Wouldn't it be best if the sensors were actually "in" the duct?
The crap I'm finding on a weekly basis is disheartening to say the least!
Duct broken, sensors laying on ceiling light.
Heat from light caused a "Duct Overtemp" warning from tripping the high temp bulb.
Pressure Switch fault ball showing on inbound "Stabilizer Trim" EICAS message.
What is the fault ball saying?
The Stabilizer Trim/Aileron Lockout boxes verify they have two viable hydraulic systems (in this case left and center), by comparing on-side to off-side pressure switch signals. This is the left box, so it looks at the left pressure as on-side and center as off-side.
The right box would look at the center hydraulic system as on-side and the left as off-side.
Either way...... there's a mismatch. The meter confirmed this to be true. With hydraulic pressure applied to left and center, only one (of two) input pins showed a ground (both should have).
The left pressure switch was at fault.
We shot the switch by pinning directly into it. No issues.
We verified wiring..... Pin 3 was showing a hard ground. Pin 2 wasn't.
No frickin way. Sure as shit, pins 2 & 3 where swapped in the plug.
This pressure switch feeds numerous other units which are looking for the same ground signals. All six spoiler boxes, the yaw dampers, and rudder load limiters.
It also plays a roll in automatic functions of the hydro pumps and the overhead low pressure lights.
How in the ---- wasn't there some other issues with the aircraft???
Too tired to follow them all out. Either way, after the wiring was corrected, all systems (that we knew of) checked out.
Correct wiring verified by wire numbers.....
..... and continuity checks from the P37 panel.
With the pins in wrong positions, with no pressure - the grounds were correct. With pressure, both pins on the unit had continuity to each other. I really just don't know how anything worked right!
Captain's pitot heat fail light on after engine start.
Please reference https://rotate.aero/forum/767-ice30/242-ata-30-31-pitot-heat for an understanding of the 767's pitot heat system.
The system has two heat modes, low heat after engine start and high heat in air mode.
This particular problem (failed Capt's Pitot Heat) showed up after engine start.
Pitot heat test from the P61 panel was normal.
I took out the Current Sense relay (K241) and shot the probe coil from "Pin C1". 38 Ohms..... seems normal?? Pulled the "A Phase" breaker..... still had continuity..... not normal.
What the hell is going on here?
90% of pitot heat failures are heater coils burning open. This one tested from the cockpit test switch, so the coil is still good.
Well kinda..... In test mode, you're simulating "air" mode or high heat. "A" and "B" phases are connected through the heater coil in air mode, instead of "A" phase to ground in "low heat" mode.
We pulled the probe and shot it with VOM. We found out one side of the coil wire was shorted to ground and the other completely open.
That would explain our problem. In low mode, "A" phase was going nowhere (open leg on coil), In high heat mode, "B" phase was coming in from the opposite side, going through the coil to ground. It was enough current to turn off the fail light. The pitot probe would of been heated in the air, but only in low heat mode.
I have never seen a probe fail in such a manner.
Red represents short to ground. Green, the open pin.
I wish I could show the whole circuit, but Boeing has been watching the site for plagiarism.
When the wing of a larger aircraft (A330) smacks the tail of a smaller one. They both lose..... one though, hurts worse.
Not sure if this is repairable.
These tiny-ass screws hold these tiny-ass relays. I seem to drop them regularly.
These little guys are everywhere in the electronic panels down in the E&E.
Once you drop one..... you rarely ever find it.
I have looked through the IPC's. If there is a part number, I can't find one.
When you have passed the 90% timeline in your career and "then" you find out about a trick that could have saved you hours of work and struggle.....
High-density rack pins can be an absolute pain to install. Fighting wire bundles, tie-wraps, and small spaces to get your hands into.
Tweasers, needle-nose plyers, and plastic insertion tools as your weapons.
Is there an easier way?
Yep.
20 gauge wire..... strip, but don't remove insulation.
Shove through the rack socket from the front side and pull out the back.
Insert your pin in the insulation.
Pull from the front side..... the new pin locks into the plug and your wire pulls off the end!!!
Damn..... something so simple and I just find out now.
New forum post.
APU Oil Quantity Simulation
Please visit the furum under 767 APU Oil Qty Simulate.
I'm sure this is probably the same oil quantity system on most Boeing jets.
New member "rwm1273"
If someone has a website I'm more than happy to promote it
Doing a wiring modification. Some of the cockpit overhead breaker panels down. What do I see?
Missing screw on bus-bar. Not good.
System involved..... Fire detection left engine alternate power.
This would not be seen by the crew or maintenance when doing fire system tests as it is not the primary source of power. If you were in an emergency on Standby Power, fire warning would not work
From Zero Hedge
"Serious Public Safety Risk": New Boeing Whistleblower Warns About "Substandard Manufacturing" On 787 Jets
By Tyler Durden
In the first five months of this year, the Federal Aviation Administration received more than eleven times as many Boeing whistleblower complaints compared to all of last year. The surge in whistleblowers first came after the 737 Max mid-flight door plug blowout in January. The latest Boeing whistleblower was revealed on Wednesday, warning about 787 Dreamliners.
Attorneys for Richard Cuevas, airplane mechanic and contractor for Boeing manufacturing partner Spirit Aerosystems, detailed in a statement on Wednesday that they filed complaints with the FAA and Occupational Safety and Health Administration, alleging that the mechanic "witnessed substandard manufacturing and maintenance processes on the 787 forward bulkheads, including critical drilling and sealant issues."
"Cuevas complained that these safety issues, if unremedied, could compromise power and air pressure on the planes, creating a serious public safety risk," attorneys Debra Katz and Lisa Banks at law firm Katz Banks Kumin wrote in the statement.
After he brought up these troubling concerns—initially with Spirit management and later with Boeing's ethics program—he was fired. A Spirit manager told him his termination was a "sign of the times."
The lawyers continued, "Our client witnessed critical issues with the forward pressure bulkhead assembly on multiple planes that deviated from Boeing's specifications," adding, "He recognized the substandard work and expressed concern about his safety concerns, but Spirit and Boeing failed to stop the faulty manufacturing processes. Mr. Cuevas was fired when his manager found out that an employee complained about these issues, and suspected that employee was Mr. Cuevas."
Here's a summary of Cuevas' technical allegations (courtesy of his lawyers):
Mr. Cuevas's complaints allege that Spirit made a range of manufacturing and assembly specification changes on the 787 forward pressure bulkhead without Boeing's permission. These allegations are different from previously reported issues with the forward pressure bulkhead in 2021.
Mr. Cuevas alleges that Spirit deviated from Boeing's manufacturing specifications while drilling holes in the fasteners of the forward pressure bulkhead of 787s. Deviations from these specifications compromise the seal necessary to maintain air pressure during flight. Boeing requires fastener holes in this section of the plane to be drilled at .2475 inches, which provides a near-perfect "interference-fit" that best retains air pressure during flight. Instead of drilling at that size, Spirit workers were directed to drill holes using a .2495 drill bit, to clear excess paint from the holes and speed up a slow process. Mr. Cuevas alleges that this caused the interference fit to be compromised in Row 3 of these fasteners, which houses critical electrical components, risking power failure and depressurization inflight. Mr. Cuevas observed that Boeing conducted an unannounced inspection and identified 117 out of 200 improperly drilled holes on the bulkhead, but that it has yet to correct the issue. Mr. Cuevas witnessed these problems with three planes he worked on and believes that these issues may affect at least 10-12 planes either in production or already released to Boeing.
Mr. Cuevas also alleges that, because of the ethics investigation, Spirit had fallen behind schedule on its repairs, and therefore instructed workers to incorrectly apply sealants to the plane's bulkhead fasteners. Usually, the first layer of sealant on this section of the plane requires approximately 168 hours to cure. On occasion, Mr. Cuevas witnessed only a two-hour gap between applying the first and second layer of sealant, which caused bubbles to form between the two layers, disrupting the needed torque to keep the fasteners in place. Boeing noticed this issue during its inspections on one aircraft and asked Spirit to reapply the sealants. Mr. Cuevas, however, fears that this and other issues, like the lack of an interference fit due to improper drilling, will go undetected on other planes.
Responding to the complaint, Boeing told the local paper Seattle Times that Cuevas' concerns were investigated and that an engineering analysis "determined the issues raised did not present a safety concern and were addressed."
"We are reviewing the documents released today and will thoroughly investigate any new claim," Boeing said.
Boeing's list of problems appears to be growing weekly (from federal investigations to hearings on Capitol Hill to whistleblowers to mid-air mishaps). One of the last whistleblowers (still living), Sam Salehpour, a former Boeing engineer, warned lawmakers on Capitol Hill in mid-April about safety concerns for the 787 and 777 aircraft.
Salehpour warned that the 787 Dreamliner fuselage was improperly put together and that the company "rushed to address the bottlenecks in production." The result, he warned, is "premature fatigue failure" on these planes. He noted, "They are putting out defective airplanes."
Meanwhile, outgoing Boeing's CEO Dave Calhoun apologized for the planemaker's recent series of safety failures in testimony delivered to a Senate committee last week.
In markets, Boeing shares have been more than halved since peaking in early 2019 at $446 a share, which was around the time of the twin Max 737 crashes, killing 346 people.
From Zero Hedge
As Alaska Airlines and United Airlines have resumed flying Boeing 737 Max 9 jetliners in recent days, a new report from The Wall Street Journal finds that the incident involving a door plug being blown off an Alaska Airlines flight over Portland earlier in the month was probably caused by the lack of bolts. This issue dates back to when the aircraft was manufactured.
According to people familiar with the matter, what's becoming apparent is that the most likely scenario is that Boeing employees failed to reinstall plug door bolts at the factory after opening or removing them during production.
They pointed to the absence of markings on the door plug that would instruct factory workers to double-check if the bolts were in place and lapses in paperwork surrounding the factory's work on the doors.
When Spirit AeroSystems delivers the 737 fuselage to Boeing's Renton, Wash., factory for final assembly, the door plugs are installed. During the assembly process, the door plugs are removed and reinstalled.
Boeing has yet to reveal how many factory workers handled the door plug. It's important to note that Spirit's factory in Malaysia makes the door.
Last week, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D., Ill.), chair of a Senate panel on aviation safety, met with Boeing Chief Executive David Calhoun about door plug woes.
"It is going to show that there has been lack of documentation when it comes with how and when those pins were installed or removed and whether or not they were reinstalled or not," said Duckworth.
She continued: "He assured me that they were going through that entire process to make sure that they are able to track on their aircraft when these things are happening."
Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration has slapped Boeing with production limits on the jets amid an investigation into the door plugs.
From The Daily Reckoning
James Rickards
What happened to Boeing, the former gold standard of American industry? Nothing good, as I’ll show you today.
Simply put, Boeing isn’t the company it used to be.
By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about the Jan. 6 near crash of a Boeing 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines, after the fuselage door blew off the plane. That caused decompression and the use of emergency oxygen.
The door blew out because of a door-plug failure at about 16,000 feet. At that altitude, temperatures are freezing, and oxygen is quite low relative to sea level.
The oxygen masks deployed, and passengers were able to secure them and hope for the best as the pilots tried to land the plane safely.
An altitude of 16,000 feet is practically the highest altitude that the passengers and crew could have survived the ordeal. At altitudes of 20,000 or higher, the depressurization would have caused extreme instability and possibly crashed the plane.
It’s also likely that passengers and crew would have passed out before being able to secure the oxygen masks. At 30,000 feet, just slightly higher than the summit of Mount Everest, the plane certainly would have crashed.
Fortunately, the plane landed safely with only minor injuries despite badly shaken nerves.
The fuselage door detaching was not the only disaster that occurred in those frightening minutes. The depressurization also caused the cockpit door to blow open, which exposed the pilots to the extreme wind and noise going on in the back of the plane at a time when they were desperately trying to stage an emergency landing.
Cockpit doors have been required to be highly secure and open from inside the cockpit only since the 9/11 hijackings. This was an added shock to the pilots at a critical time.
Boeing later lamely explained that the cockpit door is supposed to blow open during an extreme depressurization incident. But they never put that critical detail in the operating manual, and the pilots on the Alaska Airlines flight had no idea that would happen. Neither did many experts and engineers who were consulted by the media.
This separate critical incident will only add to the scrutiny, liability and criticism that Boeing is now experiencing for what is seen as gross incompetence.
The double-door blowouts on the 737 Max 9 were bad enough. Of course, this comes not long after the double crashes of Boeing 737 Max 8 planes in Indonesia in October 2018 and Ethiopia in March 2019. These were due to software flaws that put the planes into dives that pilots hadn’t been trained to counter.
Boeing’s global fleet of 737 Max 8 planes were grounded at that time. However, Boeing was seen as slow to respond after the first crash. It was really the airlines themselves that took the lead in grounding their own planes.
Boeing vowed internal investigations and improvements in quality control at that time. The flaws were subsequently corrected, but obviously problems remain. Here we are just five years later with another quality control fiasco grounding another fleet of aircraft.
The plane involved in the latest incident was basically brand-new. It wasn’t an older aircraft that experienced metal fatigue.
According to news reports, both Boeing and Alaska Airlines had some indications that there were difficulties with the door plugs on the fuselage door.
Since the 737 Max 9 is a relatively new model and the particular plane that suffered the door failure was, again, almost brand-new, engineers decided to ignore the warnings as just a kink that sometimes appears in new equipment and will self-correct or be easily adjusted.
This was not the case; the manufacturer and operator were both receiving warnings of a potential catastrophic failure that they chose to ignore.
Boeing has now grounded its entire global fleet of 737 Max 9s, about 170 aircraft in all.
Where did it all start going wrong for Boeing? You can trace the answer to its 1997 merger with rival aircraft manufacturer McDonnell Douglas. That changed Boeing’s culture, and for the worse.
Boeing was known for its strong emphasis on engineering and quality control. It was part of the company’s ethos.
McDonnell Douglas, on the other hand, placed special emphasis on cost cutting and financial innovations to improve its bottom line. It’s not that it completely neglected quality control or that it didn’t care about safety. Obviously, airplane manufacturers can’t afford to disregard them.
It’s just that it placed relatively greater emphasis on financial considerations than Boeing.
But after the merger, the McDonnell Douglas model began to encroach on Boeing’s traditional ethos. The engineering department was greatly reduced, for example, while the financial engineers went to work.
Starting in 2010, Boeing spent tens of billions on stock buybacks and other financial machinations to enhance its share price. At the same time, the company took on massive amounts of debt.
Boeing’s new CEO, Harry Stonecipher, even cited all this as a feature, not a bug. He was proud of it.
He said, “When people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that was the intent — so run like a business rather than a great engineering firm.”
What was the result? Safety issues that resulted in two crashes and the latest close call. As one Boeing engineer who worked on the 737 Max said in 2019:
This program was a much more intense pressure cooker than I’ve ever been in. The company was trying to avoid costs and trying to contain the level of change. They wanted the minimum change to simplify the training differences, minimum change to reduce costs and to get it done quickly.
The irony is that by attempting to cut costs, Boeing has suffered great costs.
Legal liability will be enormous. Business losses will also be huge based on grounding the entire fleet, identifying the defects and repairing them on all of the existing planes as well as making assembly adjustments to any work in progress.
New safety protocols will have to be developed to make sure the problem does not reoccur, and pilots, crews and ground personnel will have to be retrained to look for future problems. The airlines will suffer losses from the groundings and will seek recourse from Boeing.
Boeing stock has fallen from $265 per share on Dec. 15 to $227 per share today (about a 15% decline in three weeks).
Has Boeing’s stock already taken its hit on this fiasco? The answer is no. The market price has adjusted somewhat but the investigations are ongoing, and the costs of responding are being grossly underestimated.
Markets can be partly efficient but are not highly efficient and sometimes get taken in by “all clear” narratives put out by Wall Street that are far from the truth.
This story has much longer to run, more negative facts will emerge, management changes are likely and the stock has much further to fall.
From Yahoo News
Boeing 737 Max 9 problems mount following Alaska and United Airlines incidents.
By Kate Murphy
On Monday, United Airlines said loose bolts and other "installation issues" were discovered on the door plugs of some of its fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes.
“Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug – for example, bolts that needed additional tightening,” United said.
The mandated inspections come after the Federal Aviation Administration forced the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes. Alaska Airlines and United are the only two U.S. airlines that use that particular model of the Boeing 737.
“Boeing 737-9 aircraft will remain grounded until operators complete enhanced inspections, which include both left and right cabin door exit plugs, door components, and fasteners,” the FAA said in a statement on Monday, adding that any issues found from the inspections must be corrected before the planes can go back into service.
The pause, which resulted in the cancellation of hundreds of flights, affected about 171 planes globally, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
On Friday, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 had to make an emergency landing shortly after takeoff after a door plug blew out, leaving a large hole in the side of the plane as it climbed. The door plug has since been recovered and the National Transportation Safety Board launched an investigation over the weekend into what it called “an accident.”
Boeing’s shares tumbled as much as 9% as trading opened on Monday morning, the first business day since the incident.
Incredibly, none of the 171 passengers and six crew members on board the flight from Portland, Ore., to Ontario, Calif., was injured.
The plane was climbing at about 16,000 feet when a panel on the plane’s fuselage was blown out.
No one was seated in 26A and 26B, where the door plug was located.
“We are very, very fortunate here that this didn’t end up in something more tragic.” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said over the weekend.
The airplane had not reached cruising altitude and the seat belt sign remained on to discourage passengers and crew members from walking around the cabin.
“Just from talking with everyone who was part of the interviews, it was described as chaos, very loud, between the air and everything going on around them,” Homendy said at a Sunday news conference. “And it was very violent when the rapid decompression and the door [plug] was expelled out of the plane.”
Some passengers were treated for minor injuries on board.
The lost door plug — which weighs 63 pounds and is 26 inches x 48 inches — was found on Sunday in the backyard of a Portland school teacher.
NTSB investigators will examine the plug to search for evidence about how it became dislodged and will compare it with the plane’s door plug on the other side.
The plane used for Flight 1282 had other issues. After a warning light signaling a pressurization issue went off during three previous flights, the plane had been restricted from longer routes to Hawaii that travel over open water. That restriction was put in place in the event the warning light reappeared so as to enable the plane to quickly return to an airport. The warning light had previously gone off on Dec. 7, 2023, and Jan. 3 and Jan. 4, just one day before the door plug flew off.
Alaska Airlines had ordered additional maintenance personnel to look at the pressurization warning light, Homendy added, but it wasn’t completed before Friday’s accident. Homendy acknowledged that the warning light issue may be unrelated.
An additional hurdle is that the investigators will not be able to rely on Flight 1282’s cockpit data recorder.
“The cockpit voice recorder was completely overwritten ... at two hours it re-records over it so we have nothing from the CVR [cockpit voice recorder],” Homendy told reporters, adding that it is “critical” to increase that recording time to 25 hours, the standard Europe and many other countries currently have in place.
While the Federal Aviation Administration has proposed a new rule to put that increase in place, it would only apply to newer flights. So the Alaska Airlines flight would not have qualified, Homendy said.
Two cellphones that appeared to belong to passengers aboard Flight 1282 were later recovered. One was found in a yard, and the other on the side of a road.
In its investigation, the NTSB is expected to work with officials from Alaska Airlines, Boeing, the FAA and groups representing pilots and flight attendants.
“While we await the airworthiness directive inspection criteria from the FAA and Boeing, our maintenance teams are prepared and ready to perform the required inspections,” Alaska Airlines said in a statement. The airline said that cancellations will continue for the first half of the week and that passengers should check alaskaair.com for updates.
United Airlines also issued a statement on X and said they are working with customers affected to find them “alternative travel options” and advised them to check for updates at united.com or on the United app for the latest.
Meanwhile, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun sent a companywide memo saying, in part, “When serious accidents like this occur, it is critical for us to work transparently with our customers and regulators to understand and address the causes of the event, and to ensure they don’t happen again. This is and must be the focus of our team right now.”
Calhoun plans to hold an all-employee safety meeting on Tuesday at the 737 factory in Renton, Wash.
From Zero Hedge
Fake Jet Engine Parts Supplied To Repair Shops For Older Airbus And Boeing Planes
By Tyler Durden
European aviation authorities have flagged a London-based firm for supplying "unapproved parts" for jet engines on older Airbus SE A320s and Boeing Co. 737s.
"Numerous Authorised Release Certificates for parts supplied via AOG Technics have been forged," the European Union Aviation Safety Agency wrote in a statement to Bloomberg.
London-based AOG Technics sold CFM56 jet engine parts to third-party repair shops servicing older A320s and 737s. EASA said the parts had certificates the manufacturer could not authenticate or confirm "they were not the originator of the part."
"Manufacturers and regulators sounded the alarm weeks ago, triggering a global scramble to trace parts supplied by AOG Technics and identify affected aircraft," Bloomberg said.
EASA said the parts with "falsified Authorized Release Certificate" were for CFM56 engines installed on older narrow-body planes. The regulator has told airlines to quarantine parts that potentially could have fake documentation.
"The documentation of parts is a very critical issue," said Klaus Mueller, a senior adviser at AeroDynamic Advisory and a former senior executive at MTU Aero Engines AG and Deutsche Lufthansa AG's maintenance arm.
Mueller said, "The industry is taking this topic very, very seriously."
This development is a significant headache for European airlines because how many parts with fake documentation AOG Technics flooded airlines with is still being determined.
Bloomberg said CFM International, the GE-Safran manufacturing venture of the engine, has alerted customers and shops about the fake certification documents and unapproved parts for the CFM56s.
EASA said if a part has falsified documentation, "then it is recommended that the part be replaced with an approved part."
Yet more headaches for airlines operating older A320s and 737s because finding fake parts on their aircraft will take time. It also comes as aircraft parts are in short supply.
Hundreds of US Airline Pilots Suspected of Being Unfit to Fly
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - About 600 US pilots licensed to operate passenger flights are under investigation for lying about their medical records, US press reported Sunday, citing officials and internal records.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been looking into 4,800 former military veterans turned airline and commercial pilots who might have submitted "incorrect or false information" as part of their medical applications, FAA spokesman Matthew Lehner admitted in a comment to the daily.
The pilots were red-flagged after investigators at the Department of Veterans Affairs cross-checked federal databases to discover aviators who were receiving veteran benefits for mental health disorders and other serious conditions, while hiding their true medical history from the FAA in order to continue flying.
While the FAA relies on screening to identify safety risks, the tests are often cursory and pilots are expected to self-report conditions that can otherwise be difficult to detect, such as depression or post-traumatic stress, The Washington Post cited physicians who conduct the exams as saying.
Officials told the newspaper they suspected many of the pilots under investigation of being either too sick to fly or defrauding taxpayers by exaggerating their disabilities to claim bigger benefits. The FAA disbursed $3.6 million starting last year to run additional tests on thousands of pilots deemed "potential risks."
From Zero Hedge
The Most Flown Private Jet In The US Is...
By Tyler Durden
In a rapid shift in private aviation among millionaires, cent-millionaires, and billionaires, Textron Inc.'s Cessna Citation, the most popular and most flown private jet in the US, which held that record for 15 years, has just been dethroned.
Bloomberg reports new monthly flight data from the Federal Aviation Administration shows Brazil's Embraer Phenom 300, a medium-sized jet that seats around nine passengers, had 360,000 takeoffs and landings at US airports in the 12 months through August, 1,200 more than the Citation Excel family of jets.
Brian Foley, a private aviation consultant, said the biggest reason behind the surge in popularity of the Phenom 300 is fuel efficiency, which burns one-third less than the Citation Excel. He said cheaper fuel costs offset the Phenom 300's smaller cabin space.
For some context, at cruising speed, the two Pratt & Whitney turbofans of the Citation Excel burn around 225 gallons per hour of Jet A fuel.
Meanwhile, the Phenom 300 is around 158 gallons of Jet A fuel per hour.
Even though Phenom 300s are being flown more, Cessna still dominates private jet deliveries.
Textron told Bloomberg, "One of every three business jets worldwide is a Cessna Citation, and product upgrades like these continue to give customers new reasons to choose us for our proven performance, leading technology and unmatched cabin experience."
Despite the 'climate change' cheerleading, private jet demand soared to new heights in recent years, though mounting macro uncertainty and the highest interest rates in two decades led to a cooling in private jet flights earlier this year.
From Statista
The World’s Ten Busiest Airports - By Anna Fleck
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, U.S., was the world's busiest airport in 2022, with an annual footfall of some 93.7 million passengers. The figure is 24 percent higher than in 2021, but 15 percent lower than in 2019, the year before the pandemic. It is followed by Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, with 73.4 million travelers, and Denver Airport, with 69.3 million, according to data released by Airports Council International (ACI).
After 22 years leading the charge as the number one airport for passenger volume, Atlanta's airport was pushed to second place in 2020 by Canton Baiyun International Airport, China. However, the Chinese airport fell to eighth place a year later and the U.S. airport once again topped the list.
As the following infographic shows, five of the top ten airports with the highest passenger traffic last year were in the United States. ACI highlights that all ten, representing 10 percent of global traffic, have a significant share of domestic traffic - the segment that has led the global recovery.
The total number of passengers worldwide in 2022 was estimated to hit nearly 7 billion, representing an increase of nearly 54 percent over 2021.
From Zero Hedge
Air travel demand soared back to pre-Covid times during the Fourth of July holiday weekend. But with rising demand for air travel comes persistent flight delays and cancellations due to a pilot shortage. Some of the reasons for a pilot shortage have been a surge in early retirements during the pandemic, a mandatory retirement age of 65, a shrinking pool of potential pilots from the military, and a challenging value proposition for civilians to pursue a career as a pilot.
We have told readers there's "no quick fix" to the severe pilot shortage. Airlines like American Airlines have seen flight disruptions this summer due to a lack of pilots.
Current figures from the Federal Aviation Administration show the aviation industry is short 32,000 commercial pilots, mechanics, and air traffic controllers -- and the gap continues to expand by the year.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CBS News his office is investigating several airlines that book "unrealistic" scheduling by selling seats ahead of scheduling personnel to fly planes.
"If you look at the delays, for example, that America experienced through last year in the summer 2022, a lot of that was driven by these companies not having the staff that they needed," Buttigieg said.
"This is not something that's going to be worked out overnight. It took years to get this way," he warned.
Wichita State University emeritus associate professor Dean Headley said, "The pilot shortage won't be resolved until 2032 or something like that."
Headley said airlines can train 1,500 to 1,800 pilots a year but noted with a deficit of 17,000 pilots, "we can't catch up that quick."
The current pilot shortage has forced commercial airlines to "cut back flights to smaller regional airports. So, people [who] are not at a major airport will find that their flight schedules have been reduced simply because they don't have enough people to put in an airplane to fly it somewhere," Headley explained
Besides a pilot shortage, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Transportation revealed in early July there was also a severe shortage of air-traffic controllers. And just like pilots, it takes years to train air-traffic controllers.
One airline lobbying group has asked Congress to allow just one pilot in the cockpit to alleviate the shortage.
The shortages in pilots and air-traffic controllers won't be resolved anytime soon. No longer can airlines blame the "weather."
From FlightGlobal
US House committee approves bill to hike pilot retirement age to 67
By Jon Hemmerdinger
A US lawmaking committee has approved a measure that would increase the USA’s mandatory airline-pilot retirement age, spurring criticism from pilot unions and earning praise from regional airlines.
The US House of Representatives’ transportation committee on 14 June approved the change, which would bump up the mandated retirement age of airline pilots in the USA from 65 to 67, according to reports.
Whether the measure, which passed by a narrow margin, will ultimately become law remains unclear.
It is part of a broader House bill to fund the Federal Aviation Administration after the agency’s current funding expires in October. The full US House is expected to vote on that broader bill in July, the committee says.
Meanwhile, a US Senate committee is expected today to vote on its own version of the funding bill. The chambers must then negotiate to finalise a single law.
But increasing the retirement age has strong support from the Regional Airline Association, a group whose members say they have been particularly hurt by an industry-wide pilot shortage.
A two-year bump in the required retirement age “will have an immediate, positive effect for small community air service”, the RAA says.
“Raising the pilot retirement age is the one solution that will have a near-immediate effect on the pilot shortage, allowing time for more long-term solutions to mature,” says the RAA. “It’s also the right thing to do for pilots who are today being pushed out of flight decks while they still have much to offer.”
US regional airlines have said too few pilots have forced them to ground hundreds of regional aircraft and cut air service to smaller communities. In the USA, airlines have about 490 regional jets (including Bombardier CRJs and Embraer E-Jets) in storage, and 1,340 in service, according to Cirium fleets data.
Airlines for America, the trade group representing large US airlines, declines to comment.
But US pilot unions are raising alarm. The unions have also denied the existence of a pilot shortage, saying airline mismanagement and low pay are keeping carriers from filling their ranks.
In a 14 June letter to lawmakers, Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) president Jason Ambrosi calls the retirement-age change “anti-union” and “politically driven”. ALPA says the measure will worsen a pilot-training backlog, put the USA out of step with international standards and erode aviation safety.
“There is an increased risk of cardiovascular issues, diabetes and cognitive decline with increasing age. It is imprudent for Congress to impose its own view on safety,” Ambrosi says.
The union, which represents pilots at numerous airlines, notes that existing ICAO standards call for retirements at age 65.
It says US pilots older than 65 years would be unable to fly some international flights, which are typically operated by widebody aircraft. As a result, such pilots would likely need to be retrained to fly narrowbody jets, which would “displace junior pilots” and create “a cascading training backlog”.
The Allied Pilot Association (APA), which represents pilots at American Airlines, likewise opposes increasing the required pilot retirement age.
“Safety considerations drove the establishment of the current international standard of age 65 mandatory retirement, and raising the pilot retirement age would introduce additional risk into commercial aviation,” says APA president Ed Sicher.
From Bloomberg
By Danny Lee
China Jet to Rival Airbus, Boeing Makes First Commercial Flight
A made-in-China aircraft to rival Boeing Co. and Airbus SE underwent its maiden commercial flight on Sunday, almost six months after being delivered to China Eastern Airlines Corp.
Flight MU9191 took off from Shanghai at 10:32 a.m. local time, China Eastern said on its Weibo account. The plane carried 128 passengers and landed safely at Beijing, People’s Daily said in a tweet.
The commercial debut marks a long journey for Commercial Aircraft Corp of China Ltd., or Comac as it is better known. The manufacturer first starting developing the narrow-body airliner in 2008 and production began in late 2011. But it wasn’t until September 2022 when the C919 received official certification to fly, marking the long end of flight testing and paving the way for Comac to start deliveries.
Read more: China Delivers First Homegrown Plane to Take On Boeing, Airbus
China Eastern is the C919’s launch customer, with an order for five. After the first jet’s delivery in December, the aircraft undertook a period of flight activities almost daily in order to satisfy a requirement for 100 hours of proving flights. But from Feb. 7 to May 17, China Eastern’s C919 hadn’t flown regularly for 104 days, FlightRadar24 data show.
China is angling to disrupt the dominance of Boeing and Airbus in commercial jetliner manufacturing. Both Airbus’s A320neo family and Boeing’s 737 Max jets have a full order book through to the end of the decade, meaning any carrier wanting narrow-body jets sooner may need to find an alternative.
Read more: China’s Rival Aircraft to Boeing, Airbus Jets Wins Certification
Comac has garnered more than 1,000 orders for the C919, though the majority aren’t confirmed and many are from Chinese aircraft lessors yet to place the jet with an airline.
Doubts remain over Comac’s ability to fulfill those orders. The Chinese manufacturer is also reliant upon foreign suppliers including General Electric Co., Honeywell International Inc. and, for the engines, CFM International Inc. — a venture between GE and France’s Safran SA.
Shanghai-based China Eastern, one of the country’s biggest carriers, said on its earnings call last week that it plans to bring all five C919s into its fleet in 2023.
The C919 remains certified only to fly within China, however, while European certification remains ongoing. Each C919 costs around $99 million, before customary discounts to airlines.
