-
-
Jon Ostrower gives us a quick sense of how the P&W team and its engine are doing after his recent visit. The team is quietly confident - there are a number of opportunities they see to get back into a leading supplier role. Having missed a few in the past P&W knows what it means to not be an option on popular programs. It is not a place they intend to be again. Having invested a lot of time and money to develop their new engine, which is now seeing tests to get ready for the first customer, these are exciting times.
Posted on 2 September 2010 | 6:05 pm
-
A strange reaction to the US DoJ green light to the proposed merger between United Airlines and Continental Airlines was the reaction from pilots. You would think they had worked out how this merger would work in their interests and focus on the seniority list - the seemingly most important thing in a commercial pilot's career. But instead we heard the the pilots want to bring all flying currently undertaken by regional partners in-house. To say this is an odd request is an understatement. The airline industry is not what it once was explains MIT researcher Bill Swelbar. Bill walks us through the numbers and big picture issues airlines and pilots face in the 21st Century. Somehow the way this story ends is likely to be the same as other pilot vs airline stories - hurt feelings and angry words.
Posted on 31 August 2010 | 3:59 pm
-
Probably the most exciting feature of the aerospace industry is that it is filled with brilliant people who never stop trying to invent really clever ideas into new products. One such person is EADS' Dr Thomas Becker, who works at EADS Innovation Works. Energy harvesting is what solar panels and windmills do of course, so the idea is not novel. But what the EADS team is doing is really neat.
Dr Becker explains the novel idea of energy harvesting from electrical charges that are created from extreme cold surfaces (outside) and warm surfaces (inside) aircraft. Even though this is in micro-volts, this is sufficient to power small monitors. These devices can perform "health monitoring" and provide information to the flight deck, from where the data can be transmitted to the aircraft owner or MRO base. The potential of this technology is remarkable and worth try to understand. Arcane but very intriguing.
Posted on 19 August 2010 | 9:21 am
-
Today we have three distinguished guests - industry veterans - who opine on some recent airline industry news. The Southwest story about the three kids; the jetBlue fracas with a manifestly unbalanced employee; some thoughts on Unite's threat to strike against BAA and finally on a serious note, thoughts on the dead puppy story. A lot of the call is funny, but there are numerous serious insights.
Posted on 13 August 2010 | 10:13 am
-
The FAA announced new rules that impacts the pilot profession. New minimum hours at 1,500 are just one big impact. We hear from two pilots, one a veteran of military, corporate, commuter and mainline service and another who flies commuter service. The impact on pilots is not clear yet according to the conversation. Although on the face of it, pilots should be pleased with the new rules. However how the implementation of the rules occurs has yet to be seen. Pilots want more pay, but airlines want ever lower costs. Our pilot guests discuss interesting ideas - alternatives to crashpads for example. We even spoke about ad initio programs. Although we cut the conversation at 25 minutes, its clear this could have gone on a lot longer. Perhaps we need to get more input from the profession as FAA rules might well impact the broader industry more than is initially apparent.
Posted on 5 August 2010 | 3:31 pm
-
This week Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific announced its order for long haul airplanes and the order may be a harbinger of what is to come. FlightGlobal's Jon Ostrower shares his thoughts on what this order might be telling the industry. As Jon points out there are not too many orders in this category pending now.
Airbus clearly was the bigger winner at Cathay - its A350 has seemingly managed to eclipse Boeing's 777-200. Boeing held on to some 777-300ER orders, but as Jon points out even though this airplane is generally considered the epitome of airliner efficiency, Boeing needs to consider what it will do to ensure it remains the benchmark. If the design has identified the sweetspot, is perhaps a switch to composites the preferred way forward? There are implications to this too as Jon describes. The supply chain has to reconfigured significantly.
Perhaps the Cathay order might be looked back on as one of those watershed moments in the industry, when a customer decision leads to a significant response.
Posted on 5 August 2010 | 2:08 pm
-
The arrival of the Internet transformed how people could buy air travel. Transparency worked for the consumer. Ever since airlines have been working on ways to get back their past pricing power. To understand how they do this we spoke with Sunny Ja, Senior Principal Operations Research at American Airlines. He is the guest editor of the latest Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management. He walks us through a few of the papers and explains how amazing software tools and thinking are driving better yields and ancillary revenue.
We can see how airlines are offering all sorts of incentives to encourage the traveler to give up power in schedule in return for lower fares. Similarly, airlines are testing ancillary revenue models to see what works best in terms of overall yield growth. These are very clever models and we can see airlines clawing back some of the negotiating power the Internet took away from them. Learn even more at www.agifors.org
Posted on 5 August 2010 | 9:40 am
-
News that the oneworld alliance invited its first LCC, Air Berlin, raised a few eyebrows. After all, oneworld has the most premium brands and is the most exclusive of the three airline alliances. Wondering how this combination made sense, we contacted Erkan Pinar, an aviation consultant in Munich for a view. Erkan points out that Air Berlin is a cocktail of airline brands that presents something of a problem from a premium traffic point of view. But on the other hand it offers oneworld members good potential as a feeder into German hubs for longhaul flights. Moreover, Air Berlin has great access not only to German travelers, but also has a good base within Austria upon which to build.
Posted on 29 July 2010 | 12:51 pm
-
The show closed today and a clearly exhausted Scott Hamilton shares his assessment of the show's news. The orders were a lot bigger than anyone expected. Airbus' John Leahy declared the recession over - and he has good reason to feel that way, as his recession is clearly over. For many others this is manifestly not the case. The Russians had an excellent show as did the Brazilians. The Bombardier team had a quiet show. But that seems to be an outcome to other issues rather than their new flagship product.
Posted on 22 July 2010 | 9:23 am
-
After a very long day, Scott Hamilton reports in from the show his update. More orders - and the numbers are clearly much higher than anyone expected. One particular shopper, a Californian named Udvar-Hazy, had another very good day collecting airplanes for his rapidly growing collection. Once again no news from Bombardier though. It may be that the Qatar order, expected tomorrow, will only be for Boeing.
Posted on 20 July 2010 | 4:25 pm
