Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 30 Mar 2013 10:02

De-certification to ETOPS 120 would be a significant blow to the 787, considering it had ETOPS 180 and wanted provisional ETOPS-210/240 certification. Airbus would be very happy. There's going to be enormous pressure behind the scenes at FAA to maintain US H&D by retaining at least ETOPS 180.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 31 Mar 2013 20:46

787 ETOPS Threat Dismissed As Speculation

Another issue that also appears to have taken Boeing off-guard is a report from Reuters that the FAA may be considering imposing a temporary restriction of the 787’s extended twin operations (ETOPS) clearance as a result of the battery modification. The ETOPS clearance allows the twin-engine aircraft to operate up to 330 min. flying time from a primary or alternate airport. ETOPS approval is pivotal to the 787’s viability because it allows the aircraft to be used over long routes traditionally reserved for three- and four-engine aircraft.

Calling the Reuters report “pure speculation,” Boeing says that VP/Chief Project Engineer Mike Sinnett’s statements last month in Tokyo that “there will be no restrictions on the aircraft and no limit to ETOPS,” reflect the company’s position. The FAA, which will only begin to review the data for compliance with the AD following the certification flight of Line No. 86, says it is premature to say if there will be any change to the current certification base of the 787.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 02 Apr 2013 09:13

First A350 XWB Gets Its Engines, APU

The pair of new Trent engines, each designed to produce 84,000 pounds of thrust for the A350-900, arrived in Toulouse from UTC Aerospace Systems (formerly Goodrich), which recently prepared the fully integrated powerplants before their installation on the aircraft’s pylons. On February 7 the Trent XWB received EASA engine type certification following 3,100 hours of operation, including a series of test flights on Airbus’ A380 flying test bed (FTB) since the first engine prototype took to the air in February last year.

With installation last week of the airplane’s Honeywell APU, specially developed for the A350, MSN001 becomes essentially a “completed” aircraft. Airbus plans to hand over MSN001 to the Airbus Flight Test team for first flight preparations following ongoing ground tests, other mechanical preparations and painting in the coming weeks. It expects to fly the airplane for the first time this summer, roughly a year ahead of planned certification of the A350-900.

Airbus has collected firm orders from 35 customers for 415 A350-900s, 110 A350-1000s and 92 A350-800s.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 02 Apr 2013 14:15

How the Sukhoi Superjets Are Being Built

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Apr 2013 11:41

latest figures off rediff confirm the new king:

IndiGo
Market share: 27.4%
IndiGo, which had the maximum passenger load factor (average number of seats filled in each aircraft) at 85.4 per cent.

Jet Airways and JetLite
Market share: 25.4%

SpiceJet (Rank 3)
Market share: 20.4%

Air India (Rank 4)
Market share: 18.9%

GoAir (Rank 5)
Market share: 7.8%

all of KFs 25 a/c are off the market and either gathering dust or reclaimed by lessors. its over for them.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Apr 2013 11:42

Air Asia has received permission to enter market I think. they will be a strong player soon given their track record and huge network in asean.

VinodTK · Post by **VinodTK** » 07 Apr 2013 21:49

Emirates flew more persons in and out of India than Air India

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 07 Apr 2013 22:58

WoW considering Emirates is expensive to fly , so people pay more to get good service and ontime schedule.

Indigo seems doing great but customer are the ultimate winner here.

vishvak · Post by **vishvak** » 07 Apr 2013 23:13

Air Asia offering flights to Bangkok, among many, on the net in lot of 2 million initial tickets sold cheap.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 08 Apr 2013 02:03

After checking the new service timings of Etihad it looks like it is trying to replicate what Qatar has done to capture US east coast traffic. Get to the cities in India within 22 hr of boarding the flight from the east coast of the US. Now I will have a second choice. No wonder the prices for Qatar has dropped by a few hundred dollars already even for peak summer travel. Now, only if Emirates would also follow that act. Three choices and competition among them would help those looking for deals.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 08 Apr 2013 03:54

Indigo is reaping the rewards of running a tight ship and focussing on on-time performance. A few years ago when they ordered tons of aircraft at Paris or Farnborough people laughed at them. They've turned out to be the anti-KF in the market - quiet and efficient .

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 08 Apr 2013 07:48

Jet has been stagnating for quite a few years now - nothing new, nothing noteable...

manish · Post by **manish** » 08 Apr 2013 08:57

Singha wrote:Jet has been stagnating for quite a few years now - nothing new, nothing noteable...

But SpiceJet is by far the worst nowadays, on multiple fronts.

They are expanding like crazy and things seem to be stretched too thin on the ground (and air!).

Over the course of past one year both me and SHQ have been victims of their mismanagement - frequent delays/rescheduling, unsympathetic and seemingly unprofessional cabin crew, the list goes on. And add to it the fact that they seem to refuse to use aerobridges across most airports in India (unlike Indigo) only makes the overall experience worse.

Heck, your typical KSRTC Airavata service seems to be better delivered and the crew better behaved than these TFTA types!

manish · Post by **manish** » 08 Apr 2013 10:10

Marten wrote:We've had a few bad experiences with Spicejet, but Indigo cancelled flights on two occasions, leaving family members stranded. Both refused to book on Indigo again. Spice was horrible though; refusing to allow us to disembark despite a four hour delay from the original schedule.

Hmm..for all the virtues that Indigo's centralized uber-efficient business model offers, it also has some downsides which seem to become apparent only when there is a service failure as in cases of flight cancellations or delays to due fog etc.

In many cases, you won't even get minimal help from the Indigo staff at the airport who tend to ask you to direct all your queries and complaints straight to their HQ. This model generally doesn't help at all when you are at the receiving end as a harried and frustrated passenger.

Indigo does seem to lack a 'Human touch' to its ops.

Deans · Post by **Deans** » 08 Apr 2013 16:02

VinodTK wrote:Emirates flew more persons in and out of India than Air India

True. The insider joke in the industry, is that Emirates is our national airline !

Deans · Post by **Deans** » 08 Apr 2013 16:11

manish wrote:
Singha wrote:Jet has been stagnating for quite a few years now - nothing new, nothing noteable...
But SpiceJet is by far the worst nowadays, on multiple fronts.

They are expanding like crazy and things seem to be stretched too thin on the ground (and air!).

Over the course of past one year both me and SHQ have been victims of their mismanagement - frequent delays/rescheduling, unsympathetic and seemingly unprofessional cabin crew, the list goes on.

Spice has slipped several points on load factor (the most important factor which determines profitability) over the past year.
The Q-400's should have given a boost to revenues (given that KF vacated several lucrative routes on the ATR) but that has not yet happened.

On `On time performance' -OTP (defined as departure within 15 mins of scheduled time) Indigo averages 90% (95% in non fog months
and 80%+ in the worst of fog season) while Spice, to the best of my knowledge is in the Mid 80's.
The figures used to be updated on the DGCA website but not of late.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 08 Apr 2013 17:56

spicejet - on a flight last year could see the upholstery had been patched up by a tailor with visible patches and sewing along the seams.
goes with the rough and ready state transport bus look.

I only hope they are not skimping on the engineering side.

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 09 Apr 2013 21:15

There are several photos of Newly opened Kolkata Airport. On My recent in/out trip I took some snapshots. Images are resized and reduced in size for uploading. Amateur photos.

Under construction , parts of new airport

Lack of adequate sinage is obvious. But looks very TFTA phoren type airport except for predominant bong sdres moving around with look of pride in their eyes.

Gawd knows whennew Chennai terminal will open. Old one looks like dirty bus terminal of muffasil. Koyambedu is far better

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 09 Apr 2013 23:10

So AAI can deliver on their promises and no need for swiss and others to get a boxy glass house. I am impressed and look forward to landing there again some day.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 09 Apr 2013 23:21

Looks quite good indeed.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 11 Apr 2013 00:11

India To Ease Business Jet Rules

India is about to relax rules that severely restrict the flexibility of business jets to visit or overfly that country.

The application time for a landing permit will be reduced from seven working days to three, and for an overflight from three days to one, according to local reports.

“This is a huge benefit to the whole of the business aviation industry,” says Lex den Herder, divisional vice president for government and industry affairs at flight services company Universal Weather and Aviation. The company has spearheaded industry efforts to change the rules since late 2010.

“The restrictions have been a big stumbling block to doing business in India,” he says. “Seven working days for a landing permit meant it could take up to two weeks to arrange a change in schedule. The result was that businessmen with a sudden need to visit would take the airlines instead of their private jet, or wouldn’t go at all.

“And three working days for permission to overfly the crossroads of southern Asia — for example, from Dubai to Singapore — was a great inconvenience. To fly around India could add two hours to the flight time.”

India imposed the restrictions after an illegal weapons drop by a low-flying turboprop cargo plane in the Purulia district of West Bengal in 1995.

Universal says it is now awaiting official notice of the relaxed regulation.

Javee · Post by **Javee** » 11 Apr 2013 05:04

Chennai Airport promo video, rather long at 12 min, weird voice over, overall decent publicity effort by AAI. Supposedly, Chennai airport has the first integrated multi-modal transfer station (Road, rail and metro) in India.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 14 Apr 2013 09:21

Lion Air 737-800 crashes into sea while landing at Bali

He says that the initial reports indicate that the aircraft, which was on a scheduled service from Bandung to Bali, veered off the runway 50m before its end while landing and went into the sea. The incident took place at 0355h local time.

He adds that there were "over 100" passengers on board and all are safe.

manish · Post by **manish** » 14 Apr 2013 10:48

Austin wrote:Lion Air 737-800 crashes into sea while landing at Bali

He says that the initial reports indicate that the aircraft, which was on a scheduled service from Bandung to Bali, veered off the runway 50m before its end while landing and went into the sea. The incident took place at 0355h local time.

He adds that there were "over 100" passengers on board and all are safe.

Apparently the Boeing was a late 2012 manufactured piece, which was delivered to Lion Air only during Feb 2013 - ouch!

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 14 Apr 2013 12:23

they have ordered a gigantic number of 787 and A320 for the size of indonesian economy. must be having plans to be the Air Asia - MKI of the east.
other than Bali and perhaps the yogyakarta-borobudur circuit, indonesia is presently not so well known in the tourist ckts worldwide....there are lot of interesting places like spice islands (molucca islands), the indonesian part of borneo island and ofcourse sumatra but things are not so smooth in getting into these locales vs say 2nd tier places in thailand (chiang rai, chiang mai, phuket) or malaysia (penang, kuching, sarawak, johor bahru etc)..only the hardy western backpacker types like alfred molon seems to have extensively toured the 1000s of islands in indonesia.

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 15 Apr 2013 06:00

saw it was a 737-800

spanking new plane

interesting to see the eventual cause analysis

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 16 Apr 2013 10:12

Flyers cheer opening of new domestic terminal

After a five-year wait, much to the relief of air passengers, the new domestic terminal at the Chennai airport is finally up and running.

For most passengers, who for long have been frustrated with the archaic and poorly-maintained old terminal, the new one is a welcome change.

“I particularly love the design aspect of the terminal with its glass structure. The arches spanning across the ends look spectacular. The new terminal is a welcome change for regular travellers,” said the 25-year-old.
....
....

“The new terminal definitely looks stylish and comfortable but I doubt it can be compared to Delhi or Hyderabad. It will be far more of a pleasure to spend time in it now, but I’m certain there is still room for improvement,” she said.

For most, cleaner washrooms and an uncluttered baggage collection area seem to be the best features of the new terminal.

Finally some relief.
Will be flying out on 20th/26th and try to get some day/night photus.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 16 Apr 2013 12:16

the CCU airport in style, greenish material looks similar to the BGL T1.

BGL T1 is btw being expanded to around 1.5 times its current size by extending it on both sides and enlargeing the covered area in front. should be able to cater to growth for another 5 yrs on completion, before T2 will be needed.

best thing about BGL is , there is plenty of land to build a Suvarnabhumi type uber-facility here eventually.

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 16 Apr 2013 13:05

Singha wrote:the CCU airport in style, greenish material looks similar to the BGL T1.

BGL T1 is btw being expanded to around 1.5 times its current size by extending it on both sides and enlargeing the covered area in front. should be able to cater to growth for another 5 yrs on completion, before T2 will be needed.

best thing about BGL is , there is plenty of land to build a Suvarnabhumi type uber-facility here eventually.

Suvanabhumi is excellent but ceiling exuded Rawness with uncovered ducting. Its quite big and striking in look. In CCU there were White Pipes below ceiling on GF which gave semblance of false ceiling unless one were looking directly above. FF ceiling gave feeling of space and is more attractive then Suvanabhumi. I think I have some snaps of Suvanabhumi, will post If I could search it on my HDD.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 16 Apr 2013 17:14

Shit happens and even newer bird fails , 737 has been a very reliable workhorse ....lets see what comes out of the accident report ,

The last time an accident happened of overshooting the runway with a Tu-204 was caused by combination of brake failure and thrust reverser issue

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 17 Apr 2013 00:08

Lion Air has a history of incidents:

On 14 January 2002, Lion Air Flight 386, a Boeing 737-200 crashed on take-off and was written off; no one died.
On 30 November 2004, Lion Air Flight 538, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, crashed in Surakarta; 25 people died.[28]
On 4 March 2006, Lion Air Flight 8987, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, crashed after landing at Juanda International Airport.[29] Reverse thrust was used during landing, although the left thrust reverser was stated to be out of service.[29] This caused the aircraft to veer to the right and skid off the runway, coming to rest about 7,000 feet (2,100 m) from the approach end of the runway.[29] No-one died; the aircraft was badly damaged.[29]
On 24 December 2006, Lion Air Flight 792, a Boeing 737-400, landed with an incorrect flap configuration and was not aligned with the runway.[30] The plane landed hard and skidded along the runway causing the right main landing gear to detach, the left gear to protrude through the wing and some of the aircraft fuselage to be wrinkled.[30] No one died and the aircraft was written off.[30]
On 9 March 2009, Lion Air Flight 793, a McDonnell Douglas MD-90-30 (registration PK-LIL) ran off the runway at Soekarno–Hatta International Airport. No-one was injured.[31]
On 2 November 2010, Lion Air Flight 712, a Boeing 737-400 (registration PK-LIQ) overran the runway on landing at Supadio Airport, Pontianak, coming to rest on its belly and sustaining damage to its nose gear. All 174 passengers and crew evacuated by the emergency slides, with few injuries reported.[32]
On 13 April 2013, Lion Air Flight 904, a Boeing 737-800 (registration PK-LKS) from Bandung to Denpasar with 108 people on board, crashed into the water near Denpasar/Bali while attempting to land. The aircraft’s fuselage broke into two parts.[33] While Indonesian officals reported the aircraft crashed short of the runway[33], reporters and photographers from Reuters and the Associated Press indicated that the plane overshot the runway.[34][35] All passengers and crew were evacuated from the aircraft and there were no fatalities.[33]

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 17 Apr 2013 02:28

The worst place to have wind shear is when the AC is nigh short of the runway. From what i have read, it broke through cloud cover at 500m alt. Implies around 1.5 km from runway if all was well at descent which i expect was till then. That is also the time when thrust would have been marginally adjusted to keep up with the classic 1:3 descent. My guesstimate is around 200-250 m alt (0.75 km from runway) it hit downward draft and it's throttle was not adequately high to ward it off. The plane rapidly descended, but lower shear at the bottom and the speed made it possible to absorb the impact. The AC would be at the point of impact around 400 meters from runway. Point of stopping in the water thus would be around 50-100 meters just before the runway. Give or take a few meters alt or lateral distance, this would be exactly what happened. But then it's JMT..

manish · Post by **manish** » 19 Apr 2013 09:01

GMR, GVK protest ministry move to expand Etihad access into India

New Delhi: India’s airlines and airports have opposed a request by Jet Airways (India) Ltd to increase the number of seats between Abu Dhabi and India by almost 400% because such a move would likely make the West Asian city a hub for flights in and out of the country, at the cost of an Indian airport.

Those against the plan include GMR Infrastructure Ltd, which runs Delhi and Hyderabad airports; GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd, which runs the Mumbai and Bangalore airports; the state-owned Airports Authority of India (AAI) that runs most of the other airports in the country, and airlines including state-owned Air India, InterGlobe Aviation Ltd-owned IndiGo, and SpiceJet Ltd.

GMR and GVK, which have together spent $7 billion (around Rs.38,500 crore today) on the development of the four airports, told the ministry at a Thursday meeting that allowing such sweeping access to Etihad would mean India will never have an airport hub of its own, according to two people familiar with matter who were present at the meeting and who didn’t want to be identified.
“We created a hub for India in Dubai by allowing Emirates so many rights to India. Now we are making another hub in Abu Dhabi. This cannot be allowed. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said at the inauguration of Delhi airport that Delhi would be made the new hub for India,” said one of the two people.

The granting of rights to Emirates, made when Praful Patel was aviation minister, have been criticized by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), which said India’s interests were not protected in the bilateral talks with Dubai. CAG had told the government in its audit that more flying rights should not be granted till India had its own hub.

But how do we build a hub without more flying rights to populate the hubs with flights

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 19 Apr 2013 10:00

Emirates and Etihad's model is to use their own bases (DXB and AUH respectively) as hubs and fly to points within India, not directly into Indian hubs only. I support GMR and GVK here - it is our airlines that should get more access to feed both transit and O&D passengers out of DEL and BOM.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 19 Apr 2013 18:58

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthrea ... 883&page=3

new terminal at bhubaneswar opened a month ago.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 19 Apr 2013 19:02

Etihad chief said in a interview if given permission he would fly to some 25+ places in india direct from his den. he wants all desis to fly to his den and than use etihad (or jet) to reach the final destination in one hop.

and these gulf airlines have handsomely paid off indian political class to make sure that happens.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 20 Apr 2013 02:15

Emirates and Etihad getting this much access to our air traffic is outrageous. Why the eff are we building hubs at DEL/BOM if we simultaneously give others point access that will underutilize those hubs AND break our carriers' legs by preventing their rapid overseas expansion ? Extremely poor and uncoordinated aviation policymaking here. Emirates' viability is significantly tied to their current status as our de facto flag carrier. At least this is something that can, and hopefully will, be rolled back in favor of greater incentive for domestic carriers and foreign ones to use DEL/BOM as hubs. British and Australian carriers, for example, can be encouraged to use BOM as a stopover on the Kangaroo route to Sydney/Melbourne; BOM is approx 6000 miles from Sydney.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 20 Apr 2013 02:31

But to use BOM/DEL as hubs they have to provide for better connectivity (within 2-3 hrs) as well as convenient transfers for transiting passengers with luggage. These two simple things have not been addressed so far from my experience of flying out of these two hubs.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 20 Apr 2013 02:49

Absolutely agreed with that. There's no policy framework in place right now to run a proper hub. That includes making the transit process seamless - easy through checkin of luggage to non-hub locations, timing of spoke flights, the works. Right now, they're actively ruining the potential of the hub itself, and hampering the growth of domestic airlines. EK/EH are popular because they take all that away and do it in DXB/AUH, and mint billions for themselves in the process.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Apr 2013 11:59

Er i think the high airport charged and cost of aviation fuel in india vs the state subsidized gulf hubs is a huge issue. On long hopping flights they will reduce weight by carrying fuel for first hop and refuel there.

If you want a hub for other airlines to use then make sure such costs are very competitive or else subsidize your own national champions and make them huge airlines like emirates or singapore.

We are neither here or there, just selling our family silver to the highest bidder. There is a saying in dilli that some pawarful politicians for paid a revenue share per seat they sold away to the gulf carriers