Pope Francis and Iberia Flight Issues

Hello and welcome to episode three hundred and seventy five of Ab Talk. I I'anm Petchnik here as always with Jason Rubinowitz, Ian, it was a pleasure hanging out with you this past weekend. It was a lot of fun or weekdays before last weekend. I don't know time is tricky right now. Yeah, I think time still does not matter, but it into the weekend. It did. It did. We had a good time in Cleveland for a bit. We got to do some plane spotting . We had a good time Akron for a bit with the goodyear blimp, though unfortunately we did not get to fly it . We did not had a nice afternoon in Cleveland, like you said, Ian and, then the folks at the what was the official name that Apple told us we left our stuff at the Wingfoot Lake Airship Operations Balloon Port . Yes were outstanding. Everyone at Goodyear exceptionally welcoming. They literally opened every door except the hanger door. And said, Okay, here's everything, have at it. Go talk to anyone, go look at anything, go touch anything. But the hangar door must stay closed because Cleveland us dirty and it was a little too windy and they couldn't take the blimp out of the blimp hanger, which is disappointing. But there is more blimp to come, we promised much, much more blimp to come. So what we did end up doing and this actually I think worked out really well because we weren't flying and we didn't have to spend time getting the blimp out of the hanger and then flying on it, which still would have been awesome, but perfect . We had a chance to talk with some extremely knowledgeable and very interesting folks who have been blimping for a very long time . So that video will come out on our YouTube channel in a few weeks well about a month from now because we've got some other stuff that we're working on to hopefully add a bit more footage to that particular video . But because he was such an awesome person to talk to and because he knows basically everything there is to know about the Goodyear Blimp, we are going to have Goodyear's chief pilot, Michael Dockerty on podcast in the near future so that he can share with us and with you all a bit more about what it's like to operate one of only four of the NT airships the world and just extremely engag ing, knowledgeable and wonderful person to talk to. So we're going to have him on the show as soon as we can. So stay tuned for that and stay tuned for even more blimp content. Yeah, that was a fun walk through the history of Goodyear and their history with airships and all that. And talking to Doc was great because he's one of those few people who can say I am the only person in the entire world who can do X. And I believe what was he the only certified ? He's the only dedicated pilot examiner for airships, lighter these particular airships in the world. The only person in the entire world. That's quite the resume buster right there . Exactly. There's literally no one else who can do what he does. And it was a really, really great chat looking forward to some more blimp, Ian and it's good news that the blimp just happens to be going to Ashkosh and also here in New York in like a month span both locations so weird. It's fun. Interesting home . Hm m, we'll hopefully have much more to share soon and have an interview with Doc on the show as soon as we possibly can. Well, Jason, Gabe, and I were in Ohio. Our colleague Sophia was in Berlin and I just want to say thank you to everyone who stopped by, met up with Sophia during Ela Berlin and had a great time. I know a bunch of you all who listened to the podcast met up with her, so that was great to hear about . And learned some very interesting things how you stack display aircraft into a very small area when you are dealing with things like A three hundred and fifty ' s, A three hundred eighty's and some smaller fighter jets as well. How do all of that go into basically the world's largest and most expensive game of Tetris. So some very fun stuff there. Carefully, you do it carefully. Exactly, exactly. You do it very, very carefully. So thank you to everyone who stopped by and was able to say hello . Jason, let's get to the meat of things . Late last week was the first anniversary of the crash of Ara India flight one hundred and seventy one . And Indian investigators released a progress report , such as it is an interim statement on the progress of investigation into the accident involving Air Indian Flight AI one hundred and seventy one . This is an IKO ANX thirteen mandated statement should a final report not be available within a year of the accident . So they released a statement of progress because they have said they have not yet completed their investigation . They further say and I'm quoting here , significant progress has been made in the examination and analysis of aircraft system s, flight recorder data, engine related components, maintenance and operational records, and other evidence relevant to the investigation. Further quoting The evidence gathered and the results of various examinations are currently being analyzed in a comprehensive and integrated manner. Additional technical evaluations and specialist examinations, wherever considered necessary, will continue to be undertaken to ensure that all findings and conclusions are supported by verified evidence and sound scientific analysis. Great . The investigative update provides no new information whatsoever Fantastic actual investig ation itself. That's a lot of words to say a whole lot of nothing. I hope they are actually due. That was two paragraphs in a nine paragraph statement . Yeah, basically just saying we're working on it. Yes. We promise. I hope it's not a Chinese Eastern situation where have possibly concluded their investigation and will never release. This doesn't feel like that. It's just much slower than any one would like , but you can't be mad if they are actually truly making progress and they are not yet ready to actually make conclusions. You just have to actually get to the conclusion part at some point sooner rather than later. So we will sit and we will wait but h,opefully this doesn't become a years long situation. Yeah , I would have liked to have seen a bit more information about the focus of the investigation in this, perhaps what they've been doing, what still needs to be done in order to get to a conclusion. I think that would have been helpful here. I know that I'm not alone in being not entirely satisfied with this particular update. And as Jason mentioned, we don't want to find ourselves in a situation where investigators just don't release a report. And I agree with Jason. I don't think that's what we're looking at here I don't think we're going to see a situation where India's AIB just doesn't release a report, but it would be helpful to know what still needs to be . What are we still working on? Yeah, in order to begin coming to a conclusion. Typically, if there is any sort of major revelation during the investigation process, they would communicate that to other regulators, other investigat ory bodies that especially if there was a safety issue that needed to be corrected. That has not seemed to have occurred in this situation. So it's not like so far we can assume they have not discovered like, oh there, is an actual massive issue with the fuel cutoff switches and this needs to be dealt with. If that was the case, they certainly would have communicated that to literally everyone possible, but it hasn't happened. So whatever path they're going down to take this investigation , we don't quite know what they're investigating, what progress has been made . So hopefully that wraps up soon , but yeah, not much more to bring us at this point, which is disappoint . But I guess on the other end, I kind of understand that until it's done, they don't want to say much because then people will run with whatever they say and say, Oh, they still need to look into this, then it must be the cause. If this is what's taking so long, then this thing they're looking at now still must be the issue. Like that's kind of the way the media and the social atmosphere takes things now. So on the one hand, I kind of understand why they don't want to say, Here's what we've done and here's what's left. On the other hand, I really want them to do that because it's been too long. That's a good point to make about what would happen if they did, in fact, release a more substantive statement . That's fair After more than a decade of negotiation throughout the European Council and European Parliament , we get roughly the same passenger rights as we had before a decade of negotiations . Under the new rules, which are very similar to the old rules , passengers will continue to benefit from compensation for lengthy delays and cancellations , the benefit of free cabin baggage continue . This is really about the same . There will be no fees on cabin baggage. So if you're flying an ultra low cost carrier or low cost carrier like Ryanair or EasyJet , you get a free personal item which okay great . The price of tickets and the search portals can use to book your fares , that will always now show the carry on luggage ticket price at the beginning of the booking process , but airlines can offer less expensive tickets to people who then voluntarily say I don't want hand luggage. Yeah , this is kind of a complicated here. Pretty much all European airlines, their base fare somewhere, some fare amongst the others. They offer a fare that does not include cabin bags beyond the one small backpack, purse, laptop, whatever that will fit under the seat in front of you. But almost all European airlines also offer that one step up that usually includes a bunch of other bundles things bundled in like priority boarding or things that other things you might not need in inclusive of that extra bag, you can, of course, buy that extra bag separate. Looking at Ryanair, random search from Dublin Hamburg right now, the minimum step up for that one carry on bag is thirty two forty five , which is less than the minimum spend to get to the smallest bundle that includes a bag, which was forty eight USD. So there is a savings in just paying for the bag. But Ryanair kind of really makes you jump through a hoop to find that fare that does not include a cabin bag because they like all airlines, they don't actually want you to book basic. They want you to book the highest possible thing or the most possible ancillaries . But it's a bit conflicting. I don't like the regulators mandating what an airline can and can't do in this regard. There are times where I don't need a bag. So I don't want to pay extra to Hash ton included that I don't need, but a lot of people , I'm sure, fall into the trap of unintentionally looking a fair that does not include a cabin bag and then they get to the gate and have to pay a hundred pounds or whatever the case to bring that bag on board . So not everyone can win in this situation . Ayata, for its part declares this a total loss. The headline from them is U two hundred and sixty one perform misses the mark on delays and competitiveness. They actually don't even really talk about the bags, but they're more kind of pissed off that the status quo is staying after apparently thirteen years of discussion . It puts some brackets in place for compensation when fights are delayed or cancelled, but they have been trying to get rid of this particular component of EU two hundred and sixty one forever . And they ain't too happy that it's not going away. No, no, this so what airlines have been arguing for is let's get rid of this entirely. Yeah, that's what happened. What a more realistic scenario they were arguing for or what they were really trying to get was at least a five hour limitation on paying compensation rather than the three or four as it currently exists . I think that it didn't happen . The argument here that it would have been easier for airlines to alternate flights for those passengers and still get them where they are going rather than just canceling flights because of a lengthy delay because once the delay, they were saying, well, we just cancel the flight anyway . If there's going to be a delay. So they were arguing that they would have the ability to operate more flights and the ability to find disrupted passengers better arrangements . The U Parliament didn't buy that. I don't necessarily believe that though . I don't buy that either. Flights are always so full and there are often not enough frequencies to shuffle every one around anyway . So I think this was the right decision. But going off script here looking through AATA's press releases, we didn't pick up on this, but they also earlier this month launched a save a Life a N bot passenger safety campaign with a very nice animation and video about what not to do when you're evacuating an aircraft , which is chiefly stop trying to rescue your bags when you could be hampering the evacuation while other people are trying to save their own lives. And apparently the animated owl in this situation is really, really not great. Nobody likes this owl in this video. Diowl is creepy. It is a little creepy. Actually, there's a bunch of animals in this all doing things you shouldn't do. I don't know where this video will be played. That's what I gotta get for lying a bunch of wild animals on an airplane. They don't know what a bag is. They just know that they're on an airplane and what's going on . But it is nice to see more attention being paid to the evacuation issues on board. Again, I don't know what's going on with this video where it's shown, but they do say that more research is needed to help quantify the need for action, which I think is pretty quantifiable at this point, watching just about any video of a cabin evacuation, which itself is problematic that there are people taking video unless they strop a go pro to the top of their head and doesn't possibly slow down situ ation. But apparently they said there is a significant gap in knowledge among travelers that could result in disaster. Many, many airlines at this point roll into safety briefing that, hey, in the unlikely event of an evacuation, leave your bags on board. But I don't think it's really firm enough. It should really be repeated and then smashed over people's heads at this point. But there's a lot of other stuff in those safety videos that's also important. So it's just yet another thing that people don't pay attention to. Yeah, I mean, and we've talked about this before. Some of the stats are pretty interesting from the ATA survey that was conducted among passengers in the United States, the UK, the UAE, and Singapore , they found that eighty percent of passengers surveyed claimed to know what to do in an emergency evacuation, yet only sixty one percent correctly answered that they should leave all personal items and exit the aircraft. thirty three percent said they had seen reports of people taking their baggage during an evacuation . Of these , twenty two percent indicated that they were likely to do the same. Yes, and thirty eight percent indicated that they think it would take three minutes or more to evacuate an aircraft. So what's an extra couple seconds? Well, if everybody's grabbing their bag, that's true. Yeah, but there are cases where we know like that Jaw A three hundred and fifty, you could do it in a heartbeat if you do everything by the book and even with half the exits yeah, ninety seconds. That's the most it can take. Well, that's really the benchmark. It can and does take more sometimes, but ninety minutes is what they say the safety minutes maybe in America with all our bags, but ninety seconds is the safety benchmark but somehow only thirty eight percent of people had that right idea. Yet one in ten passengers admitted that even knowing all of that, they may still take bags during an evacuation , or follow others who do, even when instructed not to those, are the people who , if you happen to see doing that, you have my permission to smash them over the head to get out of the way because they are intentionally slowing things down. And if they get left behind, they get left behind. They did it to themselves. All right, well we'll put a link to the creepy owl video in the show notes if you want to watch that. The educational creepy owl video. The educational creepy owl video, absolutely. Let's head to Sydney , where in October of twenty twenty seven, so a little more than a year from now, Quantas will launch its first project sunrise flights to London So I'm still gonna have to make a stop if I want to go You're gonna have to go to Auckland first. Oh man But next, maybe maybe soon next. Yes. They will offer the fight that I admittedly still don't want to take . Well, it will be next. So are twelve A three hundred and fifty one thousand ULRs on ordered to Quantas . The first batch of six aircraft will be dedicated to projects on Rise flights only. So that will be Sydney to London and Sydney to JFK That second batch will then take over some of the other ultra long haul flying that's a little bit shorter. So Perth London and Auckland JFK amongst a few other possible routes . So those flights are currently operated by seven eight seven dash nine's, and while the seven eight seven dash nine can do those flights it's not really designed for those routes, and Quantas sees itself moving those aircraft off those routes to other routes where it can make a lot more money rather than operating the seven hundred and eighty seven dash nine. And one of the routes that that might switch to is Chicago . Because as we all know, Quantas wanted to fly to Chicago for the better part of two decades, and every time they announce the Chicago flight, something bad happens . So at this point, I'm a little superstitious about them announcing a date for flying to Chicago because then I know something bad is going to happen. Yeah, didn't Air New Zealand also actually launch Chicago flights for like fifteen minutes before COVID. They operated for a little bit, yep, before and after. So that was a moment. But every time Quantas announced that they're going to fly to Chicago, you get a global financial crisis , you get a global pandemic. I mean just nothing good every time they announce a date for their flights to Chicago. Awesome. These are some very, very long flights, yet still not the longest in the world currently. Just looking at the JFK to Auckland flight of which there are two airlines because Air New Zealand also offers this, of course, but these flights push seventeen hours take off touchdown time that I know we've talked about this before, but that doesn't actually mean the entire time you're on board the aircraft because at JFK you could be taxiing for an hour and a half and also boarding for an hour before you actually push back. So what is actually seventeen hours in the air could be more like nineteen hours on board the aircraft. Now we're stretching another couple hours. I know we've talked about this so many times, but every time we do, I just get like antsy and think nineteen hours on board the plane beyond that, like twenty plus hours. It's just it's nice that they're finally going to have these purpose built aircraft for it instead of just throwing the seven hundred eighty seven nine on it as they are today, but like incremental gains, incremental at best, in economy that we say. Yeah, they see a market for this. And they say they see a market for an economy class product. This is something that would be super interested to talk to someone who's like, absolutely, I want to do this in economy and see what their I guess use case is for a non stop flight, what makes it better in their eyes? Or is it just going to be something where it's slightly cheaper and then I thought it was going to be more expensive? I don't know. I mean, I don't know exactly why you would choose this if you're in economy. But Quanta says they see a market here and they see an economic opportunity for an economy cabin on these flights. That said, if it doesn't work out for them, they're certainly leaving themselves open to adjust the cabin configuration. Yes, can and almost certainly would in that case. Yeah . Let's stick with a conversation about Airbus because Airbus this week opened a second A three hundred twenty Neo Final Assembly line in Tulus , making it their tenth A three hundred and twenty Neo family final assembly line around the world. Where did they find that space? Was that the A three hundred and eighty? three hundred eighty line? Yeah. Yeah, so amazing that the A three hundred and eighty has been out of production for so long and they're just now finishing converting that space to the three hundred and twenty , which did they already complete that in Hamburg? The full redo of the A three hundred and eighty space? Yeah, I believe so. I think they did, which they didn't actually assemble with three hundred and eighty. They did cabin finishing touches. Yeah, finishing touches there in Hamburg. But yeah, it's good stuff. That's ten lines compared to ten lines. Boeing's maybe two and possibly four. Maybe two locations that is. So they'll have a couple of lines, but maybe maybe this year, maybe probably not. We'll see the seven three line spin up. I don't know if that's going to happen this year, but it's going to happen eventually. I mean, if they want to get to the rate that they want to get to, it'll have to happen. Just thinking about the logistics of having a final assembly in Hamburg N Talous N Mobile NT engine. That is truly, truly a global operation all to build the same exact thing. Yeah. There's four lines in Hamburg. There's two in Toulouse, two in Mobile, and two in Tianjin . So who knows could be India one day? Yeah, exactly. So the idea is to buy next year produce between seventy and seventy A three hundred and twenty Neo family aircraft per month. It's a lot. We'll see what the supply chain has to say about that because maybe not . Because so far the supply chain says no no, supply, chain says no, I don't think we're ever going to do that again. We'll see how far we get. Spirit Airlines or Spirit's holding company parent has gotten the go ahead by the bankruptcy court to auction off its assets, which includ e the owned A three hundred and twenty s and the Lagordia slots . And some interesting bidders are lining up, Jason. Yeah, I'm reading in your notes here and you say Florida Air Express and Mooney International. Surely that can't be right. You must have misspelled Delta and United . I did not . So I'm not saying that they're going to win , but there's some interesting possibilities here . Florida Air Express wants to start up an ultra low cost carrier based in Florida. Stop me if you've heard this one before. No denied, denied . They would start by flying within the state and then expand up to New York because they want the Lagori Slots as well. They would expand up to New York and then they would take delivery of A three hundred twenty Neos or A three hundred twenty one XLRs and begin flying internationally . No , no, no, no Any of that. The good thing about Slot s is though they are use them or lose them in most cases. So if some weirdo entity were to somehow end up being the highest bidder, which doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility if a speculator comes in with dark money and buys up these slots as an investment. I don't know if there are rules preventing that, but it seems like that is something that could happen . You have to actually operate the slots or the FAA will yank them back and redistribute them or put them back up for sale or whatever. But it is good to know that yeah, much to the dismay of the port authority here, these are technically assets of the airline that get to be auctioned off. But Ian, this is a wild card. I didn't put this in the show notes because I forgot. You know what is not a part of Spirit Airlines assets to be redistributed to its debitors basically? I don't. Okay , good . Honeywell put a memo in with the United States bankruptcy court, southern district of New York saying, Hey , Spirit Airlines had auxiliary power units known as APUs that are not actually spirits. They're our property. They were loaners to the airline. They belong to Honeywell, and please do not sell them to anyone as the aircraft are parted out or sold or otherwise moved on to a new airline. Those belong to us , but also we don't know where they are. So if you could help us find them, that'd be great. Oh , oh great. Yeah. The quote literally says the Honeywell APUs belong to Honeywell, Spirit was simply allowed to use the Honeywell APUs under the terms and conditions of the MSA. So APUs are very expensive, but they also seem to break a lot. And I guess, much like if you have a new car and it has an issue, you bring it to the dealer and they will maybe give you a loaner. That seems like the case here where Honeywell had a few loner APUs, which are not inexpensive assets that were installed in aircraft or may not. Maybe they're not even in aircraft, but nobody seems to know. So they have filed with the court to say, hey, these belong to us, not spirit, please return them promptly if you happen toed find them somewhere. If you see a Honeywell APU just sitting around an airport near you, give Honeywell a call, I guess. More or less, yeah. Thanks Rob for pointing that one out. That was a funny read. Whoops . Air Asia X is delaying its Bahrain hub surprise . Yeah, probably a good idea. At least for a little bit. Yeah, exactly. So the plan was for the airline to begin flights from Malaysia to Gatwick in London via a new hub in Bahrain, Bahrain for those that aren't sitting in front of a map is located on the Persian Gulf, which, as listeners to this podcast will know, has been the subject of a bit of tension over the past few months to the airline saying, You know what? We think this is a good plan commercially We just don't think the timing is right. We're going to take a pause they're going to wait until later in the fall or early winter to put that into play, assuming no further delays. Jason, we talked, I think, two weeks ago about Swiss parting out some of its A two twenty one hundreds , now we have three more A two hundred twenty partouts . These will be three hundred s , former Egypt Air A two twenty three hundreds that were acquired by Az ora are going to Delta Material Services for Delta's Fleet . So they announced in April that they were going to part out one A two hundred twenty three hundred from the former Egypt air fleet, that has now risen to four . They will be able to keep those spare parts and then the engines will also be leased to Delta for use in their fleet. Gotta get what you can get where you can get it, I guess. Were these the HU joines that didn't actually fly for Egypt air? They flew for like a subsidiary of Egypt air and then quickly were younged out of service seemingly, I don't know where everyone speculated . did That happen , but I'm not sure exactly which are the same ones which ofNs are the ones that are being parted out. Yeah. Such a shame. Not even the original one hundred . These are three hundred so firmly in airbus produced territory at this stage. That's crazy. But then again, we see like year old spirit A three hundred and twenty NEO's getting parted out. So you gotta do what you got to do. And Delta's got a lot of A two twenty's in these people alive. So not terribly surprising, but still disappointing and sad. Yeah. So I went down an interesting rabbit hole on Delta Material Services . I did not know that they existed. No, I'm familiar with Delta Tech Ops and Delta services and all sorts of other units of Delta, but material services is a new one to me. Yeah, Delta Material Services is sole provider of used material to Delta Airlines. So it's functionally named. Some of the photos of the warehouse are just incredible. Or is it like the Indiana Jones movie where they go into the warehouse and it's just an endless rows of A two hundred and twenty parts. That's exactly what it looks like with better lighting. Yes, all sorts of stuff. So it's one of the world's largest buyers of used aircraft parts, engines, components. They have a warehouse that's just shrink wrapped engines sitting around. I'll put a link to the website in the show notes. Sounds like a prime candidate for a tour and podcast episode. It sure does, doesn't it? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Delta subsidiary. Are they even a subsidiary? Because looking they are a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Airlines? Wow . They are missing from the Delta Airlines Wikipedia entry who lists tech ops, the Trainer Refinery, Unify Aviation, and Clear Secure as their subsidiaries, even down to five percent, but not this one. So this one does quite a bit falling under the radar . Yeah . So I mean very cool stuff that they're doing and the little kind of hero video they have at the top of their website's worth a bit of a watch . So enjoy that . And sorry, parted out A two hundred twenty's. Jason , we've been doing this podcast almost ten years , and I think one of the first stories we talked about was Norwegian and how they were faring . And for a while, Norwegians ups, mostly downs was a long running topic of the podcast . And then they stopped their long haul flying. They got rid of all of their seven hundred eighty seven S. They went back to their Nordic short haul bread and butter , low cost flying, and it's worked really well for them. They bought Videro , they moved into basically even shorter haul space . And now they're saying , hey, let's buy ourselves a leisure travel group. Oh yeah, just for eight hundred forty three million dollars, US dollars. Where did it get that money? This is an airline that was always on the verge of existing anymore. How did that happen? Well, they really have turned around in not astounding fashion, but something short of astounding . They executed on their plan to operate seven hundred and thirty seven s around Europe very well . Then this comes along and it seems like it sort of makes sense . They're buying Nordic Leisure Travel Group, which owns Sun Class Airlines, which is based out of Denmark. They own a set of hotels and package travel . And it'll all be separate from Norwegian except that it'll feed the Norwegian and Vitoro will be used to feed passenger traffic to these leisure packages , which seems to all make sense. It's just low cost carriers , generally speaking , don't have a great history of purchasing package carriers and doing well. Wait a minute , do you know what this means that finally years after it gave up its hopes and dreams of wide body flying ? They're back because Sunglass Airlines three A three hundred thirty nine Neo's. Yep, so a bit of a roundabout way here, but we're back in a situation where Norwegian air wide body aircraft . Not gonna do the same things that it did with the seven eights, I don't think, but it's got 'em and it could do whatever they want with it . I mean, I guess . So the idea is that this will be all integrated one flow for passengers , the businesses themselves will be separated out . And they're saying that the Sunclass, Norwegian and Virum Networks have limited overlap is what they say. So yes, that makes perfect sense , but I guess they wanted this for reasons . It's not quite clear to me what they get out of all of this headache. I don't know to operate a full package carrier . I don't know, but seemingly someone over there does know fascinating story arc for Norwegian , which was on the bubble again of not existing. But they're doing what they think is right and I think it's just also hilarious that when I search on my phone for North Atlantic and DuckDot go all I get is an ad for Norwegian air , which is odd because they don't serve the same market, but hey, they've got A three hundred and thirty ' s now, so maybe maybe they will one day again. Please don't do that. Don't do it. They're all going to sunny destinations from Northern Europe . I don't see that happening. Surely they couldn't fall for that again . No, no, no, no, absolutely not. KLM is looking to take its first A three hundred fifty in August and begin service between Amsterdam and Toronto in September , with one of the large caveats being that all of the business class seats will be blocked. Now sure,ly you're reading notes from a few months ago where Gliftanza was operating its first aircraft with new business class to Toronto without any of the seats actually available. Surely, you must be mistaken. Or Toronto. What's the deal here? Why does Toronto always get the new aircraft that don't have any business class seats available to book? It's twice this year alone, which is very odd, very coincidental . It can't be coincidence. It's got to be something special about Toronto. I mean, surely Toronto can't be that low yield a market. Surely you're not going to send it to JFK, but like, I don't know, maybe Kansas City or something I don'?t know. Toronto seems like there would be enough demand for premium cabins, but that's strange, but it's deja vu all over again . We don't expect the industry and observers , we should probably call John Walton for some support on this one, but it doesn't seem like it's going to be in a Lafton allegress situation that's not drawn out for months or even years at a time. This should hopefully be quicker, but yet again an airline was over a little over ambitious with its business class product and is now being stung by certification issues. Or in this case, I think the rules were changed a little bit and they're still working on adopting their certification to those new rules, but this is not stuff that you saw happen years ago. This is all new stuff and it's happening again Port Toronto. Hopefully nobody was actually booked and has to get downgraded or rebooked or anything, but that's a lot of revenue being left on the table. Yeah , so hopefully that gets resolved soon and you can book all of the seats on KLM's new A three hundred and fifty ' s. That's new plane. Let's talk old plane. Because of the dramatic rise in fuel prices, Icelandair says it is accelerating the retirement of its seven hundred and fifty seven fleet. The airline currently has eight in the fleet remaining, six of which are in regular passenger service, two are used for specialty transports around the world extravaganzas and most recently, flying World Cup teams to North America. These aircraft were supposed to last through next year before being retired , but because of the high cost of fuel, the airline says we're done. Don't like that at all . No, no, the Iceland Air without the seven hundred and fifty seven just doesn't feel right to me . I don't like it. Maybe they'll keep a few around as charters for a little while and it'll just be the ones in regular passenger service that go by the end of the year, but that's a bummer. Does Lyslandair still have the seven sixes or are those also now gone entirely? They're still operating three of them. They still got three. Three of them. Yeah. Yeah. That was more so than the seven five seven. That was always my favorite modern ish Icelander aircraft because it was just so much more comfortable than the seven hundred fifty's because who doesn't like a seven hundred six ? But at least no one announced plans to get rid of those on any accelerated timeline . So hey, that's something. They're going away soon, but they'll be around for as long as they're around. Okay, I'm sorry. Things that aren't supposed to happen include aircraft taxiing into light masts or various poles and things like that. It happens sometimes. It happens. It happens. Sometimes people are n't doing their job or not doing their job right or you're not having a good day and sometimes wings clip light holes. It happens . Yeah . And in this case, it was one of the least triple seven s being operated that was operated by Indigo from Turkish airlines . And I think carried twelve thousand passengers . Is that what the it was one of those like super we were never able to get an actual counts because legend has it that they never stop boarding this airplane. It just keeps it was an aircraft they were using for Hajjightfsl between Jeddah, Istanbul , domestic within Turkey as well. I'm not sure if this is one that also operated up to Russia at any point for like a max pax configuration, but this airplane ain't going anywhere anytime soon or maybe ever again . It's got a real big gash in the side. Right behind the wing . It does not look good. No, the airplane messed with the light pole and the light pole won because in this case it wasn't a simple steel light pole which usually would result in like oh no you bent the winglet or whatever slap and you went on this was a lattice tower which happened to have I guess a light at the top or some other I actually don't know if this was a light tower. It was some sort of light mast. The mast collapsed and not only damaged the wing but punctured a big ol' hole in the side of the airplane. We've seen an aircraft come back from a lot worse than this, but this was not by any means a new aircraft. This was a seventeen year old triple seven three hundred ER. It might be one of those cases where it's more valuable to part it out, take those precious G ninetEy's off , slap it on something new and actually fix this airplane. But somewhere over at Delta Material Services they're probably looking at this and go parts in In Pakistan, the final law providing for the privatization of Pakistan International Airlines has now been signed. This caps a more than decade long effort to make sure that the government isn't the majority owner of the airline . Whether this is good, bad , will happen all over again remains to be seen , but now things seem official , so good luck, Khabib Group. We wish you all the best. Good luck to them. I bet they didn't see the price of fuel doubling right after they signed on this airline that is functionally obsolete, still has no orders placed for more efficient newer aircraft . So good luck with that. I'm not sure they know what they got themselves into, but they must. I hope so . Let's close the show with the Pope as we all often do . That's that's exactly right. The Pope was on a tour of Spain and was down in the Canary Island s. He was on Tenerife when he boarded a Iberia A three hundred twenty to go home , but the aircraft was broken , so then he got off the plane. What do you do in that situation, Jason? This is where the story gets good though. Well, usually EU two hundred and sixty one rules say you've got four hours before competition kicks in or the flight is canceled. But this is the pope we're talking about. So the King of Spain offered his personal wire craft to get the pope home several members of the delegation as well. Take my falcon, Jeff, take my falcon. It's no big deal. I'm the king of Spain, which today I learned is a king of Spain. So that's cool . Yeah , but the reason stated that the aircraft broke here in this Reuters article is a bit of a head scratcher. I'm literally scratching my head . I'm just gonna read here. In announcements made after the Pope had disembarked, the captain said the engine had likely failed to start because of the wind. He said the issue could not be resolved immediately and that passengers would have to leave the plane . What? Holland. I mean, I was dealing with getting a blimp out of a hangar all week I don't know. It was too windy to blimp, but I have maybe there's a mistranslation here or things got lost in a game of telephone, but the engine failed because of the wind is so it sounds like there was a technical issue because the wind was too strong and so the engine wouldn't start. I'm not even sure what that means. No. It's not something I've ever heard before and airplanes often operate in windy places and the time . I've been to Chicago before. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure if there's a limitation on because this particular aircraft is an A three hundred twenty two hundred powered by two CFM fifty six engines . I've never heard of it being too windy to start a CFM fifty six . There's got to be more to this story that's not checking out to me at all. If you know anything about this, please email us at podcasts at FR two four dot com because I'm really interested because I'm sure there's an explanation here. I just cannot fathom what it is at the moment. I'm sure there is the captain of the flight operating , the pope is not going to cancel a flight and kick him off the plane wiggly nilly because his friends and coworkers will never let this one down. Like remember that time you kicked the pope off your plane? Yeah , it was too windy. Can you imagine you're trying to get the engine started and you realize that okay, we need to go tell them. Oh man, I left the light on and the batteries go to which is a thing you can do on an airplane. That is a thing that happens. They do have batteriesies and the batter needed to start the plane and if you leave the light on and the flight deck, plane no start. But that doesn't seem to be the case here. But also if you are the king of Spain and you're a listener, look us up because we like a fight on your Falcon jet too. Can we have a ride too ? I like that pitch. We'll see if it works. Oh , poor pope. Well, the Pope got home, the entourage of media and other folks traveling with the pope had to take a later flight, but they eventually got home too . Not on a falcon jet, but they did eventually get home on another Iberia flight. The king could only spare one jet today . Exactly. Well, this has been episode three hundred and seventy five of Avalk. I am Ian Petnik, here as always with Jason Robinoitz, thanks for listening