in the release was a “restructuring” of their San Juan hub, which is almost entirely reserved to American Eagle. This will be the first of an additional 11 percent reduction in its RJ fleet, including the retirement of the entire Saab fleet by the end of the year.
Topics: Schedule Changes, American Airlines |
British Airways Buys Two A318’s for Transatlantic Service
By miller22 | May 27, 2008
Looks like British Airways is going to test the legs of the A318 by sending it across the Atlantic in an all business class configuration. Operating between London City, and New York, this will put BA’s new A318’s in direct competition with Silverjet, which just recently saw victories in this market with the extinction of both Maxjet and Eos.
Webwire quoted Willie Walsh from BA saying, “The A318 is the perfect aircraft for these flights. It is capable of operating at London City and is large enough for us to provide the number of business class seats required to make this a viable operation.”
It looks as though this venture will see better results than Maxjet and Eos saw, due to the deep pockets at Mother BA. Will it work with the smallest version of the A320 series? Economies of scale say no, but if they can sell a handfull of seats at an obscene price, the London City business crowd may just turn this into a money maker. It’s going to be difficult, however, since BA expects to fit each A318 with only 32 seats, and have announced that West-bound flights will have a scheduled fuel stop.
I suppose now we just sit back and wait for the environmentalists to speak up. If you remember, BA was already in the hotseat for flying an aircraft nearly empty (which admittedly needs to be done at times for repositioning). If the green community catches wind of empty A318’s, it may prove a damaging hit to BA’s public relations.
Share ThisTopics: A318, British Airways, Airbus |
Kalitta 747 Split in Half
By miller22 | May 27, 2008
Out of Brussels this weekend, a Kalitta Air 747 aborted takeoff and slid off the end of the runway. Mayhem ensued.
Frontier Raises Checked Baggage fee to $100 for… Antlers?
By admin | May 26, 2008
Frontier Airlines announced this week that they will be increasing the fee for checking antlers. Antlers. Gone are the days of moving your prized trophies for a measly $75. Now, if you want to bring your antlers back home with you, it’s going to cost you a full $100.
This news has triggered a full “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” for me. Not a “What were they thinking” type of moment, but a “Where have I been” moment. I consider myself relatively well connected with the industry, and I’ve never heard of airlines even allowing antlers in checked baggage. I suppose it does make sense, considering Frontier’s hub is considered a sort of a Mecca for hunters.
But the genius (or dumb luck) in this is that Frontier was able to boost their brand recognition, all while dealing out bad news. If anyone is going to mention fees for antlers, you’d expect it to be Frontier. That “Whole Different Animal” slogan makes sense now, doesn’t it. Great for strengthening their brand. The other stroke of genius (again, or dumb luck) is that Frontier doled out a whole laundry list of extra fees, none of which created much buzz. In additional to the 33% hike in antler-handling fees, came a 25% increase in fees for unaccompanied minors to $50, a $25 charge for a second checked bag, a termination of the half-priced infant seat policy, and an end to booking pets in the cabin.
With all of this bad news, what did the public focus on? The same thing I did: “Frontier carries antlers?” If I’m a hunter, and I wanted to ensure protection of my prize from my hunting trip, the extra $25 is nothing, and Frontier just raised to the top of my list of airlines since I know they can take them. Kudos to the Frontier PR team for turning bad news into free advertising (whether they meant to or not).
Now, how much do you think they charge extra to haul these antlers around?
Topics: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?, Frontier, Wierd Airline News |
Flying the CRJ-700 Part 1 - Preflight, Taxi, and Takeoff
By admin | May 25, 2008
Before I finally caved in to the wife and left my office in the clouds for a desk in Ohio, I flew the CRJ-700. I flew it a lot. They say you eventually fell in love with the airplane you fly, and learn to ignore the drawbacks, but the CRJ-700 was such a hot-rod, I didn’t even find many drawbacks to ignore. So, as a bit of information for my fellow airplane geeks, and as a bit of nostalgia for myself, I decided to share what I learned about flying the CRJ-700. Take note that by “learned,” I don’t necessarily mean what was taught to me by the instructors, rather what was taught to me by the airplane. If you really do fly this airplane, don’t go blaming me if you have to do the carpet dance for using one of my techniques.
Getting Situated
To the less-educated, a CRJ-700 is just a stretched CRJ-200. I can tell you with strong conviction that this is not the case. Two major enhancements brought the CR7 to a new level: the wing, and the engines.
For those of you who have watched CRJ-200’s land, you’re familiar with the origin of their “lawn-dart” nickname. Without leading edge devices, the CRJ-200 had a nose-low attitude on approach and landing as well as a higher approach speed. The CRJ-700 had the entire wing redesigned, and leading edge slats were installed. This brought the nose up during approach, but more importantly, improved takeoff performance, and reduced the approach speed.
The CR7 also employed a new version of the CF-34 engine from the CRJ-200. With a newly redesigned core, the CF-34-8C1 engine was reduced from 14 to 10 compression stages, which leaves little in common with the CF-34-3B1 engines on the CRJ-200. The resultant increase in thrust from 9,220 lbs to 13,790 was enough to change the dog of the CRJ-200 into the hot-rod of the CRJ-700.
Pre-flight Walk Around
Walking around the aircraft during preflight, there are several important items to watch for. Of course there are tons of other things you should always check during the walk around, but these are just the one’s that most new pilot’s miss.
The service doors on the right side of the nose can be a problem, especially after the aircraft has been “gently” used by ground service personel for a while. Watch your fingers, since those snaps can be difficult to pop open, and if they hit your fingers on a cold day, you’ll have a nice mark to remind you the next time. The main one to look for is the oxygen service door, which left open, disrupts the airflow across your pitot tube. The other one to pay attention to is the ground crew service panel. Inside this door are a couple of headset jacks they’ll use to communicate directly to you during pushback. This one get’s left open a lot, or not shut properly. There’s no real danger in that door coming open in flight, but it is going to annoy the crap out of you if it does. A constant high-pitched squeel for three hours is enough to remind you to do what you can to keep it from happening again.
While you’re hanging out by the nose, make sure the scissors bar for the nose-wheel steering is connected. This is very important for all the obvious reasons, and for some that aren’t quite so obvious. The CRJ-200 requires the nose wheel steering pin be removed by the ground service personnel. This is not the case in the CRJ-700. Of course, if they do disconnect it, they will catch it after push back, and even if they don’t, you’ll find out real quickly that you have no nosewheel steering. The problem is reconnecting it if it has been disconnected. It’s very difficult to know when it has been properly reconnected, and if it comes off during taxi (which has happened to me several times), there’s going to be a sharp jolt as the nose gear castors all the way around followed by two loud thumps as your flight attendants hit the floor. It’s a good idea to make yourself very familiar with what the nose wheel looks like when it is properly connected. If the ground crew disconnects it, it’s going to take them a long time to get it connected again, and I’d suggest opening the door and offering a helping hand. This ensures it doesn’t come disconnected during taxi. Trust me, you don’t want that to happen.
Another focus point most pilot’s don’t take time to inspect are the main gear wheel wells. The fit in these wheel wells is extremely tight, and a slightly overextended strut is enough to rub the tires on the inside of the wheel well. I have seen wheel wells that were no longer connected to the fuselage, and were free hanging inside gear bay. The fire protection was still connected, but the bolts had been sheared off from the tires pushing on it. This is a no-go item if you see it.
Don’t forget to make sure all static wicks are still attached to the wings and tail. The CRJ-700 makes lightning strikes a non-event, but you’ll see it in a missing static wick. While you’re back there, take a look for any signs of bird ingestion around the engines. Oddly enough, one of the best ways to tell is if you smell fried chicken. (This method does not apply when parked near Popeye’s Chicken in ATL’s Concourse C).
The CRJ-700 also introduced a belly luggage compartment to the CRJ series. The side door to this is interesting, and is also going to result in a few bruised knuckles. Hopefully it’s already open, but if you do have to open it, please don’t let it bang against the side of the aircraft. I hate that.
The other major item to check before jumping back into your seat is the pins on the main cabin door. Make sure they’re not sticking out! I’m not sure how, but sometimes the door handle gets pushed back in while the airplane is parked, and the door pins extend. If the flight attendant raises the door with those pins extended, bad things happen. Bad things, man.
Share This
Topics: CRJ |
The Airlines Have Gone Too Far With Extra Charges!
By admin | May 23, 2008
American Airlines announced this week that it will begin charging $15 for the first back you check. This marks a distinct change in airline ancillary revenue, and I think this has gone too far. So, in protest, I offer this great parody of the slippery slope American Airlines is leading the industry.
Share ThisTopics: American Airlines, Videos |
ATR’s Meet God’s Wrath in GSO
By miller22 | May 16, 2008
A strong storm that swept through Greensboro, left the following carnage for two of FedEx’s ATR-42’s
« Previous Entries