binxGood point. However from the above posts it seems to me that the primary concern for Air New Zealand is the ‘age’ of their B763s (although 8 years is still quite young compared to some fleets out there!). The reason I suggested perhaps Air New Zealand would be a launch customer for the 7E7 was because I could see Boeing saying “sign-up for the 7E7 and we’ll lease you 9 brand spanking new B763s for cheap to get you through the 4 years and then you’ll have your shiny new 7E7s.” The 763 obviously meets Air New Zealand’s current needs quite well and the following comment from the article seems to come right out of the promo brochure for the 7E7 which is what got the ole wheels in my brain churning.
“Air NZ says that any new plane it buys has to be the right size for the markets it is intended to service.
“The aircraft must allow us to simplify the overall fleet structure,” said a company spokesman.
“The aircraft must be extremely efficient and have a minimum cost of maintenance.” “
binxCould Air New Zealand possibly be shaping up to be a launch customer for the 7E7?
binxSome that I’ve heard around the airport:
CRJ – Skidoo (a reference to their Bombardier heritage and their shallow climb outs)
Jetstream – Lawndart
Metroliner – San Antonio Sewer Pipe
PC-12 – Pilatypus (a reference to their PT-6 engines resembling the duck bill of a platypus)
Twin Otter – Tw’otter
binxThe airport here in YYC has taken a unique approach to the issue. They have made a point of charging vendors fair market rates for their leased space in the airport. In return for the cheaper rent, any vendor in the airport must promise to charge the fair market price for their goods and services. Not only has this been a pleasent suprise to passengers eating/shopping at the airport, the airport has been able to attract the general public to come and take advantage of the unique stores and competitive prices, shopping at the airport as if it were a mall. The retailers do more business and as a result the airport is able to attract more recognizable chains which will draw even more people in. Why more airports haven’t employed this business strategy is beyond me.
binxI’d have to agree that most changes in security that have been made after 9/11 are simply for appearance sake. My favourite story comes from a friend’s dad who purchased a bagel at a coffee shop in a secure section of the airport. When he asked for a knife to butter it with he was told that the shop was no longer allowed to give out the plastic knifes because they represented a security risk. He ended up having to improvise with a coffee stir stick instead. He didn’t really give a second thought to it until he was on the airplane and was served his first class meal: filet mignion, complete with a rather large, metal steak knife. I would think that that would be pretty deadly if someone were to use it as a weapon. And yet, to this day, they continue to used as cutlery on airlines. Go figure.
binxHmmm, sorry about that link, it appears the video has been removed from the website due to concerns from an unidentified party. Perhaps it will return one day.
binxSpeaking of near misses….
http://www.airshows.tv/vids/ohmygod.wmv
😀
binxI’d imagine that the pilots flying Concorde are the most senior working for the company. As a result, their seniority should get them any job they’d want in the company.
binxHaving watched the video, I’m almost positive the aircraft was a Twin Otter (Y style yoke and throttles located on the ceiling). In answer to people’s questions, yes there was a first officer on board who flew the entire flight according to the news report I watched. It should be interesting to note that this really isn’t as big as it seems. In Canada the PNF is legally allowed to take a 45 minutes rest in the flight deck (read nap) as long as the PF is alert and awake.
binxHmmm, definately an interesting discussion. In Canada it is required that a spin is demonstrated to PPL students and a proper spin recovery must be demonstrated by the student in a CPL flight test. While I’m not too certain what side of the fence I’m on for this issue (in order to decide I’d want to see some sort of stats on just how many people die from spin training) I have to wonder if training on full out spin recovery would make a difference?
As has been mentioned already in this thread, a spin will most likely occur when the aircraft is slow, in a nose high attitude and a high power setting (assuming single engine aircraft) to “help” the yaw. This means that if you’re accidentally going to enter into a spin, you’re most likely going to stall the aircraft on the initial climb out and have a wing drop. While it’s true that a properly executed spin recover can be accomplished in a few hundred feet, chances are that you’ll only be a few hundred feet above the ground when this happens!! So, will your expert spin training make a difference? I don’t think so.
Like I said before, if you’re going to get yourself into a full spin, you’re most likely going to be a couple hundred feet above the ground and it’ll be too late. However, if during the stall you recognize the wing drop and are quick on the rudders you’ll save your butt by not entering into the spin in the first place. Now this is where the experienced flight instructors in the group can get their two cents in. The use of rudders to quickly correct for any yawing tendancies in a stall is taught as “stall recovery” (based on my experiences with flight schools). I don’t know if it is taught this way in Canada because the instructors want it to be second nature when we move into the spin portion of our flight training or if it’s taught everywhere as part of basic stall recovery. If it’s taught everywhere, I don’t really see the need for spin recovery training. If you don’t let your wings dip, you shouldn’t have to worry about a spin at all. IF emphasis on rudder use is grouped into “incipient spin recovery” and is not taught elsewhere than I definately think it’s a part of flight training that should be mandatory.
Great thread guys and a very interesting difference of opinions. Can anybody find any further stats on accidents caused by spin recovery traning or even accidents attributed to a lack of knowledge of spin recovery on the pilot’s part?
binxAnd just when you thought it couldn’t get anymore exciting, more pissing contests with pilots….
Air Canada pilots furious over arbitrator’s award
By JOHN PARTRIDGE
From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail
Air Canada pilots are furious over a new arbitrator’s award that, a spokesman says, will move many of their former Canadian Airlines counterparts hundreds of places higher on the merged carriers’ seniority list.
As a result, the pilots have decided to ask the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to hold an emergency meeting to overturn the award by federal arbitrator Brian Keller, David Coles, chairman of the merger committee for pilots who flew with Air Canada before it absorbed Canadian three years ago, said Monday.
“Our pilots have been decimated by this award, absolutely decimated,” Mr. Coles said after Mr. Keller’s report was made public.
“I can’t emphasize how huge this is and how badly our pilots are going to react to this,” he added later. “We’re just starting to get a smattering of e-mails and the anger is huge.”
About two-thirds of Air Canada’s approximately 3,100 mainline pilots have always been with the airline, while the other one-third came from Canadian Airlines.
Not surprisingly, a spokesman for former Canadian Airlines pilots was more positive.
“We didn’t get everything we wanted … but it’s a lot better than where we were and we consider it a fair compromise,” said Rob McInnis, chairman of the group’s merger committee.
The award means that there will be more former Canadian Airlines pilots higher up the seniority list, he said. “And being higher up the list means everything to a pilot, because the seniority list determines the aircraft you fly, your pay, not only for pay purposes but also for pension purposes, vacation, bidding — you know, everything.”
The Keller award could threaten Air Canada’s efforts to emerge from bankruptcy protection.
Last week, when unhappiness over the way Mr. Keller appeared to be heading surfaced publicly, some sources suggested that the issue could derail Air Canada’s restructuring. Members of the Air Canada Pilots Association (ACPA) are to vote by the end of the month on a tentative agreement on the union’s contribution to Air Canada efforts to slash costs by $1.1-billion and keep flying. Anger over the seniority issue could lead to a rejection, they said.
Two panelists who considered the matter along with Mr. Keller, one nominated by the Air Canada pilots, the other by those from Canadian Airlines, disagreed with his decision and are to issue dissenting reports.
Mr. Coles and other ACPA representatives were so unhappy with how discussions were going with Mr. Keller that they refused to take part in the final day of talks the arbitrator had scheduled for June 7.
Mr. Keller noted this in his report Monday, saying that, while “a general direction had been communicated,” no final decision on the details of the award had been made at the time ACPA decided to stop participating.
The seniority issue was referred to Mr. Keller following a CIRB decision in July, 2002, that said a seniority list put together in 2001 by another arbitrator, Morton Mitchnick, was flawed because it appeared to favour Air Canada pilots. Pilots from Air Canada and Canadian Airlines agreed to be bound by Mr. Keller’s decision.
One of the main reasons for altering the Mitchnick award, Mr. Keller wrote, was that the economics of the airline have drastically deteriorated in the past two years, which put the former Canadian pilots at a further disadvantage.
Air Canada spokeswoman Laura Cooke said the company will comply with Mr. Keller’s decision and work with the unions to implement the revisions it will require. However, she also said the decision does not affect the airline’s day-to-day flight operations. “It is indeed business as usual,” she said.
In his report, Mr. Keller establishes new ratios by which pilots from Air Canada and Canadian Airlines are to be placed in the seniority list, broken out by aircraft type.
York University business professor Fred Lazar said Mr. Keller’s award “tends to split the difference” between the competing views of the Air Canada pilots and those who joined from Canadian Airlines.
ACPA initially argued that the Canadian Airlines pilots should be at the bottom of the seniority list because their employer was about to fail at the time Air Canada took it over, Prof. Lazar said. But the Canadian Airlines pilots argued that it was a merger of equals and seniority should be based on original date of hire.
Douglas Reid, a business professor at Queen’s University in Kingston who follows the airline industry, said he thinks the Keller report will prove to be more of a “speed bump” than a deal breaker in Air Canada’s restructuring. With few airlines hiring, ACPA members would have nothing to gain if the restructuring fails, he said.
As he did last week, Mr. Coles said Monday that ACPA is encouraging members to keep the issues of seniority and the tentative agreement separate because “without an airline, the seniority list doesn’t matter.”
But he said the Keller seniority list means that instead of facing the 16-per-cent pay cut contained in the tentative agreement, Air Canada pilots are looking at cuts of “25, 30, 35, 40 per cent . . . depending on where they are on the list.
“So we’re getting into money problems. Maybe they can’t pay for their house or their wife has to go out to work now to make ends meet … This is a bad award.”
He also said lawyers for ACPA have already made a preliminary telephone call to CIRB and will follow up with a letter “imminently.”
There were approximately 2,200 Air Canada mainline pilots and 1,250 Canadian Airlines pilots in October, 2000, the key date for the purposes of the Keller report.
Mr. Coles said his committee’s preliminary analysis suggests that, on average, Canadian Airlines pilots will rise on the combined seniority list by more than 300 positions while the average Air Canada pilot will drop by about 180 positions “give or take a few.”
The more seniority pilots have, the larger the aircraft they can fly — and the larger the aircraft, the more they earn. As a result, Mr. Coles said, the seniority list “dictates what position you can hold, how much you can earn, what kind of flying conditions you get, what vacation you can have — it’s all those things rolled together.”
binxspeak of the devil:
Transat posts flat quarter
By TERRY WEBER
Globe and Mail Update
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Transat AT Inc. — which operates charter carrier Air Transat — reported flat second-quarter profit Wednesday and said it continues to expect “a very challenging year” as the impact of the SARS outbreak cuts into third-quarter bookings.
For the quarter, Montreal-based Transat posted net income of $15.4-million or 39 cents a share diluted, compared with $15.5-million or 41 cents in the same period a year earlier.
The results included a $2.6-million after-tax restructuring charge related to previously announced job cuts at its Canadian tour operator Americanada as well as its French subsidiary, Look Voyages.
Excluding one-time charges, profit in the latest quarter was $18-million.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial/First Call had been expecting second-quarter earnings of 38 cents a share.
The solid earnings, which come at a time of turmoil for the sector, pushed Transat’s stock up more than 10 per cent by the midday. At 12:15 p.m. EDT, the shares were trading at $4.59, up 44 cents in Toronto.
Quarterly revenue rose about 15.5 per cent to $718.8-million, from last year’s $623.3-million.
“”The results of the quarter were better than our 2002 second quarter results despite the war in Iraq and the economic situation in Europe,” Jean-Marc Eustache, Transat’s president and chief executive officer, said.
Faced with continuing industry concerns — including the war in Iraq, the economic slowdown and SARS outbreak — Transat reorganized its operations to cut costs.
Mr. Eustache said the firm — which also announced another 500 layoffs after the end of the quarter — has “not finalized our reorganizations” and expects “significant” savings in the current fiscal year as a result of measures already taken.
“Despite our overall improvement, however, Transat remains cautious and continues to be committed to managing very conservatively and to actively pursuing organizational and operational initiatives that will have a positive impact on the bottom line,” Mr. Eustache said.
“However, we have not altered our prediction that 2003 would be a very challenging year.”
SARS, he said, is still at the forefront of travellers’ minds and has a negative impact at a crucial travel period.
“The Canada-Europe market is a critical part of our summer season and the bookings for our summer season have been negatively impacted for the third quarter,” he said.
“We do however see some improving trends for the fourth quarter but remain cautious.”
In France, he said, the economic situation has “not improved and we do not expect to see any improvements in that market for the remainder of the year.”
“We expect Look Voyages to experience a particularly difficult time,” he said.
binxTalked with two pilots (although not from Transat – one from Air Canada and the other from Westjet) the other day and both had heard that Air Transat was considering a fleet renewal. Furthmore the rumour is that they have apparently been offered a sweatheart of a deal from Boeing that would have them have flying an all Boeing fleet. (keeping the 752s and perhaps replacing the 330s and 310s with a mix of 753s and 777s?). I could see Transat getting a rather sweet deal from Boeing as Boeing has been more or less shut out of the Canadian market with Air Canada, Air Transat and Skyservice choosing predominately Airbus fleets. Both pilots had heard this rumour pre-SARS and from friends of theirs that worked at Transat. I’m not sure how true this might be, or what effect SARS may have on it but it was interesting to hear none the less.
“Don’t forget, this is aviation! If you haven’t heard a good rumour by 1200, you should just make one up yourself.” – Passed on by a wise old Air Canada Jazz Pilot. 🙂
binxMongu,
Yes, Air Canada. One of the key strategies in their effort to emerge from bankruptcy is to follow the lead of US Airways and purchase a large amount (rumoured to be around 85) of 70 seat regional jets. They are also said to be looking at purchasing a number of 115 seat jets. At this point the favourite seems to be the B717 which to me seems a bit ironic as Air Canada just finished retiring their DC-9s not too long ago. Another proposal has also been put forward by ALPA, representing the Air Canada Jazz pilots, that would have the airline ending its subcontracting of Tier 3 services by purchasing up to 32 Beech 1900Ds by 2009. It has been suggested that Air Canada will use the fleet expansion as a bargaining chip in its negotiations with its current aircraft leasors. Of course at this stage, everything is subject to change so what will happen in the end, who knows?
binxHopefully these should shed some light on the subject. They’re links to photos of the VIP transports taken during the 2002 G8 summit that was held just outside my home town. Had to stifle a smile when watching the Canadian PM arrive in his Challenger jet when compared to the large machines used by other countries. Some of the highlights for those without the time to browse the links:
Russia: Ilyushin Il-96-300
Italy: Airbus A319-115/CJ
France: Airbus A310-304 Callsign: France Airforce 0021
Japan: Boeing 747-47C Callsign: Japan Airforce 001
US: Boeing VC-25A (747-2G4B) Callsign: Airforce 1
Germany: Airbus A310-304 Callsign: German Airforce 866
Spain: Boeing 707-368C(KC)
Canada: Bombardier Challenger Jet (not sure what version although 2 new 604s were just ordered to replace the current models so I’m guessing they’re older)
These photos are taken by the guys at airliners.net who deserve a lot of credit for the caliber of their photos:
Russia:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/295500/M/
Italy:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/270777/M/
France:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/264463/M/
Japan:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/264462/M/
Germany:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/264459/M/
Spain:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/262501/M/
US:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/264461/M/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/254959/M/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/254801/M/
Various:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/262300/M/
Further photos from the summit, taken on behalf of the Calgary International Airport, can be viewed at the link:
http://www.calgaryairport.com/media/photosH%20ASP/photos.asp?dir=g8&pic=1
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