@mbrews - Yes, I was thinking the same. By flying this A220 trial ballon, Southwest is telling it’s favored and only aircraft supplier, Boeing, that they’ll still have to earn Southwest’s business, and telling Airbus that there’s opportunity to earn a new customer. Setting up a competition will make Boeing especially, and also Airbus, sharpen their pencils when it comes to pricing. Also, I believe Southwest is the launch customer for the 737-7 MAX, with 30 on order, so Boeing may have to sweeten that deal to avoid its possible cancellation or conversion to -8s.

(Written on 2020年10月30日)(Permalink)

So, the HAL DC-10 loaded enough fuel at SMF to go to HNL as the alternate, but was able to land at SFO? That seems like a lot of fuel to land with but I guess not enough to make it an overweight landing. Interesting story. My only flights aboard the 747 were in 1990, PHX-HNL round trip on America West, which operated some ex-KLM 747s back then. Good times, good memories.

(Written on 2020年10月16日)(Permalink)

Put some canvas over the air holes, then the pax inside wouldn’t need to wear masks. Or....use the boxes as passenger discipline tools: Passenger: I’d like to upgrade to first class, please. Gate Agent: I’m sorry, sir, there are no seats available. Passenger (yelling): I have eight kajillion frequent flyer miles, whaddaya mean I can’t get a better seat? Gate Agent: That’s it, you’re in the box. No upgrade for you!!

(Written on 2020年10月13日)(Permalink)

Beyond the as-usual informative comment by Captain Buck, the Boeing 2707 article on Wikipedia offers some interesting background on the unrealized effort in the 60s and early 70s to develop an American SST with federal government funding. The daunting obstacles that effort faced - high cost, high projected fuel use, environmental pollution, sonic boom - are still to be climbed.

(Written on 2020年10月11日)(Permalink)

Back in May Southwest announced a sale-and-lease-back deal for 20 airplanes, raising $815 million. Seems like a lot of money but doesn’t go far when you’re looking at quarterly losses in the $billions. I suppose they could do more deals like that but it’s not exactly a seller’s market just now as Frank Harvey pointed out.

(Written on 2020年10月10日)(Permalink)

This relatively small XB-1 is a test and research airplane, intended to support design of the proposed larger 65-to-88 pax Overture supersonic airliner. I suppose Boom could develop the XB-1 into a smaller supersonic bizjet, if enough billionaires salivate over that possibility.

(Written on 2020年10月07日)(Permalink)

I remember arriving at SYR in the early ‘70s in a DC10. No jet bridges back then, the gate piers were one level at the ramp, walk-in, walk-out. From the top of the stairs at DC10-height you could see across the whole airport. Another SYR memory: once I arrived for a People Express flight to EWR to find the gate area very crowded. Turned out an earlier departure was delayed so there were two planes on the ramp. When I walked out to board I asked an agent on the ramp “I’m on flight such-and-such, which plane is it?” The answer was something like “Doesn’t matter, just pick one.” So much for an accurate passenger manifest! Jet bridges by comparison are no fun.

(Written on 2020年09月29日)(Permalink)

Whatever greeting it takes to get passengers to pay attention to the safety briefings is okay by me.

(Written on 2020年09月29日)(Permalink)

It’s a prototype, things could change, the turbo-diesel might or might not be used in a production version....or, the designers get better fuel efficiency from the diesel than they could get using a turbine.

(Written on 2020年09月29日)(Permalink)

I’ve read that the 747-8 will be the only four-engine type that Lufthansa will continue to fly.

(Written on 2020年09月22日)(Permalink)