Ship 741International yields have suffered mightily the last few years. Political uncertainty, trade disputes, and especially over-capacity generated by the ME3 (Emirates, Qatar, and Etihad) have made many routes unprofitable for other carriers. The amount of subsidies (or even their existence) that the Gulf Carriers receive is a matter of great discord.
Over capacity depresses fares and therefore yields. Large 4 engine airplanes represent great risk to an air carrier, you can’t split one in half, but if you have two smaller twins (pick one: 767/A330/777/A350), you can shift seats around based on time of year, or even reduce capacity (say 2 flights/day 3 days a week and 1 flight a day the other 4 days) on a weekly basis to keep fares high enough to enable a profit.
I feel safe in saying that the A380 and 747-8 were gargantuan mistakes made by Airbus and Boeing respectively. “Real” airlines (that are not state supported) are never going to make the mistake again of adding too many seats.
The “restricted airports” theme is also a non-starter IMHO. LHR is an anomaly. There exists adequate runway capacity at most world airports to meet demand for many years.
Finally, I would ask J Boyle if he/she has inside information to know how much of a money maker the 748 is for cargo carriers? I agree that the aircraft is quite capable, but the international cargo market has been tough for many carriers in recent years…..note the parking of freighter by some passenger carriers, those carriers instead being content with belly freight capacity on passenger planes.
Ship 741I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised by the lack of vitriol in the responses, I well remember how fired up the F14 mafia was at the time, only a few short years ago. And I have to admit that to anyone with any bent towards aviation enthusiast, the parking of the F14 was a bitter pill to swallow.
Having said that, I’m disappointed that no one knows how many Super Hornets have crashed to date. That’s one thing that is frustrating about military aviation……getting good, accurate, up-to-date safety information. I guess there is a security angle that inhibits the release of this information in comparison to the commercial world. I can find much data on any commercial airplane type in just a few minutes with web searches, and of course there is a website out there that details the disposition of all the F14 frames, the F18 SH, not so easy to obtain, but I have a gut feeling that it must have much better safety stats than the F14.
Ship 741IMHO, the A320 and A330 are Airbus’s best products (perhaps the A350 will eclipse them, its off to a good start so far).
This “refresh” for the A320 will make it best in class IMO if PW does well with reliability on the GTF. Their record on reliability the last 30 years isn’t so good, the 2037 was horrible, and the 4000 lagged the CF6-80 badly. The burn numbers will be good, its a matter of reliability.
Ship 741“Global Cabin Air Quality Executive” Seriously? What a joke.
Dozens of things can cause odors in airliners, how can they prove the connection? How much oil is toxic? What if the engine is leaking oil into the system slowly, so that there is no abnormal servicing reflected in the aircraft logbook. Does the concentration, the exposure time, or both cause the condition? If the condition exists, who is responsible: the airline or the engine manufacturer or the airframe manufacturer? I imagine a greedy lawyer would probably sue all three. How about the regulatory authorities? Why did they certify an unsafe system?
The story says that the 787 can remove any possiblity of contaminated air. ANY possibiltiy? Really? How about flying through the toxic plume of the exhaust from a coal or nuclear power plant?
Ship 741Nationalism runs amok on this forum again….a thread about a new FAL in the USA degenerates into a he said/she said as to why there is not a FAL in the UK. Sigh.
I’m wondering if this factory will enable further market penetration in the USA for Airbus? I would think the fact that the airplanes “are built here” would be a major sales pitch for Airbus to the big 3 or 4 U.S. airlines, which still have majority Boeing fleets, even though the percentage of American content probably won’t change measurably.
Also, I’m wondering about the location. Airbus chose to put the factory at the old military base in MOB (closed roughly 50 years ago). No doubt they got great tax breaks and they can expect a non-union workforce in Alabama, but the site is literally on the seashore in a hurricane prone area. I would think the storm surge from even a moderate storm would flood the factory and be very costly.
Ship 741Only speculating on the reason why so many seem to be talking about outsourcing in relation to these incidents.
I can see how the outsourcing may have caused the 3-4 year delay, but not the latest problems.
Ship 741How do you convert a tail strike into a nose over ass or vice versa? :confused:
Must have been some late parcels on Thursday and no coffee for the post interview. 😉
Perhaps: get a little slow on final, develop high sink rate, pull back on yoke, airplane rotates but still falls from sky, one of the main gear breaks off, slams down on the wing, which breaks off, and the beast rolls over on her back.
Ship 741Horrible, simply horrible. Its hard to believe they could do this to so recognizable a brand.
BTW, the main reason they entered bankruptcy was to ditch their pension liabilities.
Ship 741I have yet to see any hard evidence linking these problems with outsourcing.
Par example, who built the battery and charging system on the 777? I’ll guess that it wasn’t Boeing. Also, we know that signficant structural portions of that airplane were sub-contracted.
The Boeing unions seem to have done a marvelous job in convincing a lot of people that there is a link between outsourcing and these latest problems. Hats off to their PR effort, but perhaps they should concentrate their efforts on the factory floor instead of in the press…..after all, if only they wouldn’t go on strike so frequently, there wouldn’t be that pesky new factory in Charleston.
As for the public, they will fly on the flight with the cheapest fares.
Ship 741At least they are trying to develop themselves into something, for that time when the oil does run out.
Ship 741My prediction is this grounding will be relatively short…..probably replace the batteries with NiCads (may have to add some capacity) for the short term while they redesign the Li-Ion batts, if they ever go back to them.
BTW, which company manufactured the batteries?
I agree that the evacuation was an over-reaction. Some of the folks on here commenting have no idea how many “odor” events there are every day at the airlines. The 757/767/747 fleets alone have had countless diversions due to blown/shorted out recirc fans.
On the 787, there hasn’t been any hull losses, there hasn’t been any passenger deaths or serious injuries. “The system” is working. I predict this will be a minor blurb in the history of the 787 program.
Ship 741This is aviation: The crew has always been second guessed, the crew will always be second guessed.
Given the “wired” nature of the Japanese media and how informed the public is on whatever their mainstream media happens to be feeding them, its not out of the realm of possibility at all that the crew over-reacted. Their companies have now one-upped the overreaction of the crew with the groundings.
Ship 741http://news.sky.com/story/1038642/dreamliner-forced-into-emergency-landing
Another emergency landing, how long before they are all grounded for checks, reminds me of the time they grounded DC10’s
As I recall, the DC10 was grounded by the regulatory authorities….ie., all DC10’s were grounded. In this case, two airlines have voluntarily chosen to ground their aircraft…..which begs the question: what criterion will be sufficient for flights to resume?
Ship 741Doesn’t it seem rather ridiculous that the discussion on this thread devolved into a discussion about composite structure, yet that hasn’t been the source of any of these highly publicized problems so far? It seems to me that most of problem so far have been with components: a battery, a windshield.
For the record, Airbus has used composite vertical stabilizers since the A300-600/A310 days. I believe that qualifies as primary structure. And the one on American A300 in NYC broke, something that hasn’t happened yet to a Boeing (inflight failure of a primary composite structure). (Yes, I know the AA pilot mishandled the controls.)
Finally, I believe the A380 also has Li-Ion batteries.
The only place I’ve ever heard the 787 referred to as the plastic pig is on this board.
Ship 741Looking at 2 airplanes at one city is not a large enough sample.
Airlines (and manufacturers) routinely track all kinds of statistics within individual airline fleets. For example the A380 fleet at Emirates might fly 12.3 hours per day and 2.3 hours per landing, whereas the A380 fleet at another carrier might fly more or less, depending upon many factors (not the least of which is also crew utilization). The technical staff is often quite proud of the utilization on a particular airplane fleet, “we fly our 777’s 16.3 hours per day and the industry average is only 14.5,” or some such. Of course, if you fly them too hard, then you have to pay the piper with reduced reliability. Fly them not hard enough and you are not using the asset efficiently. Try to fix them up during “down” season (whenever that might be for your markets) so that you can fly them hard during “peak.” If you have old airplanes, you can afford not to push them too hard, they’re paid for. If you have new airplanes you want to fly the wings off them to pay down the debt/note asap.
Almost all airlines have some stations where airplanes sit for hours, this varies with the time of the year and how hard the airline chooses to fly the fleet in general. With the fluctuations in the world economy over the last 5 years or so, there have been many changes as airlines continue to tweak. To compare the flight schedule for an individual airline at one airport 20 years ago to now is almost worthless in my opinion.
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