Slight Increase in Jobs for Airline Industry

Reuters reports that the “Airline Industry Sees Job Growth, But the Pain Remains”.

Employment prospects for airline workers are better now than at any time since the September 11 attacks, but the slight uptick in demand may not create jobs for all out-of-work airline professionals or lift the industry’s decimated wage structure.

Large carriers such as UAL Corp.’s United Airlines, US Airways and Continental Airlines have been adding staff since last year as competition on some routes has subsided and cost cuts have narrowed losses.

Still, struggling carriers continue to slash labor costs. Bankrupt Delta Air Lines, for example, is laying off thousands as part of its restructuring. Experts say joblessness abounds and compensation is down significantly as airlines struggle to keep costs in check.

“We’re in a hiring situation, not in a furlough situation, but I don’t think that tells the whole story,” said Sara Nelson Dela Cruz, spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), which represents flight attendants at United and some smaller carriers.

“It doesn’t tell the story of the thousands of people who were laid off after September 11,” she said. “And it doesn’t tell the story of the thousands of people who had to leave because they could no longer afford to stay in this industry.”

According to US government reports from the Transportation Department, the number of workers at major airlines dropped 21.6 percent from 2000 to 2004 and added 2,800 jobs in 2005, the first increase since 2000. While the domestic airline industry has been hit hard, the international airline industry is booming. While many domestic airlines are blaming high fuel rates and September 11 fallout, then why is the international airline industry not feeling the same heat? Makes one wonder.

 

Airbus Will Retire Its First Airliner

The Seattle Times reports that “Airbus Will Halt Production of Airbus of Its First Airliner”, the Airbus A300/A310.

The France-based aircraft maker, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., said the last model from its wide-bodied A300/A310 family will roll off the production line in July 2007.

The A300, launched in May 1969, was the first Airbus jet and the world’s first twin-engine wide-bodied airliner when it entered service with Air France five years later. The A310, launched in 1978, was the first to use TV-style displays in the cockpit.

But the much newer A330/A340 jets now account for most of Airbus’ wide-bodied plane sales. Airbus took just seven orders for A300/A310 models last year and none in the first two months of this year, the company said today.

 

Boeing May Double Its 787 Production

The Seattle Times reports a big jump in 787 production, with word out that Boeing may double the production rate of the new aircraft. This could also mean an entire new production line opening in Everett, Washington, historical home and factory of the Boeing Company.

In an interview Thursday in Washington, D.C., Pier Francesco Guarguaglini, chief executive officer of Italy’s Finmeccanica, said Boeing in January asked Italian partner Alenia, a unit of Finmeccanica, to increase its monthly output of fuselages from seven to 10, with a potential rate later of 14…Boeing will decide by summer how much to increase 787 production, she said.

…Michael Bair, Boeing 787 program manager, said in December that the company may boost annual output of the plane and that the company will deliver a total of 112 twin-engine 787s in 2008 and 2009, up from an earlier plan of 96.

And he said Boeing was reviewing whether to increase output beyond original targets, starting in 2010.

Based on the $140 million average list price for the plane, doubling 787 production could mean an extra $12 billion in annual revenue for Boeing — although discounts of at least 30 percent from list prices are typically expected.

 

New Directors Within the FAA

The FAA has made a few changes at the top of the agency recently.

Michael O’Malley has been appointed deputy assistant secretary for the FAA, replacing David M. Mandell.

Stan Sieg, an FAA employee and a retired Air Force general, has been named deputy director of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City, replacing retired Richard Rodine.

Marshall R. Gimpel is the new director for the new Enterprise Services Center at the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City.

Frederick E. Tilton, M.D., M.P.H. is the new Federal Air Surgeon for the FAA overseeing the Office of Aerospace Medicine.

 

Cut and Paste Aviation Honors National Women’s History Week

My wife and I are fans of Cut and Paste Aviation and she was really excited to find that they are honoring National Women’s History Month with highlights of amazing and outrageous women in aviation history. Some highlights include:

Katherine Stinson (1893-1977): Katherine Stinson won a balloon trip in a raffle at age 16 and decided to become a stunt pilot soon after as a way to make money. She became the fourth woman to receive a pilots license soon after, and became one of the most daring female stunt fliers of her time. In 1913, she and her mother founded Stinson Aviation Company and a couple years later started a flying school in Texas. She went on to become the first woman to carry the mail by air and is often credited as the first woman to perform the loop the loop.

In November 1915 she made eighty consecutive loops flying upside down for thirty seconds and executing a series of spins. In December, determined to out-do a male pilot, Art Smith, who had looped the loop at night, she added magnesium flares to her aircraft and traced the letters CAL in the night sky, then looped, flew upside down, and spiralled to 100 feet of the ground, trailing showers of sparks. For the first six months of 1917, she toured China and Japan, where no woman had flown before.

Marga von Etzdorf (1907-1933): Marga von Etzdorfwas born into an aristocratic military family and decided at 19 that flying would be her life. She got a job as a copilot of a “Junkers F-13 with Lufthansa” flying a commercial route regularly from Berlin to Basel, Switzerland, via Stuttgart. Eventually, she bought her own plane and learned aerobatics, flying throughout Europe, then further including a famous 11-day solo flight from Berlin to Tokyo in 1931.

Juanita Pritchard Bailey: Called “The Flying Beautician”, Juanita Pritchard Bailey was the owner of a beauty salon in Clairton, Pennsylvania, and an active pilot, including flying coastal and patrol missions with the Civil Air Patrol during World War II. She was the first woman to solo from the US to Panama and became a ferry pilot for aircraft companies, flying all over North America from Alaska to Central and South America. Still alive and kicking, according to Cut and Paste Aviation, “she has logged over 6000 hours during her distinguished flying career.” Wow!

Helen Richey: Helen Richey has a long record of firsts. First soloed in 1930, followed two years later as a record holder for women as she and Frances Marsalis stayed in the air for almost ten days. First to win the first National Air Meet for Women in Dayton in 1934. First commercial pilot for Greensburg, PA’s Dick Coulter’s Central Airlines in 1934 winning out over 8 men. She set two world records for light planes in 1936. She was the first woman to be licensed as a flight instructor by the CAA.

Ruth Rowland Nichols (1901-1960): Ruth Rowland Nichols began flying in 1919 and became the first woman to licensed for a “flying boat” or sea plane. She was rated to fly just about anything including “the dirigible, glider, autogiro, landplane, seaplane, amphibian, monoplanes, biplanes, tri-planes, twin and four engine transports and supersonic jets.” She was the first three women “to earn an Air Transport Pilot rating in 1929 and the only woman to hold three different world records simultaneously: women’s altitude (28,748 feet), speed (210.5 mph), and non-stop, Oakland to Louisville (19 hrs. 16 min.) between 1931 and 1932.” After injuring her back in an attempt to fly across the Atlantic and crashing, she flew the rest of her life with a steel back brace, and the injury inspired her to start the “Relief Wings, a flying ambulance for mercy missions” which became part of the Civil Air Patrol.

Women, be inspired by these great representatives of the fairer sex who even inspired men to fly better and changed the face of aviation today.

 

Delta Airlines Strike and Closure?

The rumors and news about the failure of Delta Airlines to recover from bankruptcy and possibly facing major strikes are everywhere.

But the clue that makes me think that Delta Airlines is in real trouble came from the surprising announcement that travel insurance is being denied for Delta Airline Tickets:

Skittish insurance companies have stopped selling policies protecting Delta Air Lines customers from labor strikes, adding another layer of uncertainty for travelers counting on the airline to get them where they want to go.

Major travel insurance companies are turning down would-be customers in light of threats by Delta pilots and Comair flight attendants to strike if Delta and Comair impose major salary cuts.

A representative of Travel Insured International, based in East Hartford, Conn., said the company could not guarantee that policies purchased would reimburse travelers in the event of a Delta strike…

…Even Global Travel Shield, the insurance company linked to Delta’s Web site, has stopped offering insurance that would cover a Delta strike, according to two sales representatives. They said policies it issues from this point forward won’t cover expenses related to a strike because a strike is no longer considered an unlikely event.

Cincinnati Post - Travel Insurance Turned Down for Delta Airline Tickets

There are a few travel insurance companies that say they will cover insurance on Delta Airline tickets, but only until the strike is declared. After that, you are out of luck.

 

Rough Wing Skins May Equal Smoother Ride

New Scientist reports “Hang on to the bumps for a smoother flight” which talks about the new technology being used to literally make your flight a “smooth one”.

THE performance-sapping turbulence of air passing over aircraft wings can be suppressed by carefully designed roughness in the surfaces.

So says a team at KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, in defiance of the conventional wisdom that roughness inevitably promotes turbulence. The team’s experiments could have far-reaching consequences for the aerospace industry, which spends vast amounts to reduce this costly effect.

“Turbulence is associated with increased friction drag, the resistance of a thin body when it slides past slower moving air,” says Luca Brandt, a member of the KTH team. “Delaying turbulence is important to decrease the drag.” Reducing drag would increase fuel efficiency, which would cut airline fuel bills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Traditionally, minimizing turbulence has been a matter of “extremely smooth wings”, yet now the opposite is being considered. Rough equals smoother ride.

 

Well-Dressed Computer Wearing Aircraft Mechanics?

Pasta & Vinegar reports on “Wearable Computing (location-aware) for Aircraft Maintenance” describing a vest-like PDA-kit for aircraft mechanics.

…this Wearable Computing for Aircraft Maintenance, a concept for a combination of wearable computing and knowledge management with the goal to shorten the maintenance process in the aircraft industry. It’s a kind of location-aware, wearable information system meant to facilitate the access to different sources of information a technician needs during the maintenance task.

The PDA in the vest-like garmet includes a RFID scanner and tracks the movement of the wearer, as well as makes it easier for the mechanic to track part descriptions, inventory, and storage. It will allow the wearer to connect their PDA to their notebook to facilitate complex updates and computer programs.

 

Flight Guard Approved for Israel Aircraft

Israel’s Globes Online announces that MI-Elta’s “Flight Guard” airline protection system has been approved for use on Boeing 767 airplanes.

The Israel Civil Aviation Authority (ICAA) has approved the Flight Guard commercial airliner protection system, built by Israel Military Industries Ltd. (IMI) and Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd.’s (IAI) Elta Systems Group. Approval followed test flights of the system and certification. Flight Guard has been approved for installation of Boeing 767 passenger jets.

…ICAA director general Udi Zohar…said the fact that the military system that had been adapted for civilian use in cooperation with the ICAA was a very significant achievement, as it was the first system of its kind in the world.

IMI developed Flight Guard’s diversion flares. IMI chairman Ovadia Eli said IMI’s countermeasure dispenser system launched flares at instructions from the radar radar-based missile approach warning system (MAWS). He said the flares were suitable for civilian use, after their safety was improved and adapted to meet the threat from terrorist missile attacks on civilian airliners.

Elta developed and adapted Flight Guard to protect civilian airliners on the basis of a cabinet decision in 2002 that the system would be the first to be installed on Israeli airliners. Elta’s systems are currently installed in over 200 aircraft in 15 countries, mostly in military aircraft, but also in executive jets.

 

Boeing Dream Machine - Going Plastic

Business Week reports that “Boeing’s Plastic Dream Machine” could revolutionize the use of plastic around the world.

Inside Boeing Co.’s (BA ) cavernous development center in Seattle, the future of its commercial jet business is taking shape. That future is plastic — and lots of it. At center stage in the tightly guarded building are three huge fuselage sections, dubbed barrels, made entirely of composites known as carbon fiber-reinforced plastic…

… Nothing on this scale has ever been attempted with composites, which are used in everything from golf-club shafts and tennis rackets to giant underground storage tanks. But even the latter can’t measure up to what Boeing is creating — namely, the entire airframe of its upcoming 787 Dreamliner jet.