Computer generated image of an American Airlines Boeing 737, 787 Dreamliner and 777. It is fun to see the 787 in metallic finish, but the composite body would not make that possible. Image via Boeing.
I spent a nice chunk yesterday evening trying to get through all the recent information on American Airline’s record breaking order of aircraft. My first big question is why would an airline that lost $286million during 2nd quarter 2011, look to spend so much money on new aircraft? Airlines that lose money is not a new concept, but at a time when most airlines are raking in profits, American is still stuck in the red. The airline obviously needs to do something drastic and they are hoping that updating their fleet will achieve their goal. It seems like this is the correct direction, but there is much more than new planes needed to survive.
In case you missed it, American Airlines announced the purchase of 460 new aircraft, which is the largest single order in history. This will include 260 Airbus and 200 Boeing aircraft. I assume that the folks at American have run the numbers and found that with the expected cost of fuel and maintenance of older aircraft, it makes more sense, long term, to operate newer aircraft. It is likely that American had a huge advantage working Boeing and Airbus against each other to achieve the best pricing and they have beat Delta Air Lines and United Airlines to the punch of updating their fleet. In fact, American expects to have the newest fleet of all major US carriers in just five years, which is an impressive feat knowing that their average age of aircraft today is about 15 years.
According to Boeing’s press release, American was offered a 737 re-engine option that has not yet been approved by the board of directors. “In addition, American Airlines has committed to order a variant of the 737 featuring new more fuel-efficient engines, pending final airplane configuration and launch approval of the program by the Boeing board of directors.”
If approved, American wouldn’t be the only one interested in a re-engined Boeing 737. Flight Global quoted, Bill Ayer, CEO of Alaska parent Alaska Air Group, during an earnings call yesterday as saying, “We are very much in favor of lower fuel burn, and if Boeing can do this sooner rather than later, that’s a good a thing.” Alaska Airlines operates a fleet of only Boeing 737s.
Southwest Airlines is another all-Boeing airline based in the US and Brad Hawkins with corporate communications told AirlineReporter.com, “We, of course, have frequent dialogue with our partners, including Boeing, but we don’t disclose the details of those conversations unless we have an update to share.” I think it would be obvious that Southwest would like a plane with better efficiency to start replacing their large fleet of older 737-300s and 737-500s.
Computer rendering of an Airbus A320 in American Airlines livery. Notice the flat gray paint. Image via Airbus.
It seems the bottom line here is survival. American knows that gas isn’t going to get any cheaper and continuing to operate fuel inefficient aircraft is not going to be sustainable. However, survival is going to take more than just new aircraft.
One of the first things I thought of with such a large order is, “livery change.” When I posted how I wasn’t a huge fan of the current American Airlines livery, I got a lot of backlash. It seems that either folks love the current livery or feel it is aged and time to go. If American is looking to modernize their fleet and move into the future, I think they need a livery to match.
Yes, it is unique design, but it just looks aged. Then add the fact that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (which American has 42 on order) won’t work with American’s bare fuselage livery due to the composite material and you have a great opportunity to change livery. I think painting the aircraft with a metallic silver base paint with updated, swooping, red, white, and blue lines could look slick. Then add a single color AA Eagle to the tail and you have yourself one nice looking livery — with ties to the past. Going with a flat gray paint scheme was done with the Airbus A300 and it looks better than the patchy A300 with bare metal, but still not a modern looking scheme. When I asked American about the possibility of a new livery they stated that, “Those decisions have not been made yet. That said, we do have to determine how to paint the 787. Obviously, we have to determine and make that decision well before the actual delivery in 2014 since painting is part of the manufacturing process.”
With the retro-fitting of new interiors, the addition of the Boeing Sky Interior on their new Boeing 737-800s and new aircraft on order, American Airlines appears to be making a genuine effort. They have also been working to improve their interaction with customers via Facebook and Twitter, which helps them connect with the younger (and more hip older) passengers. They still need to tackle their problems with having a lot of debt, not making a profit and labor cost disadvantage.
After the order was announced, there has been a lot of criticism of American not buying all US built Boeing aircraft — accusing the airline of being un-American. That seems a bit mis-informed since we live in a global economy and trying to make the best deal to earn the most money possible sounds pretty darn American to me. United and Delta, who are the world’s two largest airlines, both operate both Boeing and Airbus aircraft. Not to mention that Air France (Airbus is headquartered in France) operates a fleet of over 80 Boeing (including cargo) airliners.
Be sure to also read:
* Jon Ostrower, on his blog Flight Blogger, posted an informative story on all the numbers relating to this deal and some are a bit surprising.
* Brett Snyder, on CrankyFlier, takes a detailed look how these new aircraft will more than replace the aging MD-80, Boeing 757 and Boeing 767-200 in American’s fleet. He theorizes that American might be looking to replace some smaller aircraft currently flying with American Eagle with larger Airbus A319 and Boeing 737-700 planes.
Singapore Airlines gave a special tour to invited media guests to their training facility located in Singapore and I felt privileged to be among the group. We were able to experience the flight attendant safety training, cabin crew procedure training and the flight simulators.
The slides are not for fun. This hybrid of Boeing 777 and Airbus A380 is to teach cabin crew how to evacuate an airplane.
We first entered a large room that looked almost like a play ground with slides, but it was all business. This is where cabin crew learn and get re-trained on safety protocols. There were a number of different interior mock ups and the most interesting was the hybrid slide trainer. This was a unique set up with a Boeing 777 in the front and an Airbus A380 in the rear. The aircraft is used to allow flight attendants to practice evacuating passengers and jumping down the slides themselves. Inside the mock up, the interior was made up of earth-toned seats, with half of it being wider than the other half. The emergency doors had LCD screens located in the windows to simulate what might be on the other side (ie fire, debris) and the flight crew must react accordingly. Other mock ups in the facility allow cabin crew to practice opening emergency doors, escape from crew quarters and learn the proper operations on different aircraft.
Instructors are able to set up a number of different scenarios for flight attendant training.
The larger hybrid airline cabin is able to be filled with smoke to simulate an emergency situation (see an example from when I visited AirTran). There is a control panel that lets the instructor set up a scenario and the flight attendants must react accordingly. I was hoping to have an opportunity to take a slide down, but decided on the stairs instead.
The water is calm in this photo, but during training, instructors can make waves in the Singapore Airlines training pool.
After coming down the stairs, we went into the pool training facility, where flight crew are required to practice jumping into the water with their uniforms. The pool is able to simulate waves and rough conditions, providing an additional challenge for the new trainees. Much like the slide trainer, the interior has a full cabin set up, giving as much realism as possible to an actual water landing event.
Singapore Airline's Airbus A380 flight simulator has a Star Trek like command chair for the instructor to create almost any scenario possible.
The training facility also operates seven aircraft simulators that cost between $12million and $30million. Singapore Airlines leases time on the simulators for other airlines as well, except the Airbus A380 since they need all the time on it as possible. The A380 simulator is unsurprisingly big and although it is a massive beast — she flies like a champ. The simulators have full motion giving pilots realistic g-forces during landing, take off and maneuvers. Instructors are able to sit in a command seat behind the pilot and co-pilot to create dangerous situations at airports around the globe. Before pilots take a spin on the larger simulator, they are able to practice the proper procedures on a much more simplistic (and cheaper) Flight Training Device.
New Singapore Girls learn how to work the economy section at the training facility.
Even though safety is the most important aspect of a flight attendants job, a large portion of the facility is set up to teach flight attendants how to take care of their customers. Down a long hallway, there are multiple mock-ups to let new employees learn customer service for economy, business and first class passengers. Interestingly, part of their training includes greeting facility guests with a warm welcome. It is quite impressive to walk by a group of 25+ new flight attendants and have them all welcome you to the training center.
Looks and proper grooming is important to Singapore Airlines. This room, new hires learn how to look professional during long flights in a low-humidity environment.
First impressions are important and Singapore Airlines makes sure their entire flight crew look professional. Even though the male crew won’t be wearing any make-up, they still go through the full training to learn how to keep their skin from getting too dry and how to assist their female co-workers. There is a classroom dedicated to make-up and scents training and another for flight attendants to practice walking properly.
Singapore Airlines is known for their high-end service and it takes quite a bit of work to accomplish. Besides basic training, flight crew are required to return for additional and advanced training. Even though the facility might look like fun and games, everything done there is for either customer service or safety. Both are very important aspects to running a successful airline and it seems to be working quite well for Singapore Airlines.
CHECK OUT ALL 30 PHOTOS OF SINGAPORE AIRLINES TRAINING FACILITY
Boeing 787 Flying over Seattle, WA
Benet Wilson, who writes for Aviation Week and has her own blog Aviation Queen, is out of town and asked me to write up a guest blog. I decided to write on something important to me: Aviation in Seattle.
I give a little synopsis of all the great things that aviation loves can do, when visiting (or living in Seattle). Click here to check it out.
This model of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner in ANA Star Alliance livery was at Narita Airport. Click for larger.
While on a layover at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport, I found a very large model of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner in special All Nippon Airways (ANA) Star Alliance livery.
ANA has told AirlineReporter.com that they, “are not planning to use the Star Alliance livery for the 787s for now.” That means we might have to wait a bit longer to see this on a bigger version.
Boeing has announced it expects to delivery its first Boeing 787 Dreamliner to ANA either August of September of this year. The first 787 will have a special ANA livery which was announced during the Paris Air Show.
Lufthansa is using this Airbus A321 (D-AIDG) to operate their first scheduled flight using biofuels.
Airlines and airline manufactures have been experimenting with biofuels for quite sometime. It has been successfully shown that airliners are able to fly on biofuel and companies around the globe are working to make sure it is economically feasible and sustainable.
Last week, Lufthansa Airlines started flying an Airbus A321 (D-AIDG) on scheduled service from Hamburg to Frankfurt using a 50/50 mix of regular and biofuel on one of its engines and standard jet fuel in the other.
“The main focus of this test is to examine the effects of biofuel on the lifecycle of the engines and other operational issues,” Martin Riecken, Director Corporate Communications, The Americas explained to AirlineReporter.com. “Two of the main roadblocks are availability of biofuel on a larger scale and the price point. Right now, biofuel is about 60-70 percent more expensive than regular jetfuel.”
The aircraft will operate on the biofuel for a test period of six months. The biofuel is similar enough to jet fuel, that the aircraft needs no additional modifications.
Christoph Franz, Chairman and CEO of the Lufthansa Group, said via a press release: ’œLufthansa is the first airline worldwide to use biofuel in scheduled daily flight operations. We are thus continuing to steadily implement our proven and successful strategy for sustainability.’
The fuel used on the Lufthansa A321 is developed from pure biomass and consists of jatropha, camelina and animal fats. The airline requires that the original product originates from a sustainable supply and is not in direct competition with food production.
When asked if Lufthansa plans to continue to fly with the biofuel Riecken replied, “There are no current plans to continue biofuel operations after the completion of the six-month test phase, but we will continue to support further research efforts.”
By implementing new technologies, Lufthansa has improved their fuel efficiency by over 30 percent since 1991 and on average, their fleet has a fuel consumption of 56 MPG per passenger.
Image: AlexK3800
