$100 Oil and the Airlines

[GRG55]

Re: $100 Oil and the Airlines

"Propeller aircraft can fly the same distance at a low or high altitude. It will fly faster at the higher altitude however."

I do not miss riding around in the small planes that appear to achieve optimal fuel efficiency at altitudes where the weather seems to happen worldwide. Had to grab my laptop out of the air more than once on those things.

The VP sales of my company three companies ago called them Buddy Holly planes. When confronted with a flight in one he'd rent a car and drive.

There is quite a difference between the privately chartered single-engine, piston-powered Beechcraft V-Tail Bonanza that crashed "the day the music died", and the turbine powered STOL commuter aircraft operated under your FAA's FAR Part 119 commercial air carrier regulations. The latter is what I think the author of this thread experienced.

The safety record of these turbo-props in commercial service in the USA and Canada is superb. Years ago while project managing a gas plant under construction in northern Canada I used to have to change planes at Edmonton City Centre airport. The city has grown up around the historic airport and there was no room to expand the runways. I had the option of flying in on a B737 jet or the competitors DeHavilland Dash 7 turboprop. I always checked the weather before departure and if it was any less than perfect I always chose the Dash 7. Coming across the threshold with the mass and momentum of a Boeing onto a runway with less than perfect braking coefficient wasn't something I would volunteer to do.

They may not be as comfortable as a jet, but under some circumstances they are, IMO, a hell of a lot safer.

[Wild Style]

Re: $100 Oil and the Airlines

"Propeller aircraft can fly the same distance at a low or high altitude. It will fly faster at the higher altitude however."

I do not miss riding around in the small planes that appear to achieve optimal fuel efficiency at altitudes where the weather seems to happen worldwide. Had to grab my laptop out of the air more than once on those things.

The VP sales of my company three companies ago called them Buddy Holly planes. When confronted with a flight in one he'd rent a car and drive.

I prayed for the first 10 minutes of this flight on the prop plane. I don't know that I have the stamina to take another one again. The landing was worse than the first ten minutes though.

[phirang]

Re: $100 Oil and the Airlines

My flights to dubai and through jeddah have all been packed, both ways.

thank god i shelled out for biz.

[GRG55]

Re: $100 Oil and the Airlines

My recent flights to Europe: under $500 for Zurich; under $600 for St. Petersburg, under $500 for London.

Admittedly these were winter fares, but still low by the standards of the past 7 years.

Flights were all full, but I'd bet average revenue was WAY down.

Flights to Asia, on the other hand, have been trending up for some time.

5 years ago I could regularly get $500 tix to Japan, now I'm dancing if I get something for $800.

My compatriots still in the semiconductor side are universally saying travel is restricted for the foreseeable future...not a good sign.

Just booked a round trip across the Atlantic to London, UK and return. The fuel surcharge alone is more than $500...

[c1ue]

Re: $100 Oil and the Airlines

This might be the time to start burning frequent flier miles.

Certainly it seems taxes and surcharges seem lower with mileage tickets.

[GRG55]

Re: $100 Oil and the Airlines

There is quite a difference between the privately chartered single-engine, piston-powered Beechcraft V-Tail Bonanza that crashed "the day the music died", and the turbine powered STOL commuter aircraft operated under your FAA's FAR Part 119 commercial air carrier regulations. The latter is what I think the author of this thread experienced.

The safety record of these turbo-props in commercial service in the USA and Canada is superb. Years ago while project managing a gas plant under construction in northern Canada I used to have to change planes at Edmonton City Centre airport. The city has grown up around the historic airport and there was no room to expand the runways. I had the option of flying in on a B737 jet or the competitors DeHavilland Dash 7 turboprop. I always checked the weather before departure and if it was any less than perfect I always chose the Dash 7. Coming across the threshold with the mass and momentum of a Boeing onto a runway with less than perfect braking coefficient wasn't something I would volunteer to do.

They may not be as comfortable as a jet, but under some circumstances they are, IMO, a hell of a lot safer.

A superb safety record goes down in flames [the Q400 is a derivative of the DeHavilland Dash 8 series]

A website that keeps extensive records on aviation incidents around the world (www.aviation-safety.net) since the 1950s had no recorded fatalities from crashes of Dash 8 regional-aircraft types.

The PIREPs of icing are interesting, but strictly conjecture at this point.

50 killed as plane slams into home near Buffalo

Commuter flight goes down in snow and fog, sparking a fiery explosion

msnbc.com news services
updated 12:34 p.m. ET Feb. 13, 2009

CLARENCE, New York - A commuter plane "basically dove" into a Buffalo-area house while coming in for a landing, sparking a fiery explosion that killed all 49 people on board and one person on the ground, an emergency official said Friday...

...The 74-seat Q400 Bombardier aircraft, operated by Colgan Air, was flying from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and preparing to land at Buffalo Niagara International Airport...

[GRG55]

Re: $100 Oil and the Airlines

A superb safety record goes down in flames [the Q400 is a derivative of the DeHavilland Dash 8 series]

A website that keeps extensive records on aviation incidents around the world (www.aviation-safety.net) since the 1950s had no recorded fatalities from crashes of Dash 8 regional-aircraft types.

The PIREPs of icing are interesting, but strictly conjecture at this point.

50 killed as plane slams into home near Buffalo

Commuter flight goes down in snow and fog, sparking a fiery explosion

msnbc.com news services
updated 12:34 p.m. ET Feb. 13, 2009

CLARENCE, New York - A commuter plane "basically dove" into a Buffalo-area house while coming in for a landing, sparking a fiery explosion that killed all 49 people on board and one person on the ground, an emergency official said Friday...

...The 74-seat Q400 Bombardier aircraft, operated by Colgan Air, was flying from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and preparing to land at Buffalo Niagara International Airport...

I seem to recall one of our professional pilots mentioned long ago that he NEVER flys on US commuter airlines. No wonder...

Fatal Flying on Airlines No Accident in Pilot Complaints to FAA

Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- On the evening of Dec. 10, 2007, pilot Kenny Edwards got the order to fly a Continental Airlines Inc. commuter flight from Tampa, Florida, to West Palm Beach. He told his dispatch supervisor he wouldn’t do it.

The plane’s collision avoidance system was broken, and a worn seal around the main cabin door made it difficult to maintain air pressurization above 10,000 feet, he told his bosses.

Gulfstream International Airlines Inc., which operated the Continental flight, ordered Edwards to fly the 19-passenger Beechcraft 1900D turboprop plane anyway, Edwards says. He refused. As a result, he was fired.

Edwards filed a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration, bringing into focus the hidden dangers of flying on regional airlines, which account for half of all scheduled passenger flights in the U.S., Bloomberg Markets magazine reported.

In May 2009, the FAA found that Gulfstream had violated multiple regulations; it proposed a $1.3 million fine. Gulfstream is appealing the penalty, which would be the largest ever for a regional, says FAA spokeswoman Alison Duquette.

FAA inspectors found that Fort Lauderdale-based Gulfstream put planes in the air even after the company’s own staff had repeatedly reported malfunctions in the aircraft.

Gulfstream crews documented seven times in a month that one turboprop had faulty landing gear; eventually that plane touched down without wheels under its nose, on its belly. Gulfstream also scheduled crew members to work more hours than allowed, according to the FAA.

And the airline had installed automotive parts not certified by the FAA for use in airplanes. Edwards, 44, has sued Gulfstream (which isn’t related to business jet manufacturer Gulfstream Aerospace Corp.) under a Florida whistle-blower law, alleging the company retaliated against him by firing him...

[BiscayneSunrise]

Re: $100 Oil and the Airlines

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...740931538.html

By SUSAN CAREY

Regional airlines grew and prospered in the years following the 2001 terrorist attacks, taking over routes that cash-strapped major airlines eagerly outsourced to cut costs. Now, the regional carriers are losing their lift as their big-airline clients scale back on flights or pressure their smaller counterparts for better terms.

Complicating their plight, the crash of a commuter turboprop near Buffalo, N.Y., in February has cast a spotlight on regional-airline safety standards and pilot training and recruitment practices at a time when the airline industry as a whole is shrinking to cope with weaker demand.

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Modesto Bee/Zuma Press
The result is likely to be a shakeout, which could inconvenience travelers used to direct flights from some smaller cities. Michael Boyd, head of aviation forecasting and consulting firm Boyd Group International Inc., said he expects bankruptcies, liquidations and "shotgun mergers" as regional carriers adjust to the new reality.

Jim Ream, chief executive of ExpressJet Holdings Inc., said in an interview earlier this year that money-losing major airlines are playing hard ball with their regional partners to get them to accept lower fees. He described the negotiations as a "nightmare," and added that profit margins have become "slim."

An ExpressJet spokeswoman said Mr. Ream wasn't available for further comment. He is leaving ExpressJet this week to join AMR Corp.'s American Airlines as senior vice president of maintenance and engineering.

Until a little more than a year ago, major airlines were so keen to enlist regional carriers' smaller planes and cheaper crews to help them expand their footprints that they often guaranteed the regional carriers double-digit profit margins while the majors bought the fuel, set the schedules and sold the tickets. The regionals snapped up new planes—mostly 50-seater jets—to meet the demand.

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Big Airlines Pressed to Boost Safety at Feeders
The major airlines now think those deals too generous, according to people familiar with the carriers' thinking, and want their regional partners to shoulder more risk or at least share some of the sacrifice as the majors lose money.

Some of the big airlines are risking lawsuits to terminate those contracts or are putting smaller amounts of new work up for bid on tougher terms.

Others are capitalizing on the competition for their business by wresting loans and other concessions from their smaller partners.

Even regional airlines that are owned by the major carriers aren't immune from the pressures: US Airways Group Inc. recently said it will drop the service its Piedmont Airlines unit provides to 26 destinations from New York's La Guardia Airport, at a cost of some 300 Piedmont jobs.

Some regional airlines are responding by trying to reduce their reliance on the major airlines. In July, Indianapolis-based Republic Airways Holdings Inc., the No. 3 regional carrier by passengers, acquired ailing Midwest Airlines, and in October bought Frontier Airlines, which was in bankruptcy court. That has made Republic the operator of two free-standing airlines, in direct competition with some of its largest airline clients.

"It's hard to see a lot of organic growth in our core business," Bryan Bedford, Republic's CEO, said over the summer. "We have a need to grow and diversify our revenue stream."

Some analysts question Republic's strategy, given the competition its acquisitions face from discount carriers. Raymond James & Associates in a research note this month, said it expects both Midwest and Frontier to lose money in the near term.

A Republic spokesman said the carrier doesn't expect its new properties to be profitable in the first half of 2010, but sees them contributing to earnings and cash flow for the full year.


Other regionals are stepping up efforts to provide service under their own banners or entering alliances with large discount airlines. For the past three years, Mesa Air Group Inc. has run an inter-island carrier in Hawaii called go!.

While go! is still producing operating losses, those losses are narrowing. In September, SkyWest Inc., the No. 1 regional operator by passengers, won a modest contract to operate five planes for discounter AirTran Holdings Inc.

In their bread-and-butter business, however, competition remains fierce. SkyWest, based in St. George, Utah, recently extended its existing contract with United Airlines parent UAL Corp., and won the right to place 13 additional jetliners into United service early in 2010. In return, SkyWest said, it agreed to loan United $80 million for 10 years and defer $49 million of payments United was to make to SkyWest. A spokeswoman for SkyWest declined to comment on the concessions.

United recently chose not to renew a regional contract with Mesa, and ended up putting most of that business with ExpressJet, the No. 5 regional carrier.

But Houston-based ExpressJet had to compete with six other airlines for the contract. Moreover, in the first nine months of this year, it flew 7.3% fewer hours than a year earlier for its biggest client, Continental Airlines Inc.

Mesa, the No. 6 regional carrier, is hanging onto a contract with Delta Air Lines Inc. only because an appellate court affirmed an injunction barring Delta from terminating the deal. But a series of reversals has hit Phoenix-based Mesa. Its stock is trading at 12 cents, compared with $12 in early 2006.

Mesa CEO Jonathan Ornstein said some big airlines continue to treat their regional carriers as partners, but "others have taken a much more adversarial approach."

The regional carriers together flew 159 million passengers in 2008, up from 78 million in 1999.

But as the domestic airline industry cut capacity by 11% over the past two years—first to cope with surging fuel prices last year, then with the recession—the regional airlines found themselves with too many airplanes as well as planes with uneconomically high lease rates.

Mr. Boyd, the industry consultant, figures that the number of regional jets in the North American fleet will decline to 1,390 next year, down 17% from 1,675 in 2008.

By 2017, he thinks the number will fall to 800. The poor economics of 50-seat jets don't help. With fuel still pricey, planes with fewer seats "burn up all the profits" halfway through a flight, he said.

Bill Swelbar, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's International Center for Air Transportation, thinks Republic and SkyWest have staying power.

But troubles in the sector could result in more consolidation, leaving four big providers in the end, he says. "The question is who's going to be the third and the fourth," he adds, and whether there will be capital available to the survivors.

[BiscayneSunrise]

Re: $100 Oil and the Airlines

As in any industry, some companies do things better and more professionally than others. Same is true in the airline biz.


Gulfstream is a company that stands out in most pilots minds as a place where the pressures to meet schedule and cost markers take priority over safety concerns.

Many regional carriers have been enjoying cost plus agreements with their major partners. According to the WSJ that may end adding to more cost and safety pressures at the regional affiliates.

With the stagnation in the airline industry, the experience levels of the pilots at the regional carriers has increased markedly since their best and brightest aren't being hired by the majors. Experience is indeed, important for pilots but professional training is even more important. After all, the military takes 24 year olds and with just a very brief but intense training period of 12-24 months, places these people in the cockpits of some highly advanced airplanes.

A novice pilot with excellent training in a safety conscious culture can perform more safely and professionally than a more experienced but poorly trained pilot struggling in a poor safety culture.