Covid19, the airline industry. Where do we go from here?

This is what I'm doing at home since I'm jonesing from not flying in close to two months:

a reply to: Mark98SS

A good bit. It takes a week to ten days to return an aircraft that's only been in short term storage. When it goes in, the engines and pitot tubes are covered, fluids are drained, e.t.c. When it comes out fluids have to be filled, tires checked and replaced if necessary, engines run, and all the little maintenance issues that cropped up while it sat need fixing.

a reply to: Puppylove

You mean, just like every small business in America who still haven't received their small business government-backed Covid loans?

These a-holes don't operate under the rules of capitalism. We suspend the rules in your favor if you are big enough to support the right candidates (in both corporatist parties).

Delta announced yesterday their MD-88s and MD-90s will be gone next month.

a reply to: Zaphod58

You just knew they Delta was going to do this. Actually kind of surprised they didn't do it sooner, but still a month early.

(27) aircraft.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I am too actually. They didn't have a choice but to get rid of them.

a reply to: Mark98SS
It honestly depends on what aircraft type, how long and what path you go down. By the latter I mean some engine manufacturer will give you a basic procedure for say a 7 day, 15 day, 30 day or 3-6 month layup and so on. It might be for example that you have to inhibit the engine with preserving oil and lay 10's of kilos of gelatin bags to absorb moisture in the inlets and outlets of the engine. However they may also give you an alternate procedure under something like whats known as a TV procedure (Technical Variance) that says "you dont have to do this so long as you run the engines at idle for a t least 15 mins every 15 days". Every manufacturer has different procedures, and they all vary depending on how long the aircraft is laid up. But as a general rule Zaph is spot on in that you can expect it to take at least the better part of a week plus and a lot of man hours to bring back just one aircraft that has been out of service for more than a few weeks. Whats funny about that is how few airline executives have any real understanding of that or what kinds of manpower and resources are going to be needed or involved. For those airlines that survive this, its going to be hilarious watching the execs squirm and carry on as their maintenance divisions and MRO's point out the salient facts to them. Man is there going to be some monumental overtime caused by this as the work piles up. I know for a fact that my company has dozens of 737's that dont have the approved pitot covers and have been bagged. When it comes time all those unapproved covering materials will come off and then the pitots will need to be removed, cleaned and all the sense lines purged on each one. Thats a massive job across an entire fleet, but there isn't an alternative. As you can see, its not straight forward and easy by a long shot.

Oh and dont leave the bags in when you restart the engines..

a reply to: Blackfinger
Blackfinger, myself and another ex V-Pod/Boro guy looked up the procedures the other night. For a Trent-900 that is laid up for 6 months+ you need 130kg's of gelatin bags for EACH engine! And no you cant just stick it all in the bottom of the cold stream duct. Time to start a gelatin bag company I think.

a reply to: thebozeian

I'm looking forward to the giant white smoke cloud when they begin starting engines again. It'll be like the L1011 days.

Ask the Vulcan restore to flight guys a few years ago what happens when you miss a bag..

a reply to: Zaphod58
Along with all of the panicked motorists and passersby making mobile calls to 000(911) about an aircraft that is on fire!

All I can say looking at this Charlie Foxtrot is that I sure am glad that my timeline slipped and I didn't start with the regionals last fall the way I planned to back in 2017...

At this rate it looks like even the cruise industry is going to come out of this with less "disruptions".

a reply to: Barnalby
Trust me its an absolute bloodbath across the entire industry , right around the world. Airline execs are prone to always play the "worst operating/financially challenging conditions we have ever endured", all the time in order to justify squeezing the workforce over pay and condition negotiations. This time they aren't actually lying. The key now is to just try and hold onto your job, some of the international routes and aircraft wont return to regular service for maybe 2-3 years. I was looking at a brand new 787-9 the other night that flew in from India on a repatriation flight and was then immediately put into storage. I did another CF-6-80C2 engine change on a 747-400ER a few nights back and its probably the last time I'll do that. GE bought the whole fleet for a pittance just to take the engines with the airframes to be scrapped still with 20-25 thousand hours of airframe life left. They would actually make great aerial fire fighting tankers.There will be very few old aircraft left flying after this, and a lot less in general numbers for some years to come.

a reply to: thebozeian

One of the big carriers today announced they'll keep their A380s parked at least a year, and they may not come back at all.

a reply to: Zaphod58
I have heard some of ours may not come back for 2 years. Another story is that one fleet rationalization plan sees half of ours parked up for good. Another rumor however is that we may use them on routes like the SYD-HKG run running a limited number of services per week, which I think makes sense. Why run smaller aircraft with all the landing charges and crew costs when you can just send a big one less often? LHT have a conversion running right now to convert an A-380 to all light parcel freight. Thats an interesting move to me.

a reply to: thebozeian

I saw that the other day. I'm curious to see how that works out. It's going to be a very interesting industry this time next year. Mitsubishi is rethinking the smaller version of the MRJ (I'm NOT calling it the Spacejet dammit) that was going to be marketed to US regionals.

a reply to: Zaphod58

It all just seems so fluid. A year from now we could have ongoing outbreaks with "recovery" demand at 50-60% of what it was pre-Corona, with multiple shuttered American majors and boneyards of 10 year-old narrowbodies left over from the liquidations with no buyers in sight, or the virus could be like SARS and run its course by August or September and 2021 sees skyrocketing ticket prices and demand as everyone decides to take all the trips they had to cancel this year.

It's going to be really interesting to see what this does to the airline fleet makeups over the next decade. Will A350s and 787s be the biggest things flying in 2030, or will we see a return to regulated routes and fewer big planes flying the same routes less frequently?

I can still see a big opportunity for small speed orientated airframes.

a reply to: Barnalby

It’s going to be interesting, when ticket prices start going up, more people will drive, or telework. I just flew from the east coast to west coast, all the flights were less than half full. Less choices for flights to choose from. If prices become double or more of what they are now in the future I would not be opposed to drive instead, especially if I’m being paid perdiem.