Technology
AvTalk Episode 339: What the Nuuk!?
In this episode of AvTalk, hosts Ian Petchnick and Jason Rabinowitz discuss the latest challenges facing airlines in the Nordics, including the abrupt bankruptcy of Play Airlines and the operational r...
AvTalk Episode 339: What the Nuuk!?
Technology •
0:00 / 0:00
Interactive Transcript
Speaker A
Foreign hello and welcome to episode 339 of AVTalk. I am Ian Petchnick here as always.
Speaker B
With we blew right past 338 and didn't make the Airbus A330 800neo joke. Anyway, Jason Rabinowitz. Hi, Ian, how are you? This is the A330 900 Neo episode. It is.
Speaker A
See, we did exactly what almost every other airline has.
Speaker B
Everyone just forgot about it. Ouch. Yep, yep. Okay. Yeah, the 330800 Neo is that unpopular that we forgot to make the one time we can make the joke about it. Ouch.
Speaker A
Well, you know, it's part for the course for us.
Speaker B
I would never forget the 900. That's like my most flown aircraft these days, so can't forget that one.
Speaker A
I mean it's just much more popular. So well done on that one.
Speaker B
I do what I can.
Speaker A
Barring whatever just happened, we've got a pretty good show for you today. A little bit later in the program we're talking with Alishka Hill who is the senior vice president of cargo for the UK and the rest of the world. And we get a good explanation of that title in a bit for Air partner. So we're going to talk air cargo and dive into the the changing nature of the business and how the industry on that side is evolving. So looking forward to that in a little bit. But first, news from the Nordics. It has not been a good week for airlines that are trying to do things that have not worked before when other airlines have tried them.
Speaker B
Yes. And if you are any employee of Icelandair, you are once again celebrating the dominance of your North Atlantic island because what's happened before has happened again and they've won yet again. But we are talking about Play Airline Airlines. I think it was actually just branded as Play call sign Player, which I just learned as of this very moment was basically the reincarnation of WOW Air, which was again an Icelandic low cost airline that flew not just to continental Europe, to Iceland, but also to North America. Play did the same thing with the same formula and I think some of even the same planes and surprise, surprise, it didn't work. Well, it worked for a couple years, but four years isn't exactly a great run.
Speaker A
I mean, what's interesting here is that to their credit, they realized that it was a bad business model and were attempting to move away from it. They just didn't move fast enough. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B
Yeah. I mean they had so much knowledge and information from the failure of WOW Air to know, hey, maybe flying to The US for connecting flow through Iceland to Europe. Maybe that's not the best idea, but they did it anyway. It did not work. And then I think later on they pivoted to only flying within Europe on behalf of other airlines and that didn't work. I think they moved to Malta, they moved their AOC underplay Europe and yeah, just too little too late and the whole thing is gone. Unfortunately, 400 employees lose their job, which in a place like Iceland, that's actually kind of a big deal. That's a big chunk. But hey, maybe someone else wants to give it a go again.
Speaker A
Hopefully with a much more well thought out business model than taking people from North America to Europe via Iceland.
Speaker B
Yeah. Today I learned that Spirit had an interline agreement with Play. So hey, that's something. Not anymore. Bunch of struggling airlines sticking together in.
Speaker A
More struggling airline news over in Sweden, bro's Airbus business is now bankrupt. So not the entire company, even though they had one. But they split off a few years ago or created a few years ago an Airbus A319 A320 business within the larger group and that was designed to operate on behalf of tour operators and things like that. That business took too much money to get set up, took too much money to run and did not bring in enough revenue. So over the past few months they've been trying to restructure that part of the business. They were not able to restructure that part of the business fast enough and so they have been forced into bankruptcy. So that does not affect their ATR operations on behalf of other carriers. So basically the flying that they do for SAS, that won't be affected, but their standalone A319, A320 flying is going away. So not a huge amount of a 320 capacity coming on back into the market this week, but a handful of aircraft and a few of those have already gone back to lessors. Three, three of the play A320neos have already gone back to lessor and there are three more and then there are seven total aircraft with brawl that will go back to various lessors. So a bit of capacity?
Speaker B
No idea. I only knew of them as an Avro RJ100 and RJ85 operator, which apparently they don't do that anymore.
Speaker A
You do not.
Speaker B
So I have completely lost all interest in this airline because that's what made them unique. Apparently they also had E190s.
Speaker A
At some point they collected various small regional and single aisle aircraft and now they're just ATR only.
Speaker B
All right. All right, okay. It's core competencies, whatever.
Speaker A
Yes, exactly. So you would think that an airport's core competency would be able to arrive and depart aircraft safely.
Speaker B
But so many things can be distracting in Greenland.
Speaker A
This story just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. So the Greenland Transport Authority has now adjusted the regulations for the number of aircraft movement allowed at the new Nuke airport. They are introducing what they are terming the 2:4,4 rule which defines how many flights can operate within a 60 minute window. So in any given hour, there are maximums for arrivals, departures and total operations. So there can only be two arrivals within an hour. There can only be four departures within an hour and you can't have any more than four total operations.
Speaker B
And when does this go into effect? Now. Oh, that's cool. Yes, usually something like this, you give airlines advance notice to move around their schedule and adjust, especially when pretty much the only airline affected by this is going to be Air Greenland. And Air Greenland operates a schedule that is, I guess you could call it heavily banked. Where you have the long haul flight come in, you've got a bunch of little go out and come back in. And that operation doesn't work if you can only have a couple an hour. What is going on at this little airport? A little tiny airport in Greenland isn't supposed to create this much drama and yet it is supposed to be in the news for drama.
Speaker A
So additionally, there have to be five minutes between each flight and there's a minimum of 20 minutes between arrivals.
Speaker B
This is why. Did they say why?
Speaker A
So this is all for safety. They say that the restrictions are necessary in order to maintain safe operations. That said, it's going to dramatically impact how Air Greenland structures its operations at what is now its brand new hub in Nuke. Air Greenland has said that they're assessing the immediate impact of this particular change. The CEO of the airline says that quote, we now face a massive puzzle to rebuild a schedule that resembles the original. So before this went into place, they were operating eight flights per hour in connection with the transatlantic flight to and from Denmark. So the long haul flight to Copenhagen. So they can no longer maintain 40% of their schedule because of big chunk the number of operational limits there. So what they said is that if you're coming to Greenland, you now need to plan to stay longer.
Speaker B
Yes, everybody, Air Greenland has a good, I would say blog post about this. They seem to be as surprised as anyone about this, which is not great. The new restrictions took effect immediately from September 22, they say, and it goes on to say Air Greenland's route network is structured as a hub and spoke system where most flights depart and return to the central hub in Nuuk. This enables a wide range of same day connections between towns, settlements and international destinations. In a country like ours, with many destinations and few travelers, this system is crucial for maintaining a coherent infrastructure to be going and just immediately, without notice screwing with an operation like Air Greenland that has far reaching effects that supplies and food and all sorts of things that need to come in to not just Nook, but all the other cities in Greenland and suddenly toss that operation into chaos. Not great. Not great at all. I don't think this was fully thought through, or if it was, it seems malicious.
Speaker A
I think one would hope that it's.
Speaker B
I would hope it's not.
Speaker A
So I would hope it's not malicious. But also, if this is the security concern, if things are so bad that you have to tell Air Greenland to not operate 40% of its flights, that you need to space things out so much, I think that's a much larger issue for the airport's authority than the airline.
Speaker B
Yeah. And we don't know what the resolution here is. They just say Air Greenland and Greenland Airports are working closely together to find other safe flight solutions that can ensure Greenland infrastructure is not degraded more than necessary. If I'm united looking at this, having just reconfirmed flying back to Nook in 2026 after all international flights were suspended and then unsuspended, and then this put into place. Is the juice worth the squeeze here? If the fares are high enough, I guess, but.
Speaker A
So the CEO of Greenland Airports has said that they're working on another solution that minimizes the impact on passengers, quote, within the next four to five weeks.
Speaker B
So maybe they just should have waited.
Speaker A
Four to five weeks. There's obviously something going on here and hopefully they can figure this out and get back to the way things were or even better, but not great. Poor Nuke. Poor Nuke. Hey, Jason.
Speaker B
Yo.
Speaker A
The FAA has said that Boeing can issue its own airworthiness certificates again, sort of.
Speaker B
Didn't we just talk like two weeks ago about how the DOJ was fining Boeing an insignificant amount of money for safety violations regarding the certification of its own aircraft, presenting aircraft that weren't airworthy to the faa and now all of a sudden, oh, it's all good. FAA says, well, they paid the fine. Oh, okay, $3.6 million, no big deal. That's what you got to do. That's a small price to pay.
Speaker A
The FAA itself Noted that that was the maximum fine. Yeah, the maximum fine allowable under the law. So talk to Congress about that. But what the FAA is now saying is that on alternating weeks, the FAA and Boeing will issue airworthiness certificates again for the 737 and 787.
Speaker B
Alternating weeks.
Speaker A
Alternating weeks, yes. So Boeing has not been able to issue its own airworthy. So Boeing doesn't actually issue its own airworthiness certificates. It's issuing an airworthiness certificate under organizational delegation authority. So the FAA is saying there are people that are working for the FAA within Boeing that are ensuring that all of these aircraft meet the standards for airworthiness. And those people can issue those certificates. FAA in 2019, after the Max crashes said, nope, can't do that. And then in 2022, after a long series of quality issues with the 787 said, no, can't do that anymore. So this is six years after the initial max withdrawal and two and a half years or so after the 787 withdrawal of. Of authority to issue those air window certificates. They're saying on alternating weeks, FAA inspectors and Boeing ODA people will issue these. The FAA says that this allows inspectors within Boeing factories to focus on other parts of the production process, including the safety management system.
Speaker B
Okay. I mean, the timing here is just a bit sus to go from that lawsuit and underwhelming fine to alternate weeks. They can do it, but it was inevitable. It had to happen at some point. But they have waited a couple more weeks. I don't know, till we forgot about that.
Speaker A
We never forget, Jason.
Speaker B
No, we never forget something like that.
Speaker A
I don't know why they chose now to go down that route. It didn't seem like there was a milestone of any kind that they had met, though that certainly could have been something that they had been discussing internally for quite some time, I'm sure.
Speaker B
Well, if you're Boeing and you could now certify on behalf of the FAA your own aircraft, can you still do that if the federal government is shut down?
Speaker A
It would seem so.
Speaker B
Huh. Wow, how relevant. What good timing. What a transition.
Speaker A
What a transition, indeed. So the United States federal government is in fact, not open for business right now. The shutdown began well, this morning at 12:01am Eastern Daylight Time and could last for who knows how. But this year it seems that the FAA will be less affected than usual. Though I don't think to anyone's mind, this is a good thing for the faa, especially as it works to. I think this word is appropriate. Rushes to modernize the air traffic control system. There have been no shortage of announcements from the DOT to to begin work continue work on ATC modernization. So they're using the appropriations from the bill that was passed this year for the FAA's funding over time to continue some of this work and not shut down all operations and keep ATC going without being paid this year alone. So ATC are still working as they have in previous government shutdowns. They are not being paid as in previous government shutdowns. But the FAA is continuing to do some work on ATC modernization and other things this time around instead of ceasing all activity as in they have in shutdowns past.
Speaker B
Crucially new hire air traffic controller training as well. I believe I read that is continuing. That has been a problem in the past during the Trump 1 government shutdowns I believe what were there two or three of them in the first administration. But that greatly impacted air traffic controller training at the time. And this time, well there's a bit more eyes on the controller education pipeline or controller training pipeline and that at least for some period of time will not be impacted. So that's good news. I don't want to call it good news, but it's not bad news.
Speaker A
I mean it's good that they're not interrupting the training. It's bad that we have to be discussing this in the context of the government being shut down.
Speaker B
Yes. Not good. Not good for anyone.
Speaker A
Let's head back to Boeing for a moment and a Wall Street Journal article reporting that Boeing has begun planning for a new single aisle airplane that would succeed the 737 Max headlines that should.
Speaker B
Have been out in 2012.
Speaker A
This is according to the often cited people familiar with the matter. So this is a new single aisle aircraft that will maybe have engines from Rolls Royce. Some of the reporting detailed includes CEO Kelly Ortberg meeting with folks from Rolls Royce in the UK earlier this year.
Speaker B
That would be a big change.
Speaker A
There has also been what the Wall Street Journal says is a new senior product chief in Boeing's commercial airplane business and their previous role was developing a new type of aircraft. So getting your homework done, starting to design bits and pieces. The Wall Street Journal says they're designing the flight deck of a new narrow body aircraft which I guess you can design without really having the other parts of the aircraft designed. So great. But this doesn't seem like they're launching. Reading through the article. Yeah, okay. I would hope that they had been doing this all along.
Speaker B
Yeah, this seems like the pre reading you do before you start even doing your homework, before you attend the first day of a college course. Like, yeah, they've probably been doing this for a very long time. I would say we're probably years still away from any sort of product line launch. I would hope that they still have 99% of their engineers and their workers focused on getting the Max 7, the Max 10, and the 777X certified. You would hope. And they're just playing around on the side, seeing what the next thing is, because we've all been wondering for a very long time, what is it? Will it even be a thing?
Speaker A
I don't know.
Speaker B
I don't know. But we're gonna find out.
Speaker A
For its part, Boeing says that they are still focused on fixing the quality issues, getting the existing aircraft certified, and addressing financial concerns.
Speaker B
Only those things.
Speaker A
Yeah, only those small stuff.
Speaker B
I am here for it. I think everyone is sick and done of the 737. As amazing of a legacy as it is, it is time for it to go. But I am also here for the inevitable disaster. The development of this aircraft is going to be. As John Ostrower, friend of the show, has said many times, Boeing no longer possesses the engineering capacity and knowledge to certify a new airplane. They have not done that in how long since the 787. We all know how well that went, and there has been a huge brain drain at Boeing since then. So buckle up. This is probably going to be a messy ride.
Speaker A
Hey, perfect transition. Speaking of messy rides, we have an update on Spirit's second bankruptcy.
Speaker B
Oh. Of the year. Second of the year.
Speaker A
Of the year, yeah. Sorry, not to be specific. Yeah. So in this week's update, Spirit and lessor Aircap have agreed to some terms that set aside a bit of the acrimony that led to this particular bankruptcy filing. So what Spirit's going to DO is reject 27 leases right off the bat. But then they're also going to take new leases for 30 future aircraft from AerCap.
Speaker B
What? Okay.
Speaker A
They're planning to be around for a while. Spirit says we're going to work our way through this. We're shrinking to profitability at the moment, and we will grow again in the future. So they've put in for future leases. AerCap will pay Spirit $150 million for reasons related to.
Speaker B
Did Spirit play like an Uno reverse card here? Like, last we heard about this, Spirit owed Air Cap hundreds of millions of dollars. And now something has happened in two weeks, and AerCap is going to Give spirit how much? 100 plus million.
Speaker A
$150 million? Yes.
Speaker B
And they've got 30 new aircraft orders coming. Wow. I don't know who's negotiating with AERCAP at Spirit, but well done. I'm not sure any of it matters in the long run, but that's some serious negotiating.
Speaker A
They have also secured $475 million debtor in possession financing facility for ongoing operations, and about 200 million of that is going to be available to the airline immediately. And this is again, all subject to bankruptcy court approval. So this is interesting because it seems like some good news for Spirit.
Speaker B
All of this feels just like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, that they're just doing what they need to do to prolong the life of the airline until someone can come around and snatch them up and put them out of their misery. Maybe I'm wrong. I am not a financial wizard, but we'll see. I'm not hopeful, but they seem to have a plan, some sort.
Speaker A
They have a plan. Let's just hope that it works. But again, as Jason said, not hopeful. I agree with Jason, as much as it pains me to say it, that it seems Spirit's chances of survival as a standalone entity are. Are slim to none. Where should we go next, Jason? I think we should switch it up and we should head down to the Dominican Republic.
Speaker B
Okay. Because things are weird there today and they're doing stuff I didn't know you could do until today.
Speaker A
And I learned and this isn't even their first time doing it. So what happened yesterday was that a sky High Dominica Embraer E190 was on a test flight after maintenance and the nose gear didn't come down.
Speaker B
Test failed. This is why you do test flights.
Speaker A
Exactly, exactly. The gear did not come down, the aircraft landed safely, no one was injured, but the aircraft was stuck on the Runway. And so at Santo Domingo, what they are able to do at the moment is say, well, we'll just use the taxiway.
Speaker B
Oh, sure, there is a parallel taxiway basically almost the full length of the Runway, single Runway airport there at Santo Domingo. And apparently, as has been done in the past, which actually, as of the recording of this podcast, they are still using the taxiway. They're just using the parallel taxiway as the Runway because coincidentally it had been certified and apparently even has instruments for operations as I guess a backup auxiliary Runway because the main Runway has to be closed for reconstruction in the coming, I don't know, weeks, months, whatever. And as they did in the early 2000s, they will close the main Runway and use the parallel taxiway as a Runway, which for most airports, that is it. That is a big no, no, you cannot just do that. But they just luckily happen to already be prepared and ready to go. So. Huh. Today I learned.
Speaker A
There you go. Yeah. Somebody flagged that. And we looked in and we go, oh, that's super. Interesting that they had just happened to have done all of that work because of the impending construction. So good timing, I guess.
Speaker B
Yeah. You normally can't just use a parallel taxiway. It has to be sufficiently wide enough. The structure of the pavement itself has to be structurally sound to take the impact of aircraft landing. So this won't work everywhere, won't work all of the time. But hey, Santa Domingo, you lose your one Runway at the airport, no big deal. There's another Runway right there. It's just not a Runway.
Speaker A
It's just. It's just not. It's a Runway. Today in NTSB investigation news, the culprit behind a possible incident or behind a possible accident turned out to be a distracted air traffic controller because somebody else got something wrong and a jammed printer paper jam.
Speaker B
Aw man.
Speaker A
I'm not sure why it took so long for this report to come out, but this was an incident from August 2023 when a Cessna 560 was landing in San Diego and a Southwest 737 was preparing to depart. The Southwest 737 was lined up on the Runway and the Cessna was on approach. The controllers in the tower, one of them was distracted by a incorrect altitude assignment on a flight strip and another controller was distracted because the flight strip printer had jammed. The air traffic control tower personnel stated that they had received no training on the use of troubleshooting of these printers.
Speaker B
Wait a minute. How could that be? That the printer is like so crucial, so critical to our kayak air traffic control that literally without it nothing works, right?
Speaker A
Well, there was a backup printer that they didn't switch to and they decided that they were going to troubleshoot this printer instead. And so there was a separation on, I guess the bright side of things. The ASD X equipment worked. There were warnings. They told the aircraft to go around. It did, passed about 100ft over the 737, but everybody landed and departed just fine. Let somebody else troubleshoot your printer. Is there?
Speaker B
Yes. Critics of going all digital and really cherishing and holding onto the old print, the paper strip mechanism because it can't fail system, sometimes it can fail. Mechanical things break. Not to say computers and Software don't break.
Speaker A
But huh, the lesson here is that anything can break.
Speaker B
Anything can break, especially a printer. We've all been there.
Speaker A
Exactly. We've all been there. Let's take a quick break and when we come back we'll have a chat with Alishka Hill, who is the senior Vice president of Cargo for the UK and the rest of the world at AirPartner and we're going to learn all there is to know about what's happening in the world of cargo at the moment. Stay with us, we'll be back in a moment. Welcome back. We, as promised, are here with Alishka Hill who is the senior Vice president of cargo for UK and the rest of the world. I love that title at AirPartner, which is a wheels up company here to talk all things air cargo that we might not have covered before. So Alishka, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker C
Well, thank you very much Ian, for having me here. It's a great pleasure.
Speaker A
Thank you. So tell us about your role specifically in the industry because you are not a giant aircraft with a logo splashed on the side, but you're moving things around the UK and the rest of the world quite handily. So tell me about how you guys operate.
Speaker C
Well, certainly the reason of the title is simply I look after every region apart from the United States. I have a counterpart based in the US So that explains why the title states that not just that it's the UK is the center of the world, which I get reminded that we're not, certainly not anymore. But yes, AirPartner obviously is a well established for over 60 years as an air charter broker and quite a well known name in the industry, but covering everything from private jet charters to group passenger charters, a lot of operational management, leasing, aircraft leasing and cargo. And cargo's been an important part of the business for well over 30 years now, but always operating in across all the different verticals that we look at. Mainly focused on the charter world and growing with locations across the globe. So it's been a standard charter business for many, many years and what we've seen. I joined the company almost a year ago back in October and quickly identified that there was some huge opportunities for us here and what had happened as the pandemic was slowing down. We were coming out and obviously AirPartner was significantly involved during the pandemic with a number of cargo charters. But however, as the business has changed and evolved throughout that time, they identified that this is the team in the UK predominantly here has been driving this change of Direction identified as the aircraft. The passenger flights were coming back on board and a lot of carriers were looking to keep aircraft running. They didn't have new orders, but they needed to grow and fulfill and expand their routings to get the passenger numbers back up. They were utilizing older aircraft, aircraft that had been bought out of retirement. So finding some struggles with the supply chains, getting back to perhaps previous levels before the pandemic, and became an opportunity here where there's some of their partners, which has generally been the freight forwarders, the large freight forwarders that will have an aerospace team to support them, whether it's any parts moving around, which could be for maintenance or any urgent requirements, were perhaps diverted away or not focused or struggling to offer them some of the services that they needed. And I think it was an opportunity here to step in and perhaps capture some of this market and head in a new direction. So pivoting away a little bit on the reliance on charter broking across all the different verticals, as I mentioned, and move into something that's a little bit more niche, a little bit more focused and that's really time critical service solutions and moving into the freight forwarding arena, but bringing that charter broking mindset with it. So that's really thinking about the solution that could be right for the customer, understanding the business, their requirements, what really are their needs, what's the time frame the piece is needed in, Is it for regular maintenance, is it returning or moving a borrowed piece that's needed and really creating a bespoke solution for that customer and making it really a partnership. And that's one of the things that's become really important and certainly has been for me in the business, is that working as a partner with our customers rather than with just a service provider. So really it's been creating this portfolio of time critical solutions covering everything from an onboard courier solution, a next flight out, nfo, moving it on scheduled services, a direct drive, moving it by road, not necessarily by air, up to a part or a full charter. And of course it's not just one of these modes, it could be a combination of two or even three different types of modes. And this business has just grown significantly certainly in the last couple of years. And I've watched and I see there's a huge opportunity to take it further.
Speaker A
Why do you think it's grown so much in the past few years? I mean, all of these different pieces aren't necessarily new, but is it you're putting them all together that is drawing in demand or is there something else.
Speaker C
Driving this, it's about the level of service that's given. And again, we're working in a very niche area. We're working mainly with global international passenger carriers that have large fleets operating wide networks and have to be operating on tight schedules, turnarounds, et cetera and maintenance times. And as I said before, a lot of the customers that we're dealing with, they're unhappy with their current solutions and current services. They feel as if they're just another number, there's no priority. They don't feel anybody understands what exactly is the need. And also somebody's just simply booking it on another flight as a freight forwarder, they'll just book it next flight out without understanding that it may not need nfo. It could move with an onboard courier and save a lot of money or they'll have to go to their charter desk and get a charter option which could take time and obviously cost a lot of money and may not again not be needed. So they're not really getting that. And I'm talking about bringing that charter broker mindset where we find solutions. It's that having that solution based mindset overall, which has always been a critical part of the tool. Charter broker finding the fastest, the most cost effective way to move something. Bringing that mindset into play here, where perhaps somebody's working as part of a freight forwarding team that's just booking boxes and boxes on a day to day basis and doesn't treat this perhaps as a really important shipment or really understand about the piece they're moving or what the customer's needs actually are. So it's becoming that bespoke partner really in the relationship. And really we like to call it providing a white glove service to our customers, which is something that's, you know, when you're talking about engine parts and oil and landing gear is not really what you would think about, but it's possible and it can be done. And with what the UK team has done, they've been incredibly successful at this.
Speaker A
So you've mentioned aerospace components a few times. Is that your main customer base? Are you really just making sure that the aerospace industry can continue to function?
Speaker C
I think it's been the area that's grown the most and that's particularly in the UK because of building that relationship with the carriers and then they're moving every single day. They've always got aircraft in maintenance, so I'm talking about the larger carriers here. And it is, a lot of it is general maintenance and they could have borrowed a part for somebody or they need a part moving to somebody else, or it could be an aircraft is having some technical issues down route. So the aerospace has become the primary and I think that's more for the UK because that's where the greatest opportunity is. I think, again, going back to a saying, post the pandemic, so many carriers were scrambling to get the passenger aircraft back in the air. And as I understand now that belly hold capacity is actually now back to where we were pre pandemic, which is pretty amazing achievement in the last couple of years, bearing in mind what the airlines have had to deal with. So we can understand then the pressure is on to capture the customer market. People are traveling again, not necessarily just for business, although we can see that now. Certainly with the number of cargo conferences that we have that are coming up this year, people are traveling again and people want to visit family. So the demand is there. So aerospace has been the predominant area that we've grown in. We've also done a little bit of work in the maritime industry, but that probably need, again, a little more of a dedicated team because it's really about going into more detail about the actual parts. We're not just talking engines here, we're talking an inlet cow, we're talking landing gear. It could be quite different pieces of equipment, key equipment that we're having to move and having an understanding of how that's got to be handled and what aircraft can we use, utilize that to move it. So it's been the most. There's a little bit of automotive. A team in Germany obviously, traditionally always been very strong in the automotive world and they continue to focus on that arena, obviously that's struggling at the moment. But the aerospace side of it is just growing. It really is. And the events that team have been to is just phenomenal. The opportunity is huge.
Speaker A
So say I'm an airline and I've had a 777 Go Tech and I need a new engine so I can get that airplane back in the air. Do I just pick up the phone and say, hi, my plane's broken. Can you bring me my new engine? How does that process work?
Speaker C
Yes. So this will be handled by the technical department. So if there's a problem with an aircraft and it's down route, not on any home base where they may have a maintenance section, but their technical team. And every airline has an AOG desk. So this will probably be managed by them, which is 24 7. They will come directly through to our 247 desk where we run multiple shifts and make contact with the team member there, they'll need to specify, obviously, the details, the dimensions, the type of engine, how it's being moved, and what the requirements are. You know, what's the time frame? The most important thing, if it is aog, it needs to move as soon as possible. Do we have, you know, does it need a charter whereabouts obviously it needs to be moved to. And how's it going to get there? Because obviously if you're moving it by road at any point to an airport, you need an air ride suspension vehicle that can carry the engine without damaging this. These are obviously worth millions of dollars. So it's finding the right solution for getting as much information as possible. And then, of course, if you're bringing an engine down, you're more likely going to have to take an engine back, which is not going to be so urgent they need to be moved. So that can probably be moved on a scheduled service, taking a few more days to come back. And then it's again covering all the documentation, the customs paperwork, making sure somebody's there with the correct vehicle to carry that engine out to the aircraft where it may be located. So it's a number of different factors involved, but it really is that simple. But it's the technical people talking to our teams who are used to handling this equipment and understanding some of the challenges.
Speaker A
It sounds like your business and the aviation industry in general, because we've talked about AOG aircraft and you mentioned borrowing parts, because we see all the time that engine cowling that doesn't match, that's clearly from another airline that you borrowed because you needed it. And it sounds like in your business, relationships are extremely important. I mean, because knowing who to contact in certain locations for an air ride suspension vehicle or, you know, somebody who has the right crane to lift something. How does that all come about? I mean, is that just over years and years and years, or is. Is that something where you're relying on other companies as well to build that network?
Speaker C
Exactly. Relationship is critical. And all the different vendors that we use are a really important part of our business. They are the core. And obviously a lot of those relationships been built up through many, many years, because as charter brokers, a lot of these are people, trucking companies, handling agents. These are people that customs agents that the team have used for many, many years. So there are very strong relationships, and they've also been vetted. And that's something that's really important to us, is the level of service that we provide. That's clearly reflective of all of our vendors to Our customers are reflective of our level of service. So it's important that the vendors we use are trustworthy, are known, are experienced and are vetted clearly. And if there are any issues, then they are dealt with very, very quickly. We've had it before where I think we had a new customer come on board. There were going to be somewhere like eight different vendors used on the processes that they require just for general maintenance movements. So a visit will be made to each of those eight vendors to ensure that they have all the procedures correctly and they're following all of those procedures. And if anything happens or anything goes wrong, then immediately somebody will be there to make sure this can be rectified, because this is really, really important to us. And all of those vendors, as I said again, are critical to us to keep up those service levels to our customers.
Speaker A
So we've talked about aircraft on the ground, we've talked about parts and things like that. Now I'm curious about some of the more interesting or unusual things that you've been involved in, getting things from A to B to maybe C.
Speaker C
Unusual things. Well, we had one that came in and it's not just aerospace and this is where it's really interesting to talk about how we're developing outside of that. There was a recent example. A few months ago, a Formula one race car was at a very important race in Europe and on the practice sessions, unfortunately had a small little accident and ripped off the rear paneling at the bottom of the car. Obviously quite vital bearing in mind the races the next day. So an urgent call went out to our UK team to move this. And while some people would say, fine, it's Europe, let's just throw a charter at it and, you know, they can afford to pay, that's not how we would think it's really about. How can we get that part to the customer as quickly as possible in sometimes almost quicker. If you're having to wait for a charter to get an aircraft operator to get permits to get availability, etc, etc, that can take time. So we may arrange the direct drive. So a truck picked up the park from their home base in the UK and drove it over to Belgium and then we put it on a charter flight straight down to the nearest airport and then it was delivered to the racetrack. And that was so fast, so quick, they literally had it there within a few hours and the customer was incredibly happy and obviously the panel was installed and the car went on. And I can't say if they won or not, but they were very, very.
Speaker A
But they were Able to race.
Speaker C
They were able to race. And you can imagine if a Formula one car can't race, that's a huge issue and can cause that team a fortune. But we've moved and outside of other areas, outside of the aircraft parts, you know, the onboard courier side, and this is where we're looking to really expand and develop, particularly in the US with our partner Wheels up is how can we connect in with some of the Wheels up customers and work more closely together with some of their needs and requirements. They may have. You've often got cases where people have left baggage behind, they've left a passport behind, urgent medication that needs to be picked up and taken to somebody. And we've had a case where somebody had a handmade suit that was being made by a tailor's in New York had to be sent to Switzerland for an urgent requirement. It was actually for a funeral of somebody quite significant. And again an onboard courier was able to deliver that very, very quickly and efficiently directly to that customer. And they know that the item will be in someone's care all the way through. So it's about finding again that best solution that's often going to be the quickest but also not just going for the most expensive option. It really is because again it's a longer term view. We want to work with our customers for long term and they've got to trust us. If we're moving a million dollar engines around, they need to know that they trust the people that are managing these operations to do this properly.
Speaker A
Looking to the future a bit as far as you want to look, how do you see the industry evolving or at least your particular bit of the industry, what's on the near horizon and what's out a little bit more long term?
Speaker C
Well, that's why it's really exciting actually. And that's where as I said, I've only talked a lot about the UK today, but the idea for me and the strategy that I'm working on is it's the opportunity here is huge and we're already now expanding and recruiting to have an office. We already Airpartner has a presence in the Middle east based in Dubai. I myself was based out in Dubai for 18 years. So I know the region, the area very well and it's a critical nerve center covering the Middle east, covering Africa. And so what we're setting up now is what we're looking to do is we have a control tower, we call it control tower in the UK which runs 247 with the team there with a huge Support, we'll look to build that similar model in Dubai in the Middle east to cover the regional aspects. Again, we already have a team that we're building in the US which is based down in the wheels up MOC in Atlanta. And we're going to build up that team further as well to cover the Americas. And then of course, we're looking into the Far east to have a control tower based here. So Effectively, you'll have four control towers, all 24, seven. And as we call the concept, we follow the sun. So customers will know they'll have that support whatever's happening any time of day and in a location close to them, either where they're based or where the incident or issue has occurred. So they'll have that global support. And through those four control towers, you'll be able to effectively connect with the world and connect the world together.
Speaker A
We've been speaking with Alishka Hill, who's the senior vice president of cargo for the UK and the rest of the world, which means just not the US at AirPartner, it has been wonderful to talk to you and get some insight into how things are moving, moving around the world a bit unseen. So thank you so much for taking the time.
Speaker C
No, thank you very much for having me. It was fantastic.
Speaker A
Welcome back, Jason. I think my new job is going to be onboard courier. That's always appealed to me. I feel like that would just be a really cool job.
Speaker B
I mean, Simpsons did it in like 1997, though. Like, I'm pretty sure Bart was flying all over the place, like carrying human organs around. So, you know, if it's like that, it looks tiring. But I'm going by 1990s cartoon information.
Speaker A
That's how I base my entire Life, on 1990s cartoon information.
Speaker B
If you go by that, you can't go wrong.
Speaker A
Truer words, Jason. Truer words. Let's head to Croatia, where Croatia Airlines has taken delivery of its first A2,220 100. One of the few airlines to have ordered the 100.
Speaker B
2,100. Do they think 100?
Speaker A
Yeah. Delta actually has orders for about 50% of the entire 100 order book. So that I think provides some information that you can file away somewhere. But they join the ranks of Swiss, ITA and Lot, which recently signed on as a customer for 20 examples. But the A220, 100, by far the much less popular version of that particular.
Speaker B
Oh, it already has 6A223 hundreds. I guess it just wanted some spice in their life. Take the shorter Less interesting aircraft. And why not?
Speaker A
So it went home two days ago. So congratulations to them.
Speaker B
That's nice.
Speaker A
In anticipation of hosting the gathering of European leaders in Denmark this week, Denmark, having suffered through the last week and a half with drone sightings, has said, you know what? We're just going to ban drones in the entire country for the entire week.
Speaker B
Surely you mean within like a 5 mile radius of an airport, right?
Speaker A
Nope.
Speaker B
Oh, the whole country.
Speaker A
Yep.
Speaker B
Oh, okay. Okay.
Speaker A
So they're commercial drone activity. Done. We're just not gonna deal with it. We're not gonna have anybody doing any of this. Civilian drone flights, done.
Speaker B
Did it work?
Speaker A
Well, we don't know yet. This is this week through Friday where the ban will remain in place as Denmark hosts you leaders. So we'll see how it goes. But again, who knows if they were actually drones?
Speaker B
Mmm. Could be aliens.
Speaker A
I mean, I would welcome that at this point. Like that. That would be fine.
Speaker B
I for one, welcome our new alien overlords.
Speaker A
Exactly speaking. No, not speaking of new alien overlords. Speaking of.
Speaker B
That did not work, Ian. We are moving on to the Lufthansa Group news of the week. Who had their investor day thing. Whatever.
Speaker A
If you're from Lufthansa, I apologize.
Speaker B
We're going to start with the best of the news because I'm pretty sure all the rest of it is bad news.
Speaker A
However, we go from good to mixed to bad.
Speaker B
Yes. The good news, Lufthansa is one of seemingly an endless number of airlines celebrating its 100th anniversary coming up. And it will soon take a 787 in a wonderful hundredth anniversary delivery. If you are not a fan of Euro white, you are going to like this new livery.
Speaker A
It looks very good, very sharp.
Speaker B
It is. It is very nice.
Speaker A
Not only does it look good, I really like the design elements of it. And I think they did a really nice job. It's not just pretty to look at. I like the cohesiveness of the design.
Speaker B
Yeah, it's really good. It incorporates the crane. Is it crane?
Speaker C
Yep, it's a crane.
Speaker A
Features the crane throughout the full fuselage, along with some marble markings celebrating the 1926 founding and the 2026 100th anniversary, as well as some large 100 markings. In case you didn't want to do the math yourself.
Speaker B
Yes, it is pretty nice. It is not yet flying. It is painted on a 787 9, currently still in Charleston. Delta Alpha Bravo Papa. Uniforms should be delivered with. They have to throw this in there with the new Allegris interior. Should be delivered to Frankfurt in November, where it will enter service in December at some point. But with all things Boeing and Lufthansa, who knows, it could be 2027 and they will miss the anniversary entirely by the time this aircraft enters service. But it is pretty fantastic. It's really nice that so many airlines at the same time are celebrating their 100th anniversary, because at the same time they, American Airlines is also celebrating its hundredth anniversary. And while they have not put out a special 100th anniversary delivery just yet, they did put out a 100th anniversary logo mark. Yeah, logo mark, which is itself very nice. That will be used all over in all sorts of marketing and customer touch points. But I have a sneaking suspicion, given just how many special liveries American has, that they'll probably, probably follow suit with something as well.
Speaker A
And United is also celebrating its 100th anniversary next year and they will also be coming out with a special livery, so we don't know what that's going to look like yet, but we're going to see one. And it's about time.
Speaker B
Yes, maybe in the next hundred years they'll finish painting their entire fleet with the last new livery as well. But so many airlines celebrating 100 years. Qantas, I think, was another one this year previous.
Speaker A
Their celebration is done.
Speaker B
There will be no more celebrations.
Speaker A
Yeah, we've done klm, we've done Avianca, we've done Qantas. So now we've got some and we've done, I think, was it Croatia or.
Speaker B
Czech, something like that? Well, I don't know if it was smart wings, because I'm pretty sure smart wings who didn't exist like three years ago or nine months ago. But anyway, let's go to the medium Lufthansa Group news. The group wants to go from 13 to nine widebody aircraft models by 2028. In the past, the Lufthansa group has taken pride in having what you could charitably say is the most complicated fleet in the world. But there were reasons to why they had it and why it worked. That has now come full circle to bite them in the ass and it is no longer helpful. It is detrimental, but they will solidify down to the 747 8, 777 9, if and when that ever gets delivered. A 350, 1,777, 300 er, A 350, 900, 787 9, A 3, 3,900, A 330, 300 and A 380, though there's a question mark next to that one. Not sure what that question mark means.
Speaker A
What we do know, Lufthansa knows what.
Speaker B
That one nobody knows what they want to do with the A380s. And we'll come back to that in a moment. But what we do know is that next year, 2026 will be the end of asterisks for now, things always change. But 2026 will be the end of the A340 600, A330 200 and 767, 300 for the Lufthansa group. The following year, 2027 will be the end of the 747, 400 and A340, 300, while 2028 will be the end of the 777, 200 for the Lufthansa group. So if you are a fan of weirdo aircraft that never really struck it all that big, like the A340 600, John Walton, if you're listening, I apologize in advance. But older aircraft like the 767 and the A340 300, you better hurry up because examples of those out in the wild, they're few and far between. And once Lufthansa retires them, they're going to be a lot harder to find, apparently. I think I read this on aviation week. The A340 600 only has as long in the air as Lufthansa Technik has brake pads in the maintenance shop.
Speaker A
Once those are gone, they bought all of them.
Speaker B
They bought all of them in the world. And once those are gone, that's it. There is no more a 340 600. Why they can't manufacture more of them, I don't know. But they seem pretty clear that once those brake pads are gone, the entire aircraft is gone and the entire fleet is gone. So, yeah, Christina, if you're listening, maybe we should plan that a 340600 trip because we've got this year and next.
Speaker A
Year and that's it. The AV talk, a 340600 party. And in the worst news as far as the new Lufthansa Group news is concerned, through 2030, Lufthansa is looking to cut up to 4,000 jobs. These will be mostly based in Germany and mostly administrative as they consolidate group efforts within the Lufthansa Group. So historically, Lufthansa Group airlines have made a lot of their network decisions internally to that specific airline. That seems to be changing now that Lufthansa has understood that they can better make make those decisions, harmonize them across, or at least this is the argument, harmonize them across the group if they make central decisions. So up to 4,000 jobs through 2030 will be cut on the administrative side as they move towards that goal. So it doesn't look like mass layoffs at the moment, but it seems like there are going to be going to be a lot of attrition over the next few years, but. But probably some layoffs that at some point seem likely.
Speaker B
You hate to see any number of employees let go, but it's wild that it took until 2026, late 2025, 2020 26, when Lufthansa as a group realized, hey, we could maybe coordinate amongst our many different airlines and realize some sort of efficiencies through that. Probably long overdue, but here we are. You hate to see anyone let go by it, but what's the point of even being a group if you don't at least plan things like where should we all fly next year together?
Speaker C
Right, Right.
Speaker A
It seems logical that that is what they would do. Speaking of large airlines, Turkish Airlines is large and it's getting even bigger.
Speaker B
Wisdom you can only get at this podcast. Turkish Airlines is large.
Speaker A
57 87s plus 25 options. 35 of the firm orders will be for minus 9s, 15 will be for minus 10s. They're also putting in an order for up to 150, 737 max, which will be a mix of minus 8s and minus 10s. Those orders are going to be subject to agreement with CFM for how many engines and at what price they can get them.
Speaker B
You know who also wants the 73 max 8? Unexpectedly, Norwegian wants 30 of them.
Speaker A
Huh.
Speaker B
Its first direct order with Boeing since 2017, when, oh boy, things were very, very different for Norwegian. They still had a whole long haul operation, which is now basically kind of sort of Norse, as we've talked about so many times. But 30 max 8s going to Norwegian, which is apparently, hey, they're getting bigger again and maybe, you know, someday the ambitions will get the best of them and they'll launch long haul again. Who knows? But why the max eight? Why not the nine? The nine is such a, I guess, more appropriate aircraft. It's all the, all of the cost of operating the Max 8, but with more capacity. I don't know. It's weird.
Speaker A
I don't know either. But if you know, email us@podcastr24.com and let us know. You can also email us about this one because this one is very interesting to me. A 380 MSN114, which is the hundredth A380 ever built, has been sitting in France in storage for the past two and a half years after Malaysia Airlines officially retired its entire fleet and was able to give them back to Airbus as part of the condition for purchasing 20 A330 900neos. See Jason, we brought it all the way back to 339.
Speaker B
Episode 339. You're tying it all back together now.
Speaker A
That aircraft has been returned to the sky, has completed a maintenance test flight and has now been flown to Abu Dhabi and has taxied over to the Etihad engineering building where it will presumably undergo some extensive maintenance. Why is a great question.
Speaker B
We know nothing beyond that. As far as I know, this could be so mundane that Etihad just wanted to snatch up an A380 that nobody wanted to support its own fleet, to just rob it of parts. That is something Delta is doing right now with the A220. Unexpectedly, they bought, I think, from Egyptian Air a couple of a 220s that they are never going to operate. They're just going to park them and rob them of parts to support the rest of the fleet. Maybe that's the case here, maybe not. How unexpected.
Speaker A
So definitely going to be keeping tabs on this one. Someone has suggested that it could be Etihad doing the engineering work on behalf of Airbus to use as a future test aircraft. Some have suggested that Etihad is putting it into service, which would be interesting. So it would require a lot of work if that's the plan. But Jason's point is also well taken, that this could just be a spare parts emporium. So we shall see.
Speaker B
So if this is your A380, let us know@podcastr24.com exactly.
Speaker A
And on that note, we will close episode 339 of AVTalk. I am Ian Petchnick here as always.
Speaker B
Always with Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.