How safe are low-cost airlines ?

The new model
When easyJet started operating years ago, it raised tons of questions amongst the potential customers. How can they be so cheap ? Will they survive the market ? Will the other survive the market ? Are they on time ?... but the main one certainly was "Are they as safe as a classical company ?"

The answer to this one is definetly yes. They certainly had some incidents, but no crash for the time being. Ryanair also has a virginal crash record for the time being.

The low cost airline is sustained by three pillars:

1) Modern fleet and single type of aircraft
2) Reduced services to passengers
3) High added value at minimal cost

Let's go through them all...

Fleet management
At initial startup, easyJet was operating with boeing 737's only, and now they operate a fleet made of Airbus 319's only. There are multiple advantages to a single type fleet. First, you need less pilots. In a classical company operating many type of aircrafts, you need reserve pilots for each and every types. In a single type fleet, you need reserve pilots only for one type, so you can operate the same number of aircrafts with less pilots, and then you can offer them very attractive salaries.

It is not unusual to have slightly higher salaries by low-costs companies than in classical ones for flight crew (pilots). Ground handling crew is another story...

The same applies to maintenance spare parts and mechanics. Airplane mechanics are licensed for a certain number of aicraft types, but not all. So operating a single type of aircraft makes the maintenance less complex to manage, and you need spare parts for this single type only.

The drawback of the single type fleet is the reduction of possible operations. Classical companies have various types for various operations (short flight, trans-oceanic, ...). So the low-costs as we know them from the last years will not operate trans-oceanic flight.

Reduced service to passengers
The most widely known reduction in services offered to passengers on low-cost airlines is the fact that you have to pay for your sandwich / croissant / coffee if you want some. But this is by far not the sole reduction.

On low-cost airlines, you have no customers desk. Some of them are even no longer accepting ticket-ordering by phone, but only over the internet.

Bookings can usually not be modified, or at very high prices. And one of the most important thing making a low cost easier and cheaper to operate is the absence of alliances with other companies. When you travel with a classical company and that the flight is cancelled, the company will try to put you on a flight from a different company, or a later flight. Can you imagine the kind of commercial agreement and operational issues raised by such a possiblity ? A low-cost company will never offer that. Your flight is cancelled ? Take the next one, or buy a new ticket by a concurent.

Welcome to Paris Beauvais airport
An other way of reducing passenger service is to land in less expensive airports, which means a bit farther away, but also sometimes quicker to go through. The transfer to terminal / customs / immigration process in Luton is much shorter than in Heathrow, especially if you land just after a 747 of Chinese people.

The risk with this strategy of smaller airports it to fall in extreme cases. From my point of view, it's ok to say that Gatwick is an airport in London. Saying the same about Luton is already ... different. The one hour bus trip is quite long, especially if the previous flight did last for 1h15 !

The extreme example of this is a company selling tickets to Paris Beauvais airport. For those of you not knowing where Beauvais is, 66 kilometers north of Paris. The bus transfer lasts for 90 minutes when traffic is ok. As a comparison, Luton is "only" 45 kilometers north of London.

easyMoney

Every added value is importan for a low-cost company, especially if it is for free. This is why easyJet recently introduced the "Speedy Boarder" offer. For an additional 2.5 english pounds, you obtain the possibility to board before any other passenger. So the cost for the company is a slight change in the website, and an adapted boarding procedure. Virtually no cost.

Knowing that the average benefit per passenger and per leg is 2 english pounds, any person paying for speedy boarding will bring the company double benefit ! How easy is that ?

No crash allowed
Losing a plane in a crash is always a human tragedy at first. No one discusses that. But it also has financial and economical impact on the airline. Many classical airlines, including the most prestigious ones (AirFrance, Swissair, United, Lufthansa...) lost planes. They all survived this tragedy, with more or less consequences.

No low-cost company could survive a crash. This is because media and most potential customers will react to such an event by thinking "Huh. They're low-cost, so they're unsafe, that's why they had this crash".

Despite being totally wrong, this would be the natural way of thinking of most people. Because of this, a low-cost airline can not "afford" an accident, and thus they invest a lot in flight safety.

No evolution
Some older airlines tried to go low-cost, or to have a low-cost subsidiary, but this is probably not possible. First the airline company will suffer from it, and customers would become unclear if the company is low-cost or not.

Secondly, such a mixed company would need the classical infrastructure, so no cost reduction can be expected here.

A tribute to Captain Hans Georg Schmid

The swiss pilot Hans Georg Schmid got killed today, in the crash of its experimental aircraft after take-off from Basel (LFSB), on a flight to Oshkosh (KOSH). This was an attempt to re-create part of the original Atlantic Ocean crossing by Charles Lindbergh in 1927.

Hans Georg Schmid used to work as an airline captain for swissair, but he also held several aviation speed records, including speed around the world. More information about him on his website.

He was a major supporter and actor of all flying activities, and his death is an enormous loss for all the community.

All my thougts go to his familly and relatives on this sad day.

PS: once again, only investigation report will contain reliable facts, all what media will report in betwee will be speculation only, disregard it.

Airbus 320 crash in Sao Paulo Congonhas

When I heard about the crash of the TAM Airbus 320 this morning in Sao Paulo, my first thoughts were for the victims, their families, and then to the rescue and support staff.

Then, I wanted to issue kind of a warning via this blog. After each air disaster, the media get frenzy with information they get from anyone and by any way. Given the emotional and mediatic impact of such a crash, but also due to its possible economical impacts, a nasty game could (pessimistic people would say will) start.

On one hand, the airline, on the other hand, the aircraft manufacturer. Most of time they co-operate in good state of mind, but in case of an accident, they can suddenly become the worst ennemies, to avoid being designated as responsible. Under some circumstances, airport authority and air taffic control authorities could be involved, but it seems it is not the case here.

On top of that come the media, wanting to make the best possible coverage of the event, in terms of attracting audience. Not to report things as close as possible to the truth. So please be careful when reading or seeing reports in the media. Keep the following things in mind:

1) The exact circumstances will be determined by the investigation team, and this process will last for months, if not years.

2) All actors will try to minimize their potential responsibilities, especially in terms what the general audience thinks of this accident. A bad public reputation can kill an airline, even quicker than legal action. Thus airline representatives will do all what they can to protect their image.

3) Media will report opinion of anyone with even the slightiest connection to this business, from the tower controller to the man getting the trolleys back from the parking lot to the terminal.

4) Some insiders will say things like "With that weather / in those conditions, I would have ... / They should have done this or that". Two remarks regarding this kind of comments. First, the persons talking this way were not present (only the crew was), so they don't know the conditions to the detail. Secondly, we are always smarter after the incident, aren't we ?

So once again, our thoughts at this stage must go to the victims and their families. Let the investigation team do its jobs. I will certainly re-post about this incident when the report will be published. Anything in between would be speculation only.

Pilot - Co-pilot

The presence of two pilots in a crew is one of the key points to airline safety. Technically speaking, any modern airliner could be flown by a 6 years old, given all the automatics work good.

A common joke says that three things are needed to fly a plane: a computer, a pilot and a dog. The computer to fly the plane, the pilot to feed the dog, and the dog to bite the pilot if he tries to touch the controls.

The crew operates according to the airline standards, and includes a captain and a co-pilot. This distinction only defines who is holding the final autority. There is a second distinction which defines the operational roles of each: pilot flying and pilot non-flying. This is normally defned before each leg, and they normally change for each leg.

The principle is simple: the pilot flying manages to keep the plane in a correct attitude, and to fly it, or manage the auto-pilot. The pilot non flying manages navigation, communication, and monitors the pilot flying.

This split of tasks is something like tactics (pilot flying) and strategy (pilot non flying). One is managing short term, while the other is working on a longer term. This has proven to be a very efficient way to have a crew of two reaching very good safety.

A crash years ago involved a crew having problems with the flight computer, who did not behaved as expected. The normal way to work it out would have been to have the pilot flying to manually fly the aircraft while the pilot non flying would manage the computer problem.

In that case, both pilot and copilot started working on the computer, so no one was flying the plane. This was shortly after take-off, and the plane crashed after flying a barrel.

One other critical issue with the non flying pilot monitoring the flying pilot is that they must have a quite similar experience. In an unbalanced crew, there is a risk that the flying pilot would not listen to remarks from the non flying pilot.

So there are crew of two not because the task can not be managed by one, but to introduce redundancy, and because co-operation, when well defined, makes 1 + 1 greater than 2.

Fuel dumping

I promise I don't start a series, but as my previous post was already about dumping things, this post was quite natural as the next step. It is also motivated by a very recent case.

Each plane has some limitations in terms of weight for various phases of flight, and in this case what is of interest is the maximum take-off weight, and the maximum landing weight.

The maximum take-off weight is obviously limited by some structural constraints and by the power available. The maximum landing weight is also limited by strength of the aicraft fuselage, and of the dampers, and for long-range aicrafts, the maximum take-off weight can be higher than the maximum landing weight. Keep cool, I did not say that a plane landing with a weight higher than its maximum landing weight would explode or be destroyed, but it would need a serious inspection before going back in operation.

Under normal circumstances, a plane taking-off with a weight over its maximal landing weight will land within limits, as most of the fuel will be burnt in flight, making the plane weight below the maximum landing weight.

Nevertheless, if such a plane has to land earlier than expected for any reason, one option to make it light enough is to dump part of the fuel within the atmosphere before landing. All planes facing such possibility have to be equipped with proper jettisoning devices.

Now, what about our ecological friends ? Given the speed and altitude at which fuel will be "sprayed", all of it will remain in the atmosphere, as the droplets are so small that they are maintained in the air by local airflows.

But let's do some calculations, based on the particular case I mentionned in the introduction. This particular plane dumped 60 tons of fuel between Geneva and Dijon. This looks to be a lot. To make the computation easier, let's assume that fuel has a density of 0.7, which is not that wrong. This means that this plane did dump about 86 cubic meters of fuel. Still seems a lot ?

This dumping took place between Geneva and Dijon, so over a distance of 75 nautical miles, equivalent to 139 kilometers, so 0.6 cubic meter per kilometer. This is roughly a bathtub every kilometer.

Given the altitude of the plane, one can imagine that when reaching ground (but remind this is not the case !), the fuel would spread over a 1km area, so the 0.6 cubic meter would be "spread" in a square of 1km x 1km, which is 1'000'000 square meters. Assuming it is spread evenly, this would result in a fuel layer of 0.0006 millimeters, or 0.6 microns !

Compare that to what is emitted daily by cars, trucks, and also envisage how bad an problematic landing could be with 60 tons more on board, and you will realise that this fuel dumpings are not so critical things.

All details of the case I used as example, and links to additional resources can be found here.

Airplane toilets are chemical

I will fight a new myth with this post. When you go to lavatories during flight, what you leave there is not ejected in the sky !

Many people beleive it is the case, but not. Doing so would lead to various problems. First, given the temperature oustide planes is approximately -50°C, anything would freeze, and any of your solid "production" would then fall as frozen piece. This could be unpleasant, if not dangerous for other planes.

The second issue would be to deal with a temporary and uncontrolled openning in the airplane pressurized envelope. This is the part of the fuselage that helps to maintain a constant air pressure to allow passenger breathing normally despite altitude. Any hole in that would leave air go out, making pressure and temperature falling.

So, no, the airplane toilets do not send anything outside. Instead, they are chemical. All what you leave is compressed and goes in a tank with a special product that helps containing odours and to stop the development of bacteriae.

During groud stops, the handling staff checks amongst other things the level of the tanks, and if they're full, or close to full, they have to drain it. As you can imagine, they double check all the tubes before doing... any leak would not be so friendly to clean.

Speaking about toilets, you should observe something during your next flight. It can be a 30 miuntes or 12 hours flights, this principle is always verified. As soon as the captain turns off the "Fasten seat belts" sign, there is systematically someone standing up within 30 seconds to go to the lavatories. Have a check.

One final word about plane toilets and common fantasies. In some movies, people are having sex in flight in the lavatories. I don't know how this would be possible, for at least two reasons: first is that the room there is hardly enough for a single people, so what about two ? and did you notice that there is always a queue to go in ? So how to go in two at a time, if possible ?

Tips for people who fear to fly

I know lot of people getting nervous when boarding time comes, and get even more stressed at take-off. For some times, I have been one of those, when I started to know some more about that way of travelling, so I know how deep and animal such a fear can be. I did recover since, and here are some tips for those people, to help them make their trips enjoyable. Those tips are in the form of a series of thoughts that should help, so just reharsh these before and even during flight.

1) Planes do operate daily in all sorts of conditions, with an excellent safety record. No plane will suddenly fall in pieces and bits to the ground.

2) The pilots went through a long training process, and are re-checked each and every six months. It is not their first flight.

3) The crew also wants to reach destination safely. They don't want to die in a plane accident.

4) You don't have any information about what's going on. As a passenger you're not in a position to assume anything about it. Even if you hear noises you don't understand, don't make any conclusion on that, it is impossible to you.

5) If weather makes you worry, remind that planes can go through any weather except thunderstorms, which can be detected and avoided using on-board weather radar.

6) Don't look outside all the time, trying to find something scary. By doing so, you will feel that time passes by slowly, and any thing you won't understand will make you even more affraid.

7) Keep your mind busy with anything else. Read, do crosswords, sudoku, eat, talk to someone else, but stop thinking someting goes or will go wrong. Stop looking at your watch obsessively.

On a longer term basis, many airlines do offer courses to help their passengers to overcome their fears. These courses used to be free, but this happy time is over. Nevertheless, the results are quite good, so if you get stressed each time you have to fly, and you fly frequently, thing of such a course.

To conclude, the basic thing that makes most people stressed in flight is that they don't accept not to be in control, nor informed about the flight. In some aspects, flying is like an act of faith, you place your life in the hands of the crew.

Said so, it sounds scary, but have a second thought. When you take a taxi, or bus, or even when you drive, you also put your life within other hands. Not speaking about eating food from an unknown cook, being opened and put in pieces by a surgeon you saw only twice before, or using a lift installed and maintained by staff you don't know.

May be the flight experience is more intense because you're seated to your seat, in a confined volume, but in fact the process of having your life depending of someone else is really common. What about walking through a zebra crossing, for example ? Are you not at risk, at the mercy of any driver coming ?