Airline Bankruptcy/Merger/Layoffs Thread

eXpat · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jun 08, 2006 Posts: 1081

BA chief warns 'airlines will go bust' lnk

CarlosFerreira

TAP, Portuguese national airline, posts 136 million Euros (not dollars!) of losses in the period between January and June 2008.

PeakOiler

My brother is a FedEx pilot. He told me the other day that FedEx is also cutting back on flights. Companies and people are shipping/sending less stuff. No layoffs yet, but there's talk.
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hope_full · Heavy Crude Joined: May 27, 2008 Posts: 271

This weekend I had my first experience with Delta Airlines and I hope it'll be my last. I usually fly American or United. I flew from East Coast to West Coast (quickie trip) and it was not a pleasant experience.

It may be hard to see in this photo (snapped with my cell phone), but this appears to be a PATCH of sheet metal on the wing of a very, very aged MD-80. And the patch had been painted with gray spray paint which was bubbling and flaking off.

If you look close at this low-resolution photo, you can see a row of rivets along the leading edge of the scabbed-on patch. The photo doesn't do it justice, but in real life, you could see this wasn't part of the original wing. (This was the last of four planes I was on for my journey to the West Coast.)

The interior of the plane wasn't much better. The pre-molded plastic sections that form the interior walls were warped and bent and twisted, and sitting in my window seat, I could look down the wall line and see how damaged each panel was. In one spot, I could see the wiring harnesses up above, due to an opening in the molding.

When we took off, the plane shuddered and shimmied and another passenger commented that she'd never been on such a "creaky, noisy old plane" in her whole life.

On the first leg of this journey (on a nice, new CRJ-700) we had to make an *emergency stop* to take on more fuel and that was only a 600-mile flight!!! Apparently, these airlines are cutting things a LITTLE too close.

I wonder about Delta's future. These old planes are very, very scary (IMHO). And I'd be grateful if one of the aviation people here could explain to me why this MD-80 appears to have a bandaged wing.

AirlinePilot

I am a Captain on the Md-80 with Delta. That "scabbed on patch is not to fix the sheet metal its a mod done to the aircraft (the entire fleet) to solve an issue of ice buildup along that portion of the wing due to cold soaked fuel. Its a fix to a probelm the DC-9 has had since its design back in the 50's. It may not be cosmetically perfect, but it does the job. Its a heated plastic lke substance which keeps ice from formiing over the cold soaked upper wing after landing in places like florida where its really humid. It keeps chunks of ice from forming and peeling off after takeoff and ruining your engines.

I dont know how much you fly, and Im not defending our inept management, but you probably had some very experienced flight crews who made sure you did not fly on an unsafe aircraft.

Truthfully, after seeing everything going on in our industry over the last few years, there are no "good" airlines left. Its been a race to the bottom for customer service. You can pick and choose all you like, but the only thing you can count on is luck for a "good" experience for any air travel these days. I talk to a lot of folks who travel regularly and we still have folks who say we are doing it better than others at Delta, but my belief is the experience will differ little on US domestic carriers. More will have to do with what day you fly, the route, and the weather than anything else.

The MD-88 at Delta enjoys a very good safety record and a very high dispatch reliability even though its an older model. I'd suggest your going to hear and see similar things on everything but the newest jets as that is just the nature of the beast. Take that as an experienced opinion from one who does a lot of the flying "up front" and has many, many miles sitting in the back too.

By the way, ALL of Americans MD-80's are far older than our MD-88's, every one of them. We fly some of the youngest MD-80 series aircraft in the world.

United is once again near bankruptcy and the employee morale there is some of the lowest in the industry. As far as those regional jets go, I agree totally with you and your experience is duplicated daily at ANY AIRLINE that utilizes them, not just Delta. They are a poor replacement for a real airliner and a substandard product for anything but shorter flights.

GASMON

Not all bad news. Etihad places world's largest aircraft order for $43bn link
Etihad's order yesterday included firm purchases worth $11 billion from Airbus, including 10 double-decker A380s, 25 of the new A350, which will be powered by Rolls-Royce engines, and 20 smaller A320 aircraft. The airline also placed options for a further 10 A380s and 45 Airbus planes. Etihad's firm orders with Boeing totalled $9 billion and included 35 787 Dreamliners and 10 777 with options for a further 50 aircraft.
Guess these guys mean business.
Gasmon
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CarlosFerreira

sameu

Brussels airlines is encouraging their personel to come up with ideas to save fuel Laughing

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dorlomin · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Aug 05, 2007 Posts: 1151

Worldwide capacity is to be cut by 60 million seats in the final quarter of 2008, about 7% of the total, exceeding the post 9/11 cut in percentage of seats (5%)

Link The report hints next year could be worse.

smallpoxgirl · Moderator Joined: Nov 08, 2004 Posts: 6470

AirlinePilot

SPG,

The bottom line is the NWA/ DAL merger is an attempt to become "too big to fail". It has some synergies (I hate that word) but ultimately we just get really big and have the same damn problems. We will see.

Guess who will benefit from this deal in the end...?

I think folks experience is only attributable to what day you fly, where your going and the weather, and the luck of the draw. I stand by my statement that there are no truly outstanding airlines left.

It's all just degrees of misery and management ineptitude.

virgincrude

hope-full reminded me of the worst flight I ever took a couple of years ago, on the Pakistan national carrier. It was an old 727, the interior utterly shabby (in keeping with the nation's general standard), interior lighting was intermittent before take off, and failed to towrk throughout the flight, my overhead seat reading light came on when the seat NEXT to mine switched ITS switch, and vice-versa, the reclining seat did not recline, others refused to stay upright, the individual screen on the seats in our row did not work an the plane had a disconcerting, weird 'waggle' at the back end throughout the flight. Not to mention the truly hair raising shakes, and grumbles during take-off. There were numerous families with babies under 1 year old travelling, and not a single child-harness/seat belt was handed out or used.

Before every flight, PIA emits a prayer over the intercom and the pilot always says "God willing, we shall reach our destination." On this ocassion, it seemed the staff and crew had laid their hopes (and those of the stuffed plane) in God's hands, rather than in the more capable of the ground crew and staff.

A couple of weeks later, Europe banned PIA from entering airspace in any of their older aircraft (which included the 727 we'd flown on) until they could maintain standards of mechanical and security issues. The airline had run down its fleet to the minimum and bellow minimum requirements. Within Pakistan of course, there was yet another fatal crash.

Of course, stories like this are legion among the African and Asian carriers, the US and European Union stringent laws and standards ensure this kind of thing won't happen. Instead, we'll just increasingly be treated like livestock: RyanAir Flights Cancelled

And: RyanAir Plan Flies in the Face of Airline Wisdom

God forbid RyanAir be among the 'last men standing' among European carriers, you get better treatment from a sausage fingered proctologist ....

nemo

SAS Scandinavian Airlines announced today that they're laying of 500 employees.

edit: English language source linky

Ayame

Another one goes bump:

Zoom heads towards administration
Transatlantic budget carrier Zoom Airlines has admitted it is applying to go into administration. The announcement came after one of its planes was detained at Glasgow Airport on Thursday for non-payment of air traffic control charges. UK-Canadian Zoom blamed its problems on the "horrendous" price of aviation fuel and the wider economic slowdown. People due to travel on Zoom have been told to check their flight's status. bbc report

lper100km

Zoom Airlines shuts down: link