Chinese competitor to Boeing and Airbus

Aviation boneyards are littered with great airplanes that didn't fit with the times and demands of commercial airlines, these manufacturers may have had the best airplane that money could buy, but because of shifts in  business strategies, high maintenance costs (DC-10) downturns in the industry, or just a loss of public trust (Concorde) these companies are no longer around. What is probably going to be the next aircraft manufacturer to join the dustbin of history rolled out late last year in China. The C919 is built to compete with the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320, the problem that the chinese manufacturer has is that Boeing has been producing their 737 for over 50 years, and not only have the knowledge but the spares and parts in place that the C919 will never make a big impact on the market.

Now I will never completely count the Chinese out of anything. I have been amazed at how much money they can throw at a project, just look up the Three Gorges Dam, so it is entirely possible that they will get FAA approval for their C919, but that could be 5-10 years off and there is a lot of pitfalls ahead of them.

The biggest problem with a Chinese manufacturer is the public perception that everything that is made in china is cheap and of inferior quality. The perception of their multi-million dollar aircraft will be the same, even if most of their components were made by US suppliers. (Francis 2015) But if they do get FAA approval, I do not see them moving the needle on the US market, because of public perception of the quality of chinese made goods.

The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, or COMAC for short, is wholly owned by the Chinese government,(COMAC, n.d.) the same government that is certifying the aircraft and is probably putting some serious pressure on the airlines in China to buy the aircraft. You can see the conflict of interest here, and with the State owned media if there is an accident or just a problem with the aircraft I wouldn't expect to hear much about them. COMAC does have future plans for bigger aircraft, the C929 which will hold 290 passengers and the C939 which could hold up to 390 passengers. (globalsecurity, n.d.)

IF the airplane does enter the market, and that is a big IF, I do not see them entering the big markets of the US or even Europe. Designing an airliner from scratch is a HUGE undertaking and the way that they have done this, without having the input of the FAA or EASA, (Francis, 2015) will have a major impact on their certifications. I do see some of the ultra low budget carriers in third world areas buying some, just because of the low price, but the first time one goes down somewhere that the Chinese government can't control the media, that will be the end of the aircraft outside of China.

There haven't been many responses from Boeing or Airbus on the new C919, but that is because they do not see the plane as a serious threat to their businesses. As the Chinese are working to get the best out of the technology that exists now, Boeing and Airbus are designing new technology that will make anything the Chinese make obsolete. Aircraft like the 737 MAX and the A320neo are already erasing any competitive advantage that the 919 may have had. (Francis, 2015)

COMAC. (n.d.). Company Profile_Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. Retrieved from http://english.comac.cc/aboutus/introduction/

Francis, L. (2015, December 21). China’s Comac to challenge Boeing and Airbus - IEEE spectrum. Retrieved from http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/chinas-comac-to-challenge-boeing-and-airbus

Globalsecurity.org. (n.d.). COMAC C929 / COMAC C939 large airliner. Retrieved from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/c929.htm

Professionalism in the Regional Airlines

The looming "Pilot Shortage" has been talked about for almost as long as I have been flying, but its just in the last few years that it has actually materialized. There really isn't any debate on whether there is a pilot shortage or not, There absolutely is, they say that with the current capacity of training pilots we will only be able to supply two thirds of the pilots needed over the next 20 years.(Anderson, 2016 The real debate is about what caused it and what can be done to fix it.
The airline side of the argument is that since the so called 1500 rule was put into effect in 2014, every co pilot that flew on a 121 carrier needed to have their ATP licence, and it is this rule alone that is choking off the pilot supply. Pilot's Unions see it differently, they point to the fact that first year pay at the regional airlines is so low as to be undesirable to pilots and want to be pilots.
I see it as a whole flock of chickens coming home to roost. I have been flying for over 15 years and I got to see the industry in the late 90s to the crash after 9/11 and then again in 2005 when oil got silly, and then again in 2008, and with all of the downturns in the industry, every time they took more from their pilots, be it pay, vacation time, or benefits. And every time things got better for the airlines, the CEOs got big bonuses but the pilots never even got back what was taken away from them in the bad times. Add to it the fact that the cost of training has more than doubled since I got my first licences and I would find it hard to recruit a good candidate by telling him "Come to our flight school and give us $150,000, and you can be an airline pilot...in about 5 years after you graduate....and make $20,000 your first year..." (Northshore.edu. 2013)

There are some serious changes that need to happen to save the regional airline from going down like Republic Airlines,(Kieler, 2016),  The biggest one is to address the cost of flight instruction, there have been some that have been able to start some cadet programs like the european carriers that have been dealing with pilot shortages for decades, (Northshore.edu, 2013) but they also have to start treating their pilots as the professionals they are. You can see that that is coming with the new fights that the pilots unions have been winning in negotiations. 

There are many groups that are pushing the airlines version of what is causing the shortage, but the biggest is the Regional Airline Association, they are a group that represents the regional airlines and do very well at pointing the finger at everyone but their members treatment of pilots. And like most big trade organizations they say that if we just get rid of all regulation they would be able to do everything, well and safely. (RAA,2016)

All of this low pay and low time, as well as airlines treating pilots like garbage led to a lack of professionalism in the pilot ranks, that eventually led to accidents like we saw in Buffalo, with Colgan air.  

To me professionalism is people showing up for their jobs and know what is expected of them, knowing how do get the job done and doing it in the best, most expeditious and safe way possible and are compensated accordingly. As the airlines found in the late 2000s, you get what you pay for.
There was lots of lack of professionalism at colgan air, from the pilots talking about non essential things during the approach phase of flight to the pressure from the management on pilots to not call in fatigued.
I absolutely believe that low pay contributed to the lack of professionalism, like I said, you get what you pay for.
The best way to maintain professionalism is to know your craft. Take pride in everything that you do, make the best landing, hit your altitude and airspeed perfectly. If you accept no errors and do your best to fix your shortcomings, you will be rewarded in some way.

References

Anderson, B. (2016, January 28). pilot shortage threatens to slow us airline growth. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverwyman/2016/01/28/pilot-shortage-threatens-to-slow-u-s-airline-growth/#45bfbec8bb6e

Kieler, A. (2016, February 26). Major Airlines’ Regional Partner, Republic Airways, Files For Bankruptcy Over Pilot Shortage – Consumerist. Retrieved from https://consumerist.com/2016/02/26/major-airlines-regional-partner-republic-airways-files-for-bankruptcy-over-pilot-shortage/

Northshore.edu. (2013). an investigation of the united states airline pilot supply. Retrieved from https://www.northshore.edu/cms/file/academics/programs/avd/web_resources/airline-labor-supply.pdf

RAA. (2016, February 26). Regional Airline Association Statement on Republic Airways Bankruptcy - Regional Airline Association. Retrieved from http://www.raa.org/news/277230/

Commercial Space

For the first few decades of space flight, the only way that you could get into space was if you were put there by a government that had the capability, basically the USA or USSR and then Russia. There were some very rich people that were able to spend millions of dollars on a single flight to the International space station. While these passengers were technically space tourists, they were still dependent on governments to get them into space and safely back to earth. That all changed in 2004 when a ship designed by Burt Rutan and piloted by Mike Melville was able to launch into space and capture the Ansari X prize. I was able to see the ship when it was on its way to the Smithsonian at Oshkosh. I sat in on every talk given about it and even through some luck was able to shake Sir Richard Branson's hand.

Like I said, there were a few billionaires that were able to get rides on Russian rockets for many millions of dollars, but it wasn't until Rutan was able to get his ship into space did the idea of a commercial space tourist industry begin. Since then there have been many people with ideas, but it is Elon Musk's Space X and Branson's Virgin Galactic that have been the only ones to produce a ship that can get into space and back. There have been some hurdles, Branson's company has had some accidents and deaths, and Musk's failures have been on the news many times. But if you compare the meticulous ways that they are going about space flight as they did with early flight, early spaceflight will be thousands of times safer than early flight was.  

The one thing about rapid expansion of technology, the rules and regulations can not keep up. Commercial space flight has its own part of the Federal Regulations, but if you look at the site you will see that there isn't much there. Basically the only thing that the government has to say about is that you have to have a permit to launch or retrieve things from space. (Federal Register, 2016) However there was an Office of Commercial Space Travel started in 1984, not real sure what they were around for but they have been shuffled around through the Department of Transportation until they ended up in the FAA and I assume that's where they will stay as the industry takes off and we see more regulations.(Office of Commercial Space Transportation, n.d)

I really believe that we are looking at the start of the commercial space industry. If you look at it there are many parallels between the start of commercial aviation and the start of commercial space travel. While things are going incredibly slow, the only ones that are making money are taking government payloads (not unlike the early Air mail routes) I believe that there will be a major interest in the near future. 

Being a pilot on a commercial space flight will not be an easy gig to get in the beginning. Right now Virgin Galactic is taking pilots from the other Virgin Airlines and training them, but there have been some ideas of what kinds of requirements they would be looking for. Things like 3000 hours and experience in many different aircraft are a must.  (Belfiore, 2009)

Belfiore, M. (2009, February). license to thrill | space | air & space magazine. Retrieved from http://www.airspacemag.com/space/license-to-thrill-46607056/?no-ist

Federal Register. (2016, February 10). eCFR — Code of Federal Regulations. Retrieved March 13, 2016, from http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?gp=&SID=1f58495405665a030c05e44bca5a8591&mc=true&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title14/14chapterIII.tpl

Office of Commercial Space Transportation. (n.d.). Office of Commercial Space Transportation. Retrieved March 13, 2016, from http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/regulations/

Global Airlines.

There are many airlines that are subsidized by their government in one way or another, but the airlines of the Gulf states are more so than the others by a wide margin. Airlines like Qatar Airlines, Emirates and Etihad Airlines are very heavily subsidized by their home countries. This is a direct violation of the Open Skies agreement between the United States and these countries.(Laing, 2015)

The idea behind the Open Sky agreement, that has now been signed by over 100 countries, was that the airlines of each country that signed the agreement would enjoy free and open access to each other's airspace without having to be at the mercy of governments demands on routes, or fares. Another key component of this agreement was that the airlines that were benefiting from the Open Skies agreement would not be heavily subsidised by their respective governments, the idea being that the airlines would have to make it in the market on their own. (State Department, 2011)

All of the legacy airlines started as completely government subsidised, as they were flying the mail, but with the loss of the mail contracts and the deregulation of the 1970s, many of the domestic carriers became almost completely dependant on the free market to survive. There are some exeptions that are written into our laws, and while not as heavily subsidised as the Gulf States, the domestic carriers do depend on programs like the Essential Air service that the government pays the airlines to provide service to smaller more remote airlines. Another program is the Fly America Act that tells government employees that they have to fly on US owned airlines for official business. There is also a lot of rules and laws that help protect the airlines if they get in trouble, things like bankruptcy protection and the government pays millions every year to repair and improve airports for the airlines. 

Another unfair advantage that the foreign carriers have is that they are able to use the United States' own government to their advantage over US carriers, in that they can purchase the aircraft at a lower interest rate because of the Government run Export-Import Bank. This Export-Import bank guarantees loans to foreign companies that are buying American made products that would not be able to get private funding to purchase. While this is a great thing for US based Boeing, it is not a great thing for US based airlines that are having to but the same aircraft at higher interest rates. (Weisman, Lipton, 2015)

I believe that the airlines that are very heavily subsidized by their countries create a very unfair playing field in putting out a service that doesn't have to make enough to pay the basic bills and can just focus on the extras, that is why the Emirates and Qatar airlines are so much more luxurious. This will end in them getting more market share that they would have been able to do if they weren't so heavily subsidised.

Laing, K. (2015, March 12). airlines: foreign subsidies are destroying flight competition. Retrieved from http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/235543-airlines-foreign-subsidies-destroying-flight-competition

State Department. (2011, March 29). open skies partnerships: expanding the benefits of freer commercial aviation. Retrieved from http://www.state.gov/r/pa/pl/159347.htm

Weisman, J., & Lipton, E. (2015, April 6). Boeing and Delta spend millions in fight Over export-import bank existence - The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/business/boeing-delta-air-lines-export-import-bank.html?_r=0