January 2012 Archives

Latin aviation pioneer Bobby Booth was recently honoured in Miami by Boeing and ALTA for his numerous contributions to the powerhouse Latin market that according to IATA's estimates recorded a 10.4% jump in traffic for the 11 months ending November 2011, up from 9% the year prior.

Booth's deep roots in Latin America date back to his birth in Uruguay, and he has worked tirelessly throughout his 60-plus years in the business that includes 23 years with Braniff, positions at Air Florida and Challenge Air and through consultancy AvMan to both stress cooperation among the region's airlines and propel the Latin market into one of the fastest and leading geographies of the airline business.

"Commercial aviation in Latin America, at least carrying passengers for hire on a scheduled flight for hire on a regular basis, began in Latin America about six years before the United States," wrote Booth in his autobiography Airline Pasionado.

Noting Bobby had been preaching alliances, privatisations and cross-equity tie-ups day in and day out, the late Frederico Bloch and long-time chief of Grupo Taca Frederico Bloch wrote in the book's forward:

"Bobby Booth has gained friendship and trust of most of the airline chiefs and this has allowed him to influence developments in an unselfish manner, with the interest of both airlines and the consumers at heart...Bobby Booth has had much of the responsibility and can take much of the credit for putting Latin American aviation back in the headlines."

Given the boom in consolidation in Latin America during the last couple of years does Mr. Pasionado believe there is more to come given that Panama's Copa is steering an independent course?  Here's the legend in his own words.

"This will be most certainly not  the end...but should be considered the beginning.  Copa is in a position at this time to maintain it's independence, but must keep an open mind and  watchful eye peeled for merger and/or consolidation  opportunties .  "Times change" and so must businesses if they are to remain viable. The duopoly of the four airlines [Avianca-Taca, LAN-TAM] will enhance destination  marketing efforts which in turn will create more passengers...not to mention the increased potential for cargo growth."

And how does Latin America sustain its momentum? Booth believes keeping the governments focused on expanding liberalization and further bolstering of alliances is key to the region in retaining its premiere growth status. 

"In order to keep the momentum high and going in the right direction, there must  to be a continuing awarness on the part of Governments in the region of the need for more "Open Skies" agreements and the need to fund the government tourist boards for destination promotion.  Airlines must agreesively persue codeshare agreements alliances opportunties and be  open to joint destination promotional  funding and airports open to  incentitive payments for  the launching of new routes.

In case you're wondering, Pasionado is a word Booth has coined for himself -- a combination of passion and aficionado, "which is clearly what I'm all about".

Few would dispute that the Bombardier CSeries has all the potential to re-benchmark short-haul flying. But, arguably, a decade ago so did the Fairchild Dornier 728. And we all know what happened to that

That, of course, is not the only similarity between these two short-haul twinjets. Both were launched by Lufthansa.

Fifteen years ago, the much-trumpeted launch and ensuing sales success of the 728 (pictured above at its roll-out shortly before the programme was cancelled and Lufthansa had to devise a "plan b") shook the regional incumbents Bomabardier and Embraer into action. Bombardier decided to leverage its strong market presence with the 50-seat CRJ by stretching and rewinging the jet. Embraer couldn't follow its Canadian rival as its three-abreast cabin ERJ family was not suitable for stretch. Instead, it decided to take the bold step of launching its four-abreast E-Jet family with the backing of flamboyant Crossair CEO Moritz Suter. A decade on, Embraer has sold over 1,000 E-Jets.

Faced with another threat on its home turf, this time from its old rival, there was much speculation that Embraer might again have to dig deep into its pockets to create a viable rival to the CSeries.

But after an extensive evaluation - amid much speculation about a potential "clean-sheet" five-abreast design with advanced turbofans to counter Montreal's move - Embraer has decided not to spend silly money and this time will limit any response to a less costly re-engined (and possibly stretched) ERJ development.

This decision was no doubt partly inspired by the market's staggering response last year to the re-engined narrowbodies from Airbus and Boeing. The size of the success was indeed a surprise to both of them, and Bombardier must also have been a little shocked.

There's no doubt that Airbus has made good the declaration by Airbus VP Tom Williams a couple of years ago that Toulouse was on a mission to "destroy" the CSeries business case with the Neo and stop Bombardier "building a beachhead" at in the foothills of the A320's market. When I asked Tom Enders last week in Hamburg whether Airbus was still worried by the threat of the CSeries, he replied "not so much, now".

And yesterday at the opening of Qatar Airways' snazzy new lounge at Heathrow's T4, CEO Akbar Al Baker said he did not plan to announce any airliner orders at Farnborough. So that means there is still no sign of the airline's long negotiated CSeries order. That other long-fizzling Middle East deal, from Gulf Air, was strangely absent at the recent air show in the airline's hometown of Bahrain.

Anyway, this year is a crunch one for Bombardier and the CSeries programme. It must complete assembly and roll out the prototype if it's to flight-test and certificate the PW1000G-powred twinjet as scheduled by the end of 2013. But when I last enquired with Bombardier, there was still no guidance offered for precise date of either the unveiling or the maiden flight.

2011 orders/firm backlog

CSeries*   48/138
E-Jet        104/249
A320neo   1,226/1,256
737 Max    150/250

*From 1 Feb 2011 to 19 Jan 2012/At 19 Jan 2012
Figures exclude MoUs, commitments etc

Somewhere in the streets of Latvia there is Mini Cooper in AirBaltic colours driving around, bought onboard one of the airline's flights. The airline claimed a world first in December when it began selling cars onboard its flights and the first one has now hit the streets. Five more have since been sold.

Air Baltic's VP corporate communications Janis Vanags was detailing this and some of the many other retail innovations the Latvian carrier has developed during the first Airline Business supported New Airline Commercial Models, Retailing and Merchandising conference in London.

Vanags passed round the audience one of the special Air Baltic-liveried trainers it is also now selling onboard - not sure if the driver of the Mini Cooper is also wearing the trainers.

Sadly this is the only one of its shoe collection to have made it into production and to be available for sale - if you want to see just how surreal the rest of collection (including AirBaltic stilettos and ice skates by the look of it) check out this link.

Look out for more from the New Airline Commerical Models, Retailing and Merchandising conference today by following the Twitter hash tag #AirlineBusinessNCM  

Half a century ago today at a small airfield north of London, de Havilland launched its best and final attempt to recover the lead it lost a decade earlier with the disastrous crashes of its pioneering Comet jet airliners.

At 12:14 on 9 January 1962 DH chief test pilot John Cunningham flew the first DH121 Trident G-ARPA off the runway at Hatfield for a 1h 21 min maiden flight. G-ARPA's control yoke, as well as a piece of its airframe that incorporates that historic registration, is preserved at the excellent Heathrow Trident Collection in Feltham, Middlesex (pictured below).

The little trijet, with its novel "S-duct" central engine installation, would go on to influence a generation of narrowbody and widebody three-holers, the most significant of which of course was Boeing's 727.

History now records that despite its innovations in configuration and technology (it pioneered Autoland systems), the Trident was a commercial flop. DH and successor Hawker Siddeley built just 117 Tridents while Boeing sold an eye-watering 1,831 727s. Why was it a flop? Because DH spent too much time listening to its launch customer - BEA - and tailored the design around that airline's requirements. This cardinal sin has ever since sat as a stark reminder to airframers about the perils of allowing one customer to have too much design influence.

But sales aside, the Trident always proved a huge hit with the pilots - most of who worked for BEA and successor British Airways which flew more than 70 of the trijets.

Three of them got together last Saturday at Farnborough's FAST museum to mark the 50th anniversary and to reminisce in the beautifully preserved cockpit of Trident 3B G-AWZI which is owned by Trident enthusiast Andrew Lee.

Capts Chris Wood, Dave Warren and John Rankin (pictured top, left to right) had between them more than three decades of Trident flying experience and fondly remember the "Gripper" - so called because of its less than sparkling take-off performance.

"The Trident was an awesome machine to fly," recalls Capt Rankin. "It was the best handling airliner I ever flew with superb control, agility and rock solid stability. Roll rates of 30o/s and smooth as silk right up to its Mach 0.96 max speed. The Boeings I've flown felt like the designer drove a Cadillac. The Trident felt like a finely tuned sports car."

So here's to Cunningham, ah de Havilland and the Trident - and what might have been...

Click below to read Flight International's report on the first flight: