June 2007 Archives

Pilots are worried about being blamed for the increasingly publicised airline service crisis the nation faces this summer as more flights face longer and more publicised runway delays. Air line Pilots Association president John Prater tells AB, “We’re not going to take the blame” when planes sits on runways for hours. “We’ve pushed for air-traffic control modernisation for years and we’ll tell our story". Pilots are on the receiving lines of passenger wrath when aircraft sit on the tarmac, and one pilot, a Comair pilot, was on the receiving end of vast amounts of publicity when a passenger on the RJ approached the cabin with a hand-held video recorder to ask about the four-hour LaGuardia delay - and then made a tape of the discussion available to the media.

Prater spoke on the sidelines of an industry luncheon in Washington, where he explained the union’s demands. He said he was not worried about possible attempts to portray pilots as greedy, and noted that airline executive compensation packages would capture as much attention as pilot pay demands. Prater, who took office in January, said that pilot profession had given back some $30 billion in concessions since 2001, and that he was not at all reluctant to seek to recoup those losses now. Prater says, “The reward for this partnership through painful times should be shared prosperity after the crisis.” Prater told the Aero Club of Washington that the 60,000-member union would encourage its local chapters to press for a maximum return but that fatigue and working hours would be as much of an issue as compensation itself. Prater adds, ''We have pilots that have reached the max. You just cannot make the number of trips that they are scheduled for and fly the maximum hours without dealing with fatigue.”

This ancillary revenues stuff seems simple until you crunch the chips, er, numbers. At least that’s the view of one of the best-selling popularisers of the dismal science. Steven Levitt, co-author of ‘Freakonomics: a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything’, has gained a real following. This book has been a bestseller for a couple of years, and Levitt, who teaches at the University of Chicago, and his coauthor, award-winning journalist Stephen J. Dubner recently had an interesting posting on their blog.

Dubner flew in business class on Northwest Airlines, and, being in the airline’s version of premium class, was offered a full dinner. Dubner told the flight attendant that he’d decline the dinner, but could he please have a package of Pringles, the potato chips that come stacked in a little tube.

He’d heard the cabin crew offer the crisps for sale to the coach cabin for $2 a tube. His request perplexed the flight attendant greatly, and she pondered the matter for a while and then decided that Dubner would have to pay $2, just like everyone else who was buying them. Dubner asks that if insisting that a premium passenger pay was such as good idea and adds, “It should be said that my Pringles didn’t arrive for about 45 minutes, and only after I asked for them again. The flight attendant looked really surprised that I still wanted them after all that time. I guess Northwest didn’t want my $2 all that badly”.

Dubner’s posting drew the usual condemnations of Northwest, including one from the guy in Detroit who says he wants to move so he doesn’t have to fly on the carrier, to the people who blamed the flight attendant, to the flight attendant who gave him a clear explanation. And there’s even the economist who suggested that Dubner perhaps increase the size of his sample from one. The general theme, though, seemed to be that Northwest really did need and want his $2.

Some airports are actually trying to do something about those airport blues. At Milwaukee, about 90 miles north of Chicago’s O’Hare, they’ve been luring customers away from the big city for a long time with promises of a smoother trip. Milwaukee draws a half million travellers a year from the wealthy suburbs of Chicago’s North Shore. The Milwaukee airport has long tried to position itself as a hassle-free or at least a less hassling alternative to O'Hare, with trees and natural light prominent themes in the airport. Aware that it can't just rely on its geographic advantage, they’re adding sweeter tunes. Milwaukee General Mitchell Airport’s ‘Airplay: MKE Never Sounded Better’ offers free downloads of jazz and blues from local but well-known musicians. MKE is the code of the Milwaukee airport, named after famed US Army Air Corps General Billy Mitchell, a local boy who made good without the help of his family, which included a senator and a railroad baron. The campaign is intended to stress that the Milwaukee facility is stress-free alternative to Chicago, and the soothing notes let travellers relax wherever they have their I-pods. People who register for the downloads at www.AvoidTheChicagoORDeal.com.also get a chance at a pair of free air tickets. ORDdeal is sly poke at Chicago’s designator, ORD. This website offers a lot of information and arguments about picking the 7.3-million-passenger Milwaukee over the 76-million passenger O'Hare; an appeal like this one though is not going to be won on numbers alone. It's those soft notes that carry win the day.

Airports and airlines are getting some bad publicity and we really think that some of it is unfair. For instance, the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), overhead fire sprinklers went off recently, dousing passengers and a baggage claim area. This prompted howls of outrage, but we think people should realise how hot it was in LA that day and understand that the airport was just trying to cool them off.
Other airports do similar things to help their passengers: at Washington’s Dulles International, for instance, one of the midfield terminals actually heats the water in the drinking fountains, so that no one will get cold, and at Newark’s Liberty International Airport, they are so concerned about passengers’ health that they heat one of the terminals. Year round!

People don’t always understand these things, just as they don’t always understand their role in the process. Take the case of extended tarmac delays. These have been in the news since late last year when American stranded a planeload on the Austin, Texas, runway, followed by JetBlue’s massive meltdowns in February and March. The complaints focus on such picky inconveniences such as no food or water and overflowing lavatories. People just don’t understand.

Dubbed the boat - at least that's what the blurb from the architect Dar Al-Handasah calls part of its design - the new airport at Egypt's tourist gateway at Sharm El-Sheikh does not look half bad.

Occasionally airport designs are worthy of note just because they do look striking - the UK's Southampton Airport had the same effect a few years ago.

Jet Airways has raised the bar once again with its new first class product.

As my colleague Mark Pilling wrote in Paris Air Show Blog 7, Jet's new Boeing 777-300ER turned out to be the showcase of the static display this year. I heard several airline chief executives toured the 777-300ER during the show and raved about Jet's new first class product and how it is even better than the first class product Singapore Airlines introduced on its 777-300ERs late last year.

So I asked Jet chairman and founder Naresh Goyal who he hosted on board the aircraft at Paris and he quickly rattled off an impressive list which included the chief executives of Air France, Cathay Pacific Airways, Delta Air Lines, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Japan Airlines and Qatar Airways. But none of these airlines will be able to copy Jet Airways because the seats were designed exclusively for Jet by B/E Aerospace. In fact, Jet Airways general manager corporate planning Gilbert George says the carrier has a patent on the seats.

Indigo Airlines founder and co-owner Rahul Bhatia captured many of the headlines at the 2005 Paris Air Show, when he placed a surprise order for 100 Airbus A320s, without even attending. This year Bhatia attended the show but did not create nearly as much attention.

I chased down Bhatia at the chalet of business aircraft manufacturer Hawker Beechcraft. He was at the chalet to sign a contract making Bhatia's other business, InterGlobe, the Indian sales agent and service centre for Hawker Beechcraft. The signing ceremony, which Indian civil aviation minister Praful Patel also participated in, only attracted a handful of journalists and photographers.

So I asked Bhatia why he decided to come to the Paris Air Show this year to sign a deal with Hawker Pacific when two years ago he did not show up to sign a much bigger contract with Airbus? "I have a genetic disorder," he joked.

Jet Airways has pulled off something of a publicity coup here at the Paris Air Show with its new Boeing 777-300ER drawing big crowds and admiring glances.

The main attraction is the cabin, which features one of the most luxurious first class "cabins" in the sky.

Here is Jet founder and chairman Naresh Goyal trying out his own product while conducting a few interviews.

Air shows always throw up humorous moments, and Tony Fernandes (front row left) saw the funny side of almost being denied access to the EADS/Airbus chalet during the Paris Air Show.

But he did recount his tale to a packed press conference, leaving a few Airbus execs wriggling uncomfortably in their seats

Little known Italian carrier ItAli Airlines was in the news this week at the Paris Air Show as it became the first non-Russian operator to order Sukhoi's Superjet 100 regional jetliner.

In a sweltering and packed press conference (press conference(">see what the BBC said about it here), ItAli Airlines ordered 10 SSJ 100s, plus 10 options, for delivery from 2009 up to 2011. It currently operates mainly Boeing MD-82s and Dornier 328s on domestic and charter services.

The shot shows ItAli Airlines founder and chairman Giuseppe Spadaccini (centre left) receiving an SSJ model from Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company president Victor Subbotin just before the signing was stopped to prevent those attending from fainting due to lack of oxygen.

As ever with any new aircraft programme there is plenty of speculation that it is going to be late. Often this speculation is correct - witness the delays to the Airbus A380.

Boeing, however, insists that the murmurings of its discontent about 787 progress, which include a critical analysts report and photos of composite parts that do not marry up on the assembly line, are being overblown.

Boeing is confident it can keep to its schedule to deliver the first 787 to Japan's All Nippon Airways next year.

Airbus was always going to pull out the PR stops for the Paris Air Show: and with over $45 billion worth of orders, commitments, purchase agreements and perhaps the odd IOU, it has not disappointed (John Leahy, below, shows off the paperwork).

Remember the ecoJet unveiled last week by easyJet? Well it seems that Airbus has not laughed the idea out of the room.

Asked by Airline Business during a press conference at the Paris Air Show what Airbus had made of easyJet's self-designed 'greener' aircraft, the manufacturer's chief salesman John Leahy said the low-cost carrier had "a good idea", and that Airbus was "looking at their design".

However, Leahy added that Airbus would not come out with its own replacement for the A320-family narrowbody aircraft until "2015 at the earliest".

In his first "state-of-the-nation" address to the assembled press corps at one of the major air shows, Boeing head man Scott Carson gave a remarkably assured performance. Here he is (right) with GECAS chief Henry Hubschman in Paris.

The affable Carson seemed pleased to be there, relishing the chance to joust with the media about Boeing's performance on the air transport front much as his predecessor Alan Mulally did. "It's Monday, it's Paris, and this is as good as it gets," proclaimed Carson.

They say honesty is the best policy, and you have to admire the Midwest Airlines employee who stumbled on a bag of gems near the Kansas City airport, a haul worth about a cool quarter million dollars. Midwest ramp agent Robert Lewis says he thought for a second about keeping it, since it was lying out at a road intersection near the employee parking lot. Lewis may be getting a reward from the jeweller whose name was on the bag holding the gems,
but one wonders if they are all that happy at Midwest headquarters up in Milwaukee.

After all, Midwest needs every penny it can get. Just the other day, the airline said its earnings would be down for the rest of the year, and that it couldn't say how far down. That's hardly a good thing to have to say when you're trying to fend off a hostile take-over. Midwest has been battling off a siege by AirTran Airways for months now, and the castle is hardly safe.

On the one hand Europe's airlines - network, leisure, low-cost and regional - say they are in favour of emissions trading as a way to curb emissions.

On the other hand, when their consultants took a deeper look at how the European Commission was going to include aviation in its wider Emissions Trading Scheme the result was not good (here is the full report). "Costly and unworkable" went the press release. "Underestimates the wide-ranging reprecussions of the proposal on European aviation," they continued.

Over the years we have got use to images of aircraft manufacturing CEOs posing proudly beside models of their latest creations. Remember Boeing head Alan Mulally and his Sonic Cruiser a few years ago?

So it is with some surprise that the latest such image features not a Mulally type, but an airline CEO type: the CEO in question is easyJet boss Andrew Harrison.

Here he is posing in front of the "easyJet ecoJet", an aircraft concept he unveiled today (14 June) in London that he wants to deliver huge environmental benefits.

Consumers and producers like labels. They can tell you useful things about a product like what substances are in a food or how much power an electrical device uses.

UK regional carrier flybe has just brought the idea to the airline business with an eco-labelling scheme. It is the brainchild of Mike Rutter, the airline's chief commercial officer, who had seen a labelling scheme work well for previous employer Hoover, a maker of household appliances.

Prominently flagged on flybe's website, the labelling gives passengers a detailed breakdown of the fuel consumption, carbon emissions and noise patterns of the aircraft type used on their journey when they make a booking.

If Peter Foster, chief executive of Kazakhstan's Air Astana, has grown tired of people asking him about the recent spoof documentary movie, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, he doesn't let it show.

Asked during an interview with Airline Business whether he expected the movie to boost tourism to the central Asian nation, Foster said Air Astana had seen "a huge upsurge in web hits" to its internet site since the film was released.

He says that while Kazakhstan is "too far away [from western Europe] to become a mass tourist destination", the Borat movie has increased public interest in the country. "Tourism is not our core business, but there is definitely a market for tourism here, particularly for special interest travel," adds Foster.

The comings and goings at the Star Alliance are illustrated quite clearly on this bmi Airbus A320, which is a regular at London Heathrow.

There are in fact four changes to the line-up that need to be made the next time this aircraft, registration G-MIDX, has a new paint job: Ansett Australia has gone bust; Varig has disappeared and membership of Star has gone too; Mexicana left the alliance in favour of a bilateral relationship with American Airlines; and Tyrolean Airways has become Austrian Arrows.

For the planespotter in everyone, Contrail Publishers has released "Airlines at Schiphol". This 96-page book gives an overview of the airlines that visit Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, including the rare Eritrean Airlines on the cover. This airline has a fleet of one!
Full of glossy pictures, this tome would make a good coffee table book. Different chapters give information on scheduled, charter and cargo airlines, including airline codes, period of operating, number of flights, destinations and type of aircraft. There's also a chapter on non-scheduled airlines that have visited the airport.
You can pick it up for €19.95, but we have five copies to give away. Just email us with the name of the other carrier on the front cover. Good luck!

The great and the good from the world's airlines met earlier this week in Vancouver at the IATA Annual General Meeting.

The Airline Business editorial team was there in force, producing on site two special daily editions covering the event.

Read what happened here.

Scared of flying? Know somebody who quivers at the thought of getting on a plane? Then look no further than ICAO's third annual World Conference on Fear of Flying, taking place as we speak in Montreal.

Speaking as somebody who, despite regularly travelling by air, is still quite a nervous flyer (I know, it's ridiculous given my career choice), I can say that there are no real logical grounds to this fear and, personally, no matter how many times somebody tells me how statistically safe air travel is, I will still be quivering during take-off.

But, nevertheless, ICAO will spend two days discussing ways of 'curing' those afflicted with this condition (40% of people according to ICAO).