Since the beginning of flying, aviation learns (often too late) from mistakes. There are some questions rising from the recent debacles at Haneda Airport of an Airbus A350-900 crashing into a Coast Guard aircraft and the Boeing 737-Max9 loosing a dummy door in-flight, that I find noteworthy to share. I will not mention the airlines, considering them victims.
Neither will pour blame over Boeing only again, at Haneda it was an Airbus raising questions. In my humble opinion, think the entire industry has an issue relating to “safety first” recently. And I am afraid, the “commercial focus” on the cost of safety hasn’t ended with the Boeing 737Max debacle with an amok running flight system driving two fully loaded aircraft into the ground just before the Pandemic.
Haneda (Airbus)
An Airbus A350-900 aircraft crashed into a small Japan Coast Guard Dash-8 aircraft at Tokyo Haneda airport, killing all people aboard the Dash-8. No fatalities aboard the Airbus A350-900. Which in hindsight is a miracle to many experts I heard talking the last days.
- Airbus Fire Sensors
“After the aircraft came to a stop the cockpit crew was not aware of any fire, however, flight attendants reported fire from the aircraft. The purser went to the cockpit and reported the fire and received instruction to evacuate. Evacuation thus began with the two front exits (left and right) closest to the cockpit. Of the other 6 emergency exits 5 were already in fire, only the left aft exit was still usable. The Intercom malfunctioned, communication from the aft aircraft with the cockpit was thus impossible. As result the aft flight attendants gave up receiving instructions from the cockpit and opened the emergency exit on their own initiative” (Source). Later information says there was a several minutes of delay because of missing or misinformation between cockpit and cabin. So why was the communication malfunctioning in that situation? Why were the pilots unaware? Even Haneda Tower should have informed them instantly of that danger! Why haven’t they? And … and why does the crew have to get approval from the flight deck to evacuate when the aircraft is burst into flames and mortal danger imminent? - Airbus Evac Procedures
Good thing first: The captain [reported only later] was the last one to leave the aircraft. 18 minutes after the aircraft came to a stop. (Source). Wait a minute … 18 Minutes??
Given he aircraft burned out and was on fire rather instantly after the collision, what the heck have those passengers been thinking or doing? I’ve seen my first flight attendant training back in 1989, the emergency training a major part of the training courses. The shouts, day and night in the training center echoing in my ears: “Move it, move it. Get out of my way!”. But 18 minutes? Especially with the issue of 5 out of 8 emergency exits blocked by fire when the purser went to the cockpit to get evac approval?! I believe both Boeing and the airline must have to review the procedures urgently.
Side note. I find it rather telling that there is a lot, a big lot of footage (images, video) of the A350-900, but virtually none of the smaller Dash-8 suffering all the fatalities. At least, I didn’t see or find any? A nice example of “biased news reporting”?
Portland (Boeing)
Above Portland, Oregon (USA), a Boeing 737-Max9 lost a “door plug” in-flight, by sheer luck, not causing any fatality. That this can end far more tragic is burned into my mind, remembering the Aloha Airlines 737 loosing its entire roof shortly after I’ve been there and flying Aloha. A flight attendant being ejected by the decompression. And given the picture, it makes one wonder on the miracle the entire aircraft didn’t break up. One of the many “near-misses” in my life to date. (Wikipedia)
Following the two fatal disasters of 2018+2019 forcing the lengthy grounding and near-bankruptcy of Boeing, the new accident now “naturally” raises the question about the quality of Boeing engineering. In my humble opinion, it does raise the question especially about their constant claim of “Safety First”! With subject matter experts claiming loose screws having caused the door to come apart. What was that about four-eye principle on aircraft construction and all major maintenance?
The door was later found in a teacher’s back yard in Portland Oregon. Just like a phone from the aircraft, the pieces “sailed down”, aerodynamically similar to a Frisbee and landed almost unharmed.
Added 08Feb24: According to preliminary media reporting, there were bolts not just not fastened but missing. Say what??
Is the 737 MAX safe?
Fact: I will neither voluntarily fly, nor allow my immediate family to fly a 737 Max anytime soon. In my humble opinion (IMHO), that aircraft has been misconstructed from the outset and should be shelved for good. It only flies and is approved IMHO for commercial reasons; if it’d be grounded for good, the losses for Boeing can very well proof fatal. To me, it seems the door plug again was a “quick and dirty” solution. On the other end, I won’t “actively” avoid the aircraft, flying was and remains the most secure transport in the world. Just that any incident instantly receives scrutinous media coverage. But yes, booking flights, I usually happen to look at details – and given the choice, avoiding the MAX will be a clear decision making factor for me.
The new incident brings up feedback that I got during the 2019 grounding media uproar. Questions why the “better” Boeing 757 was shelved. It didn’t have the low profile causing engineering complications as there wasn’t enough space under the 737’s wing. Which led to the fatal idea of MCAS, later being the cause for the two fatal crashes killing 346 people. And commercial reasons leading not only to base that on a single sensor (instead of the originally planned three), false readings causing the misinformation of MCAS causing the crashes. But also to the secret implementation not shared with the pilots to avoid potential demand for an “expensive” full type-rating as a new aircraft.
Conclusions
Flight Safety is back to “reactive”. But aircraft engineering must be proactively focused on flight safety! As must be processes, just like the evacuation of aircraft under grim circumstances! Ever since the beginning of flight safety with the Comet-disasters back in the 1950s, aviation “reacted” to disasters. A lesson we also learned with aircraft deicing.
I truly believe that flight safety ain’t a luxury. Just like “service” or “sustainability” being only identified as “cost factors” by finance-focused aviation managers. The recent “cases” are just more examples where things went awry and off track. There are enough cases, not just old, but rather recent, when airlines in distress started to save on the aircraft safety and maintenance. Usually reducing it to the rule-book, “encouraging” their maintenance staff to “look the other way” and to delay parts replacement in questionable situations. Or to have supervisors “sign off” as the additional pair of eyes but in fact reducing it to a single pair of eyes on the job! To safe cost.
Boeing engineers are well advised to return to spend a few more screws and bolts on securing a door plug and to demand four-eye-principle on their construction.
Airbus better finds out, what too so long to evacuate the aircraft.
All else is to be looked at when the incident reports come out. And media is well advised to not just jump the incident, but also report on the final findings. Not 1:1 copying the press release, but questioning them. I think that would be good for (shareholder-value-focused) “managers” to not stray from “Safety First”. As in the end, it’s a trust thing.
Food for Thought
Comments welcome…
Last week, I had a lengthy phone call with an airport manager in the U.S. Snow-Belt, asking me about ideas, how to break up the silo thinking that keeps all his ideas about a common airport operations center as a basis for some A-CDM-style development from moving forward. Next winter approaching, he’s worried about repeating the past years’ experience of unnecessary delays. “The airline always knows better” he complained to me. If we offer them solution, it’s not theirs, so it’s being turned down. Communication is faulty and in crisis, everyone works on their own. #talkthetalk
Now give me a break. When I read this “promo” on LinkedIn, is it just me, seeing the fault in it?
Our vision for what was to be Cytric, that we wanted to follow, a vision not existing now, 25 years later, was to enter the home address, the destination address and the system would provide you the best travel options for you to get to the airport using car, rail, taxi, whatever, fly towards your destination and again take rail, taxi, rental car, whatever, to get to where you needed to go.
Speaking about Business Travel Management, we don’t need data typists any more. In the good old days, travel agents were the experts, knowing how to get the traveler from A to B, halfway (or all) around the world… Then came the GDS and the travel agents became data interfaces to the big data accessed through travel computers being connected with mighty servers. Something we call cloud computing today, using “dummy terminals”. Using codes like AN19DECFRAMIA and SS1B1M2 to search for and book a flight. Or similar complicated tools to book a rail ticket.
It is why I believe we need regional aviation and we need more of it. Smaller aircraft, connecting secondary cities, offering quick and direct connection. Hubs are good for the global networks. And as I kept and keep emphasizing. Regional airports must not look out, how to get their locals out to the world. But to 
On the call from an aviation IT professional it triggered that A-CDM is for big airports only. Is it?
As I approached it back in 2016/17 and shared the learning curve at 
An older 
Our main problem is that our Powers-That-Be still consider themselves in a competition. Data is value, so put it in siloes. Where OpenStreetMap enabled mapping solutions, aviation data is still locked away. It takes two months until IATA publishes passenger data, after four months those numbers happen to differ substantially.
Where aviation in the 1960s to -80s was a pacemaker in global eCommerce, it is now limping behind. Can tell stories about replies from industry bodies when I informed them about factual mistakes in their data. And their ignorance shown by neither directing the report to their PTBs, nor updating the faulty information. Instead of working together to develop the aviation of the future, we have conservative forces in play that hinder real development. Be that about A-CDM, data interfaces, data intelligence. We limp behind and instead of doing, we #talkthetalk.
While we have clear plans to become Carbon-Neutral in realistically in three to five years, you got to start. And an “impact investor” told me this week that we are too little innovative. Really?
There is a lot of buzz ongoing about Impact Investment in IT and AI. Whereas I just wrote about 
On the other side – and back to the topic of my previous article, 
A German investor this week told me: “There is too little change in what you’re doing.” That investor referred to either air taxi or hyperloop. Whereas I’ve often enough expressed my concerns about air traffic control taking individual mobility into the third dimension and into potential conflict with commercial (and military) aviation. Just thinking about the increasing drone-warnings disrupting airport operations the past year. That is a very long way to go.
Global CO2 emissions dropped by 7%, with 11% in Europe due to Corona. Especially aviation reduced due to the lockdown by 22% global, some regions by 30%. But those are expected to come back quickly (
People should take rail the politicos wrote. Yeah, I can see Merkel spending a day to travel from Berlin to Brussels. An interesting 
There are exceptionally good examples recently, like 
Though also notable, there is a bad misinterpretation that impact investment would mean low ROI. I think our business concept for Kolibri is looking at very competitive ROI at a residual risk below other investments. But it is so much easier to accuse impact investment to justify one owns look the other direction, right?
Well, it’s always easy to invest into existing business. Buying in on indices or major shares, you don’t need to understand anything beyond their “performance” and “marketing message”. If they wash well enough, they might appear shining green or white, right?
The “typical” aviation investment is aircraft funds. Whereas KPMG valued them at an average 4% return in 2019, look at all those assets now. Liabilities in most cases, because they had and have no USP. And even back in 2019, the big aircraft lessors being well established with the airlines made good returns, but many funds also underperformed or failed completely.
Recent developments and posts really bug me. Don’t the writers of those posts recognize the cognitive dissonance? Yes, we must think positive. But there is a clear distinction between thinking positive and whitewashing or daydreaming. We have a crisis at hand and the “positive signals” aren’t as “positive” as those posts try to make them look like. They look at the marketing messages on the surface but fail to look the slightest bit deeper.
Yes, as you can see in the archive of my 
I know, being a German and having taken residence with the family in Germany for the pandemic, I am somewhat biased on what happens here and especially Lufthansa. And that makes me puke. No, I can’t say that nicely.
I was kind of shocked this week, when German Tagesthemen, one of the main news channel mentioned already that this may not be the end, but just the beginning of an expensive further bail-out series for the airline and it’s many subsidiaries. But if they burned 5 billion in three months, how long can they sustain the drought before they burned up the added nine billion?!["We are Listening. And We're Not Blind. This is Your Life. This is Your Time!" [Snow Patrol - Calling in the Dark]](https://foodforthought.barthel.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CallingintheDark.jpg)
Reading the 
If you focus on shareholder value, human resources and only your own, personal profit, you end up in a deep, dark pit. Sometimes, like Boeing’s Muilenburg and others who have been on the Olymp, just for that much deeper a fall. Examples aplenty.
Corporate Social Responsibility starts with your immediate environment: Your own organisation!
Aside the example i used on the different approaches between 
It might be surprising to the bean counters (accountant-mindset “managers”) that all of our related “cost centers” turned out to be no just driving loyalty, but to be true profit centers and vital in our attempt to melt the cost factors to competitive levels. As a start-up, investing into all the company’s assets, you must be competitive against all those large, established companies like easyJet owning around 70% of their fleet, cost down to maintenance, with roughly 25% being paid off and around 5% being leased to cover ad hoc opportunities (like taking over Air Berlin routes). And while now being a “burden” in Corona times, airlines cannot drop out of leasing either, so the cost still is there. But those airlines can secure credits based on their (aircraft) assets. To develop profit centers that allow to cut down the cost to competitive levels such ain’t a mere strategy, but a vital need.
![“For those who agree or disagree, it is the exchange of ideas that broadens all of our knowledge” [Richard Eastman]](https://foodforthought.barthel.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/eastman_quote-1200x675.jpg)
![“For those who agree or disagree, it is the exchange of ideas that broadens all of our knowledge” [Richard Eastman]](http://foodforthought.barthel.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/eastman_quote.jpg "Richard Eastman")
… or the question of leeching.
![Lunchmoney Lewis - I've Got Bills [Unhyping Online Marketing]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ETM8rrqrTW8/hqdefault.jpg "Lunchmoney Lewis - I've Got Bills [Unhyping Online Marketing]")
![We are Listening ... and we're not Blind! This is your Life. This is your Time [Snow Patrol - Calling in the Dark]](http://foodforthought.barthel.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CallingintheDark.jpg "Snow Patrol - Calling in the Dark")
In Germany we had a barrel-burst campaign “You are Germany” – what do you do to make things better?
![“Our Heads Are Round so our Thoughts Can Change Direction” [Francis Picabia]](https://foodforthought.barthel.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Picabia-Francis-Round-Heads-1200x675.jpg)
As many of the readers of this blog know, I am somewhat personally attached to that little airport in Central Germany, Erfurt-Weimar.
First day at work, the GM of Tourism Thuringia, Bärbel Grönegres was quoted in the local newspaper (TA, 02Mar09), having visited the United Arab Emirates to promote medical tourism to Thuringia. Having a Munich-Erfurt flight by Lufthansa-Partner 
The next winter, the Thuringian Olympic athletes brought home a record number of medals. But at the following ITB, it was more important to promote 
In order to promote the government-funded route, after fierce discussions, Cirrus Airlines agreed to offer a low-cost ticket at 99€ return, having only about 6€ after the high taxes on the ticket. That offer was made available especially to the Thuringian government offices and the state development agency (LEG). Nevertheless, LEG planned and executed delegations traveling with the train to Berlin to take flights from Berlin, instead of promoting the route. The same also for the ministries and ministers. Even the responsible minister taking flights from Frankfurt and Munich instead of using the PSO-route he signed responsible for. During the months we’ve actively promoted that 99€-fare also to the industry and the travel agencies and also had it largely available, not one of the flights used up the 99€ tickets allocated to them. Being at the verge of a bankruptcy, Cirrus Airlines finally ceased to operate that route in December 2010.
By the time, working with the local industry associations, political parties I have been able to increase the passenger numbers by about 20 percent. In fact, to date, the airport is far from the 320 thousand passengers I left them with. With Weimar being the neighboring but historically better known city internationally, I pushed forward the renaming to Erfurt-Weimar with the attempt to improve the incoming for the airport. Paid almost completely from the limited marketing budget. A strategic decision executed after our parting-of-ways in December 2010 after my two-year contract was not extended in the wake of the retreat of Cirrus Airlines. A strategic decision though made obsolete by the “political” decision by traffic minister Christian Carius to not replace the route as I recommended with an Amsterdam-service. Sad decision indeed, as with our parting ways, the discussions with KLM were simply discontinued (KLM calling my number reached someone speaking German only, I was gone) and despite their interest in a PSO (public service obligation) financial route support, we had discussed flights based on mere startup incentives and marketing support.
Opposing myself ongoing subsidies, to demand a route but to leave the (substantial) risk completely with the airline is neither the answer. Whereas comparing the 
Now since I started in aviation 30 years ago, the market has drastically changed. In the good old days, there were (often highly subsidized) “national airlines”, used to promote the country. Back in my early days, the airlines were the executive for the tourist offices and also worked closely with commercial development agencies. But ever since, those national airlines have either adapted or went out of business. The emerging “low cost” airlines virtually evaporated the income of the airlines, competition becoming fierce.
As I keep emphasizing with my updated image of 
At upcoming 
I’ve lately being asked to travel to North America. And to Russia. To help on a project. Payment? Oh, if my help works out we may be able to agree on a consulting contract the next time… You. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.