Comments on: Don’t Blame the MD-80 For This Mess

By: Larry

Larry — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 04:49:05 +0000

Ok wow! This was suppose to be about safety of md 80 but those has gone as far as comparing md 80 to other planes as a340, planes with flight entertainment systems or on demand systems or 767 to a340. These are irrelevant to md safety. If your going go compare planes, compare planes to there respective markets instead of ocean crossing three class new start of the art a340. The md 80 aside from maintenance, pilot error, weather, traffic control, the md 80 safety is on pare with other manufacture. Reports of per incidents leading to crash and death is among the lowest in the industry.
i have flown the md with Alaska airlines and never found it to be as unacceptable as some has said it to be further more I have flown on 737 400 that were louder(also ak air).
Infighting entertainment systems come on, on demand, really? This is domestic airplane with end of life around the corner.
Modernizing of fleet in the US where competition is fierce, airlines with bankruptcies after nine eleven, low cost carriers taking over markets and setting the standard is not as easy as it used to be after deregulation.
As far as airbus, fine, far out, fly your on demand planes. There safe, there economical but i still prefer American. The funny thing is now some one might say i am a narrow minded republican. Lol no just believe in Boeing and md and will say the airbus is great company keeping Boeing on there toes and that is always a good thing cause where would we be with out health competitionas it brings out the best in both.
As far as comparing new airbus to aging 757 and 767 ok why not compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges such as a300 developed about the same time frame.
i have no problem with comparisons or healthy debates as long as thing are relevant and informed.

By: whitneymuse

whitneymuse — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 23:38:33 +0000

I hate the MD-80s and its antecedant variants; they are so loud that a normal conversation as they take off from San Diego’s airpot just destroys an conversation on the ground; everytime they take off you can hear them obliterate communication; other aircraft don’t do that at all. It’s American Airlines that is doing this. No doubt their afternoon flights to Dallas. I used to have to commute there on these awful noisey planes and they should be retired because they have to throttle up HUGE just to get off the ground.

By: Axel Sarkissian

Axel Sarkissian — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:04:15 +0000

Mark Rascio, if you fly air france LAX to LHR, they have 777s whith the best service ever in economy, and they do have back tvs.

By: bob

bob — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 01:23:20 +0000

I think that a wire bindel tie that is off just a little bit is no big deal. what is important is that the bundel is not in a position to rub against any metal fuselage shapes.That could wear through the insulation and cause electrical problems.If this is not the case, then the FAA has just got a mission that is not about safety but something else.

By: F.O. Mann

F.O. Mann — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 21:05:57 +0000

As usual, it is Joe Brancatelli who gets to the heart of the matter and doesn’t get blinded by the spin:
http://joe.biztravelife.com/joe.html

By: Yo

Yo — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 22:46:00 +0000

BTW, on the way to work this morning, saw a beautiful ATI DC8-62 coming in for landing. But with the big quiet engines.

Sure was a pretty old school sight.

By: Mark Rascio

Mark Rascio — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:00:41 +0000

Jason, You are right..they missed the boat some time ago. Now with fuel at a premium, they will be at a disadvantage to an airline that did modernize. It will be a good position for the leasing companies…they’ll get to name their price.

By: Jason H

Jason H — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:01:48 +0000

Mark: Unfortunetly for the US airlines, even if they sped up their fleet renewal programs, they still would have to fly their older aircraft for several more years. Both Boeing and Airbus are sold out well into the next decade and unless the US carriers swap build slots with foreign carriers, they aren’t going to get their aircraft for awhile.

By: David Donar

David Donar — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:20:19 +0000

If American keeps this up, they’ll have to change their name to AMERICAN’T.

http://politicalgrafitti.blogspot.com/2008/04/americant-airlines.html

By: Wonko Beeblebrox

Wonko Beeblebrox — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:21:39 +0000

I think the equation used to be that RJs were cheaper to run since the Labor was cheaper on an RJ, and Labor was the mostly costly part of running a plane. Now that fuel is the mostly costly part, I’d expet that we’d see fewer RJs, certainly fewer small RJs (<50 pax), and probably almost no new 50 seaters. As such, I’d guess that the “RJ growth” will be in planes sized like the CRJ700, CRJ900, E170, E190 and Q400….