15 airlines warned over high-altitude ice

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Originally Posted By: bar1
Originally Posted By: Astro14
I think that they're minor...but that's one man's opinion...


You consider a total loss of aircraft a minor bump in the road? It wasn't related to the battery problem, but it all stacks up.

Norwegian airliner "Norwegian" operates 2 787, 6 more on order, all with RR engines. 787 has been nothing but trouble, with 50% of flights delayed due to technical problems (not battery or engines). Norwegian had meeting with Boeing top Raymond L. Conner in Oslo. It was all about what Boeing is going to do abt. qc and maintenance.
Boeing will probably have to pay Norwegian for the lease of 2 Airbus A340 due to the delay and technical problems with 787...

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/norwegian-takes-one-of-its-787s-out-of-service-391087/


What Boeing has to pay for is a matter defined in the purchase contract with Norwegian.
Boeing might be willing to help Norwegian out as a goodwill gesture, especially since any A340 dash model can be leased for pocket change. Boeing has even reluctantly taken A340s in trade in the past. I don't know whether Boeing still owns any, though.
OTOH, Norwegian isn't exactly Emirates.
Maybe Nowegian's planned utilization rates were a little too ambitious for what remains an entirely new design. It's not as though the airline has a large enough two aisle fleet that it can sub aircraft as needed without either cancelled or excessively delayed flights.
 
Norwegian bought a complete package from Boeing, airplanes and service. In return Boeing is responsible for a given "up time". So far, Boeing hasn't fullfilled it's part of the deal.

Most American airliners are smaller than Emirates, Quatar and Etihad (or will be in the near future)
smile.gif
 
That's not a "total loss". Spare us the hyperbole. Did the airplane crash? Kill anyone? Like airplanes of the past that had problems?

Not being able to use your new airplane is a legal and economic discussion between two companies, for example, between QANTAS and airbus when their A-380 developed cracks in the wing structure. No different than you and Mercedes if your new, leased car was in the shop too often.

The size of US carriers had nothing to do with the quality of Boeing aircraft. Those same carriers you mention ordered over $100 billion in new Boeing airplanes at the Dubai airshow last week. There are over 1,000 787s on order right now from airlines around the world. An airline with 2 of one aircraft type is hardly a statistically significant sample.
 
98 787 built at that time. Together NAS and LOT has more than 7% of the fleet. 1000 on order is good for Boeing as they have time to get it's QC right.
 
Originally Posted By: bar1
If you read my post it's "close to total loss".

The Ethiopian 787 fire nearly ended in toal loss and is afaik not flying yet.

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2022097759_787repairxml.html

http://airchive.com/blog/2013/10/17/ethiopian-airlines-boeing-787-repaired-london-patch/



So, if it's repaired and back in service, you still think that's close to a total loss?

My idea of loss, or near total loss, is far, far different. Asiana 225 was a total loss....and a lucky one, as relatively few fatalities occurred.

What's your point, then? That the 787 is no good? That's its problems are severe? I disagree. So do the airlines that have ordered over a thousand of them. Nobody has canceled their 787 orders. The identified problems with the 787 have been minor and they've been fixed. Canceled orders show real problems, just look at the cancelation of orders for the A-380.

That's the point: all airplanes have issues when they're new, including the wing structure cracks on the A-380, though I consider structural problems that take the airplane out for months and costs 10s of millions of dollars as major.

The problems with Norwegian's airplanes are more frequent than other airlines are experiencing, but Boeing is working with them to solve the problems. Norwegian is a little airline, with 80 airplanes. Emirates is bigger, with 195 big airplanes in service, so the A-380 problems were not as detrimental to their schedule.

United, with 698 airplanes, is having far better in service experience with the 787, but we scheduled it more gently, knowing that it was new. Further, it's only a tiny fraction of our fleet, so the grounding was minor in terms of capacity loss. Norwegian's schedule was aggressive, so part of the revenue loss is due to poorly informed decisions made on how to employ a brand new airplane. Even the Navy doesn't push new hardware that hard, and those jets are pushed hard.

For a classic example of real problems with a new airplane, go back and look at the Comet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet
 
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Originally Posted By: bar1
Norwegian bought a complete package from Boeing, airplanes and service. In return Boeing is responsible for a given "up time". So far, Boeing hasn't fullfilled it's part of the deal.

Most American airliners are smaller than Emirates, Quatar and Etihad (or will be in the near future)
smile.gif



Those three have ordered a lot of airplanes, but your statement is a stretch. 50% of all the revenue seat miles in service are in North America and the US airlines are pretty big.

Let's look at numbers, then. You brought up fleet size, which we can use, but a better measure is available seat miles, which measures real capacity over the distance flown.

By that measure, which favors Emirates' large aircraft and long routes, The five largest airlines in the world are:

1. United
2. Delta
3. American (before the US Airways merger)
4. Southwest
5. Emirates

The other two don't make the top ten. Further, Southwest, with its short stage length and small aircraft is hugely disadvantaged by this measure, but still comes out ahead of all 3 you mentioned.

By fleet size:

Delta
United
American
Southwest
US Airways
China Southern
Air France
Lufthansa
Air Canada
China Eastern

Though, much of the fleet size for US airlines includes their regional feed. My number on UAL in the previous post, 698, is accurate for the mainline. None of your 3 were in the top 10.

Orders are the future. Don't count this in an airlines size until they're operating the equipment.
 
Well, if repair cost is close to the cost of buying a new one. I doubt Boeing will make repair costs public.

I'm aware other models have had it's share of problems that is now remedied, even the Comet was fixed in the end.
I didn't mention other aircraft mfg. or other models from Boeing as this thread was about the 787.

Yes the 50% delay rate is caused by Nowegians aggressive schedule and is probably poor management decisions. But the technical problems/failures aren't related to the schedule.
 
Originally Posted By: Astro14
Those three have ordered a lot of airplanes, but your statement is a stretch.


Future will tell
smile.gif
 
Originally Posted By: bar1
Norwegian bought a complete package from Boeing, airplanes and service. In return Boeing is responsible for a given "up time". So far, Boeing hasn't fullfilled it's part of the deal.

Most American airliners are smaller than Emirates, Quatar and Etihad (or will be in the near future)
smile.gif


AFAIK, Boeing is responsible for maintenace and repair, not for any given number of hours of availability over any time period.
If Boeing were responsible for keeping Norwegian's aircraft available for all the flights Norwegian, or any other carrier, chooses to schedule the equiment, then Boeing would already be providing supplemental lift with some desert bound twin aisles on short term leases.
As was noted above, US domestic commercial flying equals all commericial flying in the rest of the world combined, so I don't think any carrier hubbed through the Gulf is a serious threat for most of their business.
The Gulf carriers are also poorly positioned geographically for routes from North America to Europe or for flights between the Americas.
I also can't help thinking that some of the rapidly expanding Gulf carriers are a business catastrophe in the making. Yeah, they've done just grand thus far, but how long will they be able to continue to expand rapidly enough to absorb all those new planes they have on order?
 
In general, aerospace needs "were" well understood by the classic, post WW-II engineers. Today, we are re-learning all sorts of "tribal knowledge". I really have to wonder if this is just simply another example of the issue. On the surface, it certainly seems so.
 
Originally Posted By: bar1
NAS 787 maintenance deal with Boeing:
http://boeing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=20295&item=2173

NAS 737 maintenance deal with Lufthansa Technik:
http://www.lufthansa-technik.com/press-r...e-tbs-norwegian


Did you happen to notice the absence of Boeing's having contracted to provide supplemental lift as needed?
Did you also notice that "Norwegian will retain active control responsibility over all engineering and maintenance activities"?
IOW, if you choose to fly the wings off the thing, that's on you.
It doesn't appear that the Germans are agreeing to anything more either, although they do agree to schedule heavy checks for low season, which wouldn't yet matter with the 787.
WRT the 737, the incident you describe was probably caused by a known problem involving accumulations of deicing fluid on the horizotal stab bearings and is in no way exclusive to the 737.
No modifications to the airframe are planned, although deicing proceedures may have to be changed. In particular, it may be necessary to wash away accumulations of old deicing fluid before applying new.
It's doubtful that this aircraft, which has flown commercially since 1967, harbors any undiscovered demons.
Even the NG, with new wings and a new empenage, has been flying for a couple of decades all over the world.
 
NAS should have opted for the "Titanium" package
smile.gif

Of course 737 maintenance is covered different. It's a long time since 737 had it's "teething problems" solved.

The NAS 787 problem has been shortage on spare parts and that parts are located in London.
That doesn't help you much when stranded in Oslo, Stockholm, New York or Bangkok. Using up to 12 hours to get your replacement part, isn't "Gold Enterprice" service.
After the Boeing-NAS meeting in Oslo, Boeing has started to store parts at the places mentioned.

737 known problem? From article:
"adding that Boeing was “not aware” of this potential problem before the investigation."
 
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I recommend that NAS start shopping Suhkoi and Airbus.

Let us know how the maintenance availability works out for you...
 
I can't imagine that the airline will have enough growth to take all of those planes and put them into service.
To do so would more than triple their fleet, and Europe does not lack well financed low cost competition.
Airbus, Boeing and the leasing companies providing the financing really don't care either way, since these aircraft will be very easy to place.
There is huge demand for replacements for early A320s, older gen 737s, early 737NGs as well as the large numbers of MD-80 models still in service.
 
A big part of that order will probably be leased to other airlines. NAS is at 10th place in Europe when it comes to number of passengers, and only 2 European low-cost carriers are bigger (Easyjet and Ryanair).
 
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Originally Posted By: bar1
A big part of that order will probably be leased to other airlines. NAS is at 10th place in Europe when it comes to number of passengers, and only 2 European low-cost carriers are bigger (Easyjet and Ryanair).

I thought that leasing might be a part of the plan.
Saying that only Ryanair and Easyjet are bigger is a bit of an understatement, since both are everywhere in Europe and both are tough competitors, Ryanair being particularly so.
Either could crush NAS on any route they didn't want it operating.
 
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