Kieran Daly: February 2008 Archives

It turns out that I'm not the only one who's perplexed at Iraqi Airways, or whoever controls their money, talking about buying 40 Boeing aircraft. The indefatigable ladies and gentlemen of London law firm Howard Kennedy, who represent Kuwait Airways (remember them), are deeply unamused. You can see their point of view.

Got the message? It's a TV ad that's recently started running in the UK and which I caught for the first time last night. I think this is the one - if not then it's pretty much the same anyway.

I should 'fess up at this point and say I don't know - which is pretty useless for an aviation blogger I suppose. But I don't think I'm the only one who doesn't know. Possibly including Bombardier.

Anyway, they're confident enough to give authorisation to their sales team to offer the aircraft in the market. And the move was accompanied by a robust expression of support from Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker; diplomatically supportive words from Lufthansa SVP fleet Nico Buchholz; and, perhaps most importantly of all, a surprisingly enthusiastic pat on the back from ILFC head Steve Udvar-Hazy.

...expensive though, I come with the rest of Reed Elsevier's print and electronic business products. Together it's all known as Reed Business Information and you'll need awfully deep pockets to become the proud new owner. Feel free to drop me a line (with many zeroes in it).

Having written about the sales of more companies and company divisions than I like to think about over the past 20 years it's a very odd feeling to discover this morning that now it's my turn. We were rather elegantly told by Blackberry message just as the market learned about it. Which is reasonable as we're part of a major public company.

All the colleagues I've spoken to so far are pretty upbeat about the situation. Although there are plenty of lurking issues from the employees' perspective.

Wish us luck.

BALPA is claiming overwhelming support at this stage. A 90% turnout and 86% yes-vote.

BALPA general secretary Jim McAuslan wrote to the Financial Times explaining the union's view of the situation.

Quite a week. For whatever reason BALPA did not yet release the results of the British Airways pilots strike ballot regarding the creation of OpenSkies which was due to close today. Presumably it will all come out on Thursday. BALPA has made clear that it is very confident of getting the strike mandate. (As I said before, I don't think there will in fact be a strike. A commenter said I had not idea what I was talking about - we shall see.) But there's an awful lot more going on in BA's world this week.

The UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) has today issued an update on its investigation of the crash of the British Airways Boeing 777 at Heathrow last month. It appears to rule out several of the most-discussed possible causes, and does not strongly point to any particular cause. It mentions a couple of further lines of enquiry.

Overall, the mystery persists. I've summarised the key points below. You can read the whole thing at the AAIB site.

Thomas M Ryan Jr was commander in chief of USAF Military Airlift Command in the early 1980s, so he clearly knows more than me about operating tankers, but I think even Boeing may want to distance themselves from this St Louis Post-Dispatch article he wrote supporting the KC-767.

Ryan, who was later VP government programs for St louis-based, and now Boeing-owned, McDonnell Douglas, reckons the Northrop Grumman/EADS KC-30 shouldn't be selected because it "burns 24% more fuel than the "KC-767AT" and is worse at dodging missiles and AAA because it has envelope-protection. Hmmm...

It's all a little vague in fairness but the Iraqi transport ministry really does seem to be in the process of being inveigled into signing some sort of contract for 40 Boeing aircraft. Yup, 40. The deal it seems is envisaged at being around $6 billion. That's $150 million a pop - and an awful lot of pops.

Millions of grateful Iraqi hearts must be beating a little faster - perhaps not just the ones inside people who know where the SAM-14s are hidden.

Obviously we don't yet know what caused the BA 777 accident at Heathrow, but that's not stopping some passengers talking about sueing. More interestingly, and encouragingly, some are going on the record declaring that they won't sue. It's been a long while since there was a major air accident in the UK and I think this aspect is going to get some attention in the media in the months ahead. Happily the UK culture is still far-removed from the US sue-if-you-get-the-chance standpoint. But there have been nasty signs of a westwards trend lately.

Honestly this is not an ad for Flight International's outstandingly good jobs pages - I really am making a point about the number of pilots' jobs out there, despite the doom and gloom you keep seeing on pilots' websites. Helps if you're the more adventurous type though as you'll see below.

Despite savaging the Cellars in the Sky awards below, I obviously wasn't going to let it pass by without getting a piece of the action. And fortunately for a serious-minded technical journalist like me, a golden opportunity arose when Boeing and American Airlines hosted events of astonishing synergy in London this week. The synergy being focused on wine.

...which won't stop me trying of course. I suppose it was inevitable that when the staggeringly self-congratulatory world of business travel linked up with the rococo edifice that is the global wine industry, they would produce an awards programme of quite awesome flabbiness. The fact that it boasts of having 14 (count 'em) categories, is only half the story. (In fact only one-third of the story). Yes, a big hand please for the winners of the 2007 Cellars in the Sky Awards - all 44 of them!

A philosophical senior manager at Snecma used to be fond of saying that if we want alternative jetfuels made from vegetable matter then there is a problem - there isn't room to grow enough green stuff to make the fuel we need without threatening food production. Being very French, even by French standards, he sums it up thus: "We can have camembert or fuel. It's a dilemma." (Since then, algae-derived fuel has begun to look more promising.)

The Airbus Global Market Forecast released today focuses long and hard on why aircraft sizes are growing, and in particular of course why the world needs the A380. Airbus lists its "top ten reasons why bigger is better".

Well, it is 'just' a forecast, but the Airbus GMF and its Boeing equivalent are about the most comprehensive documents on the future of air transport that most people will ever see without paying a lot of money. And the latest Airbus effort, covering 2007-2026 and presented in London today primarily by John Leahy, is very elegantly done. You can see it all at the link above - set aside some time, lots of remarkable stuff buried in there. But here are a few points that popped up at the event...

It's 2008 and industrial relations is moving online. So no surprise to see the BA OpenSkies battlefield moving to YouTube. BALPA has secured a robust message of support from the head of the Allied Pilots Association, which is the independent union that represents American Airlines pilots.

I noted this morning that British Airways' newly announced plans to launch Airbus A318 premium transatlantic services from London City to New York were likely to cause pain to Silverjet and EOS. Within a few hours Silverjet was sharp enough to respond - issuing a press release entitled SILVERJET'S SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MODEL ENDORSED BY BA ANNOUNCEMENT - but not sharp enough to point out the serious weakness in BA's plan. The service is not non-stop!

It was all very exciting, but it was also a bit of a mystery why Airbus would go to so much time and trouble to get the Airbus A318 certified for the steep approach to London City Airport. Now I suspect we know - it was so that British Airways could fly the smallest member of the Airbus family to New York...obviously.