News from the world of N-Registration

The idea of getting into an aeroplane powered purely by electricity is really quite exciting and probably extraordinary.

Traditionally probably we do not have sympathy with airlines; they somehow usually manage to fall on their feet and generally at the expense of the flying public.

Here we are at the end of August and basically the end of the summer holiday season.

As July reaches its end, the August holiday season starts this weekend.

Covid-19 has wreaked havoc across the world with economies and businesses, literally on a global scale. Indeed, who knows what further damage will follow in its wake?

Breaking the sound barrier was originally almost a thing of science fiction, indeed it was questioned as to whether it was even possible.

Back in January we reported on how airships might become a transport of the future after the disastrous Hindenburg incident 84 years ago.

There will come a day when someone will sit down and try and record all the changes that coronavirus has brought about to our daily lives.

British Airways has announced that it is going to sell its large headquarters building in London since it intends to operate a hybrid approach to staff locations in the future. Previously this building housed 2000 staff but with the new policy the company considers that it will not need such large premises in the future.

In that once the word “hoover” was synonymous with vacuum cleaner, to many at one time any business jet was known as a Learjet.

Going back centuries, the country’s wealth was more or less all held by the Crown and the aristocracy. The ordinary people by and large had nothing.

When the word “airship” is used, no doubt it conjures up in our minds that dreadful accident in 1937 in New Jersey when the Hindenberg caught fire. It was probably the most famous aviation disaster ever caught on camera and basically brought about the end of airships as a realistic form of transport. Airships, also known as “blimps” have continued to exist but are a relative rarity.

A little while ago we reported the arrival of British Airways’ final 747 ‘Queen of the Skies’ at Cotswold Aerodrome where she, and her cohorts already awaiting their fate, would most likely be ‘parted out’ (scrapped). In fact that particular 747 has been acquired by the aerodrome authority for development as a (static) conference and learning facility, but the fact remains that there is simply no second hand market for these aeroplanes; long haul super-large four engine airliners have had their day. The long haul skies today belong to the new generation of twin-engined jets.

Wednesday 3^rd December marked the beginning of the end of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Company’s 19-month nightmare that is the model 737 MAX. It began a series of passenger carrying flights with its hitherto grounded and recently re-certified fleet aimed at restoring public confidence in the type.

We have been keeping an eye on Norwegian Air this year because it has looked like tottering quite a lot. Norwegian Air in fact became Europe’s third largest low cost airline, carrying out many of its flights from the UK and one of its main bases has been at Gatwick.

Heathrow Airport is seldom out of the news for long and has certainly been making a lot of noise in the past nine months, although not so much of that noise has been made by aeroplanes.

It is no doubt a surprise to many that Flybe, the airline which went into administration back in March has been bought and is expected to get started up again. The purchaser is Thyme Opco who are linked to Cyrus Capital, a company which was part of a Virgin-led rescue attempt for the airline last year.

I’ve just watched a very moving BBC documentary called “The Virus That Killed The Jumbo Jet”, and concede to being somewhat surprised by the affection that the British public appear to have towards this so called “Queen of the Skies”.

With all the problems of Covid-19 and the significant reduction in airline travel at the moment, one may think that the question of drones is not a very important one. Well nothing could in fact be further from the truth.

In a previous post via this forum I discussed the withdrawal around the globe of the Boeing 737MAX-8 and MAX-9 airliners, and the technical reasons for that decision. I concluded by speculating whether the type would ever return to service, and if it did, whether it would be promoted under the same name, and what the passenger reaction might be once they realised that they were about to travel on a MAX?

The reign of both British Airways’ & Virgin’s “Queen of the Skies” having come to an abrupt end, it may be a good time to stand back and examine how present day long haul flying has changed, even before the advent of SARS.CoV.2., which has merely hastened the 747’s inevitable fall from grace. The years of the Jumbo Jet as a huge people carrier are well and truly over, to the cost of both Airbus, and to a lesser extent, Boeing. Why?

We floated the issue of safety while flying a week ago and now some of the measures which have been introduced at London Heathrow have been made public.

In order to try to allay the fear of air travel which a lot of people seem to have at the moment, a few innovations are emerging.

Time for retirement – British Airways has brought forward the withdrawal of its entire fleet of 31 jumbo jets. This was originally scheduled for 2024 but the reduction in business due to the pandemic has caused the decision to be taken now, according to announcements made by BA. 747s first flew with British Overseas Airways Corporation in 1971, before that company amalgamated with British European Airways to form British Airways.

Moving on, how much do you like flying? Well, how would you feel if you discovered that the pilot flying you was not actually licensed to fly the aircraft in the specific conditions?

Today is the day that Ryanair has started its 1000 flights a day. That plan suffered a minor blow when Greece said not yet please but nevertheless Mr O’Leary claims that their flights to other destinations are 70% full. By clicking on this link you can see what flights are in the air and the Ryanair flights have RYR at the beginning of the ID.

As the world’s airlines gird their loins in preparation to get flying again it may be worth considering the measures being proposed by the carriers to mitigate possible viral cross-infection between passengers. At one point during the lockdown the suggestion of blocking middle seats was mooted. easyJet at first suggested they might adopt such a measure, but then seemed to talk themselves out of it.

The latest round of redundancies appears to be from Jet2. It would appear that 102 captains and first officers are to be made redundant, the leavers being those who joined the company most recently. Another report states that 380 cabin crew will be made redundant; it is not entirely clear whether this figure includes the pilots or not but the inference is that it does not.

“No man in the country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel in his stores…..” So said The Rt Hon the Lord Clyde, a judge in 1929 in a famous tax case. He went on to point out that the Inland Revenue quite rightly did its best to grab as much as it could and the taxpayer was entitled to be astute, albeit honest, to prevent the depletion of his means.

Both Airbus and Boeing have recently posted eye watering first quarter losses of €481m and $641m respectively. The CEO of Airbus, Guillaume Faury, warned earlier this month that it may take up to five years for passenger figures to be back at their pre-Covid numbers. But at Boeing, they have more than the pandemic to deal with.

Whether you like it or not, Covid-19 is being seen by climate change lobbyists as their “opportunity”. In a previous post, I looked at the effect several factors might play in deciding whether Heathrow Airport (LHR) would get its controversial third runway in the foreseeable future.

In one of our earlier postings it was stated quite reasonably in an earlier posting that given the dire position in which civil aviation now finds itself (and frankly it has never been the most stable of industries), is it likely that we will see a third runway at Heathrow (LHR) within the next decade?

Current news on aviation is dire. British Airways have announced a possible 12000 redundancies will be taking place and now it is looking like Gatwick will lose all BA activity and BA are telling us that it may not start up again. The job reductions include significant numbers of pilots and co-pilots. We have talked about what happens to them before; if they stop flying they would have to re-activate their validations before they can carry passengers and this is going to come at great cost.

As a former pilot myself, albeit not carrying fare-paying passengers, the future of aviation is something in which I maintain considerable interest. When the Covid-19 crisis got started, we heard all about how international travel was effectively coming to a somewhat abrupt, albeit temporary, halt. Citizens were getting stranded the world over, flights were being cancelled, people could not get home. Since then we are led to believe that the industry has contracted yet further.

We are very grateful to a client who has given us permission to feature his aircraft.