Bombardier Kicks Off Farnborough by Launching the C-Series
Bombardier has talked about it for years, and now it’s official. The 110 to 130 seat C-Series has launched, and it’s promising massive fuel savings.

ExpressJet Ending Branded Service with Full Planes
ExpressJet may have announced the end of branded service, but those flights are flying full this summer, showing this may work one day with lower fuel costs.

Is US Airways “Intimidating” Its Pilots?
US Airways wants to use less fuel, so the airline is training its pilots to do just that. Is this stepping over the line?

Farnborough Order Counts
Farnborough Air Show is more than halfway through. That means it’s a good time to step back and see where the aircraft orders are coming from.

Delta To Keep Pinnacle Flying
Delaying entry into service of a handful of planes may have convinced Delta not to drop Pinnacle’s contract, but the reliability question still hangs in the air.

You know that feeling when you see a news report from a reputable news source that is just so insanely wrong that it makes you question everything they do? Well, here’s a good one for you. This report is so absolutely ridiculous that it has earned the Associated Press a Cranky Jackass award.

This video has apparently been making the rounds of various news outlets lately, and it needs to be stopped. It must be a slow news week for this to get picked up. The premise? When an airplane aborts its landing and goes around, it’s a horribly unsafe move. The reality? It’s far safer than continuing to try a landing that shouldn’t happen. Take a look for yourself.

Where can I start with this steaming pile of crap? How about the opening line . . .

Last December, Howard Kronberg was a passenger on a flight about to touch down at the airport in Newark, New Jersey when he feared his life was over. “It’s a catastrophic accident waiting to happen.”

Oh good, so a passenger with no flying experience knows that it’s a horribly unsafe maneuver? Please. As tempting as it may be, I can’t say I fault this guy for thinking that. A go-around can be a scary thing if you don’t know what’s happening. So who can I fault? The AP for putting this garbage on the air.

Go-arounds are a normal part of flying. If there’s any question that landing on a runway would be unsafe, then the best possible move is to go around and try again. This can happen because another plane doesn’t clear the runway fast enough, the plane comes in too fast or too high, or maybe the weather is too bad at the moment. In these cases, it’s a safer move to go around than to try to get on the ground.

I find it incredible that the report states that some controllers say that going around makes a mid-air collision more likely, yet there’s no source on that at all. In fact, the only controller they interview says it’s “the safe route out.”

I’ve been through more than one go-around in my life, and I’ll admit that it can be a little tense since you don’t know why it’s happening. But just remember, pilots don’t want to go around either. The sooner they land, the sooner they can go home (or to the hotel). So if you’re going around, there’s a good reason for it, and your pilot is keeping you safe.

Pieces like these hold absolutely no value other than to scare people with something that isn’t unsafe. I wish there was some stronger oversight at the AP, because this report never should have seen the light of day.

LAX announced yesterday that the new center taxiway on the south runway complex has opened for business. There’s lots of talk about how this increases safety, but for the average traveler, I don’t think this really resonates without further explanation of what actually happens at the airport. So I decided to put together a little post to show you why you should care. Below you’ll see NACO airport diagrams from end of 2005/early 2006 (thanks Wikipedia) as well as the brand new one from today (pdf).

Before you walk away cursing this fairly complex-looking map, let me give you a little positioning help. You can see the terminals in the middle at the top of each diagram. Where it says C6 - that’s the ramp between United Terminals 7 and 8. The next one over is Terminal 6 where Continental, Virgin America, and others fly. Then Terminal 5 is Delta’s, Terminal 4 is American’s, and you can see half the Bradley terminal. This map is positioned so that North is straight up and the ocean is to the left.

Now, take a look at the runways. Previously, there was nothing separating them in the middle. Planes usually depart on the top runway and land on the bottom one. So, it would be typical for an airplane to land from the right and take a high speed exit on taxiway J, K, M, or T. It’s rare but not unheard of for an unfamiliar pilot to just keep rolling right on through the departure runway on his/her way to his gate. LAX has one of the worst near-miss rates and this is one of the reasons.

Now look at the new one. There are still some high speed exits that go straight through but not as many. Also, the new procedure will require that the aircraft exit on to the center taxiway before proceeding. So you might hear an aircraft directed to exit on AN and then turn on to AC. At that point, the pilot will have to wait before being cleared across the departure runway.

Hopefully that helps explain why this is good. It will help improve safety, and it’s a good investment. Unfortunately, the northern runways remain close together, and there is an active community protest to prevent the northernmost runway from moving a bit north to make room for a center taxiway. As you can imagine, I support the airport on this one in the name of safety, but then again, I don’t live in the neighborhood.

UPDATE on 6/25 @ 4p: Ian Gregor, FAA Spokesperson tells me that while my explanation is correct, the current NACO map is actually not so current. Apparently the new center taxiway now extends all the way west to where taxiway U lies. So, this is even better. NACO just hasn’t updated the file. This one says it’s good until July 3, so I assume we’ll see a new one next week.

Nothing like some misguided Homeland Security policy to make you feel all warm and cozy. This time, we’ve got two policies, one that will impact foreign visitors and the other that could theoretically impact anyone.

First, let’s start with the rule that will affect non-US citizens. There are 27 countries that participate in the visa waiver program which allows people to visit the US without a visa. When they travel now, they can just grab their passports, hop on the plane, and fill out immigration forms enroute. That will change by January 12 when anyone traveling on a visa waiver will have to register electronically at least three days prior to traveling. There will, fortunately, be exemptions for people who book at the last minute, but what about people who forget? Will they be turned away?

I suppose the good news is that you only have to register once every two years, but that means the US will be keeping more info about you electronically. The more changes we make, the more we discourage people from visiting. Is it really not enough to have paperwork filled out on the flight? I mean, it’s a great option to offer the ability to register online beforehand for those who prefer, but making it mandatory just adds one more hurdle for foreign visitors to deal with as they plan their trips.

And now, let’s turn to the other news. Beginning June 21, you will be required to show a photo ID when you travel. Wait, didn’t you have to do that before? Nope, you didn’t. If you didn’t want to use a photo ID, you could still travel but you had to go through more rigorous screening. As you can imagine, this didn’t happen that often, but it did happen.

The rule says that exceptions will be made for people who have lost their ID, but really, who is to make the determination that it’s specifically been lost and you’re not just trying to avoid showing ID? The officer? Yikes. Here’s what the TSA has to say on the subject. I have to disagree with them. Why do we need to know exactly who is traveling? Anyone who willing travels without an ID is going to face such increased scrutiny that they would be idiots to try and do something sinister that way. Anyone really trying to cause trouble would just get a fake ID of some sort in order to blend it.

As fare as I’m concerned, as long as ID-less passengers don’t have anything dangerous on them, they should be allowed to fly. What do you think?

So the Cranky Flier is off on some boondoggle. But rather than give you, his loyal readers, a few days off from his pearls of wisdom on the aviation industry, he called on some of his few friends to fill in as guest bloggers. In my day job, I’m the editrix of Aviation Week’s Towers and Tarmacs blog, covering the wild, wonderful world of airports.

So of course, I’m going to write about what I know best. My sister is a police officer on the West Coast. She really loves her job, and is addicted to all shows law enforcement. But she recently started watching the A&E cable show “Airline,” which covers Southwest Airlines in its larger airports. Sister couldn’t believe how ridiculous people act in airports, and I had to tell her that even in these post-9/11, tight security times, bad behavior still abounds.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) web site is a virtual gold mine of things that screeners catch in passengers’ bags, including guns, a belt buckle knife, a torch lighter, fireworks and assorted drugs. I am amazed that people still try and bring guns through security – or conveniently “forget” that the gun is in there in the first place. And I could write a separate blog just on the escapades of celebrity “incidents” at airports. But let’s just look at a few examples of exactly what’s been going on at airports around the world.

Drugs and rampers don’t mix. How many times have I written about airport and airline ramp employees being caught smuggling drugs, guns and illegal goods, taking advantage of their positions? Our friends at the Gadling blog tell us about 4 baggage handlers at Madrid Barajas Airport who worked with “loaders” to smuggle cocaine into the country.

Get to the airport earlier next time. Next we have an article from the New York Daily News. Rosalinda Baez, described as an executive earning $190,000 a year as a consultant for Dell with homes in Manhattan and Texas, was arrested after she was denied boarding on a JetBlue flight after the jetway was closed. Instead of just waiting for the next flight or making arrangements, Baez instead decided to get the plane to come back by asking what the gate agent would do if there was a bomb in her suitcase, which was on the aircraft she missed. She also raged against TSA and its policies. She was questioned and arrested by the FBI. She was released on $200,000 bond and is banned from flying JetBlue until the matter is resolved.

Drinking and airplanes don’t mix. Boston TV station general manager Randi Goldklank must have been drinking the same water as Baez, because she had her own incident at Logan airport. According to the Boston Globe, Goldklank came off a Delta Air Lines flight smelling of alcohol and was screaming and causing a disturbance at the gate. Airport police were called to try and calm her down. But instead she struck an officer, said she was a “big shot” that would have all the police officers’ jobs. Goldklank was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and assault and battery on a police officer, and was placed on leave from the television station.

Snoop Dogg is vindicated. As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, Snoop has had his issues at airports. Back in 2006, Snoop and his “posse” were in a brawl in British Airways’ first class lounge at Heathrow (which I’ve been in – sweet) after employees asked some of them to leave. The dust-up caused the rapper to be banned from BA and the government to reject his visa into the UK. But a UK judge has ruled that Snoop can get a visa, since the fight was “precipitated by decisions made by BA staff and police,” according to the Times. The judge said he couldn’t find any evidence that Snoop had even been responsible for the brawl, agreeing with a ruling made by an immigration judge back in January. All’s well that ends well.

And speaking to Heathrow and ending well, I thought I’d end this post with this YouTube link. It’s a hilarious song about the disaster that is the new Terminal 5. Enjoy, and pop over to see me at the Towers and Tarmacs blog anytime!

There’s no question that American has done an absolutely terrible job of managing the latest round of MD-80 maintenance issues from a PR perspective. It’s been so bad, that I’ve seen articles start to question the MD-80 as an airplane, even though there’s no reason for them to do so. The MD-80 is a safe plane, and it’s unfortunate that American has let this thing get away from them. So, as Milli Vanilli might say . . . blame it on AA, yeah, yeah. (No? Too ridiculous?)

It all comes back to American’s unwillingness to push out a full explanation of what was happening. Finally, yesterday, they did, though curiously it came from their EVP of Marketing and not from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about. Airline Biz blog has the info here.

Basically, a couple years ago, there were concerns that wiring could arc and start fires or cause a variety of other problems. The FAA put out an Airworthiness Directive (AD) and made the airlines comply within 18 months. Now, they clearly didn’t think this was a problem of imminent doom, or they wouldn’t have allowed the airlines to make the fixes over 18 months.

By now, the fixes had been finished, but not 100% to spec. Now the FAA, fresh off being burned by the Southwest fiasco, is getting anal. They’re enforcing every little detail, so when they found that the spacing between ties holding the wire bundles together weren’t exactly one inch apart, they called foul.

So, the airlines flying the MD-80 are making these tiny changes to meet the requirements, even if it isn’t really a safety issue. How American wasn’t able to fix this last week when the planes were first grounded, I’ll never know. But it’s probably the FAA’s attempt to show the public that they’re doing something that’s making all this happen. It could have happened to any aircraft, but this is like the one kid in class who gets pulled to the front of the room so the teacher can make an example out of him.

Since it took American awhile to finally discuss the full details, it gave the media plenty of time to cook up stupid, stupid stories. The worst piece of irresponsible journalism comes from the AP. They put out a story entitled “Plane type Under Review Has Had Mishaps.” Uh oh. This awful piece of work goes on to link completely unrelated incidents, most of which were not even due to problems with the aircraft. And now CNN is jumping into the ring by talking about some landing gear problems that American MD-80s have had on extremely rare occasions over the last few months. The scaremongers are revving up. Let’s put a stop to that.

The MD-80 is a safe plane. Douglas built planes like tanks, and they tend to last forever. It’s no surprise that Northwest continues to operate 40 year old DC-9s. They may not be fuel efficient compared to newer planes, but they’re definitely solid aircraft.

I mean, take a look at this plane. Does it look unsafe?

Ok, so maybe it looks like a giant flying wiener, but it’s not unsafe. I know a lot of Americans living out here on the West Coast often associate the MD-80 with the Alaska Airlines crash off the coast of Southern California. It’s not often that we see accidents of that magnitude in our own backyard, so it tends to leave a mark. But once again, that wasn’t the fault of the plane. That was improper maintenance by Alaska Airlines.

If you’d like to review all the previous accidents the MD-80 has had, the Aviation Safety Network can help. You’ll see that most if not all the accidents in there were not due to problems specific to the MD-80.

Don’t believe me that the plane is safe? I actually booked a flight on one yesterday. My fiancee and I will be flying on a Midwest MD-80 in August, and I didn’t think twice about it from a safety standpoint. American, Delta, Allegiant, Midwest, and Alaska all still fly the MD-80 in the US thousands of times per day without incident. There’s no reason you should avoid them.

We’ve got a lot going on today, so without further adieu ado, let’s get started.

• Southwest and the FAA Fighting - If you haven’t heard, there’s been a steel cage match in Washington lately. In one corner, we have Rep Oberstar breathing fire and brimstone. In another corner, we have the FAA trying to pick up the pieces, and in a third corner we have Southwest claiming ignorance. In the fourth corner? Um, uh, Congressional pages? I don’t know. Let’s just say it’s a triangular cage.
  
  The hearings have been interesting, and if you’d like a play-by-play, I’d recommend reading Evan Sparks’s Aviation Policy Blog. In short, the FAA came out looking absolutely terrible for really not adequately overseeing Southwest’s maintenance operation. The FAA effectively allowed Southwest to violate the rules despite the attempts of some lower level FAA people to do things properly. What a mess. Neither the FAA nor Southwest looked good here, though the FAA definitely took the brunt of it.
  
  In a post yesterday, Evan Sparks argues that independent oversight might be necessary for now. I tend to think I agree.




• American Grounded Again - Remember how I said the FAA looked terrible? Well they’re trying to make up for it by flexing their muscles ineffectively. Once again, we have grounded airplanes that may not really need to be grounded, and this time it’s unbelievably the same American MD-80s that were grounded before. Apparently, AA didn’t do it right, and now cancellations are rising. If you’re flying AA today, start crying now.




• 787 Delayed Again - Bet you can’t wait to get onboard one of those fancy new 787s, huh? Chill. It’s not going to happen any time soon. Boeing, doing its best Airbus impression, delayed the plane again this morning. Now the first flight won’t even be until the fourth quarter of this year. And you wonder why they didn’t start crowing when Airbus faced A380 delays? Now you know. Bleh. Check out FlightBlogger for ongoing coverage.




• Oasis Hong Kong Is Dead - I know, I know. You guys love Asian news, and I rarely talk about it. Well, here’s a little bit of bad news for those who had tickets on Oasis Hong Kong. The airline is toast. Man, you wanna talk about going down in a blaze of glory? According to JetPhotos.net Daily Aviation News, the airline has been burning through $128,000 per FLIGHT! Now that’s impressive.
  
  Flights were between Hong Kong and both London/Gatwick and Vancouver. I say “were” because all flights are done. IIRC, these guys were owned by some crazy rich couple that is now likely a lot less rich. At least they got out now. If you had tickets, Cathay is helping.



There’s your fun-filled update for today. You might want to start the day with a little scotch to numb the pain.

Here’s an invention you can file under “really bad idea that should never see the light of day.” Yes, it’s the EMD Safety Bracelet. What does EMD stand for? Electro-Muscular Disruption. Oh yeah. This nasty little device will give flight crews the ability to physically disable you with the touch of a button.

Check out this video touting the not-so-fantastic benefits of this terrible product.

I think this is my favorite part.

To a businessman on his way home to be reunited with his family or to a young family going south for a winter holiday, wearing an EMD safety bracelet for a few hours during a flight is a small inconvenience to ensure their safe arrival. We feel if given the choice between taking a flight employing the added security provided by the EMD safety bracelet system and taking a flight without the additional security, many if not most passengers would happily opt for the extra security of the EMD safety bracelet.

This is just too much. So they’re suggesting that a passenger would gladly give up their ability to control their movements to a grumpy flight crew? I think not. What if the flight attendant had a bad day and didn’t like the way you asked for a drink? Eh, just shock the passenger into submission. Yeah yeah, I’m sure that there are all kinds of safety precautions, but I’m not buying it. If you like it, head on over to learn more about the system for yourself.

(via reddit and Infowars.com)

I’m not going to spend too much time talking about what happened today, because it’s been covered by just about everyone. (I should say overdramatized by just about everyone.) In short, Southwest had to take 38 planes out of service to perform a 90 minute check to see if there were any fuselage cracks. They canceled a fair number of flights today (Wednesday), but they should be back to normal tomorrow.

The reason I’m not going to spend much time on this is because I just don’t know much about what’s going on. Southwest says that there was an “ambiguity” related to the required checks that they discovered last night when they were going over maintenance records. So, they decided to be conservative and pull the planes out immediately.

What was this ambiguity? If they self-reported the problem to the FAA a year ago, shouldn’t those ambiguities have been discovered then and not a year later? I said before that we need to wait before condemning Southwest as being unsafe. I still stand by that, because there’s a lot that we don’t know, but this “reinspection” of aircraft certainly does not help their cause in my eyes. I still tend to think that the FAA is going to come out worst of all here, but Southwest isn’t going to come out smelling like roses by a longshot.

This is definitely the hot topic of the last couple days, and I must admit I’m still trying to sort it all out. This is what I’ve put together so far (with the help of some good reporting from the Dallas Morning News).

Back in 2004, the FAA issued an Airworthiness Directive (AD) saying that operators of certain 737s needed to inspect their aircraft for fatigue cracks. On March 15, 2007, the airline notified the FAA that it actually hadn’t completed all the inspections necessary on all the aircraft and it would do it immediately. Up until that point, the airline had flown almost 60,000 flights with those aircraft without knowing there was an issue. For that, the FAA has proposed a relatively minor fine of $200,000.

The inspections were completed between March 15 and March 23, 2007. During that time, they didn’t pull the planes out of service completely, with the blessings of the FAA, and they actually operated an additional 1,451 flights even though they knew they hadn’t done the inspections. For that, the FAA threw down a major $10m fine.

These, of course, are serious issues, but the media and a certain Congressional rep have blown this way out of proportion to try to scare everyone. It all comes down to this letter from the FAA to Southwest detailing the charges. You’ll notice the following.

The aircraft . . . were unairworthy when they were operated on the flights above because the required AD inspections had not been accomplished.

Oh boy, the media had a field day with this one. CNN put out an article entitled, “Records: Southwest Airlines flew ‘unsafe’ planes” and Rep Oberstar was quoted as saying that “The result of inspection failures, and enforcement failure, has meant that aircraft have flown unsafe, unairworthy, and at risk of lives.”

But before you freak out and stop flying Southwest altogether, let’s review what exactly it means when an airplane is “unairworthy.” It sounds pretty scary, but in this situation, it’s more of a technical description than anything else. If an aircraft has not complied with an AD by the required date, the aircraft is automatically considered unairworthy. If you want to read the entire definition, take a look at our National Policy on Airworthiness Certification of Aircraft and Related Products. Ok, maybe it’s best if I just point you in the right direction. In section 45 on page 20, you will see described the “Basic Eligibility Requirements.” It says that “Before a standard airworthiness certificate can be issued, the applicant must show the following . . . All applicable ADs have been complied with . . . . .”

So as you can see, this was more of a technical description as opposed to saying that the planes were truly unsafe. But that doesn’t mean that they weren’t. They did, after all, find 6 aircraft had small cracks that needed to be fixed. So were they unsafe? Probably not. There are so many strange political moves in here that I get the feeling we haven’t heard the whole story. Check these out.

• The FAA came out with the fine a week before congressional investigators were to have issued a report. Why not wait?
• FAA supervisors actually permitted Southwest to keep flying those planes after they admitted they hadn’t complied with the AD. Why?
• Boeing says “In Boeing’s opinion, the safety of the Southwest fleet was not compromised.”
• Southwest says We assure you that this issue never compromised the safety of our fleet.

As you can see, there is a lot of conflicting information out there. What we do know is that Southwest failed to respond to an AD in time, self-reported when it uncovered that fact, and then continued to fly those aircraft until they were fixed with the blessing of the FAA.

When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound that bad. In fact, the worst part of the whole thing is what drew the smallest fine - that Southwest simply failed to perform the work required in the AD in the first place. Will this make me less likely to fly Southwest? Nah. This kind of stuff does happen, though I’m obviously not thrilled to see it. I do want to know more about what Southwest is doing to make sure this doesn’t get overlooked in the future.