I've just joined AirSpace so that I can add my voice to those who are dismayed with this year's JP.
I'm a relative newcomer compared to some, having only bought each of the last 22 editions, but I can confirm that this year's is the poorest by far.
As has been noted, it is far, far from up to date. Indeed, "correct through May 2008" must be verging on misleading information provided to the consumer. A poster above asks for the worst error. What about p.237 where Eurofly is listed as having ordered 3 A350XWB-800? That can't be explained away as simply cutting and pasting last year's entry. Someone has actively added (XWB) and the engines. But based on what? Guesswork? It's an old order that was cancelled, not converted. In a publication of this calibre, that really is shocking.
Scores of orders are omitted but seemingly on an arbitrary basis. Why include the British Airways order for A380s but not 787s?
And there are gaps where there need not be any. Singapore Airlines chose the RR Trent 700 for their A330s in November 2006. Is it too much to expect that information would have reached JP by "May 2008"?
And the alphabetical listing by manufacturer (Airbus, Boeing, Embraer...)? I don't like it either. It does not give me the picture of an airline that I want. For more than twenty years I've looked at the last entries in each list for widebodies and the early ones for regional jets. Moreover, it's interesting to compare the MTOWs of adjacent 737s and A320s (for example) without having to flick back a page or two. It works. Please change it back.
I have nothing but the highest regard for the team of Klee, Sommer and Bucher (and others) for the outstanding work they have done for 40+ years. How sad then that the first edition published by Flight fails (seriously) to live up to the standards they set.
I used to trust the information in JP pretty much without doubt. It seems that is no longer the case.
Regarding how up to date the new issue is. In the 2007/8 edition, Airtime Charters (G-) has a fleet list of C310 G-BMMC & PA31 G-GLTT. The new 2008/9 has it the same. Even in 2007 this was wrong !!. They never owned G-BMMC and it became G-XLKF in April 2006 anyway - and is now N850KF. Two additions are Be200 G-IMEA & PA31 G-IMEC, both registered in 2006. This one item clearly has'nt been checked or updated - which doesnt inspire confidence in the remainder of the book.
Here is another entirely pointless and franky irritating change which makes it more difficult to use the book. Someone has gone to all the trouble of re-styling EVERY SINGLE Boeing, and indeed even all the Boeing (McDonnell Douglas) etc. construction number associated with a line or unit number, removing the spaces which used to make the columns easy for the eye to follow. Hence:
China Eastern Boeing (McDonnell Douglas) MD-90-30 B-2267 now has 53533/2258 listed instead of 53533 / 2258. It is a small change, but another case of why change it when it worked already. I have just started (reluctantly) copying data from the old edition to this one. Traditionally this takes me up to a week of enjoyable free time. This year I estimate it will take three times as long and be a complete chore.
Find 30,000 more examples. There are some on every page. Please confirm the date for the re-print.
Ian Mc.
Well, I did promise to be more constructive and less angry . . . here are some practical comments:
DC-8 - Whether they should be noted as Boeings or not, it seems that some DC-8s are styled one way and some another, resulting in the current poor sort separating them into two places in some fleets (examples Arrow Air P299, ATI Air Transport International P301). Try this . . . The way they are usually referred to is as follows: If a DC-8 was built with a cargo door it should be -F followed by the model, e.g. DC-8-63F(AF) etc. If it was converted from passenger configuration with a cargo door added it would be restyled from (e.g.) DC-8-63 to DC-8-63F without the model qualifier. Oddly, some are still noted in the book as, e.g. DC-8-62AF(DC-8-62F), which is redundant and confusing, and produces the double sort.
CRJ700 - The type "Bombardier CRJ700 series 701ER (CL-600-2C10)" also seems to be overstating the model. This would be much better styled as simply "Bombardier CRJ701ER (CL-600-2C10)". There would be two obvious results from doing this, they would be in the same style as the CRJ200 and CRJ900, and the type description would not be so long that it merges into the c/n field on the page.
DHC-8 - Same as the CRJ700. The type should be "DHC-8 Dash 8 series 102". The style used in the JP book "DHC-8-102 Dash 8 series 100" is another example of double redundancy. Also having separate sort lists for -301 and -311 models (e.g. Air Canada Jazz P41) means there is no correlation between reg and type. These two minor variants have the same weight, engines, seating etc. and even look identical.
Comments field. Some examples of the many out of date comments - FlyBe E145 G-EMBK still has "Benyhone" colours listed from the BA days. British Airways 757 G-CPEM still has "Blue Peter" colours noted (Back in normal colours since at least 8/07)
I am still trying to transfer data from the old book. These are just a few ideas to make it look less shoddy. When you have sorted all these out please reprint!
Cheers,
Thanks for your comments.
As you point out, an area of JP Airline Fleets where we would welcome your feedback is the 'Remarks' field. This is a new sub-set of data for us, as it's not currently researched in our existing products. The research team is now actively updating this section but information on new schemes, etc. is always welcomed and will be reproduced in the next edition of the yearbook.
Vidi, Vici, Veni. I saw, I conquered, I came.
I was googling for the JP2008/09 and ended up here.
Have all JP issues complete, almost, since 1981; the books have been of great help, both for personal interest but have also convince my employer to buy a copy yearly.
Based on the what has been written here, I won't buy a copy this year and neither will my employer.
With my Air-Britain membership I can buy a suitable alternative and my subscription to the online database of www.Aerotransport.org I am sure things will be well covered. Looking forward to expert advise next year.
Thanks all.
I have seen previous editions of JP Airline Fleets and have been impressed with the layout and depth of information. I was about to take the plunge and buy a copy this year. However having read some of the comments regarding the changes (which make no logical sense), I will certainly not be parting with my money. I will wait until next year to see if the original format is reinstated.
I have just received my copy of the 2008/9 JP and I have to share a sense a great disappointment with others who have posted comments. I have bought every edtion since 1980 and therefore have more than a few with which to compare it.
I totally agree that the new sort of data is completely nonsensical and I hope sincerely it will revert back in 2009.
I have a couple of points which I don't think have been covered elsewhere...
1) The typeface has definitely been reduced and it is a real challenge to the eyes!
2) I always also purchase the CD-ROM version, load on my laptop and use it to search for changes year by year. It would appear that search results show a page number which does not match the digitised version of the printed page. The reason is simple - the page numbering with this edition starts with the title page and hence the numbering is actually 'out' by 5 pages. This is small issue but a real pain when you are trying to turn quickly to the required data in the printed volume.
3) It is now August 2nd I have only just received my copy. This is as a result of a complete ***-up. I ordered in advance in April and received an email receipt from BuchairUK. Delivery was to be to my home in Gibraltar but my invoice address is a London one. Having failed to receive anything by the 21st July I queried and was passed to the new distributors by BuchairUK. After lengthy enquiries it was confirmed that the book had not been shipped owing to an error at their end. Subsequently, the book and CD were indeed sent but arrived at my partner's company address in London (my invoice address) and not in Gibraltar. I have had to have the parcel couriered from London and having seen the finished product am mightily disappointed.
I have yet to undertake a detailed review of the data but I had to register my disappointment on this forum.
I hope Flight listens to concerns raised and applaud the fact that this forum exists. I want to remain a loyal JP customer but take nothing for granted.
Brian
So Flight Team, after all the feedback you had from your (once?) loyal customers, let's talk about a re-print.
Or, are you just going to pretend nothing happened?
Hi Tonkrug,
To answer your question there will be no reprint.
In the thread above we have described in detail the reasons for the changes and the fact that the Buchair Team in Switzerland collected the data, as they have done for the last forty years.
We have appreciated everyone's opinion and this will help us form next year's edition of the book. As i think Goose mentioned,we want next year's book to be a collaborative effort, where your images and data help us to achieve the best book to date. Feel free to contribute information to the JP area on AirSpace, or add a picture to our photo area as we will choose the best to put into next year's edition.
Thanks
Maverick
Site Manager
AirSpace - more than just hot air
So, Maverick, Goose and all. That's a clear admission that the order was changed this year to be the same as the competition. Why on earth do you think people buy the JP book? BECAUSE IT IS NOT THE SAME !
I am still trying to fill in the data I need in a completely different order than that which I am used to. Next year, will I be expected to change it all back again to the famous "JP sort"? It will be far easier to apply that data to one of the other available books which will be in the order I have now been forced to use. Offer me a refund of the difference between an Air Britain book and a JP and I may consider it. I am still upset that I have paid £45 for something I could have had for less than half the price.
As I said in my original posts, NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Surely you do not need to set up another forum to ascertain whether the customers want it done in the accepted format for the reprint. That's meetings about meetings. The comments are all here for pity's sake.
WE NEED AN IMMEDIATE REPRINT. You should all be truly ashamed of yourselves, Flight. Talk of doing it right is all hot air if you won't sell any, NO AUTUMN REPRINT = NO CUSTOMERS NEXT YEAR.
Ian Mc (YES I'M STILL ANGRY)
ihmcallister:blah, blah, blah, blah, blah
Will somebody call the WAAAAAHMBULANCE on this person?(edited due to site rules!!)
All you have done for the last few weeks is constantly whine about how bad this book is. You really need to get out more. If you think it is really that bad, don't buy it next year.
ihmcallister:WE NEED AN IMMEDIATE REPRINT
I'm sure the people who produce the book are taking notice of you...... Will you be stumping up any of the costs for this 'mandatory' reprint? No? I thought not.
ihmcallister:I am still upset that I have paid £45 for something I could have had for less than half the price.
Then it's your own fault for buying it in the first place. Try not to make yourself more of a laughing stock than you already are. You are one person out of I guess thousands that buy the book every year so I doubt you are significant in the grand scheme of things.
BoeingGirl
Sorry BoeingGirl you've blown your credibility out of the water by your choice of language.
ihmcallister has legitimate complaints about the 2008/09 edition like a great many of us. He should be allowed to express them without being labelled a 'cretin'.
Whoa...steady on there! Terms such as "cretin" and "laughing stock" and "I doubt you are significant" are downright offensive, ill-mannered and plain childish. They surely have absolutely no place in these forums. May I request that you attempt to express your opinions in language that is a good deal less insulting, personal and emotive. It really is just not on you know! I may be somewhat old-fashioned, but I find this type of discourse, in public, most distasteful. For goodness sake; we are talking about a publication here, not the fate of nations........
Brian T Richards and Dakota67, Thanks for your kind words. As with many other internet forums "There is always one!" Sticks and stones may break my bones, eh?
Hi there!
I totally agree, a second edition is very necessary, or - as an alternative, a refund/bonus for hopefully a substanitially better jp next year...
I'm spending hours here to update my "new" copy and I get more and more angry about these hundreds of mistakes, missing updates - this year's jp is really trash - I could rather have lived another year with my last year's copy.
Have checked Korea this morning:
- 1 operating airline missing
- 4 start-ups missing
- 6 aircraft missing (delivery of 4 before 2008!)
- 2 OZ-freighter still listed as pax-aircraft
Sören
Agree that the use of such language as "cretin" is unneccessary on the forums. We try to allow people as much freedom as expression as possible but when it gets to name calling we have to say that it won't be tolerated, so please everyone let's not resort to it! Differences of opinion are fine and i think Beoinggirl had a point to make and made it, but the use of personal insult is not needed and therefore i have removed it!
I am glad that Goose has repeated a point that others seem to be repeatedly missing-that the data in this year's edition was all data from the old JP team, and that Flight had no input to it, that they had to publish an edition that was essentially ready to go.
As an outsider it seems obvious to me that something is going on here that people from Flight are being too polite to say........ that a small team of tiring researchers have handed the reins of a respected publication to a larger organisation who have much greater resources to improve the content in the future. Having had personal experience of using both JP and the Flight database, I can say that there is now no comparison between the accuracy and research abilities of the two companies. As Goose says Flight have 6-7 times as many researchers working on their data, calling companies to verify data. The amount of data that needs to be collected and checked annually rises every year at a very fast rate, maybe the time when a small team of 3 people, however dedicated and skilled could keep up are numbered....
As an example, in the biz-jet field, at the present rate of deliveries alone, the numbers of frames to cover have nearly doubled in the last few years, plus turnover of used aircraft is multiplying as frames age, and ripple down to smaller owners, all of whom have to be found and researched. The JP biz-jet book is still rightly respected, but the data was being left behind in some areas, I know that from personal experience of speaking to companies who were operators, I no longer used JP data without checking it.
As users we should look forward to the two databases being combined, sources being shared, and the resultant database being even more accurate and current. In any changeover there are hiccups but should result in improvements in the long run. Certainly the view that 'if its in JP, it must be correct' was becoming outdated to those in the know, but should return with Flight's backing. I know that change can be difficult, but the content of JP needed a bit of refreshing, this will now happen.
I tried not to mention the reordering, but ordering by weight had always seemed idiosyncratic at best, it may well be useful to a minority of users, but if JP is to appeal across the board, it seems sensible to standardise with industry requirements, all other enthusiast publications are alphabetic, and all industry users of the professional standard ACAS require alphabetic ordering. Having said that, some of the errors described should not happen, obviously, but feed then back, so they can be corrected.
Now ducking back below the parapet!!
Eclipse
Goose, Fine, Flight have taken over JP, and seem to be very pleased about it. You are keen to stress that Flight have a much better, up to date and more accurate database. That doesn't alter the fact that Flight, now responsible for JP, have published a complete duffer. It is no use blaming the Swiss, because as previously discussed it seems to be Flight who have messed up the book by taking decisions on the format without consulting the readership. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but rather than jumping in and messing with the format I do balieve a better approach would have been to leave it as it was, but have an advert running through the book asking what people wanted from the next, Flight organised, edition.
Instead we have this forum. OK, go on and survey the readership properly. What about mail shotting all recipients of the new edition to ask them to comment here? The addresses will obviously be available where the books were dispatched. Or publish an advert in flight International asking for comments here from readers. Or, having seen the comments so far, are you worried about what direction that might take?
Don't make the readership wait a year for a reprint, because, also as previously discussed, many won't wait, won't order and won't buy. As I (and many others) have already said, get the Flight data you are so proud of organised into the book as soon as possible and do it properly this Autumn. Withdraw and recycle all the current books not sold. Offer holders of the current edition a discount on return of the current book's cover. (Many readers will happily return the cover to you, but they need the inside of the book available to update the next edition etc). Boeinggirl suggested I would not pay for a new edition. Wrong! Be assured I would (full price if absolutely necessary, but as I do feel somewhat cheated over the current book I think there should be some discount offered).
As a 28 year aviation professional (currently a London ATC Flight Planning Supervisor and London Flight Information Service Officer), and a plane spotter/airliner enthusiast of some 35 years, I am formally offering to be involved in proof reading etc. should you wish.
Admittedly I have made the most comments on your forum so far, but I don't seem to be getting through to you the way I would like yet. Count the comments from others, apart from mine, the overwhelming support form others on this forum is for an immediate reprint. If you look back you will see that I was expecting to be contacted directly for idea input. That has not happened thus far, so I have included some more ideas in this post.
I am an almost life-long user of JP (!), have now purchased the 2008/09-edition published by Flight and am in the process of entering data into it. Having followed the contributions to this forum gave me some initial doubts as to the quality of the book, but going through it in detail now have made one thing clear: This is much, much worse than I expected!
Presentation of Data:
Until this year, one of the great advantages of JP was the use of italics for subsets of data, like cn/ln, ex-reg, livery details etc. This has gone, and, also due to the use of a smaller typeface, the book is now much more difficult to read. There is no longer any distinction between a manufacturer´s test-regs and "real" ex-regs, no spaces between c/n and l/n for Boeing and Douglas (as Ian Mcallister has already pointed out) which does not improve legibility, and the "remarks"-column has also been redesigned with poor results. Surely, for Tyrolean Airways f.ex., "Seefeld / Austrian arrows-colors" was much easier to read than the present "Seefeld Austrian arrows-colors".
It also seems a shame that the country information (name in native language, size of population etc) has disappeared, even though some of this content is still mentioned on the Description/Key page IV.
Sort order:
a) The decision to abandon the original MTOW-hierarchy has already been rightly questioned by almost ALL contributors to this forum. I entirely agree: It is now impossible at a single glance to get a picture of an airline´s mode of operations (see f.ex. Air Greenland (p.471) or Jet2.com (p.194) where a lone Pa-31 is listed under a host of Boeings). Other publications may use a different format, but the MTOW-listing was one of the original JP´s really strong sides!
b) The problem is of course that the "one-format-fits-all"-approach introduced by the new editorial team does not hold up at all! The use of a strict type-sort in numerical reg-sequence may work in a lot of cases, but with some airlines it is obviously more logical to sort differently, f.ex. on fleet-no. The CO 737-mess has already been pointed out, but this situation of course applies to the entire CO-fleet (Embraers!). The AA A300s as well are now displayed in no logical order, and there a countless other instances.
c) What makes the book especially illogical, when sorting on manufacturer/type only, is the inexplicable decision not to take numbers in type designations into account. This is for me the real killer! Thus we find RJ100 before RJ70/RJ85, Fokker 100 before Fokker 70, Hawker 4000 before Hawker 400XP, Falcon 2000 before Falcon 20C and SAAB 2000 before SAAB 340! A Cessna sort order can be 206-310-425-P206-T310-U206! Pride of place must be the listing (p. 527-28) of the Mil-helicopters of UTair: Mi-10K/Mi-171/Mi-2/Mi-26T/Mi-8 etc). Who on earth can want this???
d) I would seriously question the new decision to make different groupings for different models: Why one group for Bae ATP and another for Bae ATP (LFD) (screwing up the reg-order for f.ex. West Air Sweden (p.541)? ATR-72-201 and -202? An-24B and An-24RV and lots of other Russian types? CRJ 200ER and 200LR? SAAB 340A, 340B and 340B (Plus) (Regional Express p.593)? Or the FIVE different groups of Beech 200s for Australia´s RFDS? And does it really make sense with different groupings of MD-81/82/83 or MD-11/MD-11F?
e) Military aircraft are now often ordered according to their military designations, producing utter chaos out of f.ex. Sweden´s F17´s SAAB 340´s and Gulfstreams and - worse! - the listings of Government/Corporate/Mil-operated aircraft of Brazil and USA!
g) Listings of aircraft on order have been changed as well. In a very strange way: The Easyjet/Ryanair absurdities have already been pointed out by Ian Mcallister, I would like to add f.ex. Air One 320s, Delta 777s and SAS 737-883s (LN-RRG out of sequence).
It should be pointed out that ALL of my critique points above are new to the Flight-edited JP 2008/09. These changes must therefore represent conscious decisions by an editor (if so, it would be nice to be told how at least some of the features above can represent "Industry Standard").
To sum up: It seems to me that Flight with one stroke has managed to destroy so many of the characteristics which made JP not error-free, but still truly outstanding. This is not only disappointing. This is sad.
LUM