The brain trust at flyersrights.org is at it again. This time they are specifically targeting JFK International Airport. Led by the noted realtor and self proclaimed aviation expert Kate Hanni; they have put their full weight behind denying the airlines request for temporary relief from The Airline Passenger Bill of rights Act of 2009.

I predicted here, months ago, that the bill would lead to mass cancelations and ultimately hundreds of thousands, even millions of passengers being adversely affected, vice the 1/100th of a percent of flights stranded, that the bill was designed to prevent. Very few flights have had the long on ground delays this bill addresses. On the 22nd of December 2009 I predicted that future weather events would cause massive cancelations. On the 17th of February 2010 I showed an example. On the 9th of March 2010 the debate ended; the CEO of Continental Airlines in his own words:

Smisek said many passengers on delayed flights “really want to go to LA or Mumbai, but the government by God says, ‘We’re going to fine you $27,500.’ Here’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to cancel the flight.”

Because airlines have cut flights, leaving the remaining ones more crowded, passengers will have fewer chances to rebook on another flight. Passengers, he said, won’t get to their destinations “for maybe days.”

The reality of the situation apparently has not yet reached flyersrights.org; in fact they now seem hell-bent on making the situation worse. A mere 5 days after the CEO of Continental Airlines stated the above, flyersrights.org strongly opposed an exception to 14 C.F.R. §§ 259.4(b)(1) and (b)(2).

The problem: JFK Airport is shutting down one of its major runways for construction. Thus knowing it will cause delays; Delta and JetBlue Airlines asked for relief until the construction is complete. A very reasonable request IMO, in light of the fact that the capacity of the airport will be greatly reduced.

Flyersrights.org, “representing the interests of airline passengers” responded:

“FlyersRights.org strongly opposes DOT’s granting any exemption from this regulation to these or to any other airlines serving JFK.”

Further:

“The DOT Secretary should deny these airline requests out of hand and direct FAA Administrator Babbitt to meet promptly with the airlines and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, JFK’s operator, to require the airlines to realistically schedule airline operations correlated to available JFK runway capacity during this construction period.”

Translation; cancel flights (keep in mind load factors are at historical highs. Airlines especially during summer months are virtually at capacity); so much for that trip to Paris. BTW doesn’t “out of hand” mean without even examining the impact? That would be ironically apropos to this organization.

The following paragraphs are laughable, their total lack of insight and understanding of the industry is eye-watering to me. I suppose you don’t get much Air Transport training in realty school.

“Airline passengers should not have to endure multi-hour delays on JFK’s taxiways because the FAA refuses to manage “flow control” over the ground movements of aircraft scheduled for departure. FlyersRights.org has recommended for years that FAA’s air traffic controllers at congested airports like JFK should be required to prohibit airlines from pushing their aircraft back from the gate when an unreasonably long taxiway delay before takeoff is inevitable. FAA has resisted, not wanting to preclude the airlines from using those taxiways as passenger parking lots.

The exemption-requesting airlines have long known about the approaching need for the Bay Runway to be closed temporarily for reconstruction. They have had many months to develop alternative solutions that wouldn’t make passengers suffer long tarmac delays: e.g., scheduling larger capacity aircraft, and adjusting departure schedules. Instead, they now propose distorting a new DOT regulation that was designed to protect airline passengers during occasional “irregular operations” (such as weather) to insulate themselves from the consequences of their chronic, everyday overscheduling of flights.”

Let’s look at some of Kate’s fixes closely, first:

“FlyersRights.org has recommended for years that FAA’s air traffic controllers at congested airports like JFK should be required to prohibit airlines from pushing their aircraft back from the gate when an unreasonably long taxiway delay before takeoff is inevitable.”

Again, evidence that (apparently) even a basic understanding of the industry is not present over at flyersrights.org. They must assume that every flight has its own gate, do the math. Flights have to come off the gate, because an arriving flight needs it to deplane. What is flyersrights.org’s answer to that? Which group of passengers gets to sit; arriving or departing? The industry has its answer ready; in the face of fines they will cancel the departing unless they get regulatory relief. Continentals CEO could not have been clearer. Let’s keep in mind if the aircraft does not go over the pond; the flight back the next day is also cancelled. A two for one deal; think that happening day in day out until November will adversely affect tourism, the economy, not to mention the airlines based in JFK?

“scheduling larger capacity aircraft,”

The international flights into and out of JFK are already flying the largest aircraft available that the markets will support, Boeing 747, 777, 767 and 757’s; Airbus 380, 340 and 330’s as well. They only have so many, they’re kinda expensive and require crews and mechanics and baggage handlers and….well you get the picture.
Surely our intrepid realtor doesn’t mean the airlines need to fly a 777 from small town USA to JFK. Or is it a case of; the small market passengers don’t deserve to fly around the world by connecting in New York. Not to mention in the case of JetBlue (one of the named airlines) the A-320 (approx 150 seats) is the biggest aircraft they fly.

I could go on but this pains even me. This is the danger of the internet; a small minority representing a fraction of the airline passengers of the world is inflicting damage to the entire system. Construction, like bad weather, happens in this industry. Not every day, but when it does, it will impact the schedule. The airlines now will have no other choice than to cancel flights. Personally, I would rather wait 4 hours on the ramp or taxi way, rather than sit in a hotel for 2 or 3 days.

An old Admiral once told me; “Son, one person pissing down your leg is not a movement.” Sadly, that is no longer true in the age of the internet.

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• Air traffic perfect storm for NYC (cnn.com)

Smisek said many passengers on delayed flights “really want to go to LA or Mumbai, but the government by God says, ‘We’re going to fine you $27,500.’ Here’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to cancel the flight.”

Because airlines have cut flights, leaving the remaining ones more crowded, passengers will have fewer chances to rebook on another flight. Passengers, he said, won’t get to their destinations “for maybe days.”

This is what happens when you let a self promoting Realtor set National Aviation Policy; truth is stranger than fiction. Good luck next winter; and bring your credit card because for a weather event you are on your own!

Imagine how “Wowed” I was, to learn via her website, that dear Kate is a California Realtor, Napa no less. Impressive credentials for someone who is re-writing the FARs on aviation; add to that she has ridden in the back and got stuck during a storm once. Impressive indeed; and now the “press” runs to her door for expert analysis, apparently over 800 times so far.

And the results are in! Rather than risk fines, the airlines have concluded the only fix is to simply cancel entire banks of flights. When a metric tells them that the mandated limit approaches for a flight or bank of flights they just cancel. Ironically, it is much cheaper for the airlines than de-icing, flying half full aircraft (due to people missing their flights) and sitting for hours burning gas. And here’s the best part: because it is weather-, not company-related, they don’t have to provide hotels or food vouchers. Bingo, Jed’s a millionaire!

So bottom line: instead of waiting on the “tarmac”, it is really called the ramp. Normally during a weather event aircraft are stacked on taxiways, but let’s not throw any technical facts into the mix; this is about emotion and revenge! Instead of that ugly wait for hours on the taxiway, passengers will now wait for days, at their own cost, in a hotel. What a great solution from the Boxer/Hanni brain-trust of California!

Let me explain why: if your flight is canceled your seat goes away. It is a perishable service, end of story. The next day’s tickets are already sold – AND load factors are at historic highs. That means, you guessed it, stand-by for the canceled flights’  hundreds of passengers. Let’s look at JetBlue only: last Wednesday, they canceled 387 flights due to the storm. In 2005/2006, they averaged 254 cancels for the entire year, a dramatic change. Let’s now do the math; 387 x 149=57,663 stranded passengers. JetBlue has 250 flights a day in JFK, so the total number probably represents most of their flights in a day. But I feel generous; let’s say only half were canceled: back to math. JetBlue’s load factor is in excess of 80%, but again we will be generous and use 80. That is 120 seats filled on a 149 seat aircraft for 774 flights in a day – 22,446 seats a day to move 57,663 passengers. That would require two and one half days, if all the stars aligned. Obviously it is not linear, load factors are average and JetBlue flies the E-190 as well. This is simply a big picture look at what happens mathematically when flights cancel vice delay.

Passenger advocates say that airlines don’t need to cancel flights to prevent tarmac delays. “This is solvable” without excess cancellations, said Kate Hanni, who founded Flyersrights.org after a flight she was on in 2006 was stranded.

I suppose there are dumber statements out there, but I haven’t seen one for a while, and it shows just how clueless this “Aviation Advocate” actually is, in my opinion. She must assume each and every flight has a dedicated crew, gate and aircraft. Apparently she doesn’t know that aircraft and crew fly multiple flights a day, gates AND “tarmac” space are finite and that FAR’s cause crew to time out when they return to the gate. Thus, if a flight waits for 2 hours 59 minutes, then returns to the gate, the crew day limits are re-calculated. You can bet at the end of the day they will go illegal. OBTW, reserve crews are finite as well.

Perhaps we can get Kate to do the arithmetic for us. Until then, good luck getting anywhere during the next snowstorm. Oh, I almost forgot. I noticed that 3 for 3 of Kate’s advertisers were lawyers on the site. Hmmm, curious. All this to fix a problem that historically affected less than 1/10th of 1% of daily flights. Amazing.

The coming changes will affect the major airlines as well. Post 911 the airlines used the bankruptcy court to gut pilot contracts. Their biggest target bedsides pay was work rules. You reap what you sow; it showed first in the Regionals and now the Majors are showing the initial signs of safety concerns. A recent rash of near and actual accidents all seem to have one common factor; fatigue.

The entire industry has been relying on pilot experience to preserve safety in a fatigued profession. Fatigue is accumulative and it seems that the industry is on the edge. The FAA apparently is concerned enough to re-write decades old regulations on crew rest and training. Mr. Babbitt; the Administrator for the FAA, is pushing hard to get them in place by spring. It can’t come fast enough; with age 65 now in effect fatigue mitigation will become even more critical to airline safety. It is my opinion that fatigue is the number one causal factor in airline mishaps and accidents.

The new rules will cause a need for more QUALIFIED pilots. That will cause a shortage; because quite simply they are not there for the Regionals. You reap what you sow; no 20 year old in his or her right mind will run up 100 thousand dollars in loans for a 16 thousand dollar a year job. Once the majors pick through what’s left of their furlough pools they will find the same thing. No military pilot in his or her right mind is going to take a huge pay cut flying fighters, to come to an industry that issues pay cuts instead of raises and zeros out retirements instead of funding them.

So the Majors will pull from the Regionals, which will empty the Regionals, which will then cause the majors to have to pick up the flying of the Regionals, which will in turn collapse the Regionals and cause a shortage in the Majors as they expand to pick up the flying. Follow the bouncing ball.

About the time this is all sorted out, the vast majority of major airline pilots will time out and the industry 12-14 years from now will grind to a halt. IATA is already experiencing a shortage of experienced pilots worldwide (temporarily dampened by 911/SARs/and now the economy) and their solution is to simply do away with pilot qualifications via the Multi Pilot License. This will kick the problem down the road for a while; however MPL holders cannot be Captains. Once the last of the old guys retire, that will ground a significant portion of the airlines of the world. There will not be enough Captains, period. Fewer flights, much fewer; with bigger aircraft will become the only operationally sustainable model. Ironically it will save the industry economically, for those airlines that secure enough Captains to keep enough of their fleet in the air. Supply and demand, economics 101; but it is going to be hard and expensive to get from major city to major city. The secondary and tertiary markets can forget about air service.

You reap what you sow; the airline Transport Association has successfully smashed the unions and beat down the job to the pay level of a truck driver at the Majors and a McDonald’s worker at the Regionals. Flight schools are shuttering their doors; young college educated, smart hard chargers (the typical pilot profile) do not want the job anymore. It is not worth it; they are going to Wall Street, Med School or Law School now. If they want to fly they will buy their own airplane. Bottom line, you get what you pay for.

First the video:

Not nearly as good as killathrill’s or mega whoosh’s; here is why: it does not mix actual footage with CGI. In my experience the best place to hide CGI is in plain sight. For example; in the opening scene of the attack on Pearl Harbor, in the movie of the same name; flights of Japanese aircraft cut through the mountain valleys as people watch. The lead aircraft of each flight are real, the wingman CGI. It looks great because the CGI aircraft are slaved to actual aircraft and their movement. Killathrill and mega Whoosh use the same technique.

Here are my problems with “Software Malfunction”:

The most obvious to a pilot in general is the flight controls do not match the movement of the nozzles. For example the vertical stabilizer never deflects. Here is a video of the SU-30, it also has vectoring thrust. Watch as the nozzles cycle the stabilizer matches the movement, even when they are modulating independently.

Next; the acceleration at the very end of the video is way too fast. The nozzles would have to vector aft slowly to insure controllability and then the jet aircraft could accelerate. The energy addition rate on the video is way too high.
The first thing that caught my eye as a former Naval Aviator; no crew on deck, not even a Launch Officer or LSE. A normal flight deck is teeming with crewman. Aircraft do not operate from ships without final checkers and launch personnel; there isn’t even a fire crew for an alleged experimental launch.

Also the video presentation itself: all PLAT cameras have the ship, date, time, wind direction and speed; presented at the top and bottom of the picture. This video did not.

As for the CGI; we’ve already discussed the acceleration rate. The other clear indicator is when you look closely as the CGI Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) accelerates away the imagery ripples through the parked helo. Also the sun angle was used to wash out the definition. A real camera would have been blinded by being pointed directly into the sun.
I’ll give it a C- as compared to killathrill’s A and mega whooshes B+. I suspect we will see a very similar presentation on a computer game very soon.

One last thing; to my knowledge the F-35 has not been to the ship yet.

ET-409 crashed on take off from Beirut International Airport. Initial reports cited witness descriptions of lightening strikes. However, after viewing a security video, it appears the left engine is compressor stalling, a precursor to an engine coming apart.

Compressor stalls are a jet engines version of backfiring, and come with flashes of white flames out of the engine intake. Foreign object damage to compressor blades is normally the cause.

I suspect left engine failure and subsequent fire will be a primary causal factor.

It is a fundamentally flawed model: the equivalent of having a thriving business and not owning the building.  Or worse yet, not even having a long term lease; let alone a non-compete clause.  If you could ask Sam Walton he’d tell you that is exactly how he lost his first business.  The owner of the building he was located in refused to renew a short term lease and simply took over his existing business.

The ultimate dream of current airline management “group think” is to rid themselves of their biggest problem, employees.  This from a service based industry.  Putting the service (or lack thereof) question aside, the operational structure is un-sustainable.

Shrinking the production level, in the case of the airlines mainline flying, raises the overhead costs per flight hour.  Ultimately the stand alone revenue stream becomes incapable of supporting the overall structure.

Legacy airlines have been outsourcing at both ends of their systems with disastrous results.  High cost Regional Jets and their subsidiary companies have been handed the tertiary and some secondary city pairs.  High CASM (cost per available seat mile) due to high fuel cost and low seat count has exceeded RASM (revenue per seat mile); in short the small jets are upside down.  At the inception of this model high yield and low fuel costs spread across an entire network allowed profitability.  However in their zeal to outsource both ends of their networks the major airlines have reached a tipping point.  The production level (mainline) can no longer support the costs.

The small jets are dragging down the bottom end of the network and code share is now doing the same to International.  Synergy, virtual mergers, etc. etc.: where is the synergy?  Did either company of an alliance reduce overhead?  Was either management team or their inherent over head eliminated? Marketing?  Public Relations?  HR? Training? Operations? Anything?

Yes; flights and the production level employees that flew them, a lower percent of the company producing revenue.  Taken to its ultimate conclusion, many managers dream, no employees at the production level at all.  A holding company, selling tickets by brand name only, no production level costs.  Sounds good on paper until you realize that translates to a company that is pure overhead.  Pure cost at its core.

Many would argue it is pure profit at its core and thus the perfect company; a self sustaining management team that produces nothing but revenue.  What it really is; is a business that doesn’t own the building.  What is to prevent any discount website from cutting a better deal with the suppliers of an airlines network?  In the brave new “IT” world that could be done in nanoseconds.

On the bottom end the Network Airlines have been outsourcing via small jet providers and pressuring them to slash costs by pitting them against each other.  On the top end they have been aggressively seeking partners to outsource International flying.

Every action causes an equal and opposite reaction.  (Newton’s Third Law of Motion/Physics)

On the top end a shifting alliance can leave a large hole in a network over night, with a subsequent catastrophic loss in revenue.  The JAL loss to One World illustrates the double edged nature of code share; here today gone tomorrow and no real control of an airlines own network.  On the bottom end the first reaction was Independent Air striking out on their own after UAL slashed their contract.  Ultimately; poorly structured, executed and underfunded it failed.  However; it cratered revenue on many UAL routes while it flew.  Republic has learned from Independent Air’s mistakes and is quietly building a National Airline that will compete directly with UAL in Denver via their latest acquisition, Frontier.

Network Airlines no longer own their buildings; their very networks are dependent on other companies at both ends of the scale.  They have outsourced their ability to cover costs, let alone make a consistent profit.  In true irony they have even outsourced their own management team’s ability to control revenue by dumping tickets on the Internet.

Within 12 years the vast majority of all airline pilots will be forced to retire.  The military has slashed pilot production and civilian flight schools are shuttering their doors.  The pending shortage will give the power to the suppliers as they move to the highest bidder.  Future networks could very easily collapse overnight.

The primary tenants of business are to control cost, revenue and especially the product.  Outsourcing surrenders that control to the lowest bidder.  In today’s world of globalization, some code share will be required on thin routes, but it is perilous to sacrifice your network for another’s for short term gain and the resultant instability.  Ultimately the proof is in the pudding; US Network Carriers, as a group, have not been profitable in a decade.  In that decade outsourcing has been the Holy Grail.

In the case of Flight 253, apparently we didn’t want to offend anyone.  The future terrorist of Flight 253 was turned in by his own father, a respected international  banker, as a danger to the USA.  But because he had not yet done an act of terrorism, no action was taken.  His visa was not pulled.

Then our terrorist decided to take a flight to the USA.  Apparently, the fact that he came from a country full of  terrorists currently in a civil war, fitting the profile of a terrorist, on a terrorist watch list, was not enough to get him a special screening.  You would have thought being on a terror watch list alone would be enough.  Especially after the warning, done in person by his father, to the U.S. Embassy.  No special screening was done.

It begs the question: if fitting the profile of a terrorist, coming from a nation full of terrorists, and being on a terrorist watch list, WITH a specific warning from a family member, does not get you a special screening, what does?

We are at war; just because some in this country don’t want it to be true doesn’t mean the Islamic terrorists will go away.  We know who our enemies are. Searching Granny is a joke.