November 2011 Archives

American Airlines move to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday ended the Oneworld carrier, and its chief executive Gerard Arpey's, lengthy resistance to following its peers into restructuring under Chapter 11. American was the last man standing among US majors after a tumultuous decade for North American carriers, which has a string of operators restructure through Chapter 11 or the Canadian equivalent - here's quick graphic timeline of the North American carrier restructuring story of the last decade:

Digital editions of all three issues of the Airline Business daily from the ALTA Airline Leaders forum in Rio are now available  (see below for links)

The great and the good of the Latin American and Caribbean airline industry have been out in force at this year's ALTA Airline Leaders forum in Rio, and the Airline Business is there to cover this of gathering executives in one of the most dynamic regions in the business. We are producing three daily papers from Rio, featuring all the news, analysis and flavour from the event.

If you can't get to the show, digital versions are now available here

Click to open day 3

Click to open day 2

Click to open day 1

Talking to more airline chief executives at the Airline Business World Air Forum it emerged that Nico Bezuidenhout of Mango and Peter Davies of Air Malta are also keen followers of the oval ball game. During his playing days as a number 8 for Twickenham rugby club, Davies even lined up against the All-Blacks!

In another rugby-aviation connection, Etihad has received a marketing boost by the start to the season made by its sponsored-team Harlequins, who have won all ten of their competitive games so far and are runaway leaders of the English rugby Premiership.

In return three of this year's mightiest Quins, captain Chris Robshaw, Nick Evans and Mark Lambert have been pulling their considerable weight in helping promote Etihad at the World Travel Market in London.

British Airways World Cargo has just taken delivery - through cargo wet-lease specialist Atlas Air - of its first Boeing 747-8F freighter.

Based at London Stansted, the 747-8F is due to enter service on Tuesday (8 November).

Unlike the 747-400Fs Atlas has previously operated on wet-lease for BA, this aircraft is in the airline's full "Union Flag" colour scheme - and looks fabulous. (The purists will point out that one Atlas 747-400F did briefly appear in BA colours, but this was the Utopia scheme with the "Chelsea Rose" tail colours.)

The red, white and blue 747-8F brings back memories of the airline's brief dalliance with the 747 freighter variant in the early 1980s. BA took delivery of a single 747-200F "G-KILO" (pictured below by Kevin Colbran/Air Britain) from Seattle, which was named "British Trader".

In those days things were slightly different at BA's cargo division though. G-KILO was integrated into the airline's large 747-100/200 passenger fleet, and the flightcrews expected a seamless service whether they were flying freight or "self-loading cargo" (ie passengers). So each cargo flight operated with a stewardess on board to ensure the flightdeck team had the service they were used to on the passenger flights - coffees, teas, meals and that legendary cheese board!

So perhaps it was no wonder that the economics of BA's single 747-200F operation didn't work out, and the aircraft was disposed of fairly pronto to Cathay Pacific?

British Airways and Iberia parent International Airlines Group (IAG) has reached a deal in principle with Lufthansa to buy British Midland.

After International Airlines Group (IAG) announced today that it had agreed in principle with Lufthansa to take over British Midland International (BMI), there is confusion as Virgin Atlantic Airways appears to be still making a rival bid for the UK carrier.

This time last year Europe awoke to images of a rather second-hand looking Qantas Airbus A380 on the runway at Singapore's Changi airport. The big jet, operating Flight QF32 from London to Sidney via Singapore on 4 November 2010 with 469 souls on board, had made an emergency landing back at Changi after suffering a dramatic uncontained failure of its No 2 Rolls-Royce Trent 900.

The A380's captain, Capt Richard Champion de Crespigny, described the effect of the engine explosion (caused by the failure of the intermediate pressure turbine (IPT) following an oil fire) to Flightglobal's David Learmount as follows: "The wing was cluster-bombed. The aircraft had phenomenal damage to all systems. But it didn't just recover, it performed brilliantly."

As David explains in his recent blog, while Airbus should be applauded for the fact that the A380 was able to land safely after such a destructive failure, the manufacturer has had to address the overbearing way in which the warning system responded to the problem.
Immediately following the engine failure, Capt de Crespigny and his crew (there were five pilots up front on that eventful day) faced an excessive number of ECAM alerts - more than 60.

Interestingly, the over-talkative nature of the A380's warning system came up as a criticism of the double-decker in Flight International's award-winning in-service report Judging A Giant, which was published two years ago.

In the report, Airbus's executive vice president programmes, Tom Williams, admitted that the A380 crews "have a feeling that the aircraft is talking to them too much - telling them things that are interesting but not really essential".

SIA's then senior vice president flight operations, Capt Gerard Yeap, told Flight International that with aircraft systems now able to provide such a raft of data "we have to be careful we don't have information overload - that we don't fall into the trap of wanting to know so much you end up not knowing anything".

Faced with exactly that situation, QF32's Capt de Crespigny says that he realised, that instead of dealing with the failures, his crew had to determine what was still working.

The collateral damage caused by the accident was huge. Rolls was widely criticised for the way it hunkered down in the wake of the accident and ensuing grounding of the Trent-powered A380 fleet. Indeed it was intriguing - and somewhat unusual - to see the way the airframer swivelled the media spotlight on to its engine supplier which ended up bearing the brunt of the media storm.

The engine problem has had a knock-on effect on A380 deliveries this year, due to the restricted supply of modified Trents. Meanwhile the damaged A380 (VH-OQA) remains in Changi undergoing extensive repairs after a three-digit ($ million) insurance pay-out. The latest estimate is that it will be ready to return to service early in 2012 with what amounts to be a new port wing installed.

But after reading the fir

sthand account of Capt de Crespigny, the industry should definitely be grateful that the "QF32" incident wasn't a far more serious event.

Latest twist in the saga around a third runway for Heathrow - UK opposition party, Labour, has dropped its backing for an extra runway. Shadow transport secretary said the party has taken the third runway off its agenda because of the "local environment impact".

The move sends a worrying signal to those people who had been gearing up for the construction of a third runway during the Labour era. If they had been marking time while the coalition is in power waiting for the return of Labour, they now know that avenue has closed.

The uncertainty will also be frustrating for the inhabitants of the villages due to be bulldozed when the runway is built, as many have accepted the inevitable will happen sooner or later. Most are actually relaxed about the prospect of compulsory purchases (it is the residents under the new noise corridors that will be created across the home counties who are most concerned about runway 3), so for the villagers of Sipson, Harmondsworth and Harlington decisive action is the order of the day.

(comment from Graham Dunn, Airline Business) But in a mad, twisted logic kind of a way, maybe it helps. After all once one party takes a position on an issue, the natural inclination for the other is to do the opposite. And to my mind, the Conservatives switching to backing a third runway for Heathrow would help restore the more traditional political status quo. It's always seemed a bit like the two main parties had their positions on the third runway slightly the wrong way round. If there was one UK political party you would normally think of as being pro-business and thus in favour of a third runway it is the Conservatives. But I'm no politician.

Meanwhile, after 65 years Heathrow is finally going to mixed-mode operations on its two existing runways, albeit on a trial basis for four months. Airport operator BAA denies it is to raise capacity, saying the mixed mode trial is more about providing "a better passenger experience". If this means a reduction in the peak-time delays of typically 30-40 min when departing from, or arriving at, "London Airport" then bring it on!

And look out for news today of details of a rival to Boris Island -  Thames Hub - Flightglobal will be there to find out more.