The total output of news from the airline industry shows what regular passengers might experience. An accident is not on that list. So nothing fatal. An occasional lightning strike (se previous article) is both rare and normally unharmful, except maybe for ones ears. Bird strikes are also rare and normally no threat, thought they. might cause an engine to quit. Engine shutdowns for any other reason happens a few times a week worldwide – read almost never – and some of them might even go unnoticed to passengers if there is no need to divert. More frequent on the list is turbulence. There is a menace if seat-belts are not used. A few people have died onboard being thrown up and down. Worth noticing that the aircraft remained in good condition.

The second most common mishaps of these six mentioned here are runway excursions, where someone neglected to pave another couple of hundred feet of runway. Runways have in many places not been extended since the propeller era though the constantly heavier planes require more and more runway length. Fancy take-off- and landing weight calculations and simulator trained maneuvers compensate for that. But obviously not always. As a matter of fact a couple of times a month. None of the things mentioned above are obviously, normally, any real danger to people onboard, and there is precious little anyone can do about things – except keep seat-belts fastened.

The last and most frequent and rather disturbing trouble is smoke on board (se previous article). About every second day there is a report of an airliner in more or less distress making an unscheduled landing due to fumes. Considering the 100.000 flights a day, albeit not all airliners, it is indeed also a rare occasion, but some of those affected have needed medical attention. It is of course caused by the cabin pressurization system using bleed air from the engines, where a leak somewhere causes unhealthy cabin air. To protect oneself there are small breath devices that filters most of the harmful gases, costing less than 5 USD and occupying less space than a wallet in a bag.

In the wake of pilot strikes in low-cost companies – this time lowest-cost of them all, Ryanair – there are a number of reasons to think twice before you board, filled with joy thinking of the fact that you paid next to nothing for your ticket.

What every airline passenger should ask him/herself – since it is normally not possible to ask the pilots directly – is wether anyone of them could have stayed home due to a bad cold without jeopardizing the possibility to put bread on the table. In other words – are they working for a company, who cares about the workforce enough to have them employed in a normal fashion, with a monthly salary, social benefits paid and sick leave without penalties. And organized in a pilots union with full integrity to care for flight safety – also when in becomes expensive. And under full control regarding training and put through regular follow-ups regarding both medical status and flight skills.

Then again, since nothing ever goes wrong – why worry. Doesn’t really matter if the airline of your choice have pilots from manning companies abroad – or found on the internet – when they are most likely just as good as anyone else. Or if they are self-employed, paid only for the hours they fly, but probably can afford to stay home when they are medically unfit to fly. Or if they cannot cancel a flight due to a technical problem or take on extra fuel when deemed necessary, when the company has full control of all those safety issues.

So, no worries, mate……

 

 

Shipping and road transportation has been affected by mishaps lately. Investigations has revealed, (apart from that fact that alcohol has been involved – you get what you pay for), that a new problem has been introduced in both industries. Been around for some time actually, but starting to causing incidents and accidents more and more as time goes by.

It is called by industry officials ”the-lowest-price-possible-syndrom”. So far the airline industry has not officially recognized that it is affected by the same syndrom. It is nothing new for a lot of airline employees, and if you get really frustrated by the trend that is not addressed, you might end up writing a fake dialogue in an effort to open up a few eyes to the many dangers involved. Someone obviously did. Enclosed below. (If you’ve read it before, skip it. That goes for everything that is repeated in this blog, by mistake or intensionally.)

Low cost airlines

Wow, 19 dollars for an airline ticket. Isn’t that great. Luckily not everyone on board paid only 19 dollars. If you booked well in advance you could really enjoy the cheap ride with the new low-cost carrier. If everybody on board paid only 19 dollars, there is no chance in heaven they will stay in business for more than 3 weeks. But it’s still a low cost airline, right? Isn’t that a gift to the flying public? Regular airlines or what was previously looked upon as flag carriers must understand that nobody in their right mind would put up four times or more for the same ride. Boy, am I enjoying myself. Departure, destination, flight time and even the type of plane are the same. This one even smells brand new. Like on a boat fair, kind of. Smell of plastic. After my second 12-dollar drink, having nothing else to do, since I didn’t want to pay 6 dollars for the earphones, which would have had me dish out some 50% more than the ticket itself, I start wondering. How can these guys fly so cheap? Where do they cut costs? Have the airplanes become cheaper? Come on. Even if they got a discount, it won’t cover inflation. Cheaper fuel? No way. Even if they manage some freezed price deals, anyone can do that. Cheaper landing fees? Possibly, if they land at bush airports 70 miles away from the city. Administration? Now there is a possibility. A slimmed head office can account for some small part of it. On board service. There we go. Still, I have decided to enjoy that. I get what I pay for including 20 dollars for each suitcase, the 10-dollar charge for Internet booking and the 5-dollar for the initial phone call, and an extra 15 to change seat. If they start charging a buck to go to the restroom, where nobody been able to rest so far, I will enjoy that too, because I want this budget flying to survive. I spend 5 dollars for a cup of coffee, still enjoying myself, and the caffeine sharpens my senses. I nudge my fellow passenger in the side, because I get talkative after two drinks.

“Salaries”, I say.

“What?”

“Salaries. I’ve been sitting thinking and wondering how these guys can provide a product for a quarter of what the regular airlines do, and it must be that they pay less. Flight and ground crew and all”.

“Are you happy with that?” He is not nice and I also noticed he didn’t buy anything from the drink trolley.

“With what?”

“Your conclusion”.

“Well I think I went over all the other corners they can cut and it didn’t amount to much. So I figured it must be salaries”.

“And are you happy with that?” Why can’t this guy just agree with me?

“It’s a cheap and comfortable ride”, I say to force him to agree on something.

“Suppose they pay the pilots a quarter of industry standard, are you comfortable then?”

“They can’t do that!”

“Suppose they do”.

“Well, they can all fly, can’t they? There are regulations and stuff, right?”

“The captain might be well paid. The co-pilot might be worse off and I am sure these 25-year-old beauties are paid peanuts. The co-pilot might even pay to fly because he needs to log flight time and get flight training. The guy up there in the right seat in the cockpit might be paying more to be on board than any of us passengers. Thing is, there is a quite often a surplus of pilots and would you be comfortable flying with one of the leftovers after all other better paying airlines have hired. Would you go to a low cost surgeon to have a heart transplant, given a choice?”

I just look at him. He’s just turned talkative without booze.

“Have you considered where else they, as you say, cut corners? Have you considered overhaul periods, maintenance, training, duty hours to name a few?”

“Aren’t they kind of the same for all airlines?”

“They’re becoming more and more so because the giants have to cut costs too. I will tell you what has happened to the industry with the advent of cheap airlines, which coincides with the deregulation of the industry. Before that, full service airlines could charge pretty much what they wanted. Some even made money. Almost all had flight crews organized in unions. The unions managed, not without great effort, to secure some of that profit in the form of constantly raised salaries. So your salary idea is not to be disregarded. The thing was, the unions had severe concerns for more than money. To the frustration of many CEOs they worried just as much about flight safety, since money without a life is kind of useless. The CEOs liked to state flight safety was their priority number one also. They didn’t add ‘as long as you could afford it’. Aviation authorities have rules covering every conceivable aspect of aviation safety and that should be sufficient, shouldn’t it? So why should pilots worry about so much. Didn’t we pay them enough to shut up and fly? The problem was that aviation authorities made rules so lenient you might think the mail must get through no matter what. I will give you an example. When NASA got wind of the new duty time regulations suggested by the joint European authorities, pushed and applauded by most airline managers, they had one of their best collective laughs since Armstrong farted live on TV. ‘Do you not even care about all your aircraft’, was their sentiment. What pilots in most flag carriers did through their unions was negotiate, sometimes desperately, for shorter duty periods than allowed by JAA, getting it down from 16 to somewhere between 10 and 12. They sometimes had to sacrifice salary demands in those negotiations to achieve this, thus buying safety for their own money from strangely uncomprehending CEOs. They sometimes traded money for better retirement benefits or better vacations but that’s another matter.”

I have a hard time concentrating now. He’s really taken off. I try to figure out when he breathes between all the words.

“To the frustration of many head offices, pilots poked their nose into areas like maintenance and training, where it to the flying public must be inconceivable that everybody was not in agreement. Anyway, a lot of things have changed. It took some time before the big ones saw the threat. For good reason. They saw low cost airlines as a different product altogether. These emerging budget guys did little more than fly passengers from A to B. They found numerous ways to charge for extras. Guys like you don’t notice that, do you? What you also don’t know is that if this flight is delayed and you miss your connection, there is no help from these people, whereas a regular airline still is obliged to get you onto another connection, find you a hotel, compensate you or whatever. If you check into a low cost and the flight is cancelled they pretty much give you the finger, whereas the regular guys spend enormous sums on rebooking all passengers. Now since the public is short-sighted, the competition grew and the high-cost guys eventually realized they had to do something. They had to lower their fares to stay in business, and to lower their fares they had to lower their costs. What to do? There you go with your salary idea”, he said and caught his breath.

I was silently wondering if he was going to be violent, so I refrained from comments, not that I had any. I had noticed this guy used the word ‘guy’ a lot which wasn’t worth mentioning. He was to me a very, very strange guy. He soon got into gear again.

“They couldn’t even come close to the salary levels for these crews, after all the years of establishing benefits. True especially for the cabin crew, where the low-cost could get pretty and willing girls right off the street, give them two weeks training and have them work for a quarter of the best paid regular ones. The pilots were another matter, since pilots are a world market product with sometimes limited supply, and paid accordingly. The problem with the pilots was their unions who fought harder for their privileges, the more the pressure and competition increased. For the low cost, mentioning a pilots union or any other union for that matter at headquarters was like swearing in church, and any pilot suggesting one was fired on the spot. Eventually the big ones made their unions see the light and salary increases stopped and soon they also started to decrease together with extended working hours. It was called increased productivity.”

Who is this guy, I wondered, and immediately came to think of Butch Cassidy. How can he know so much, I thought and was reminded of a washing machine commercial.

“Now what else could they do while still bulldozing productivity upwards. They thought little of the fact that there is no way in hell an already streamlined airline can cut costs without affecting safety. Overhaul periods were extended. Duty times were finally extended to the by NASA ridiculed JAA/FAA limit. One airline on the American continent doubled their pilots’ salaries to make them fly 16 hours with only two pilots, making that particular union loose its credibility forever. Training was another matter. It was reduced to a minimum. Training, especially simulator training, is a very precious thing. Not only are the pilots not producing revenue. Simulator time cost enormous sums. The number of simulator sessions was cut drastically, pilots got CDs to study at home and safety was maintained basically by the pilots will to survive. One European airline with its own flight academy stuffed with simulators for most commercial aircraft showed how desperate things had become when they decided to sell all daytime simulator time to external customers, forcing their own pilots to train at night, their flight operations office totally losing the trust of their pilots in the process. Many fun stories described instructors finding pilots sleeping, pilots finding instructors sleeping, and occasionally everybody slept. Money was saved here and there in the industry and pencil sharpeners were in big demand in head offices all around the world. Someone noticed that the low cost airlines didn’t have a mechanic around the aircraft at departure anymore, and that was for some strange reason actually approved by the authorities. ‘Now there’s something we have to adapt to. Who will be doing the pre-flight check, then? Well, the pilots of course. Why haven’t we thought of that before and how do we solve that? We give them a folder with all the things they have to know including pictures of tyre wear, give them a one day run-around the aircraft and have them sign that they have adequate training. Modern aircraft seldom break down anyway, do they?’”

He caught his breath again, looked out the window for several seconds, and then back at me. I could tell he wasn’t finished by a long shot. He waited a few seconds more, probably to let everything he had said so far sink in. I could have told him I was fascinated, had he taken the trouble to ask. He seemed very agitated.

“The unions went over the roof on that one. ‘The last bastion of safety is a skilled mechanic,’ they hollered, even demeaning their own possible contribution. The fight lasted for years, but today Pilots Flight Inspection or PFI is a reality. Do you think a non-union pilot puts a technical remark in the aircraft log, severe enough to ground the aircraft before repair is made, at any other station than on his home base, if repair cannot be made on the turn-around station? There are hundreds of cases where a mechanic, they still exist you know, just by chance has come by, seen something the captain has overlooked and managed to stop an aircraft ready for departure. Oil leakage hard to spot, once a broken wheel axis, any odd thing. At one time a captain didn’t notice that the complete forward slat section on one wing had jammed in extended position. Had he gone up in the air, he would have flipped over on his back when he retracted the slats on the other wing! Do you want me to continue?” he asked.

I nodded sheepishly, just to keep him stable.

“Fuel. Fuel was next. Flight operations managers were pressed from above for better results, and the authorities, of course, opened up for less stringent rules. Alternate airport requirements were in some cases disregarded and the need for fuel reserves were lowered. Fuel on board corresponded to kilos and kilos cost fuel to transport. The more fuel remaining after landing, the higher the fuel consumption for that particular flight. A extra kilo on top of gross weight cost approximately 4% per hour to transport. If you could lower the remaining fuel by a ton on 100.000 short haul flights a year an airline could make a fortune, or more precisely 20 million USD at half a buck a kilo – or the equivalent of 10 captains salaries I one of the better paid airlines. Keen Chief Pilots were patted on the back by their superiors for supporting these kinds of fuel savings, even though it meant less safety. The debate in the flight planning rooms was fierce. ‘They’re trying to save peanuts’, some claimed. ‘Every bit counts’, said others.

‘But it is safety we are scarifying. A ton gives us another 30 minutes we might need if there is a problem with the aircraft or with the weather or with the airport.’ ‘It’s never been needed.’ ‘Ha, tell that to the guy who ran out of fuel over New York, killing himself and everyone else on board and even a few on the ground.’ ‘But he planned like an asshole.’ ‘Hell he did, he planned like his chief pilot ordered him to and like our joke of a chief pilot is suggesting.’

The older the pilots, the more fuel reserves. One old-timer muttered ‘the only time you have to much fuel is when you are on fire’. Do you know that this airline we are flying with has had at least two occasions where they have flamed out during roll out after landing due to fuel starvation? They had to be towed in. They simply hadn’t enough fuel to hold for a while in bad weather.”

I have now finally realized that this guy is a big time bitcher. There is almost nothing he is happy about when it comes to flying. I think I know why. He is scared of flying. Normally you compensate that by being aggressive. I want to tell him that I think he is exaggerating. I am too late.

“What would you say if you know that these two jokers up front already now have been working for fourteen straight hours, one possibly with the flu and the other with a headache since they can’t afford to call in sick and loose money or risk being fired since they don’t have a union, and when we arrive after two more hours find the airport closed due to thundershowers, have to wait for half an hour, finds out they don’t have fuel for that, have to divert to another totally unfamiliar airport with not so good weather either and no ILS, feels the pressure so much that the captain has a heart attack, the co-pilot with minimum hours on the aircraft type, who has a hard time finding the men’s room at a strange airport, has to land in marginal weather and finds out during final approach that he has lost one engine. Then, are you happy with your 19 dollar ticket?”

Now I get aggressive too. I try to stay calm, though. He is a big guy.

“That’s unfair. That’s a ridiculous scenario. Why should so much go wrong at the same time? That never happens.”

“It happens during the simulator training. Do you happen to think an airline accident is caused by one thing only? It is always a number of things interacting, and when you pile up more and more problems, eventually one little sometimes insignificant thing caused death and destruction.”

Now I know he is scared of flying.

“I still thing the flying public deserves as cheap transportation as possible,” I venture.

“Now listen carefully, please. Airlines are expensive things to run. They must make a lot of money to run a safe operation. And to stay in business. Since staying in business is a key objective, they must either make money enough, or cut corners. Since authorities like IATA, ICAO, FAAs and CAAs don’t put their feet down, regular and pretty-penny airline managers alike get away with that safety reducing corner cutting. That’s why cheap airlines like these are a real menace, since they force regular airlines into a budget squeeze. And that’s why you have an eternal battle between management and pilots. I know that for a fact. Name one airline with happy pilots and I’ll buy you your next twelve-dollar drink. And I mean happy with their management.”

I realize I will have to skip that drink or pay myself.

“Why do you sit here then, if you’re so negative about this kind of operation?”

“Money, what else.”

Now he surprised me big time. He smiled.

By now it should be clear to – almost – everyone that if you cut every corner possible, if you have to be towed in from the runway due to lack of fuel, if you several times have to holler ”MAYDAY” to get down before everyone else due to fuel shortage/emergency, if you make your pilots pay their own expensive training, if you make them pay for a glass of water onboard, if you pay crew salaries less than anyone else – then you can sell passenger tickets for less than anyone else.

If you have a shit list for captains who order more than absolutely minimum fuel or in any other way is a disturbance, and if you fire anyone who mention a pilots union, you also have a less safe operation. It has been mentioned before and it must be mentioned again.

The Ryanair strike in five different countries shows that finally the number of pilots who demand reasonable working conditions have reached a critical mass. Check also previous article about a pilots union. The integrity of pilots – i.e. not risking being fired when taking a costly decision in the interest of flight safety – is crucial for passenger safety. Read this slowly: You get what you pay for. Worth thinking of next time you’re sitting up there at 35.000 feet. To cherish your next-to-nothing price for an airline ticket, without giving a second thought about why it has become so cheap, is just as clever as ordering the cheapest surgeon for your next by-pass operation.

Good food cost money, good wine cost money…….

 

The prestige of having the longest flights is possibly fading. United is cancelling its Los Angeles – Singapore flight after just one year. Among long flights some stand out. Qatar Airways is Doing – Aukland, Singapore Airlines is planning for a 19 hour flight Singapore – New York and Qantas has a flight Perth – London, considering also an even longer Sidney – London. Realizing that ultra-long flights might not be so popular after all – a lot of people find cutting up the trip in more manageable bits with one or two stop-overs might be more fun and also healthier, Qantas, among others, are looking into how the problem of 3/4 of a full day might affect the passengers.

In an effort to ease the pain of just sitting there, plans are to adapt meal service with consideration to local time at the destination. There might be ingredients in the food to make people sleep better (hopefully you will given the choice), and cabin lights will be adjusted according to the time at the arrival time zone. There are plans to put sensors on passengers (again, hopefully, volunteers) to see how they fare during all those long hours.

Clever passengers will be very interested in how the companies – while pampering the traveling public – plan to care for the crew, i.e. how they man the flight. If they are lucky a responsible pilots union and cabin attendants union will be a guarantee that cost-cutting – the modern plague affecting the airline industry and its safety standard, brought on by the advent of low -cost carriers – will not be allowed to impair flight safety.

On that subject it is worth mentioning that reality and modern employer-employee relationships are finally catching up with the airlines black sheep when it comes to not understanding. Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair, finally had to realize that union building effort cannot be fought against forever. The number of pilots, who were willing to risk their jobs just to stand up for their rights, finally reached a critical mass, and he now has his first strike on his hands. Most likely his airline will be a shade safer, once things settle.

 

A workers union is quite often a pain for companies, since their main mission is to look after their members pay checks, retirement benefits, vacations, insurances and the like. Still, in most advanced societies – read democracies – most employees are organized in labour unions, and regardless of their efforts to be well paid relations are normally pretty good, since responsible unions care quite a lot about the welfare of their company as well. Occasionally a few union representatives are also board members.

A pilots union is all of the above and more. To begin with, their pilots are much more interested in the commercial success of their particular airline, since seniority systems make it expensive to change to another airline. Some call it loyalty. Pilots also care for more than monetary issues – like duty times, training, general flight safety including aircraft overhaul and fuel reserves.

In most airlines CEOs have to rely on their pilots unions to uphold their number one priority – safety – since they rarely are experts in that particular field. The company cost for pilots is measured in how much they are paid and how many duty hours they put in. Since the low cost airlines started eroding economy for the industry in general and authorities then have allowed unreasonable duty times in a misguided effort to help, pilot negotiations have by necessity been including duty time discussions.

Sometimes unions have to trade some pay benefits for more reasonable duty times – like 12 hours instead of 16 for a two-pilot crew – and thus actually buying flight safety for their own money. Money well spent, one might say. For them selves, the company and most important the airline’s passengers.

A tycoon-wannabe Frank Lorenzo sent Eastern Airlines down the drain by not realizing the value of a responsible pilots union, and the ensuing strikes bankrupted the once prestigious airline. Ryanairs Mike O’Leary has kept firing pilots who have whispered ”union” for too long, and now has a strike on his hand. Many other companies keep their pilots non-unionized, believing that they save money that way. Norwegian has a lot of pilots outside the security of a union. And here we come to the core of the problem. Security.

Security means integrity. There are few factors contributing more to flight safety than a captains integrity. A co-pilots as well for that matter. If you have to make a decision – you constantly have to – regarding the safety of the operation of the aircraft and at the same time worry about your employment status, you are not as safe as the passengers have the right to demand. Will I be fired if I take extra fuel due to bad weather, if I ground the aircraft because of too many technical problems, if I cancel the flight because I am so tired I can hardly stand etc. The pilots briefing papers in one non-union airline included a note ”If you take more than flight plan fuel, contact the chief pilot”. Everyone knew what that ment.

If you fly for Ryanair or a number of other low-cost airlines, you get paid by the hour. A bad cold will cost you if you don’t drag yourself to work. If a non-union airline should have an accident it is very likely the reason could be trased to the very fact that the pilots are not unionized. No 1: They have a flow of inexperienced pilots since most of them leave for a better airline – one with a pilots union – as soon as they have acquired more experience and flight time. No 2: Their pilots will fly a plane that should have remained on ground for any number of reasons, and they run a greater risk of running out of fuel – like three Ryanair flights that had to call ”MayDay” the same day over Valencia in order to get on ground before the engines stopped. One aircraft had to be towed from the runway to the terminal once. That’s cutting it short, if anything.

Since any airline becomes a better airline if their pilots can feel safe and thus can concentrate on flying safely, it is a pity – and a huge misunderstanding including lack of communication of facts – that most low cost airlines don’t get it. An even greater pity is that passengers can not vote with their feet, since the information included in passenger travel documents does not state the employment status of the pilots, who pretty soon are going to do their best to bring them from A to B – with uncompromising safety.

 

 

Much too often – almost always – media explains some goings on in the airline industry with: ”The pilot turned the plane around” or ”The pilot decided to make an intermediate landing” or whatever. Now – fortunately low cost madness has not reached that far – there is NEVER only one pilot on board an airliner, contrary to what you might believe reading the paper. So why are media doing this. Are they misinformed after all these years (like 70) of airline operation. Here is information for those who want to know.

An airline crew consists of cockpit (nowadays often referred to as flight deck) crew and cabin crew. The cabin crew consists of boss called different things in different airlines like The Chief Purser (CP), also titled as In-flight Service Manager (ISM), Flight Service Manager (FSM), Customer Service Manager (CSM) or Cabin Service Director (CSD), Cabin Chief, Senior Hostess or Steward, no 1 etc. indication a responsibility to lead the work onboard – in the cabin, not in the cockpit, we’re getting to that – regarding service to passengers and most of all the security procedures. Under her/him are the rest of the cabin crew, also called flight attendants, stewards/stewardesses, air hosts/hostesses, cabin attendants.

In the cockpit/flight deck it is easier – and thus should be easy for media to grasp. That little room up front is populated by Captains and Flight Officers. On any one airliner there is only one Captain who is also the Pilot in Command (PIC), (unless there is an augmented crew due to extensive flight time, but then there is always only one designated Pilot-in-Command (PIC) who is always one of those Captains). With him he has one or more Flight Officers (FO), who serves as a First Officer (F/O) – more often called Co-Pilot – or Second Officer (S/O) in the case of a three-pilot aircraft. Some airlines have a Flight Engineer (F/E) in lieu of a Second Officer – or a System Operator (S/O!) who is a combination of pilot and engineer. Getting complicated?

Let’s simplify. ”Captain” and ”Flight Officer” are titles. On board a captain works as PIC, seated in the left seat normally, and the flight officer is working as first officer/co-pilot (or second officer). Again, most modern airlines carry a captain and a co-pilot. Never less than that. (Automation has done away with the need for engineers, and navigators for that matter). The captain is also PIC and the other guy is always second in command of the aircraft. It might be relevant in this context to mention that the captain is in command of the whole aircraft, including the cabin crew. The first officer takes over this responsibility if necessary. Questions on that?

Now media: ”The PILOTS decided to turn around”, The CAPTAIN decided to make an intermediate landing”. Everyone in the cockpit is a pilot and the captain decides – or preferably they decide in unison. It you report that the pilot is in hospital after an accident it is not only misleading – it is only half the truth. What happened to the other guy?

 

Fatigue is something that hits you when you are physically and/or mentally exhausted, in common terms dead tired. Severe cases of fatigue makes you fall asleep sitting up, unable to make quick and clever – and correct – decisions and you should not be allowed being closer to anything more complicated than a potato peeler. So what does that have to do with aviation?

In the days before the advent of low-cost airlines, things were easy. You organized an airline with all things that were necessary to fly with maximum safety, i.e. well maintained aircraft with adequate fuel reserves, well trained and well rested crew members both in cockpit and cabin etc. – and then you figured out what passengers would have to pay for all that. Those days are gone. Today passengers have been made to believe that flying is something very inexpensive, lured by low fares possible only if you really cut corners wherever possible. Low-cost airlines has led the way and regular airlines struggle to follow suit in order to stay alive. So where is the problem – if there is one, especially since flying is safer than ever?

In order to increase productivity, which translates to among other things getting more working hours out ot every employee, duty times for pilots have increased to sometimes three times as long as for truck drivers. Authorities who should know better listen to the requests from airline managements and grants permission since everything is going so great. Then it suddenly did not. A aircraft fell down killing everybody on board and a few unfortunate souls on the ground. Crash investigation revealed that the captain probably was suffering from fatigue. On top of that it turned out that neither the captain nor the co-pilot had the required skills to handle the difficulties that preceded the accident. The major airline – for which the passengers had bought their tickets – had sub-chartered a cheaper colleague to run some less profitable routes. Authorities suddenly knew very much what to do, and decreased allowed duty times, increased demand on training and experience and did exactly what they should have done before the crash. A trend was reversed, at least for some time, but only after a fatal accident. It is called blood money. Since flight safety is almost 100% these days, and as such its greatest foe, nobody is really interested in pouring billions into something that runs so well – just to reverse goings on that might eventually be dangerous.

Another spectacular accident where an airlines from a major airline disappeared over the south Atlantic revealed some lack of pilot training that today is addressed with whatever extra costs necessary. Same story over Algeria, over the Java sea, after take-off in Asia and during landing in San Francisco, to name a few. Could have been prevented.

Back to fatigue. A trans-Atlantic flight with the more lenient European duty-time regulations are today manned with only two pilots, as opposed to previously three or even four crew members. In order to not have two stare-eyed guys with micro-sleep on short final, a new procedure called ”controlled napping” has been introduced. Some call in ”the one man show” which used to be strictly forbidden. One pilot sleeps for about three quarters of an hour while the other one tries to stay awake. Airlines handles it in various ways. Some makes a stewardess check on the one who is supposed to be awake every fifteen minutes, and occasionally when she enters te cockpit there is unfortunately a ”no-man show”. This is again working until something really dangerous happens. One pilot, who woke up after deep sleep, made a violent maneuver, as not to collide with Venus which shone brightly that night, injuring sixteen people on board. But that was not dangerous enough.

You get what you pay for. That’s something to consider next time you sit there at 35.000 feet. But how can passengers vote with their feet when they have no information. It does not say in the ticket what corners the airline in question has cut. But if you rejoice in having paid almost nothing for your fare, maybe you should think twice. The again – if autopilots are as good as they seem to be today – why worry.

Things run smoothly most of the time, but once in a while there is an issue with an engine, forcing a flight to land prematurely as a precaution. This is never a threat to safety as long as pilots are trained to do just that. It happens about 2-3 times per month and considering the enormous amount of engines out there running continuously, the problem is statistically non-existent.

More often there is an engine-related problem forcing a emergency landing because people has difficulty breathing due to smoke. In most planes the cabin is pressurized by  bleed air from the high pressure pneumatic systems in the engines. If there is a leak there might be smoke entering the cabin, sometimes to a degree that people will need medical attention after landing. In recent constructions there are alternative ways to pressurize the cabin and this kind of mishap may eventually be history. An early clever solution was the 4 cabin compressors in the nose of the DC-8, (also history), providing guaranteed smoke-free cabin pressure. The air intakes for those compressors were slanted on both sides and the saying went; how do you recognize a DC-8. It’s the only airline that smiles back at you.

A couple of times a month people run out of runway and end up more or less bent in the terrain beyond the end of the paved area. As magnificent a B747 may be as an aircraft, its off-road capabilities are utterly disappointing. There is some safety concerns here, but normally the nuisance for the passengers is limited to not being taken to the terminal other than by bus. To the cockpit crew on the other hand it’s a matter of great embarrassment since it normally involves som mis-calculations or not so fancy flying. The fact that half of the worlds runways are to short, preventing aircraft to take-off and land at their maximum structual weight, and preventing airlines maximum profit from their billion-dollar investments, will be dealt with in an other article. It’s one of the dumbest things in the industry, not quite as dumb as tax-free sales before a flight rather than after landing, but close.

The airline industry does a lot of smart moves and a few stupid ones. In the latter category nothing beats tax-free sales at departure. On-board sales might, though. If anyone can come up with one single advantage of selling tax-free articles ahead of a flight instead of after landing, please make a comment below. People go to the airport early enough to be able to shop and then stand waiting idle at the conveyor belt for fifteen minutes grumping that it takes to long for the luggage to arrive. Most often they have no choice. You are not allowed to shop on arrival, at least not booze and tobacco. There are a few exceptions. Reykjavik, New Delhi, Dubai, Marrakech, Oslo Gardemoen of all places and a few other airports allow passengers the same privilege after landing as before take off. And why not.

The list of arguments against pre-flight shopping can be made rather long – and embarrassing. The sheer weight of it all. As a general rule extra kilos cost 4% extra fuel per hour to carry, i.e. one extra ton on a ten hour flight burns up an extra 400 kg of fuel. Environmentalists should go upside down if they knew that every B747 on such a flight, with a full load of passengers who might have bought – apart from the obligatory bottles of whisky and wine – some other stuff amounting to a total of 5 kilos each, will increase the fuel consumption and the atmosphere contamination with 350 x 5 x 4 x 10 = 700 kg.

More advantages:  At departure you might be delayed in check in and security preventing a dash through tax-free. You don’t have to carry the extra kilos. The allowance may amount to twenty pounds if you buy booze, wine, beer and cosmetics. More room on board. No fire hazard. No easily available weapon. The most common weapon in a bar brawl is a broken bottle. Since tax-free shops refuse to sell plastic bottles, you can also easily make a Molotov cocktail, if you think things are boring. And again – the weight. Ambitious airlines are reducing their potable water uplift by a couple of hundred kilos – and fuel reserves – to save weight!

If you have nothing to do, bring out a pen and paper and calculate for yourselves how much fuel is wasted for no reason whatsoever. These days where every little thing counts, when it comes to pollution. Just check two thousand heavy jets flying ten hours minimum with some two hundred and fifty some passengers having bought four pounds of something. That’s half a ton per flight. Ten hours makes forty percent or two hundred kilos wasted. Each day these two thousand wide bodies together burn four hundred thousand kilos (400 tons) extra. Again, for no reason. Short haul might contribute just as much by sheer numbers.

The habit of charter airlines to carry tons of stuff to the destination and back to provide pre-pack sales in the seats to returning vacationers is to dumb to bring up. They could just as easily pick it up in the arrival hall, had regulations allowed it. And there we have it. Could all various decision makers, be it customs officers, airline CEO’s, tax-free shop owners or whatever be forced to solve this or never be brought back from the conference center they were forced to go to, to discuss the issue, there would be no more reason for red cheeks in this industry. Fortunately things are moving in the right direction. In the arrival hall tax-free shop at Gardemoen airport, Oslo, people are shopping like crazy.