Category Archives for Aircraft.
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker says that the plane is safe to fly today – with American’s 737 MAX and using American’s pilots – suggesting that the delay in bringing the plane back into service is so that it’ll be safe even when operated by other airlines.
He dishes on how they’re scheduling the plane’s return to service, and whether or not delays have been the result of politics.
We all know (or should know!) not to stick our hands down inside seat back pockets. Those are bigger germ farms than the monkey in Outbreak. All seats have them though, usually even bulkhead seats. So those seat back pockets don’t differentiate one seat from another.
The question is, if you want to avoid the plague, which seats are the most infected on an aircraft? Which ones do you want to avoid?
In 2015 we learned that Boeing 787s needed to be turned off and on every 248 days. The problem was that the plane’s generators, powered on for over 8 continuous months, could fail and cause lack of control. The FAA issued an airworthiness directive to use the universal IT fix and Boeing went to work on a more permanent solution.
Now though we learn that the Airbus A350 needs to be turned off an on too.
There are scores of Airbus narrowbody fume incidents across diverse carriers — including some fume occurrences leading to flight diversions and hospitalized passengers and crew — across JetBlue, Austrian, British Airways, American Airlines, Spirit, Lufthansa, easyJet, Aer Lingus, Jetstar, Germanwings, Turkish, Air France, Delta and others.
Airbus, airlines, the FAA and international regulators are familiar with and have paid attention to these events and yet they keep occurring. We don’t hear about them as a systematic issue, and I have to wonder if Airbus is doing enough, proactively enough, about it?
On the 737 MAX Boeing compensated for larger engines with an intended safety feature where if the Angle of Attack sensor detected too steep of a pitch, the MCAS system would push down the nose of the plane. The A321neo seems to have a tendency to pitch up as well.
Southwest Airlines does not charge customers change fees. However if you change your flight you take your original ticket cost and use it as a credit to buy a new flight. Southwest is apparently now waiving any increase in fare when you change flights.
And that lets you buy a cheaper ticket than the one you want to fly, and just change to your preferred trip — but that original booking must be in March.
12kg of gold was found behind the mirror in the lavatory of a Biman Bangladesh flight from Dubai on arrival in Dhaka on Monday. You might even say that lavatory was a pot of gold.
Smuggling gold into Bangladesh is incredibly common. Spot prices are high and it’s a common destination for illicit funds being taken out of the Gulf region and also parts of Asia as we learned when a North Korean diplomat was discovered trying to bring $1.4 million in gold into Dhaka.
As American took the first 14 of their 24 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft out of service following President Trump’s grounding, planes were left sitting in Barbados, Cancun, Boston, Orlando, St. Croix, Tampa, Santo Domingo, Port of Spain, Santo Domingo, Miami and Puerto Plata.
The first 36 MAX flight cancellations affected schedules of 5500 passengers. Roughly speaking we’ll be looking at perhaps twice that many flights on an average day.
I’ve just written that I believe the FAA was reasonable not to ground the Boeing 737 MAX, and that doing so brings along its own safety risks. I wrote that I hoped that new data would be what guides any shift in position.
Minutes after writing that, though, President Trump announced a grounding of the aircraft type. It’s not obvious that there’s been any actual new information which has become available since the FAA resisting doing so. The only meaningful news item has been Canada’s decision to ground the plane, also based on no new material information.
I do generally trust the FAA, and the pilots operating these aircraft, to offer their best judgment here. Standing athwart regulators the world over who are taking the simple path (they’ll never get blamed for a car crash or incident on another aircraft type) isn’t easy.
I just hope that new data would be what guides any shift in position.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
