I'm with you on this. I smell a way to save on fuel costs. No need to tell me that the airline has hedged their fuel costs for the year. Perhaps there is a proviso in the contract that states if the price goes over a certain amount, the hedge price will come unhinged. It seems to me that an entire fleet of MD80's would not have the same problem all at the same time over all these years of them being in existence. Something smells. The airlines are trying to meet their annual fuel budget. Just a guess!
AA grounds the sp80 fleet....
- Thread starter alexe
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I'm with you on this. I smell a way to save on fuel costs. No need to tell me that the airline has hedged their fuel costs for the year. Perhaps there is a proviso in the contract that states if the price goes over a certain amount, the hedge price will come unhinged. It seems to me that an entire fleet of MD80's would not have the same problem all at the same time over all these years of them being in existence. Something smells. The airlines are trying to meet their annual fuel budget. Just a guess!
Travel insider seems to think you can cozy up to the FAA and get an extension on an AD. Isn't this what WN did, look at what happened then. AA is taking it up the wazoo now because of it. If these AD's must be followed to the letter, they must be written in bullet proof understandible form.
Do write him and let him know. David M Rowell, aka The Travel Insider, loves to get email. He'll probably mention your emails in his next newsletter.
Right because I'm sure the cost of fueling the MD-80's more than compensates for all of the expenses associated with shutting down more than half of the domestic operation :down: Those food vouchers, hotel vouchers, $500 vouchers for future travel, the costs of planes and crews being completely out of position, the overtime costs for MD-80 rewirings, the PR costs of stranding close to half a million passengers over 4 days, and so much more all must have added up to next to nothing. :blink: :huh:
D
DallasConehead
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Did a full blown Cat 3 replacement last night. Which means from top to bottom complete replace of the sleeving, all clamps, hardware, and string ties. Start to finish for 2 AMTs was about 12 hours with 2 good breaks (45 minute variety). This is a very labor intensive job and one that I will not do again if I have the choice. The reason for the complete rework on this one was that the sleeving previously installed had little cuts in it. I suspect this small but significant damage occurred during installation as the positioning of the bundle is behind numerous hydraulic lines and cables. Also several of the clamps had clipnuts which needed to be replaced by a simple locknut and washer arrangement. Sleeving installation has to begin at the top near the feed through at 3 inched +/- 1/2 inch of the slant panel. Our method was to completely release the bundle and pull it all out as much as we could above the cables. Install the new sleeving, begin at the top with the sting ties, to about a 1/3 point on the bundle and then pull it back down into the run, at this point the sleeving was completely string tied to a point that ended after the control cables, the next task was the most difficult, installing the ties while the bundle was behind numerous hydraulic lines. This included inserting the anti ice temp sensor wiring which enters the bundle sleeving at this point. All in all very labor intensive and difficult. Our string ties were spaced at exactly 1 inch throughout the run. Once finished with the ties behind the lines we began to install the clamping and the "snaptube". Snaptube is an additional protective device that goes over the sleeving for certain length that should extend out from the clamps holding it for 1/2 inch on either end. It is stringtied and clamped in place. We finished clamping along the top half of the run and then finished installing the sleeving at the bottom measuring it to and exact length were it ends within 1/2 inch of the connector backshell. At this time 2 ground wires had to emerge from the bundle at an exact spot between the lower clamps and should be positioned a certain way (over the bundle then down to the stud). The stud had to be installed in a certain way which we had to correct. The anti ice sensor wires had to emerge from the bundle at an exact point 12 inches from the backshell. With the sleeving completely installed and all string ties precisely installed we began clamping the lower half, all clamps have to be oriented per the paperwork with the hardware arrangement as specified, which included locknuts and washers. Clipnuts were removed from this area. Installation of the clamps was time consuming as the finished product had to result with the connector attaching to the pump in a way that didn"t have to much slack or didnt come up short. This involved releasing the lower clamps once more to get length exact then reinstalling. One clamp under a large hydraulic quick disconnect T fitting is most difficult. It sits on a ¾ inch stand off spacer and required a married clamp butterfly arrangement for the sensor wiring. BTW this was the only area were we got kicked back on the QA buyback. The paperwork didnt mention the married clamps in this area for the sensor wiring so we elected not to install it the first time. But since our sensor wires broke out of the bundle at exactly 12 inches it required a clamp there. With all clamps secured, all ties in place, all surrounding wire bundles at the top secured and tied, the connector secured and saftied, the sensor wires clamped in place and secured to the sensor an saftied. An ops check of the pump and installation of the gear door lock. We were ready for the QA buyback which is on 100% of the paperwork. With the QA buyback finished and all the paperwork completely signed an FAA buyback occurred. (With no signature requirements) We removed the gear door lock closed the door and were finished. All in all our installation was extremely clean and exact. The paperwork was vague in some areas, experience (those that had done it already) told us to rely on the figures (drawings) in the vague areas. We completed ours on a pad where it was windy and cold all through the night. Outside air temp in the 40s with a significant wind chill.
Company checkbook open on OT with some guys staying on the clock for days doing numerous airplanes. I was happy to just do one then take an AA day off to recover. This gave me the opportunity to exercise a different set of skills in an exacting nature, very satisfying yet difficult. I was told there were more the 200 completed with the remaining to be routed into DFW to be completed.
Company checkbook open on OT with some guys staying on the clock for days doing numerous airplanes. I was happy to just do one then take an AA day off to recover. This gave me the opportunity to exercise a different set of skills in an exacting nature, very satisfying yet difficult. I was told there were more the 200 completed with the remaining to be routed into DFW to be completed.
Thanks for the detailed report Conehead.
The numbers I saw were 300,000 passengers on 3,000 flights, that comes out to 100 passengers a flight. Some of those people would have been rerouted on other aircraft or airlines, making them full. Those who couldnt be reacomodated, well, thats the way it goes. 😱
The Md-80 holds around 140 passengers and they dont hold much freight. So at at average of 100 passengers per flight these flights were on average only 2/3 full. So most of them would have been losing money anyway right? Whats the break even load factor for an MD-80? 90%? What better time to ground them than when most are only 2/3s full?
All we've been hearing for the last 5+ years is that there's too much capacity, well they just reduced capacity so all in all this is a good thing right? This is what people want right? Cheap but full flights. If you cant get where you want to go because there arent any seats available just accept as the price you have to pay for a more efficient system. Stranded passengers get vouchers, the airlines fly fuller planes and we burned millions of pounds less of fuel. Everybody wins right? :huh:
eolesen
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Tuesday & Wednesday are traditionally the lightest LF days.
BELF isn't calculated to be aircraft specific. It's market specific, which takes into account stage length, cost of servicing at both ends, O&D revenue plus a network contribution.
Lot of people I knew simply didn't travel, so unsure if they were counted in the 300K or not. It's revenue lost, but if there's no cost to reaccommodate those folks, the impact gets mitigated quite a bit.
Arpey's said tens of millions. I'd put it at about $25 compared to the claimed losses for the pilot sickout and 9/11 shutdown. AA still operated half the operation, and it sounds like Eagle wound up carrying a lot of connecting traffic as well in places like XNA.
BELF isn't calculated to be aircraft specific. It's market specific, which takes into account stage length, cost of servicing at both ends, O&D revenue plus a network contribution.
Lot of people I knew simply didn't travel, so unsure if they were counted in the 300K or not. It's revenue lost, but if there's no cost to reaccommodate those folks, the impact gets mitigated quite a bit.
Arpey's said tens of millions. I'd put it at about $25 compared to the claimed losses for the pilot sickout and 9/11 shutdown. AA still operated half the operation, and it sounds like Eagle wound up carrying a lot of connecting traffic as well in places like XNA.
How did they know ahead of time that all these flights would be cancelled? After all last minute travellers are the ones who usually "have to fly" and pay top dollar while discretionary flyers, the ones that you contend would stay home if fares were raised are the ones who buy way ahead of time.
In other words AA continued to operate the profitable half of the company and shut down the unprofitable half. Lost revenue has to be measured against lost expenses.
eolesen
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You don't know until the day of, or maybe a day in advance given all the publicity.
And last minute travelers have to fly, but not at any cost. Let's say I was supposed to be at a meeting in DC this week. AA cancelled all flights out of my city, and there wasn't space available on another airline that could get me there in time. Knowing that it was going to be just as much of a pain to get back home, I phoned into the meeting, which wasn't as effective, but the client and other participants certainly understood.
The other option would be to postpone the meeting a couple weeks, which would have had the same net effect as not traveling this week, since again, there's no money out of AA's pocket, and I'm still booking a refundable fare because schedules change and I'd rather not be dealing with restricted inventories and change fees.
Yes, it's that simple.
PRINCESS KIDAGAKASH
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Dallas Conehead, I hate to tell you this but your installation is out of compliance. Of course this depends on the FAA inspector looking at it. Our FAA inspectors :down: are telling us NO BUTTER FLY CLAMP arrangement allowed at Hydralic tee fitting and the Anti-ice sensor wire is to be intergrated into the gray sleeve until one inch inboard of that clamp with the spacer. No string ties are allowed on the snap-tube either.
Now it's your turn to tell me that I'm out of compliance. :blink:
Now it's your turn to tell me that I'm out of compliance. :blink:
Or of course it could be legal at LAX, but illegal at DFW. Then again it might be legal during day shift at DFW, but illegal during afternoon shift. Or perhaps it was illegal on day shift per an FAA inspector, but 12 hours later the same inspector said it's legal....Or...
D
DallasConehead
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Don't be haten.... And.....Your out of compliance!!!
Sensor wire in the sleeve as required. Just depends on where you exit it. We exited per the paperwork. FAA and QA bought it.
T
The Goose
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Don't be haten.... And.....Your out of compliance!!!
Sensor wire in the sleeve as required. Just depends on where you exit it. We exited per the paperwork. FAA and QA bought it.
Conehead - your aircraft will be written up at its next stop, just like the devils tried to do at ORD a couple nights ago. They don't even suspect what they want as they've played with the paperwork for too long. From what I've heard from those having to deal with the feds, some of the FAA boys forgot what an airplane looked like.
We figured the only answer for their behavior was copious quantities of low-grade dope.
PRINCESS KIDAGAKASH
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Don't be haten.... And.....Your out of compliance!!!
Sensor wire in the sleeve as required. Just depends on where you exit it. We exited per the paperwork. FAA and QA bought it.
The only hate I have is for the engineer :down: who wrote this ECO and the FAA inspectors :down: who obviously can't make up their minds what is the right way to comply with this abombmination of an AD! It's pretty bad when there are fistfights in the QA office over how to correctly comply with this AD. I think we're all out of compliance!
