March 2011 Archives

I've been going to Qatar's capital city regularly for over a decade now, and it never ceases to amaze me how this "aerotropolis" changes each time I step off the plane.

During a lightning visit to Doha to interview Qatar Airways boss Akbar Al Baker, I managed to find an hour to finally pay a visit to the city's museum of Islamic art. As well as having a fantastic collection of exhibits, the museum is an impressive building architecturally, both inside and out - it was designed by renowned architect Leoh Ming Pei. The museum is an icon of the waterfront in Doha - although that did not stop my relatively inexperienced taxi driver from getting lost trying to find it!

The view from the museum lobby provides an impressive vista of the expanding Doha skyline across the bay. Nestled in the foreground is the pyramid-like Sheraton hotel. I stayed here on my first visit in 1999 and recall that at the time it enjoyed a somewhat lonely existence at the far end of the corniche.

During my stay I also had a tour of the new international airport - and was among the first visitors to arrive at the terminal via the newly completed approach road. The impressive development, which has been built on reclaimed land, looks structurally complete - some of the gates already have airbridges attached awaiting the arrival of their first passengers! It is due to be handed over next year, and my guess it will be operational by 2013. It will be able to handle 24 million passengers a year.

Since my last visit just over a year ago, there's been more development of the existing airport, despite the fact that it is due to close within around two years. The main terminal building now only handles departures, with an all-new arrivals terminal having been built on a plot previously used for the Asian Games event. Qatar Airways premium passengers, of course, have use of a dedicated terminal, complete with jacuzzis.

I'm not sure when I'll next be in Doha, but I don't expect much to have stayed the same when I am!

An interesting piece in UK daily The Guardian with easyJet chief execuitve Carolyn McCall, talking about how high fuel prices is likely to impact airlines route decisions.

"You will see us being much more brutal about what routes work and what routes don't," she said, citing a recent decision by easyJet to pull out of Helsinki. "We're going to be very, very tough about routes that aren't working."

McCall was talking as easyJet launched its longest ever route - a five-hour flight linking London Gatwick to the Jordanian capital Amman. She also talked about plans to tackel the corporate travel market by rolling out business-friendly flexible tickets and recruiting its first corporate sales team.

"Nearly one in five of our passengers are business travellers and we've done that without doing anything to attract them - they've found us," she says of the potential.

EgyptAir's wayward route map may have picked up some attention in the last few days but we came across it last August* when we pointed out other examples of questionable geography.

The Israeli press is bemoaning the airbrushing of Tel Aviv - not really a great surprise, although it's led to some eccentric interpretations.

It's the placing of Damascus a long way north of Beirut, when it's actually south, which is the real schoolboy howler. Must try harder.

* There was a tactful reason for not mentioning this before. Airline Business' cover interview in the same month was with, er, EgyptAir chairman Hussein Massoud.

Southwest cheif exectuive Gary Kelly was insightful on a wide range of issues at the JP Morgan Aviation, Transportation and Defense conference today.  Here's his take -- in his own words -- about evolving to capture more passengers while sticking to the point-to-point basics. Be sure to also read his take on the AirTran integration.

Thoughts on evolving more towards a network model -- not hardly!

I won't argue that point that we may be moving closer, but the gap is still very wide. Case in point when I started in 1986, 80% of our customers flew nonstop, and probably up until 2008 it was still probably 80%, remarkably. And today we've inflated our load factors, happily, and that increase in load factors has been driven by an increase in connecting passengers. So we have made ourselves more accessible for those connecting itineraries. But we're still not a hub-and-spoke carrier. We're still very, very far from that and roughly 75% of our originating passengers are nonstop....I don't see us moving in that direction, but it is nice to have a blend of itineraries and that is certainly a large part of our revenue improvement during the last couple of years. I don't think we want to push the connections too far. 

On integration risks with AirTran 

Well I'm not worried. But it is a lot of work and it has to be our number one priority. I think my main concern would be that we over-commit with too many big initiatives and under-perform or just don't execute well. So we'll need to be prepared to adjust our resources and our focus if things become more challenging than we thought. So we want to keep the wheels on both businesses during this integration process, we want to do a good job of harvesting the synergies that should naturally come with AirTran and Southwest combining networks. The technology, I think it is something that we feel like we can manage, we haven't seen any enormous issues there for the integration process. We are contemplating as an example that we'll replace our maintenance technology with some technology that AirTran uses. We haven't committed to that yet, but that's an example of a working idea that we're pursuing. I'v already talked about our own reservation system technology  -- an example there is doe we bring AirTran over into our current res system and then convert, or do we have Southwest and AirTran convert into an all new reservation system? And so we have those issues that we're planning for right now.  The fleets are pretty well under control. There is obviously a physical transformation to take place. They have 737-700s and then they have the Boeing 717, which is a different airplane than what we operate. We know that. We're actually enthused about bringing that airplane type into our fleet. We have plans to physically convert their cockpits, their liveries, their seats - We're not going to make any galley configurations as far as I know. There's a plan for that. There's a plan for training and integrating the employees.....

The work that is before us that is very exciting of course is to take their network and in a reasoned and measured way integrate it and make changes and tune it and integrate it into the Southwest network.

At this point we have no plans to instantly change their network, we have no plans to close any cities. We have no plans to add any cities, and clearly the focus for us will need to be on Atlanta. It's just a big operation for us to inherit and they have a different operating style there. It's clearly a hub and spoke operation so we'll want to get in and work with the AirTran experts, understand it, before we start going in and making changes.

 

And, on Southwest's international strategy

We have launched our international connect product with Volaris last year - Volaris is the second largest carrier in Mexico. The number of city pairs that are offered on a connecting basis at this point are very modest and so we're not seeing a large response to that product yet. The schedules also are not fully aligned to allow for as many connecting itineraries. So they'll continue to grow - they being Volaris will continue to grow with transborder flights into the United States and that will be the primary growth mechanism that we'll see over the next several years.

 

In the mean time we need to replace our reservation system technology to allow for international itineraries. Current Southwest technology - legacy technology - is all domestic. It's worked very well for 40 years. We need a new system for the next 40 years. So that will come up over the next couple of years with the timetable that hasn't been fully established yet...and at that point we'll be in a position where we ca launch Southwest transborder flights. Until we get there, I don't know that we'll share exactly what our strategy is vis-à-vis codeshare partners and international markets. We're fully committed to our Volaris relationship and whether we serve Mexico or not I see us continuing to work, and work very well with Volaris. I think there's a lot of opportunities for us in Mexico, but a lot of questions I think to be answered before we start flying there. In any event we won't be flying to Mexico or other international destinations for several years.

 

In the mean time AirTran does have a different reservations system that does allow for international itineraries, and of course during our integration period we'll continue that international service, or at least that's what I contemplate right now.

 

The photo featured in this post is from Texas School Business.  

It has been a busy couple of months for Airline Business and the world of distribution. At the start of the month we held our annual Innovation in Airline Business conference, this year held in central London, and much of the debate focused on what next for the industry following American Airlines bold challenge in the industry through the Direct Connect concept.

This has produced loads of content on this and other related subjects. To find out more check out the following:

• Watch the video interview with former Air Canada chief executive Montie Brewer which opened the conference, outlining his views on the failure of the industry to be profitable and the distribution channels
• Read our report from the Innovation in Airline Distribution conference on how the industry is reacting to the Direct Connect move
• Read more about American Airlines lighting the distribution touch paper in December by pulling inventory from travel website Orbitz
• Read Paul Coby's guest column on how social media could change the way tickets are sold

You can rely on a new aircraft concept to make aviation pulses step up a gear, and so here's the latest from the quiet-enviro-propfan patent shed, courtesy of Boeing.

If you want to read the full blurb then you can find it here, but the highlights include a forward-swept wing - which could be greater than 15°, to aid shielding of noise - plus a rearward extension of the central wing section with trailing-edge pitch control, twin vertical stabilisers and forward-mounted canards.

"The position of the engines above the wings, and not connected to the wings, allows air over the wings to pass freely," the patent says. "This may maximise lift production of the wings without undue interference from the engines."

Canards, mounted either above or below the longitudinal axis, would provide additional lift at the front of the aircraft, it adds: "The canard design, in particular the span, may be chosen such that the tip vortex is not ingested into the propulsor under nominal airport noise conditions."

Unless you've room in your house for an Olympus 593 or a functioning 'droop snoot' then, as far as Concorde paraphernalia goes, you can't really beat a genuine Machmeter.

Of course, with a fleet of only 20 aircraft there aren't many kicking around. But if you're really determined to have a pretty exclusive bit of kit on your sideboard then you'll have your chance in a couple of months. But it ain't gonna be cheap.

"Very few Machmeters appear in auction and some have made several thousand pounds in the past," says auctioneer Simon Jones, of Somerset auction house Lawrences which is selling the instrument from 'Alpha Delta', British Airways' aircraft 210, on 6 May.

Lawrences says the device was a retirement gift to an avionics engineer on the Concorde fleet, Peter Gravestock, who also worked on BA predecessor BOAC's Vickers VC10s and several other types.

Reserve price? If you have to ask...

Yesterday's nuclear emergency message concerning the possibility of radiation contamination across Japanese and local flight information regions appears to have generated doubt over its authenticity and a few conspiracy theories that it's a put-up by environmental lobbyists.

That's because the source is given as the London Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre - which might seem a curious origin for a warning on radioactive hazards - and which, in any case, doesn't appear to list the warning on its Internet site.

But it's not a surprise that London VAAC issued the alert. It was invited to be the focal point for International Atomic Energy Agency radioactive debris warnings to aircraft during an International Airways Volcano Watch meeting in Thailand - as this document shows.

As for the warning itself, it might not be on the VAAC site but it clearly features in the operations room of the Eurocontrol Central Flow Management Unit:

Just for the sake of completeness, the full message (plus a NOTAM detailing a 30km exclusion zone around the Fukushima nuclear plant) is given below:

London VAAC has issued at 0300 UTC a

NUCLEAR EMERGENCY
DTG: 20110315/0300UTC
ORIGIN: VAAC LONDON
INFO SOURCE: IAEA
STATUS: EMERGENCY
SITE: FUKUSHIMA
LOCATION: N0037E0141
START OF RELEASE: 20110315/0300 UTC
END OF RELEASE: ONGOING
FIR NAMES: FUKUOKA, MANILA, TAIBEI, SHANGHAI, INCHEON,
PYONGYANG, VLADIVOSTOK, KHABAROVSK, YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, ANCHORAGE.
FIR CODES: RPHIZRZX, RCAAZQZX, ZSSSYMYX, RKRRZQZX,
UHWWZRZX, UHHHZRZX, UHSSZRZX, PAZAZQZX
Pls note that the above message is not published in VAAC website.

-----------------------------------------------------------

The following Notam is published with the proviso that Operators should make themselves aware on any other relevant NOTAM enroute and at destination airports (when overflying the above mentioned FIR's or dep/dest Japanese airports).

(B1080/11 NOTAMR B1048/11
Q)RJJJ/QXXXX/IV/M/EW/000/999/3725N14102E017
A)RJSS B)1103150259 C)PERM
E)IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE ARTICLE 80 OF CIVIL AERONAUTICS LAW,
FLT PROHIBITED AREA IS ESTABLISHED AS FLW,
IDENTIFICATION : RJP1
AREA : WI A RADIUS OF 30KM FM 372529N1410158E
(THE TOKYO ELECTRIC POWER CO.INC. FUKUSHIMA NO.1,
OKUMA-FUTABA-CHO FUTABA-GUN IN FUKUSHIMA)
RMK/SEE AIP ENR 5.3-29
F)SFC G)UNL)

Prior to United-Continental's chief hinting 737-500s and 767-200ERs might be cut due to spiking fuel costs, we did our own analysis of the carrier's fleet. Below is a terrific chart our data team put together grouping the carrier's fleet into age bands and some commentary.

United-Continental could remove a range of aircraft to trim capacity
Lori Ranson, Washington DC (09Mar11, 20:20 GMT, 280 words)

United-Continental's older 737s, 757s and 767s could be under scrutiny after the carrier revealed its analysis of removing less fuel efficient aircraft from its fleet as fuel costs continue to rise.

At the time it released full-year capacity revisions for flat growth in 2011, the carrier also said it was examining its fleet, particularly less fuel efficient aircraft.

An analysis by ATI and Flightglobal's data team of United-Continental's 701 mainline aircraft by age shows an overall average age of 12.2 years. The oldest sub-fleet is the 96 Pratt & Whitney PW2037-powered Boeing 757-200s with an average age of 18.8 years. Its 35 PW4000 series-powered 767-300s have an overall average age of 15.7 years, while its 24 747-400s featuring PW4056 engines have an average age of 15.8 years. United-Continental's 36 CFM-powered 737-500s show an average age of 15.1 years.

An examination of aircraft with an average age of 15-20 years shows a total of 160 aircraft, led by 59 P&W powered 757-200s. Other fleet types falling into that age range include 22 CFM-powered 737-500s, five PW4056-powered 747-400s, 15 Rolls-Royce RB211 535E-4B powered 757-200s, 21 767-300s with the P&W engines, seven 777-200s with PW4077 powerplants and 31 Airbus A320 powered by IAE V2500s.

United-Continental also has number of 50-seat regional jets, which are increasingly falling out of favour, operated by their partners including 81 Bombardier CRJ200s and 273 Embraer ERJ-145s. Previous fleet projections show the removal of two CRJ200s and six ERJ-145s during the current quarter.

In addition to possibly shrinking its fleet, United-Continental also states is plans to accomplish capacity reductions through reduced flight frequencies, existing less profitable routes and indefinitely postponing service launch in certain markets.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news

Where else but an episode of puppet-and-pyrotechnics fest Thunderbirds would you see rescue vehicles specifically designed to catch an aircraft with a failed landing-gear?

In the unlikely confines of the European intellectual property database, perhaps, where a patent document filed in Chinese gives the basic details of a "big scale passenger bus front landing device", which is "capable of replacing amiss front undercarriage for airbus".

The diagram shows a truck with a semicircular structure, presumably capable of supporting a fuselage, and a cab from which some hapless, possibly expendable, driver is expected to try outrunning a landing aircraft with a stuck nose-wheel. Good luck with that, by the way.

Beyond a brief mention of '737-700' in the text, there's precious little other detail. Certainly nothing about carting it around in a huge green hovering transporter with tiny wings and an interchangeable pod, more's the pity...

Here's an imaginative way of dealing with the volatility of fuel costs reportedly being floated by US low-cost carrier Allegiant Air. Appropriately enough for a carrier based in the gaming capital Las Vegas, it suggests giving passengers the option to buy a ticket where the final fare would be tied to the price of aviation fuel, according to US newspaper reports. If the fuel cost rises you pay more, if it falls, you get money back. While Allegient says it has no specific plans to implement the initiative, it raised the possibility as part of correspondance with the US DOT over airfare rules. Here's an extract from the Las Vegas Review Journal on the story - read the  article in full here and a piece on it from the Seattle Times here.

In a letter concerning possible airfare disclosure rules proposed by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Allegiant Chairman and CEO Maurice Gallagher Jr. wrote that the Las Vegas-based airline was considering giving customers a choice on its website: a traditional fixed fare or a discounted one that would fluctuate with the price of aviation fuel. If fuel prices rose between the date of the ticket purchase and departure, the passenger would pay the difference up to a set maximum. But falling prices would net them a refund for the spread.

Company spokeswoman Sabrina LoPiccolo said there were "no immediate plans" to implement this approach or even establish thresholds about when to go ahead.

I have no claim to be a long-time fan of Elvis, but after a stop over in Memphis last weekend and a pilgrimage to Graceland, I am becoming one.

The visit to Graceland was the inspiration of Airline Business editor Max Kingsley-Jones. He saw a window of opportunity in our itinery which took us via Memphis that he - as a big Elvis fan - could not pass up.

So, in the pouring Kentucky (OK Tennessee) rain, a visit to the home of Elvis Aaron Presley was on the cards. Luckily Graceland is only a 10 minute taxi ride from Memphis airport even if the Somali-born taxi driver wasn't actually sure which way to turn onto Elvis Presley Boulevard to get to the great man's mansion.

Graceland is in fact an unassuming property, albeit in the ghetto area of Memphis these days.

If you are an Elvis fan and an aviation enthusiast Graceland has something for you as it is the home of the King's private jets - a Convair 800 and a Lockheed JetStar.

The Convair (seen above) was an ex-Delta Air Lines example. He christened it Lisa Marie after his daughter.

He bought the JetStar for nearly $900,000 in September 1975. It sits alongside the Convair across the road from Graceland amongst the various Elvis shops, restaurants and exhibits.

Now the "TCB" reference - what does that mean? Elvis fans will know it was one of his favourite phrases: "Taking Care of Business".

Elvis created a lightning bolt logo to go with the TCB initials. So there you have it.

We're here in Austin for Network USA and today we heard a kickoff speech from the city's mayor and former Delta pilot Lee Leffingwell, who offered a hint to city's aspirations of obtaining international service.

Highlighting the 12,248ft main runway at Austin-Bergstrom Internatioanl airport Leffingwell says it's ideal for intertional flights from carrier's using some of the largest aircraft in service today. "I just want to say that's a hint for you all," he says.

Austin's business climate has remained robust during the economic downturn, with Samsung planning a $3.6 billion expansion in the city creating 500 jobs.  The city's unemployment rate is also two points below the rest of the US, says Leffingwell.

Wishing the Network delegates well, Leffingwell states "I hope you have a great time and spend a lot of money."

Leffingwell ended his career at Delta as an international Boeing 767 and MD-11 captain. But, he assures "I'm totally impartial now".

For the latest profile from Airline Business on Austin, just click here.

I spotted these rather clever airbridge advertising posters at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport this morning boarding a Delta Air Lines Bombardier CRJ200.

Apart from spotting these posters, Cincinnati was remarkable as I had my first ever full body scan courtesy of the TSA - that was fun. However, I feel a good ancillary revenue opportunity for airports could be being wasted. Imagine offering travellers the chance to buy an image of their scan - now that would be something.

Cincinnati was a breeze compared to the hell of Washington-Dulles when I arrived on Thursday evening.

The first indication that a dismal time is 'a coming is when you remember you've got to use the mobile lounges (see below).

But that is a minor issue compared to the 2 hour passport control line. That's not good is it.

That wait propelled this trip into the top 3 worst ever entrances to a country for me.

One of the best, believe it or not, was Libya back in the early 1990s. But that's another story.

One minor disadvantage of certain turboprop designs is that, on those rare occasions that a wheel falls off, it happens in front of an audience of fare-paying passengers with mobile phone cameras and Twitter accounts. Wouldn't happen on a Fokker 70.

Now I would say that wouldn't I, after all I am the publisher and former editor of Airline Business, that 25-year-old "strategy for airline boardrooms worldwide" mag and brand.

I'm referring to a reading comparison between Airline Business and uber-trendy design mag Wallpaper* (note the important and pretentious asterisk). I grabbed a freebie copy of Wallpaper* to get up to speed with the latest cool on this Virgin Atlantic Airbus A340-300 flight from Heathrow to Washington DC.

However, after wading through pages of brand ads (publisher's note: lovely revenue) I skimmed the rest of the mag in a heartbeat. Nothing caused me pause.

Now for Airline Business: OK, I am into airline strategy yawn, yawn, but what's not to love about new editor Max Kingsley-Jones interviewing Willie Walsh, Mary Kirby doing her Runway Girl grill over viral videos and features editor Victoria Moores connecting in no uncertain terms with the "disconnect" between network and low-cost carriers: Great stuff.

Now back to the Travelogue

On this trip to the USA I am taking in 6 airports, eight flights with four airlines and three hotels. My middle destination is our very own Network USA route planning (speed-dating for airlines and airports) event in Austin, Texas.

First tick in the box goes to Virgin, who sent me a text which I got in the taxi to the airport telling me of 0% commission on money exchange with Amex. Perfect timing Virgin and I took you up on the offer. Now that's mobile comms really working (note to Virgin: an upgrade text soon after would have been cool too!)

Heathrow T3 was crowded full of course. It's far too small and the emerging metalwork that is Terminal East taking shape on the old T2 site will not come a moment too soon to give this old airport more square feet of floor space.

Nothing else to report of note at Heathrow, except that I was tempted by a big offer at the Harrods shop: a 6ft Rodney Bear - resplendent in his classic Harrods green uniform - was down from £1,900 (Knightsbridge store price) to just £1651.21.

If it wasn't for the fact that I didn't have a ticket for Rodders I would of course have taken the plunge and brought him with me.

Now I'm off to watch the latest True Grit remake movie. This A340-300 doesn't have AVOD so my choices are relatively limited.

Note to self - make sure Virgin flights are A340-600 variety, which does have super-duper AVOD. Bye for now.

Just recently I caught up with Dirk Albrecht, who is the partner in charge of Roland Berger's aviation practice.

I spoke with Dirk to get some input into our recent feature about whether the hub and spoke model is broken. He gave me some fantastic insights about airline decision making, but not all of them made it into the final article, so I thought I would share them here.

The conversation was based on Roland Berger's report called "Future scenarios for the European airline industry". Here are some of the findings which Dirk shared with me:

"The sad truth is nobody knows what the future is made of," said Dirk. "Assumptions based on the past are more often than not proven wrong."

 

Roland Berger is therefore advising airlines to push decisions out until the last minute - planning for more than one future so they can deploy a detailed reserve strategy when things become clearer.

In Dirk's words: "You need to explore scenarios and develop possibilities. I argue to airlines that, as difficult as it is to prepare for one future, they need to prepare for more than one and be ready to 'switch on' one or more of these solutions as things evolve.

 

"They can't break the bank and ruin the company for it, but when they come to the point where they realise their assumptions are not correct, they have to be ready to switch assumptions. 

 

"This means having a concrete, down to earth strategy on a number of possibilities, rather than just one which is ready to deploy when necessary. I am not talking hundreds of options, just a few."

 

This advice is far easier said than done, but I thought it was an interesting insight into how airlines can tackle today's ever-changing business environment.

Here is an interesting number illustrating the growing burden of the cost of increased security on the air transport sector which came out during ACI Europe's economics and finance conference being held in London. ACI Europe director general Olivier Jankovec says that security comprised around 5-8% of European airport operating costs prior to the 9/11 terror attacks. Today it stands at 29%, and around 41% of airport personnel are security staff. This not only illustrates the changed world over the last decade, but also the additional cost burden to the European air transport sector. 

Security remains a key issue for airports, especially with the first phase of Europe's planned lifting of the current ban on the carrying of liquids in hand luggage - aimed at stopping liquids bought at an airport outside of Europe from being confiscated while passengers transit through a European airport - due to enter force on 29 April (this is the first step to lifting the ban completely by April 2013).

But concerns have been raised by the industry, led by airport groups, in both Europe and North America that the necessary technology required to carry out the scanning is not ready or adequately tested yet.

Read more about the liquids debate here.

European airports baulk at easing ban on liquids

US airports oppose EU plans to lift liquids ban

End of EU airport liquid ban on track

On the wider issue of security at airports, Jankovec also suggests less preditability in security checks might be an option.

"Today you more or less know what are going to be the checks [at the airport]," he says. "We would like to see a system where the checks are more unpredictable." 

Here's some rough footage from my smartphone of a bit of the Lufthansa A380, which touched down at JFK on Monday.