This Week’s Featured Link
Boeing 737-10 Faces Critical Certification Deadline – Airways Mag
This seems… not great.
Tweet of the Week
Two for the Road
Response of Waltzing Matilda Aviation, LLC to the Department’s Request for Information – Regulations.gov
Waltzing Matilda is starting to get a little testy with the slow pace of the DOT certification process. Something tells me that DOT doesn’t care.
Stelia Equinox flat beds to fly on China Airlines’ A321neo fleet – PaxEx.aero
Assuming Taiwan stays independent… and if we’re ever allowed to go to Asia again… this will sure be a nice way to connect after a Transpacific flight.
14 comments on “3 Links I Love: MAX 10 Problems, Annoyed Matilda, Flat Beds in Asia”
Relating to the 737-MAX10, Have you read “Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing” by Peter Robison ? It certainly would incline me to reconsider flying on a 737 anywhere in the world where pilot training was perhaps not up to US standards…. I would suspect that those safety changes would be quite beneficial in any scenario where the pilots might not be immediately+accurately on top of any unexpected situation.
The new aircraft certification law is an example of an old truism. Every statute that’s enacted is really two laws. The first is what was intended and the other is “the law of unintended consequences.”
It’s this the same Reason for the MAX7 certification delays?
Runway30 – Presumably? I don’t really have much visibility inside, and it makes no sense to me… any of it.
So unless I’ve missed something, Waltzing Matilda (a name that suggests Aussies are involved in this somewhere?) wants to fly Dash 8-400s from Toronto Island Billy Bishop Downtown Raccoonsville Airport?
This would be recreating Porter, wouldn’t it? But we already have an airline like Porter. It’s called Porter.
Is there really that much demand for this?
CraigTPA – It is… complicated.
https://crankyflier.com/2021/05/06/who-the-f-is-connect-airlines/
Thanks, Cranky! Wow, that’s convoluted. Not Lufthansa-level convoluted, but surprisingly close. This definitely raises a lot of questions.
* Can you fly between US destinations with a Canadian crew? The Biden Administration loves to talk about being pro-union, but with the pilot shortage maybe they look the other way?
* On the other hand, does Canada have any surplus pilots? Perhaps some of the small Northern airline pilots are tired of chipping polar bear pee off their wheels in the morning and would like to move south, but I haven’t heard of any great pilot surplus in Canada.
*Are Canadian pilots cheaper…or at least cheaper enough to make all this worth it?
* Given the NEA, why would AA want this instead of just putting their code on Porter, who’s already a partner with their Blue buddies, and start to build a working relationship with the Raccoon’s new Air Transat friends too?
* Or could the YTZ flying just be an excuse to try to slip a new Eagle partner in through the crawl space for US flying?
Can’t help but think something sketchy is going on here.
CraigTPA – I don’t believe you can fly between two US cities with Canadian pilots unless they have a right to work in the US. But this is about flying between the US and Canada so it’s a different story. Presumably this is a way to find a more steady pilot pipeline than competing with everyone else in the US.
As for Porter, I imagine American wants something where it can exert more control. Porter is doing all kinds of crazy things, including grabbing jets and flying elsewhere. I imagine that Porter has a plan and American might be welcome to come along for the ride, but it would be more of a codeshare than a regional partner.
Cranky – I interpreted something you said in your “who the F” post (“beyond Boston”) as meaning they wanted to fly from Boston to Baltimore and Philidelphia. Did I misread that, or have they dropped that part of the plan?
Porter’s E195-E2 plans might give AA an east-west partner in Canada that could eventually be (domestically) comparable to Delta-Westjet and United-Air Canada, although with both AC and WS going all Lufthansa on subsidiaries and LCCs popping up I’m not sure the Raccoon can pull this off.
Craig – I honestly have no idea what is or isn’t still in the plan. I have just kind of been ignoring them until they actually reach a certification milestone that matters! I’ll try to do a deeper dive again at some point.
Surprising that the MAX discussion hasn’t turned to the news that Delta is apparently close to an order for 100 or so MAXs including the MAX10 and also potentially gaining MRO rights for the LEAP engine.
Delta’s order isn’t directly germane to the certification discussion (although it is indirectly), but that hasn’t stopped any of us from going off-topic before (including me – LOL). So I’ll do it. I think the order makes a lot of sense for Delta on many levels. I’m surprised there aren’t more MRO arrangements around, given all the different engine types a typical legacy airline fleet has (at least during the first few years a new engine type on a relatively small fleet is in service at a carrier). Just curious, do you know which engines Delta’s A321 neo’s use?
All of Delta’s currently on-order narrowbodies (A321NEOs and A220s) are powered by the Pratt and Whitney GTF while all of its widebodies (A330NEO and A350) are powered by Rolls-Royce and Delta has the MRO engine maintenance contracts from both engine manufacturers.
Getting an MRO license for another family of engines is about expanding Delta Tech Ops’ ability to grow its revenue – and engine maintenance is high margin – and Delta has tied new aircraft purchases to gaining engine maintenance contracts.
If Boeing and GE/Snecma and Delta come to a deal to allow Delta to overhaul LEAP engines, Delta will be in a position to maintain every new narrowbody engine.
And it is relevant that Boeing might be willing to push GE/Snecma to negotiate w/ DL now since the MAX10 has not sold terribly well. Having another US airline with a large orderbook for the MAX10 will help Boeing negotiate w/ Congress and the FAA for an extension on the certification deadline. It makes no sense to hold the MAX 10 to a different standard than the rest of the MAX family. Boeing and Delta can and do work together to help each other when it makes sense to do so. At this point, Boeing might need Delta more than the other way around.
I am wondering if the lie flat seats for China Airlines will not be comfortable for non-Asian people. Except for Korean Airlines, all the airlines I have flown Intra-Asia tend to have smaller seats/leg room and myself a 6-4 male have issues sitting in them. I was glad when NWA/Delta flew to Japan/Philippines because those seats were large enough that I could be very comfortable. My last flight pre-Covid, I tried PAL direct from JFK and was uncomfortable in their smaller seats.