Fifth Avenue Forum

I expect my flights in June to be 100% full.

If I flew today I guarantee my flight would be 100% full. That's just how things seem to roll.

Delta Grounds 300 Planes, Cuts 40% Of Flights, Asks Government For Help
https://onemileatatime.com/delta-ground ... g-flights/

The COVID-19 outbreak is shaping up to be the most disruptive event ever for commercial aviation. We are going to see airlines go out of business before this is over. It wouldn't surprise me if at least a quarter of the global fleet is grounded right now, and it might get worse before it gets better.

British Airways has already come out and said they’re all but ****. Airlines are already a very difficult business financially. This could wipe out the budget airlines that don’t have the cash reserves to deal with the fixed costs.

The cuts just keep coming. Scandinavian airline SAS has cut most routes and will lay off 90% of its workforce. IAG, which owns British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus, among others, has cut capacity by 75%. Ryanair and EasyJet are grounding most of their fleets. Austrian Airlines is shutting down entirely. Lufthansa will be reducing flights by up to 90%. Virgin Atlantic has cut four-fifths of its flights.

On the US side, more than a dozen Delta widebody aircraft flew today to Pinal Airpark Airport near Phoenix Arizona, which is a major storage/boneyard facility for commercial aircraft. Fourteen more aircraft are scheduled to fly there tomorrow or Wednesday. I would expect to see similar moves by the other US airlines.

In South America, the LATAM Group is reducing domestic operations in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru by 70% and international routes by 90%.

Qantas now has 150 aircraft grounded, including most of its widebody fleet. It has cut international capacity by 90% and domestic by 60%.

No one is going anywhere.

Cessna lands upside down at OGG (Kahului, Maui):

The Department of Transportation says the single engine Cessna flipped near the runway. The pilot was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The cuts just keep coming. Scandinavian airline SAS has cut most routes and will lay off 90% of its workforce. IAG, which owns British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus, among others, has cut capacity by 75%. Ryanair and EasyJet are grounding most of their fleets. Austrian Airlines is shutting down entirely. Lufthansa will be reducing flights by up to 90%. Virgin Atlantic has cut four-fifths of its flights.

On the US side, more than a dozen Delta widebody aircraft flew today to Pinal Airpark Airport near Phoenix Arizona, which is a major storage/boneyard facility for commercial aircraft. Fourteen more aircraft are scheduled to fly there tomorrow or Wednesday. I would expect to see similar moves by the other US airlines.

In South America, the LATAM Group is reducing domestic operations in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru by 70% and international routes by 90%.

Qantas now has 150 aircraft grounded, including most of its widebody fleet. It has cut international capacity by 90% and domestic by 60%.

No one is going anywhere.

Is there a website out there that tracks the number of flights from each airport and a way to track how much that has changed?

Is there a website out there that tracks the number of flights from each airport and a way to track how much that has changed?

I'm not aware of a single page where one could see that data. I think you could probably use something like Flightaware to look up the numbers of departures from certain airports and then compare that to later dates. That might require a paid membership, though.

Airlines are discussing plans to simply shut down passenger service in the US. Some flights may continue to be operated, but they would be cargo-only operations. Altanta closed a runway so that Delta can use it to park out-of-service aircraft. At this point, probably more than 80% of the US airline fleet is grounded.

Is there a website out there that tracks the number of flights from each airport and a way to track how much that has changed?

I'm not aware of a single page where one could see that data. I think you could probably use something like Flightaware to look up the numbers of departures from certain airports and then compare that to later dates. That might require a paid membership, though.

https://flightaware.com/live/cancelled/

Page breaks it down by carrier, and by both departure and destination airports. Not sure if this is part of the regular free-to-use service, or if under normal circumstances it's behind a paywall.

Hawaiian is grounding basically their entire fleet this coming Friday, outside of basically cargo runs inter-island and to the Samoan islands.

Photos from Pittsburgh International Airport:

NEW_8409 by Pittsburgh International Airport, on Flickr

NEW_8751 by Pittsburgh International Airport, on Flickr

The full gallery:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pitairpor ... 717490491/

I think it's nearing time for Harrison to stop flying.

Hand over the keys, grandpa.

It was time for him to stop flying years ago, I can't fathom how he retains a license.

Miami Air International declared bankruptcy a few weeks ago, and a couple days ago the company announced that it had been unable to secure a buyer or to secure reorganization financing, so it permanently went out of business effective last Friday. This would affect the Penguins, because Miami Air has been their charter of choice for years. A lot of Miami Air's business was sports and military charters, but sports aren't playing and troops aren't moving around very much right now.

Delta has announced that they will be retiring their entire 28-aircraft fleet of 777s by the end of 2020, as well as Delta's remaining MD-88s and MD-90s. Delta was unique among the US big three in that it only operated the 777-200 and never ordered the more popular 777-300 models. Delta has 39 Airbus A350s in inventory or on order, so it looks like those will be the only big international aircraft going forward. Delta has said that it expected to emerge from the pandemic as a substantially smaller carrier, and these steps are certainly moving in that direction.

Damn.

Drove through PIT a couple weeks ago to check out the parked AAircraft. Line of planes up and down 10C/28C and many others scattered about. Pretty incredible.

I'm sort of afraid to drive by local airports now. Too depressing.

I've read that a number of the aircraft that had been parked at PIT have been moved on elsewhere, but there are still plenty left. American has a maintenance facility for A320 family aircraft at the airport, so the people who know how to maintain the aircraft are already there. I think the aircraft that have been moved elsewhere were some Embraer 190s, which American has now decided to sell/retire. American has also announced that it is phasing out its Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 fleets and will accelerate the retirement of its Airbus A330-300s. Moving forward, the only American narrowbodies will be the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320 family, and for widebodies, it will fly only the Boeing 787 and 777. It will probably be the 737s for shorter/thinner routes, the A320s and A321s for transcon and intercon narrowbody routes (especially the 50 A321XLRs on order) the 787s for thinner international routes and thick national routes, and the 777 for any other international routes.

I was supposed to finally fly on an A321neo this summer, after years of waiting.

I get the notion of selling these aircraft, but........ who's buying?

I get the notion of selling these aircraft, but........ who's buying?

I'm not sure of any passenger airline that's actually buying aircraft right now, but parts companies would certainly be interested, I would imagine. There are a lot of 757 and 767s in cargo service. Fedex and UPS together operate well over a hundred of both of those types, so there would be a market for spare 757 and 767 parts for many years to come. Some of Delta's 777s are relatively new, so they could also be candidates for freighter conversions, but scrapping is more likely.

Air France retires Airbus A380 in coronavirus response
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-air-f ... KKBN22W2E4

Air France's 9 remaining A380s will not return to service and are being retired effective immediately. On the other side of the Air France–KLM group, KLM has retired its remaining 747-400s.

There are rumors that Emirates is looking to retire around 40% of its A380 fleet, and is also seeking to cancel at least 5 of the aircraft still on order.

The A380 was really just not a very well thought-out program imo, but at least it was a very ugly aircraft.

Horrible scene in Karachi, Pakistan. Pakistan International Airlines flight PK8303 (an Airbus A320) crashed into a densely-populated residential area short of Jinnah International Airport. It looks like the aircraft came down in the middle of houses and apartment buildings. The flight was carrying 91 passengers and eight crew. There are reports of at least two survivors from the flight, but it's not known how many people on the ground might have been injured or killed. At least 73 bodies have been recovered.


https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/ ... 17703.html

There are reports that the pilots reported engine failure, and there are photos circulating that purport to show the aircraft in mid air where it looks like the bottoms of the engine nacelles are heavily scraped up, and the aircraft's emergency RAT (ram air turbine) is deployed, which is a windmill device that is deployed to generate emergency electrical and hydraulic power during engine failure. There is some speculation that the aircraft might have scraped the runway on a first landing attempt due to the landing gear either collapsing or not being deployed, and then the engines failed during the subsequent go-around and second landing attempt.