Is it an unacceptable political statement to say unaccountable government ATC technocrats cost companies hundreds of millions of euros for no reason?

I guess I’ll know if my post gets deleted.

Can any one categorically say it will be safe to fly into the ash cloud ?
Its all just supposition we just don’t know what will happen , better to err on the side of caution than be proven wrong
Remember if we are wrong peoples life’s are at stake ,maybe even you’re own

Peoples lives are always at stake. No one can categorically say it is safe to fly…..ever. There is always risk to be managed. IMHO, the problem with this event is that someone very important made the blanket statement that it is NOT safe to fly, when there is very little visible ash aloft or on the ground at the various airports. The important considerations are how much ash is present and where?

You are correct….it is all just supposition. But at some point, some level of risk has to be accepted. The easiest thing in the world to do is ground the airplanes……in normal ops the easiest thing for a controller to do is say their sector is overloaded……….in normal ops the easiest thing for a pilot to do is refuse an MEL…..but they don’t pay everyone to do the easy thing. At some point an operator has to make an aviation judgement and deal with the consequences. And it is appearing more and more like those in charge of the airspace have made a ridiculously conservative judgement. Keep in mind that this volcano may blow for months, at some point they are going to have to learn to manage the situation instead of just making the easy decision to bring all the traffic down.

IMHO this event is a classic example of over-reaction by non-aviation type politicians, responding to less than (very much less than) well understood meteorological phenomena. It’s eerily like the global warming “junk science,” and should serve as a warning to all of the power of science run amok.

The reality is that risk assessment goes on every day. Last year when the volcano blew on the Kamchatka peninsula, there were some problems but not the blanket shut down like we have seen in this non incident. In my previous post I commented upon the number of active volcanoes in South America that airlines evaluate and fly around every day. The airlines generally manage pretty well, and they are ultimately responsible for the safety of flight (when was the last time someone sued the government after a crash, the airline always get multiple lawsuits).

IMHO the BA 747 encounter of almost 30 years ago has very little to nothing to do with this event. There have been thousands of eruptions, and hundreds of actual VA encounters by actual aircraft since that time, with very little of the dramatics involved in that encounter. VA is much, much better understood than then, and the airlines as a whole have done much, much better than they did then. The veracity of my claims can be substantiated with 15 minutes on the internet with any good search engine.

This is all just my opinion, but I don’t see where any of these blanket airspace shutdowns was justified at all. I predict more and more “test flights” until the reality sets in that this whole event was the result of a ridiculous error in judgement. If the volc keeps blowing for months, eventually the authorities will let the airlines manage it they way they already do in other regions.

The B777 will be fine, though some people on this forum have been less than complimentary about AA’s service.

WRT to in flight service, IMHO most of the U.S. airlines suffer from far too many 67 year old flight attendants…..:)

Tommy, you are the rarest of the rare, an airline customer in the western world who actually looks beyond ticket price. In my experience, the first preference is price, followed closely by price, and then finally, price. So, if you want to go with the herd, pick the AA flight.

WRT to reliability of 777 at service entry, I took the following data off the Boeing website which says the 777 achieved the reliability levels out of the gate that the 767 and 747 took 18 and 38 months, respectively, to get to. As I stated in my previous post, I’m not just making this stuff up.

http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/1995/news.release.951030.html

777 Gets High Marks At First Operations Conference

SEATTLE, Oct. 30, 1995 — The 777’s in-service report card so far is excellent, reported Dean Muncey, Boeing Commercial Airplane Group director of 777 Service Engineering, at the first 777 All Operators Flight Operations Symposium in Seattle this week.

In its first three months of revenue service, United Airline’s 777 fleet has experienced a cumulative schedule reliability of 97.7 percent, he said. Schedule reliability is the industry measure for the percentage of time an airplane is free of mechanical delays and able to leave a boarding gate within 15 minutes of scheduled departure. This is a dramatic improvement over the introductions of the 767 and the 747, which achieved this level at 18 months and 38 months respectively.

Sixteen 777 customers, other airlines and major suppliers attended the symposium, held five years to the week from program launch Oct. 29, 1990. The participants heard a number of Boeing reports ranging from flight tests and certification to action plans under way to resolve those few technical issues Muncey highlighted in his remarks.

“We are very pleased with results so far, and attribute the airplane’s success to all the early-on accomplishments of working together with our customers. They deserve the credit for helping to design these systems,” said Muncey.

An in-service experience report by United Airlines’ fleet captain Lew Kosich was a highlight of the symposium. “The 777 has shown itself magnificently during its first four months of service,” he said. United is now flying six airplanes, all powered by Pratt & Whitney engines.

Kosich called the 777 the most challenging and unique in his experience. “Personally, I’m certified to fly 20 heavy jets, and my background has been in flight test. I’ve never seen a program go like this,” he said.

“Working together was absolutely awesome,” Kosich said. “Our learning curve started five years ago. I don’t think a single person involved thought when we started that we could achieve ETOPS certification at delivery. But we did. When the airplane was finally inaugurated into service June 7, it was almost a non- event. We were inaugurating a mature airplane! Two of our inaugural flights were ETOPS flights.”

The unique Working Together atmosphere extended beyond the design table where Boeing and its launch customers first met in 1990 and during the manufacturing process itself. The regulatory authorities, the Federal Aviation Administration and Europe’s Joint Aviation Authority were involved in early planning to provide concurrent requirements so important to ETOPS certification.

Today, 50 percent of UAL flights are ETOPS (Extended Twin Operations) routes that could fly 180 minutes from suitable airports.

“There have been some technical problems, but they’ve been minimal compared to other programs,” Kosich continued. “But ask any 777 pilot and you’ll undoubtedly get a glowing report! Across the board, they love flying the 777.”

Kosich devoted much of his presentation to describing United’s readiness programs, including pilot training. He said that to meet UAL’s aggressive delivery schedule, United’s flight training simulators will be running 24 hours a day by next spring.

United Airlines is the new model’s largest customer, accounting for 34 of the 187 orders. Since Boeing entered the market with its twin, the 777 has captured 79 percent of orders for this class airplane, outselling the A330 and A340 combined. All Nippon Airlines, second largest 777 customer, took delivery of its first 777 earlier this month. Sixteen airlines have placed firm orders for 777s.

I think the early GE90 engines on the 777-200A airframes suffered from some reliability issues. (So much so, I was told, that this was the reason BA ordered RRs for their 200ER models.)

I believe the 777 had the most trouble free entry into service of any type….at least that was the Boeing hype at the time.

Further, I don’t recall the GE90 issues you refer to at all. IMHO the real reason BA switched back to RR (remember the uproar when they had the audacity to buy GE’s on the early 777 models?) was nationalistic in nature. And see what that got them: The only 777 hull loss to date has been caused by RR engines….. As an aside, the GE90 was really more optimized for the IGW 777 versions, due to the fact that it is larger and heavier than the other two competitors.

Back to the original topic, I would hope even the most ardent A380 fan would agree by this point that the service entry has been somewhat of a disappointment, especially when one considers the 2 extra years Airbus had to perfect the airplane because of the program delays. And they STILL haven’t sold any more…..and now the Airbus leaders are even acknowledging publicly that the program is in trouble financially and that it will be years before the program breaks even. What an abomination!